Open System / Closed System ?

Any déjà vu here?

You decide:

Rupert Sheldrake ~ Science Set Free (aka: The Science Delusion)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0waMBY3qEA4 (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRKvvxku5So (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TerTgDEgUE (Banned TED talk ~ 18 min)

TED Talks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGzu8TJsyo (Sheldrake’s take)
http://www.ted.com/search?cat=ss_all&q=sheldrake (TED’s blog)

Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion

http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html

Dan Dennett ~ Breaking the Spell

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes.html

Are we nearing the end of this latest GAFFs* spin cycle?

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* http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2013/10/gaffs-in-pursuit-of-truth.html

GAFFs in Pursuit of Truth?

(aka: The ever-repeating way of the World?)

Since the dawn of man, generally accepted theories,* have been espoused in order to explain the way of the world and its universe.¹ Whether based in “old” religion or “new” science, all these generally accepted theories may (for the sake of brevity) be termed GATs. Except in full disclosure, many of these GATs do not remain GATs for long. Becoming soon vested with id and ego, many GATs are quickly converted into generally accepted facts, otherwise known as GAFs.

Then, in the déjà vu of expanding ego, some of these GAFs further devolve into GAFFs, being generally accepted (fallacious) facts.

As we know, religion takes its turn with GAFFs. And despite our evolving cleverness, science has had its share, though we seem to prefer to “reconstitute” scientific GAFFs as “incomplete comprehensions” when persistent observation finally cooks the GAFF goose.

Thankfully over time, most GAFFs get corrected,² though the process can wend its tortuous and obstructive way down the centuries—inflicting the maximum pain allowed by law and conceit upon questioners or contrarians. Just ask Galileo (battling religious GAFFs) or Velikovsky and all those other so-called “pseudo-scientists”³ (battling science GAFFs).

So what might be a small sampling of our latter-day, science-based GAFFs?

▪ Could our Big Bang be a distant but close cousin (if not a veritable clone) of that old, “spontaneous generation”?⁴ (See the footnote reference and extrapolate.) And if the Big Bang (with its virtual offspring) eventually offends every observation and measurement, what should we call it? dead wrong? or just incomplete?⁵ What have we called spontaneous generation? Incomplete?

▪ Has scientific, logical man become the “orbital” center in replay of the old Ptolemaic (earth-centered) system?

▪ What do we make of “scientific” constants that are proving not so constant?

▪ What about radioactive decay that inexplicably speeds up or slows down?

▪ What about that shifting red-shift?

▪ What if gravity⁶ doesn’t deserve all the credit it gets?

▪ How long did the principle of uniformity retain its obstructive sway?

▪ How long can the scientist who doesn’t observe or comprehend a “fact” retain the conceit that if He hasn’t observed or comprehended it, it can’t be observed or comprehended by anyone?!

A sign of a probable GAFF is some new observation that is described as:

▪ abnormal
▪ anomalous
▪ astonishing
▪ baffling
▪ bizarre
▪ inexplicable
▪ mysterious
▪ peculiar
▪ puzzling
▪ shocking
▪ strange
▪ surprising
▪ unanticipated
▪ unexpected
▪ unforeseen
▪ etc., etc.

Yes, science and scientists deserve countless accolades for great advances, but to those scientists who have become militant, self-appointed defenders of GATs, GAFs, and sometimes GAFFs, here’s an observation or two:

▪ Science has been, always and forever, full of surprises, upsets, and inexplicables.

▪ Research and history has shown that loners are often the creators, innovators, and discoverers and that many have had to battle GAFFs much of their life.

▪ Research has also shown that groups have a tendency to reinforce each other’s biases, inhibit each other’s creativity, and dampen the courage to dissent.

▪ GAFFers often have a vested interest in perpetuating GAFFs to which they have dedicated their careers, reputations, and financial well-being.

▪ Scientists are not immune to the sway of ego, prejudice, irrational passion, and astonishing myopia.

▪ Science seems better served by those pursuing truth than those pursuing conformity!

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* (Our current generally accepted theory is also known as The Standard Model.)
1. (Or universes as the case may prove.)
 2. Though NOT self-correcting as some scientists like to claim, but are laboriously, painstakingly corrected by men and women dedicated to the pursuit of scientific truth, come hell or the high priests of scientific GAFFs.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fads_and_Fallacies_in_the_Name_of_Science This wiki entry describes in classic detail, the way GAFFers discount contrarians, or as they prefer to call them, loners, cranks and pseudo-scientists. How déjà vu the responses towards Galileo? Newton? Pasteur? Tesla? etc., etc., etc.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
5. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Science_was_wrong_before Yes, there are truths in this wiki entry, but the analysis falls far short of humility and full confession.
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation

Cruz-control?

Some have been referring to Senator Ted Cruz as a true, Right-wing “Cruz Missile” destined to decimate the intransigent, left-wing liberals and their BIG government. For the record, here is a definition of cruise missile.

A cruise missile is a guided missile, the major portion of whose flight path to its target ... is conducted at approximately constant velocity; that relies on the dynamic reaction of air for lift, and upon propulsion forces to balance drag. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy. Modern cruise missiles can travel at supersonic or high subsonic speeds, are self-navigating, and can fly on a non-ballistic, extremely low altitude trajectory. They are distinct from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in that they are used only as weapons and not for reconnaissance. In a cruise missile, the warhead is integrated into the vehicle and the vehicle is always sacrificed in the mission.

Cruise missile designs fundamentally derive from the German V-1 of World War II. Advances in transistor and computer technology have contributed to self-correcting avionic and aeronautical designs that allow missiles to be guided in flight, as opposed to only at launch. These advances developed into guided missiles and guided bombs, and later into the modern cruise missile. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile : bold emphasis mine)

When one listens to his words, Ted Cruz does seem guided (at times) by many good principles, and he also seems gifted (at times) with traits of leadership, intelligence, conviction, and self-confidence. YET somehow, the déjà vu of similarly-gifted, historical leaders parades in memory, so here is a prediction from the too frequent déjà vu of history. Will we, within the coming decade, review these (bolded) words:

guided
air for lift
propulsion forces
large warhead
supersonic
subsonic
self-navigating
low altitude
used only as weapons
self-correcting

and ask ourselves if “seeing, we chose to see not and hearing, we chose to hear not” what was coming?

What is the repeating history of the rich, powerful, and intelligent who self-navigate? And what is the frequent fate of that self-navigation? Desolation?

Again, just asking that we proceed with caution; that we don't forget history; that we pay attention to the symbolic warnings contained in these "cruise missile" words.

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* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Cruz (Junior U.S. Republican Senator from Texas, elected in 2013.)

ECON 013 ~ Aptly Named?

The Gods must have an infinite sense of irony to have inspired the naming of this modern behemoth.

Is this not the latest, perfect symbol of ten-thousand déjà vus since the days of Cain?

Is this what we champion with our capital addictions?

Isn’t this the inevitable legacy of the Randians?

Isn’t there a better option? like maybe a third way? not right or left, but UP?

Just asking.

Econ 013 ~Clip art from MS Office 2000

The Sach-ing of America*

*(et al.)

Just one more déjà vu from the burgeoning vaults of Goldman Sachs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOrSRsqSV4k (The Daily Show of July 25th, 2013)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFIcNreBSi0 (NBR)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj07djP9L2U (MSNBC)

At least Rome was sacked by outsiders. We seem to prefer, tolerate, and reward sach-ing by insiders. For how long? Till sackcloth and ashes?

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For more on Goldman Sachs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJtO_o-G5Jk -- Goldman Sachs: Power and Peril (Documentary) - Money and Finance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMc6KyM_CrE -- How Does Goldman Sachs Make Its Profits? (Part 1) - PBS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98NhoCmaMt4 -- How Does Goldman Sachs Make Its Profits? (Part 2) - PBS

Accessory?

From Wikipedia¹:

An accessory is a person who assists in the commission of a crime, but who does not actually participate in the commission of the crime as a joint principal. The distinction between an accessory and a principal is a question of fact and degree:

● The principal is the one whose acts or omissions, accompanied by the relevant mens rea (Latin for "guilty mind"), are the most immediate cause of the actus reus (Latin for "guilty act").

● If two or more people are directly responsible for the actus reus, they can be charged as joint principals (see common purpose). The test to distinguish a joint principal from an accessory is whether the defendant independently contributed to causing the actus reus rather than merely giving generalised and/or limited help and encouragement.

In the United States, a person who learns of the crime and gives some form of assistance before the crime is committed is known as an "accessory before the fact". A person who learns of the crime after it is committed and helps the criminal to conceal it, or aids the criminal in escaping, or simply fails to report the crime, is known as an "accessory after the fact". A person who does both is sometimes referred to as an "accessory before and after the fact", but this usage is less common [bold emphasis added].

SO, if one is hired by a company (or country) and told to keep its unlawful, unconstitutional, fraudulent, or deceptive activities quiet (or perhaps even to carry them out), AND WE DO, what does that make us?

How many accessories and principals are out there in our beloved countries? Out there and afraid? Afraid to lose jobs? reputations? homes? loved ones? freedoms? perhaps their very lives?

Any déjà vu here?

Why have we begun to look so much like our former AND current enemies?

How about we have an international re-screening of Judgment at Nuremberg? How about doing it on September 28, the International Right to Know Day²? Or better yet, do it on September 29 and call it the International Responsibility to Know Day, since so many of us seem to prefer to NOT know those things that challenge our preconceptions of self and country?

Will we too, in some future year, when things have run their course down this slippery slope of suspicion, surveillance, and surreptitious “judgment,” hear some judge say to us:

The charge is that of conscious participation in a government-sanctioned system of cruelty and injustice in violation of every moral and legal principle known to all civilized nations. The tribunal has carefully studied the record and found therein abundant evidence to support beyond a reasonable doubt the charges against these defendants.³

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1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_(legal_term)
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Right_to_Know_Day
3. From the screenplay, Judgment at Nuremberg.

Snow Job?

Does it not seem in these latter days that blizzards of deceit and myopia are getting thicker and thicker as co-offenders attempt, with desperation, to obscure, distort, or mis-remember events?

Take the blizzard surrounding Edward Snowden:¹

 Officials and reps on the right and left, crying out for the “rule of law” to be honored in extraditing and prosecuting a man for exposing secret, massive breaches of law by others. How about we take the words of John Boehner (et al.)² and add the names of all the guilty (including sanctioning politicians) in this “giant violation of law.”

Take the blizzard surrounding Benghazi:

 How soon we seem to forget the facts of “9-11” and numerous other embassy deaths in past years as we point fingers of outrage.

Take the blizzard surrounding the IRS scandal:

 How duplicitous to stand atop a heap of one’s own still secret “targets” (past and present) and point with indignation at another’s targets.

Does not the Ministry of Truth from Orwell’s 1984 seems alive and well as we frame and reframe events to conform to our 180° view of a 360° world?

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1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
2. http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos/2013/06/14/edward-snowden-u-s-traitor.html

Beyond Rational?

Has our modern passion for scientific rationalism become just one more déjà vu in the history of totalitarian ideas? As I listen to some of our most ardent, militant rationalists, the over- and undertones of tyranny are unmistakable. For many of these militants, there can be nothing beyond rational. They see only two options, rational or irrational, never seeming to consider there might be a further advancement of enlightenment toward the transrational. The recognition of such a possibility is older than Plotinus, the ancient philosopher (204/5-274 CE), but he said it so well:

You ask, how can we know the Infinite? I answer, not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects. You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer—in which the divine essence is communicated to you. This is ecstasy [Cosmic Consciousness]. It is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness. Like only can apprehend like; when you thus cease to be finite, you become one with the Infinite. In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self, its divine essence, you realize this union—this identity.*

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* http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/cc/cc13.htm

Truth & Consequence?

“Capitalism cannot coexist with the morality of altruism.”

That was a statement¹ made by Ayn Rand in 1967 on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (at 22:12 minutes).

Considering her well-documented admiration of unregulated capitalism and her disdain of altruism, she meant it as a commendation of capitalism. But when we look at the “ways and means” of capitalism over the past century, perhaps the truth about capitalism is the reverse of what she intended. That is not to say that capitalism has been a total failure. Many significant innovations have come out of the spirit of competition, though it is this writer’s contention that the spirit of cooperation² would have resulted in every benefit we now enjoy, (plus untold others that competition crushed), while at the same time avoiding numerous capital sins.

Perhaps (ironically), the greatest use of capitalism has been its amazing ability to test every soul’s altruism and their gradation of maturity beyond the terrible two’s of “Me & Mine.”

Does it not seem equally amazing and ironic that so many die-hard capitalists cling to the “Me-Mine” philosophy that sprang full-fledged into the mind of Ayn Rand when she was but 2½ years old³?

In retrospect, are these die-hard capitalists but déjà vu age 2? An age group that:⁴

▪ may play with other children for a short time, but aren't yet capable of true sharing
▪ can be easily frustrated
▪ can show feelings of jealousy
▪ can be extremely demanding and persistent
▪ is very possessive - offers toys to other children but then wants them back
▪ can find it hard to wait
▪ may have frequent temper tantrums
▪ can have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy
▪ enjoys make-believe play
▪ can't understand reason or control their impulses
▪ can show aggressive behavior and the intent to hurt others
▪ can be destructive to objects around him when frustrated and angry.

If Ayn is right that “Capitalism cannot coexist with the morality of altruism” (which I suggest she probably is considering the evidence), then why are we so surprised at the state of our economics? Isn’t it a case of cause and effect; truth and consequence?

If seeing, we would but see; and hearing, we would but hear the truth and consequence of capitalism!

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1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBmViYDlrjU
2. The spirit of cooperation is not communism. Communism is the spirit of coercion and one of the extremes of economic theories. When that continuum of economic theory is bent into a circle, the extremes share more than we care to admit.
3. See the reference source for her words at http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2012/11/betraeus.html
4. Sources for age traits: http://www.nncc.org/Child.Dev/ages.stages.2y.html http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Child_development_(6)_two_to_three_years There are many others.