Archives for posts with tag: thoughts

Alphas and Omegas

September 25, 2016 //

Among the things I think about sometimes is how we got here as a species, and where we’re going.

We tend to think of ourselves as a young species, having only discovered writing (and with it, history itself) in the past 5,000 years, and civilisation (with its permanent monuments) 5,000 years before that. Earlier than this, our history as a race of humans goes quite dark. Archaeology tells us a few things, but the further back we go, all we have are fragments from our past. We can quite easily forget that we are a very old creature indeed. How long ago was it since we discovered language, since we started singing, since we started praying, since we discovered a sense of humour? It’s hard to say, yet it’s quite probable that such traits predate homo sapiens, going back through multiple ancestral species. Were we to travel back a couple of million years, maybe we would still see ourselves in our austrolopithical forebears.

I remember reading a book some time ago, that one group of our ancestors (or possibly close cousins) spent over a million years fashioning an early stone tool with practically no development in all that time. That’s tens of thousands of generations just hammering away with little sense of innovation. They were rooted in the animal world – lives full of fury, struggle and passion, but not one given to legacy or creative accomplishment. Maybe there were stirrings there. Maybe, every so often, one of them came up with an idea, but they were quickly hit over the head, or eaten by a lioness, before that idea (or their genes) had a chance to spread. 

I ask myself if that’s where we’re ultimately going back to. If anything has been successful in the long term on this planet, it’s been that patient toiling away with little progress through the generations. Among all the animals, a sense of constructive wonder seems to be selected against. In the single case where it has succeeded, it’s lead to an exponential increase in technological development, resulting in a potentially untenable situation full of nuclear weapons, over-population, resource depletion, multi-species extinction and the prospect of disastrous climate change. Maybe our ultimate fate (if we survive this time at all) is a return back to the animal realm. Maybe, 90,000 generations hence, our distant children will be back in the trees, or scurrying around in holes, or hammering again on rocks with little thought for art and music. 

I think about the last person in that line, looking around at her species and wondering about it all, before death finally takes her away and the universe once again becomes dim and distant to humanity.

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Categories speculations, stuff, technology, thinking

Not that Important

February 21, 2016 //

In the beginning, we were Important.

God made a whole Universe, just for us.

He spent a few days at it, then we arrived.

Us, the pinnacle of his creation.

 

He told us not to fuck around

And not to fuck with Him

Do that, and we could live forever,

Because we were Important.

 

Life was simple with God.

Somewhat shit,

And somewhat short,

But uncomplicated.

Anyway, Important people shouldn’t ask questions.

 

Then a Polish priest asked a question.

What if?

What if we were not Centre of the Universe,

But off a bit, to the side?

Ever since, that’s been the story.

More questions,  more sidelining.

Turns out we’re not that Important after all.

 

This made a lot of people Very Angry.

But what about Creation?

And what about the Rules?

And Life after Death?

And what about God?

Good questions,

From people not supposed to ask them.

 

So here we are, not Important,

Life’s not so simple anymore

But better,

And full of hope.

We’re important to each other

And that’s what counts.

 

 

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Categories poetry, science, stuff

A thought.

February 4, 2016 //

If you can’t see any flaws in the arguments of those you agree with, and you can’t see any merit in the arguments of those you disagree with, then chances are you are in the grip of confirmation bias.

It’s not easy to cross rivers when you are looking in the wrong direction.

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Categories opinions, thinking

Life is not so short.

November 24, 2015 //

I recently arrived at my 48th year on this planet. With a good bit of luck, I can make it to 2050. Thirty five years. It’s as far away from me now as 2015 was when I was 12 years old.

In 1980, people wore jeans, t-shirts and runners. They had colour TVs, digital watches and Tupperware. Star Wars was already a thing. The big difference, of course, was computerisation and mobile technology, but even so, there was a familiarity about those times. In the same way, 2050 may not be too foreign to modern sensibilities when it eventually arrives. We are well on our way to this future date.

By now, it should be obligatory for me to tell you that the years fly by too quickly, and that I remember the 1980s like they happened yesterday. But honestly, it was a long time ago. I was a child back then. I can’t lay claim to that title anymore, however hard I have tried to delay the onset of adulthood.

I think this feeling of ‘tempus fugit’ is something of a delusion. Life doesn’t fly by as fast as we think it does. Days might whizz by, but there are a few hundred of them in each year. It’s a lot of time. 10 years is a whole heap of time and 30 years practically an eternity. It’s just that our brains make the past seem so much closer than it really is.

I’m pretty sure that this sense of time passing by quickly is a function of a memory system that best remembers the things we remember the most. Music, particularly the most popular tunes, seem recent only because we hear them often. So too with places visited regularly, like my mother’s home, or local schools and shopping centres. We recall distant events there clearly only because we are minded to remember them quite often. The gap in time is shortened only because we frequently remember the memory, not the event itself.

Maybe it’s where I am now in my life. With my children now passing into teenagehood, I seem to remember their earlier years as a transient blur. But in reality, I don’t think it was quite so speedy. There was plenty enough time there for my father to fall sick and pass away; for my marriage to crash-land and for a while, chaos to take the place of security. It’s just that I have forgotten so much. Perhaps that’s the real tragedy of ageing: so many experiences have been scattered to the four winds. What remains now are bare threads.

Life is long. It’s long enough for us to make big mistakes and to recover from them. It’s long enough to breach the surface after diving the depths of despair. It’s long enough to see green shoots where once there was bare earth. Even in middle-age, there is still time to find peace; to make life more livable for those around us; perhaps to yet follow our dreams. 

Despite the awfulness of forgetting, maybe  there is more time there than we normally appreciate. And in that, I think, there is hope.

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Categories stuff, thinking, Uncategorized

Placebo Solutions for a Real War

November 21, 2015 //

Let me just say something straight out. ISIS/Daesh are a gang of murderous, vicious thugs. They are part of a network of religious cults that would put the Moonies, Scientology and Jim Jones in the shade. Their poisonous ideology is reminiscent of the Blut und Stahl mindset of Nazi Germany, where ideology overrode basic humanity, allowing all manner of atrocities to occur. It’s the worst, most hermetically sealed, conspiracy laden, violent, misogynistic, racist, anti-human worldview of our time. ISIS/Daesh must be defeated.

The question is, how to defeat them.

There appears to be a small number of widely-held views, depending on which side of the political spectrum you lie on, that I call “placebo solutions”. The aim seems to be to address the feelings of those who espouse them, without actually dealing with the real problem.

On the political right, you have the “they are all the same” placebo solution. Under this idea, all Muslims are considered to be potential (or actual) terrorists, particularly the hapless refugees who have left their homes in Syria and Iraq in search of an uncertain future in foreign states. Right wingers want them scrutinised, vetted, isolated and thrown back to their own countries. In those lands, they want to bomb them into oblivion. All this in spite of overwhelming evidence that most Muslims and refugees are peace-loving ordinary people. Irish people should be well familiar with this mindset, given how we were viewed with suspicion during the murderous IRA campaigns of the 1970s and 80s.

Not only are these just salves for right-wing anger, they have the side-effect of further marginalising Muslims and pushing unemployed youths into the arms of the terrorists. It also creates local, reactionary terrorism – vigilante gangs whose lack of forethought is matched by their violence.

On the political left, you have the view that this terrorism is solely the creation of the West and that military action is never appropriate. the more conspiratorially minded would suggest that ISIS/Daesh is a creation of the West. That, instead of going to war against ISIS/Daesh, we need to understand the causes, maybe even pander to their views as if they had an equal place at the ideological table. This is to discount the fact that Salafism is a pretty hard-boiled system of thought at this stage. It is far more than a response to victimisation. The main focus of ISIS/Daesh wrath has not really been Westerners, but other Muslim sects and local groups, such as Yazidis and Kurds, with no record of imperialism and domination. In fact, local civilians have been, by far, the greatest victims of their outrages, thus the refugee crisis.

When threatened with war, countries have no choice but to use whatever means are at their disposal to protect their citizens and those who call their country home. War is an abomination, but what do you do when confronted by war from others? There is always a fine line to be tread between civil liberties and protection and in a peaceful society it should always veer towards personal liberty. But in times of war and evidence of real danger from an enemy force? What then? Just stand by and hold out flowers to them?

 

Placebo responses only help to sate pre-existing views. They do nothing to solve the problem. What we need are cool heads, better intelligence sharing, and intense co-ordination between multiple states. Strategies are needed to identify the ringleaders, destroy their ability to function and, ultimately, eliminate them. If ISIS/Daesh want to play war, then, for certain, our war professionals – generals and military experts – are more adept, more strategic, more networked and better resourced than any rag-tag bunch of terrorists could ever be. In situations such as what we are seeing, we need to let them get on with their jobs with a minimum of political interference.

Ultimately, the crucial objective is not really the elimination of ISIS/Daesh, although this is a necessary pre-condition. It’s the rebuilding afterwords and the creation of a long lasting peace that will allow people to return to their homelands. Hospitals, homes, schools, electricity, water – the basic services of life. Remove the threat, then rebuild. This is the big challenge for the civilised world if the peace is to be permanent.

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Categories opinions, politics

There is a difference between Science and Religion, but…

November 3, 2015 //

There is a difference between Science and Religion.

Science needs evidence. Science embraces evidence. If the evidence tells you something that conflicts with your beliefs, then in science, the evidence wins. It must win, because that’s how progress happens in science. Scientists follow the evidence, irrespective of how uncomfortable that might mean towards their beliefs.

Religion needs belief. Religion embraces belief. If the evidence tells you something that conflicts your beliefs, then in religion, the belief wins. It must win, because that’s the way religion preserves itself, often passing down the generations. Religious adherents follow the belief, irrespective of whether evidence exists to support those beliefs or even if if it refutes those beliefs completely.

If you are a scientist, and the evidence starts to conflict with your beliefs, but you hold fast to those beliefs despite strong evidence to the contrary, you are no longer practicing science. You are practicing religion.

If you are a religious adherent, and the evidence starts to conflict with your beliefs, so you change your beliefs to come in line with the evidence, you are no longer practicing religion. You are practicing science.

There is a difference between Science and Religion and this difference is unreconcilable. A wide, yawning, unbridgeable gap. You either accept that evidence has primacy, or that belief does. You can’t have both. Efforts to reconcile the two are unlikely to be very productive.

There is a difference between Science and Religion, but perhaps the issue is somewhat moot. The real question is what difference this makes to most of us. The problem is our brains, you see. Our brains have an interesting relationship with ideas, both scientific and religious. In our brains these things tend to get mashed together, confused with each other. Our brains can accommodate conflicting ideas. While science and religion are different, when it comes to scientific people and religious people, the distinction is far more blurry.

Most people don’t think about religion or science all the time. Most people spend their time thinking about other things. Whether they left the heating on, the pain in their foot, the hallway that needs a paint job, the local team losing last Saturday. Most people have friends to talk to, families to care for, work to do. Muslim, atheist, Christian, secular, Buddhist: when it comes to life and everyday concerns, we become less different. We become more human. The gulf can be traversed. It’s no longer black and white. It’s complicated.

There is a difference between Science and Religion, but our humanity keeps getting in the way. 

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Categories opinions, speculations, stuff, Uncategorized

Random unpublished postings

September 26, 2008 //

I’m not sure about you, but my blog account is stuffed with a ton of half-finished draft postings that have yet to see the light of day. Among them are the following: 

1) A thought that if business people are looking towards technology for the answers to their business problems, then they are looking in the wrong place. Technology has already provided most of the big benefits. It’s all about strategy and process now.

2) Googlehoaxing: an idea, born out of a Bigfoot story some weeks back, that people might start making serious money by staging a hoax (no matter how pathetic), publishing it on the Internet and benefitting from the AdWords revenue.

3) A poem, written after waking up at an ungodly hour and looking at an unflattering image of me in the mirror. I haven’t given up yet, but it’s painfully slow.

4) Some thoughts about the practical management of risk on projects. Project management is all about managing risk, and yet the mechanisms in place for doing it are often woefully inadequate. I have some thoughts on this.

5) Mass-customisation and prison: is tailor designing a sentence for your personality, background and genetic make-up the future of criminology?

6) A somewhat conflicted article on the importance of consumer trust to Google. I’m not sure if this one will be published any time soon.

That’s a sample. There are plenty more.

Am I alone in having all these limboed postings floating around? Do you have any postings that have somehow got lost in the Drafts section your Blog?

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Categories about me, stuff
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