Posts

Trump and the golden sneakers

Image
  Let´s say we all are like marionets. Some hidden things are guiding us. It may be many causes to our actions and thinking. Let´s say it´s our brains in combination with the environment.  In that case it would be good to stay in a good environment that is good for us. It seems that Trump is going in that way, if he again becomes president his co-workers will be ones that are lojal.  His brain is of course very much made by his mother and father´s genes. And we know quite much about his father. I seems that Trump has very much followed the environment he was raised in.  Let´s say that we have no, or just a little free will, and that evolution also has shaped us. Evolution (so far) seems to favour tall white men with some esprit and courage. We want strong leaders. I they cheat or pay less taxes that they should, also shows that they are strong and are like the most of us.  This may slowly change, or our democratic era may be an exception. Let´s say meny women like those white men with

Eternity saved

Image
 The major theory about the universe today is that there was a Big Bang that made up everything from a very tiny spot.  And then we have the boring story about the forever expanding universe that will be colder and colder and fade away.  But still we have no proof of that Anna Ijje is a researcher that is looking at another possibility - an infinite universe. Í use to meditate on the whole universe and when I do it I feel well and are always smiling. As if the universe in some way is connected to us and wants us to go on. This is of course feelings but very deep ones.  When i meditate on the Earth and our solarsystem I don't feel the same.  Anna Ijje shows us a picture of an universe that is expanding but that has an end and after that it is contracting until i will be very small (but not as small as in a Big Bang). According to Ilje the universe will now expand again and form a new and more complex one. And probably with life in some way.  (Even Roger Penrose is into ideas of cycl

The animals would prefer a world without us - and it might happen

Image
  Here in Sweden, its raining in the middle in winter, the temperature is jumping up and down, Nature likes diversity. Then at least some creatures will survive if a catastrophe like a big climate change will occur.  It has happened before and it will happen again, man made or not.  For a long time we have adapt to weather changes. But for extrem weather it will be much harder to survive. In the landcape near Tjernobyl wild animals are coming back.  I'm reading Ed Yong's book   An Immense World and its obvious that we have to handle the destruction of habitats for trees, insects, medical herbs and so on.  Maybe Yuval Harari has an answer for all of is. In this interview he in the end talks about boredom and meditation: If we don't learn to handle boredom without running away from it we will be in big trouble. Harari says meditation has made him more happy (and learned him to stay in the boredom). Though we don't have to meditate as much as Harari, its good to do it regu

Why the stories of the good shepherd is ruining the world

Image
  Let the soil pay its simple part.  We have for thousands of years worshipped the shepherds, The priests, the farmer, the cowboys, not the least in the pastorals, from the antic Greeks until today.  Well they didn't know in past times, but we do know; the farming of cows, sheep, deer and so on need a huge area of land where there could have been grasslands or forests (to take up the carbon acid. The cows shit and burp methane  that makes the climate effect even stronger. If we stopped eating meet, we would have a lot more time so respond to the climate effect and wildlife would flourish in the new areas So what would we eat instead. George Monbiot has an answer; 

Why there is no free will - and why we have to pretend there is....

Image
 Some things you shouldn´t know to early in your life. But if your curious. like me, you might end here, and that's all right. Is the free will problem solved? Robert Sapolsky says yes.  He is an   "American  neuroendocrinology  researcher and author. He is a professor of  biology ,  neurology , neurological sciences, and  neurosurgery  at  Stanford University . In addition, he is a research associate at the  National Museums of Kenya . " (Wikipedia) The knowledge might cool you down, and say to your children, like Neil de Grasse Tyson´s father said when people had shouted the n-word to him: Stay cool, the don´t understand, they are raised like that. He could have concluded; that's what dopamine do to us - and that are where the chemistry of the brain come in. Dopamine makes us friendly to our friends and family but hostile to strangers.  Of course culture interact in the situation too, and that was what de Grasse Tyson´s father had understood. And of course  things l

Sabine Hossenfelder goes boink

Image
 Yes, she is pissed of  and really straightforward in this video: https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/09/follow-science-nonsense-i-say.html She want climate-change deniers to be straightforward too. that means, don't hide the egoism behind the talk.  But its the governments who should react to what science says and put higher taxes on Carbine-oxid polluters.  Why cant she hide her temperament i this video? In other videos she can.  I think she is right in most of her talks, and she´s very intelligent and can easily summarize others texts. But her expression in her face doesn't change much in her talks.  Yes, many people ask her if she has autism because of her behaviour, for example the angriness in the first video.  Here she takes up the topic and in the and give an ambiguous answer to the question: If people with autism wants to meditate (as Sabine suggests) one most for certain remove all religious and mythological stuff from it, and why not...

Brian Greene on "the here and now".

Image
 Brian Greene, the well known physicist and mathematician, points out the here and now as the most precious moments.  We are made of stardust and in som ways the  macroworld emerges from microworld. Even consciousness  does - but we don't know how. Its clear that we share this gift with animal, insects ans maybe plants and trees too. But we are the only specie that are intelligent and self-aware. we can make stories and art. Greene is aware that the stories are man made, but if they work and make you mentally good, why not keep them. he admits that his work, for instance about string-theory are a kind of stories too. (string- theory is not validated and is not so popular these days).  The books we write, and for sure the tings we write in the internet will be forgotten.  So maybe the attention we give to our family, neighbours, friends, beggars and a deer near your backyard may be the most precious moments in your life.  Listen to the vegan Greene in a very lively discussion here: