The Fly Is Undeterred

First, I know it’s been awhile since the last post. A lot has changed, hasn’t it? I still hope Hilary wins; A ‘President Obama’ would be another Jimmy Carter at best. But I digress…

I was watching a show the other night about memory, these leading neurospecialists all admitted that even now, nobody is quite sure how memories are formed or stored in the brain. We know that memories (as well as all mental processes) are carried between neurons as electrochemical exchanges from cell to cell. But how does that translate into remembering an event I experienced thirty or forty years ago? What happens in my brain that makes me relive a time long ago in the past? It is nothing short of a miracle.

As regular readers of this blog (if any!) will no doubt be aware, I’m no fan of organized religion; it’s a sheer drain on the species that we’ve long ago outgrown. However, this does not mean I’m an anti-spiritual person. I don’t think I am. I just object to the layers of dogma and nit-picking that have wound up as seemingly essential baggage on the train of every religious belief. But, I feel neuroscientists are trying to work from a ‘bottom-up’ position. What if instead, consciousness worked as a top-down experience?

Some people might be tempted to call this a ‘soul’, but that word has connections that I’d just as soon reject out of hand. I’ll stick (for now), with a top-down approach. The funny thing about consciousness is that we take it for granted to such a degree, we often fail to appreciate how amazing a thing it is, stuck there in our skulls as we walk around. No other species on the planet has anything like the cognitive skills we use every day without (if you’ll pardon the pun) a moment’s thought. And why have we developed these skills? We seem wildly overdeveloped for survival on the grasslands of Africa. Billions of us exist with scant notice of the fact that we do exist; and when we think about it at all, it strikes many as perfectly obvious that we should exist. But should we? Why? And why as such intelligent creatures that we are capable of progressing beyond our own basic physical needs? We can contemplate the distant past, the far-flung future, the subtle nuances of complex emotional interactions, to say nothing of music or art or even symbolism, language, writing, math and a host of other cerebral gymnastics that leaves our ape cousins and even the dolphins far behind.

Consciousness, our consciousness, is not so ordinary that it should escape our notice. Instead it’s the rarest, most precious commodity in the known universe. We are self-aware, and yet with all our ability, we still can’t even describe our own knowing. It does not seem possible that the jelly between our ears can reproduce the moment of our first kiss, or the loss of a loved one, or eating a really good sandwich. But it does, and all the time. I have to believe that somehow we are generating the chemicals and electrical impulses, but they are the footprints, not the foot, of our thought. It’s as if we study the hammers of a piano and wonder how they can organize themselves into the music of Bach. The point is well and truly missed.

Happily, I can contemplate this without the need for Jesus, the Prophet, Buddha or any other divine messenger. What if we die and discover that we have been our own gods all along? I know, there’s no proof, but nobody can explain how my brain can let me retrace a long-ago summer’s day, when the world seemed perfect and eternal. My own personal miracle.

The crumbling house of cards that’s currently Pakistan may be providing important lessons for the United States government. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong kind of lesson. While President Bush may be calling Musharraf and urging him to unsuspend Pakistan’s constitution and free the imprisoned Supreme Court justices, privately he or Vice-President Cheney may be taking notes on how to proceed in a similar fashion in America.

It’s no surprise to anyone that the current administration, led by Cheney, has gone far in the past seven years in eroding the United States consitution, and American prestige around the world. Consider the following:

• We have been led under false pretenses (searching for WMD) into a war in Iraq that has escalated into civil war between two religious groups. Last time I checked, only Congress has the power to declare war. When did they do so? Was there really evidence of hidden weapons, or did Bush plan all along to invade Iraq, even before he assumed the presidency? Did 9/11 just give him a pretext to do so?
• When the president signs a bill into law, he has the option of including an executive order that gives some guidelines as to how the law is to be put into effect. Bush has exploited that like no other president before him, using these guidelines as an extension of his authority that has no check or balance. While possibly not illegal, it’s certainly an abuse of the intent of this function.
• Vice-president Cheney was previously a senior executive of Halliburton, which supplies equipment to the armed forces (think $300 for a toilet seat or hammer). Cheney has had meetings at his office in the Vice-presidential residence, but repeated requests for access to the visitor logs has been denied. Bush has declared ‘executive privilege’, even tho the logs are supposedly available to the public or media.
• The fiasco of Alberto Gonzales at the Justice department has been a whole can of worms on its own. Not only does it appear that Gonzales hired and fired according to political slant (obviously acting on orders from above, which is in conflict with the job description of the Attorney General), but several top-level aides quit in disgust, and several lower-level aides were forced by the White House to disobey a direct subpoena from Congress, demanding they testify regarding the whole affair. Gonzales ‘doesn’t remember’ being at key meetings where it was revealed later he attended, and Bush once again clamped ‘executive privilege’ on the aides in barring their testimony.
• The nominee to replace Gonzales at Justice said he cannot comment on an insidious practice known as ‘waterboarding’ as possibly being torture until he gets the job and can be briefed. What does that mean? Is being placed on the rack ‘torture’ or do you need to be briefed on it first? What about thumbscrews? flogging? Waterboarding has been recognized as torture by the US military, the EU and the UN. Why is a briefing required?
• The United States has been spying on American citizens (wiretapping, reading emails, etc.) without obtaining approval from a judge since 9/11. Clearly illegal, the Bush administration claimed to be fighting ‘the war on terror’.
• Guantanamo Bay – Hundreds of people detained without charge, trial or legal representation for years. Never mind trampling the Bill of Rights in the mud, what kind of case does the government have on these foreign citizens? If guilty, charge them; if not, release them. The few that have been released, such as a handful of British citizens (after much arm-twisting from the UK), have all been sent back and released without charge. What does this say to the rest of the world about the ‘land of the free’?

And of course, this is just the obvious things. Anybody wonder how the exit polls from Ohio in the last presidential race (the key state, much as Florida the election before) seemed so wrong compared to the results? And Bush carried Ohio by a whisker. Makes you wonder how much different would the world be if the ‘hanging chad’ from Florida had gone Gore’s way back in 2000.

Anyway, when President Hilary gives her Inaugural Address in January of 2009, and she says that she will begin pulling troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, will anyone be surprised if Cheney jumps up and takes the microphone, declaring a coup? I think it’s a possibility that should be considered. I’m sure he is. There’s little doubt that the Democrats will take the next election, and Clinton will be the candidate. Can Bush and Cheney just sit in front of the rotunda in the cold and listen as she begins to dismantle all they’ve done? I think Pakistan will be very much in the mind of the Vice-president (the real power behind the throne) over the next few weeks and months leading to the election. Remember you heard it here first.

I’m starting to come around to the idea that religion is more of a curse than a blessing, if you’ll pardon the pun. The whole point of religion in the first place was to answer some basic questions of humanity, with “Will I survive death?” being the biggest one. Things like moral codes (“How should I live my life?”) grew out of preparation for an after-death experience. Along the way, dislike of people who had different beliefs made a mockery out of religion in general.

As an aside, it should be noted that unlike advances in systems of thought concerning nearly every other sphere of our lives, religion is virtually the only one still untouched for hundreds (or in some cases, thousands) of years. We no longer believe the sun revolves around the earth, or in the four humours of the body, or even Newtonian classical physics; why do we insist on carrying the same ideas about an afterlife that ignorant peasants had a millennia ago?

Anyway, it strikes me that more people today are afraid of other religions than are comforted by their own. Catholics are afraid of Islamic fundamentalists, Christian Orthodox are afraid of Catholics, Islamic fundamentalists are afraid of Jews, Jews are afraid of Muslims, and so on. The 21st century is supposed to be the opening of wisdom and equality for all people; instead it’s an ongoing series of pre-emptive strikes against other faiths. The Buddhists perhaps, are the only ones who don’t give a shit. They must be ripe for taking over.

It’s hard to keep any faith in the goodness of man when teenage boys are blowing themselves up on crowded buses with women and children. Sometimes I wish religion was true; it would be hard not to smirk with self-righteous glee to see Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, Krishna and a few others show up one day and turn white with mortification at what’s been done in their collective names.

And let’s get back to the central question – Has religion offered up any hope for life eternal? After all this time, do we have any more proof than before? Of course not. The faithful would say that proof is not required. Of course when dismissing other belief systems, they scream for “proof” the competition is better, wiser, greater, etc., then sneer with triumph when none is produced. My personal opinion is that there is either nothing after you die, and it’s all been a sham perpetuated out of fear for centuries, or there’s something much more wonderful and sacred than the tiny little sand castle scenarios each religion offers up. Either way, it’s not something to be slaughtering the innocent over. If you believe otherwise, then you’re stupider than I’m giving you credit for.

Some years ago, I was driving to work when I had an epiphany. I suddenly saw myself as I was – an American white male, living in the latter half of the twentieth century. Good health, somewhat affluent, in short, nearly the cream of the crop as far as life experience gets. And the question that bubbled up in my mind was… why?

Why was I not born as a poor African, sick and starved in some rain-forsaken dust bowl? Or an oppressed peasant deep in the backwoods of some underdeveloped Asian country? Or one of a myriad of other unpleasant and probably short-lived lives around the globe? How and why did I end up so high the ladder of desirable conditions, suspended between two eternities? I remember being really shaken by the cosmic roll of the dice that put my consciousness in such a ‘privileged’ place. The population of the world was probably close to four billion when I was born, and if you were to line up everyone alive at that time by how well off they were, I would have been well ahead of most; certainly two-thirds of humanity, if not five-sixth.

Twenty years later, I still don’t have an answer to this question. I still wonder why I’m me, and not already dead of malaria or malnutrition or infection, or barely clinging to my miserable life. I’m saying this not to brag about how wonderful I am, or how well-deserving I’ve been of my status as a White American Male (WAM), but more about how really shocked I was when it came to my realization that it could have so easily have been very different. Of course, the fact my own personal consciousness appeared at all is another amazing thing, considering I could have been born in the Stone Age, or the 13th century. But that’s just another small sub-facet of the same question: Why am I me, and not someone or someplace else? Why? It’s a question that still shakes me to the core; If you think about it hard enough, it should shake you as well.

What’s this world coming to if we can’t find a single lost little girl? Dammit Dammit Dammit Dammit. After nearly a month, where is she? No wonder we can’t fight the ‘war on terror’ or stop the drug trade. We may deserve whatever we get.

A dangerous religious fanatic who tried to force America to bend to his will has passed away, in the training center he set up to indoctrinate young recruits to follow his beliefs. Yes, Jerry Falwell, self-appointed voice of the “Moral Majority” has died at his Liberty University at age 73. While I’m not the type to shout “Hooray” when someone shuffles off this mortal coil, I have to admit a certain relief that this loonie won’t be around anymore to inflame situations with his inane ranting. Remember, this is the same Dr. Falwell who blamed 9/11 on Gays, Liberals and other loose-living people. In my opinion, Jer and Osama are two sides of the same coin. One kills and murders in the name of his god, while the other, I suspect would have liked to. Good riddance, I say. Fundamentalism, no matter what religion, is the cancer of the 21st century. It’s very sad we’re saddled with this medieval nonsense after all this time.

I was watching a financial news show on tv the other day, when the presenter said “controversy”. No big deal, you think; but it’s how he pronounced it: ‘con-trovisy’. Say what? It’s ‘con-tro-versey’. How did you read it just now? I hear a lot of this going on lately. News readers just toss off new ways of saying words we’ve all used without trouble for years. When did alternative pronunciations become acceptable? I don’t recall voting for any of it. I’ll have to start compiling a list as I hear them and post them here so you don’t think I’m making any of this up.

Going back to the first paragraph in a way, I had a visit today from two older gentlemen dressed in nice black suits. I was friendly enough until I spotted the leaflet they were trying to press upon me, with the cow-eyed Jesus and the words “Christ the Redeemer”. I said no thank you and shut the door in their faces. I don’t have any time for niceties when it comes to this sort of baloney. It’s my house, and they come to my door unannounced and uninvited to push this stuff in my face? I don’t think so. What do they really expect to happen? Could it be that I’ve never heard of Jesus Christ, and I fall upon my knees in gratitude for being enlightened as to him and his message? Odds are I’m aware of who he is, and am free to choose if I’m interested. If I am, I don’t need them coming to my house waving their leaflets. It’s a case of literally ‘preaching to the choir’. If I’m not interested, I’ll slam the door in their faces. Maybe they were nice grandfatherly fellas, but religion is like cockroaches: you have to use excessive force to eradicate the pests or they’ll take you over. I think going door to door is just a waste of time. You don’t see Rabbis or Mullahs wandering through neighborhoods, ringing bells and shoving pamphlets through mailslots. Makes you wonder how they can keep recruiting if they don’t work the wards.

I watched the world final snooker championship last night, until nearly 1am. Good job to John Higgins for hoisting the trophy a second time, and also to Mark Selby, who made the match one worth watching.

I enjoy watching snooker, and will say that Ronnie O’Sullivan is my favourite player, altho he can be maddingly frustrating to watch at times. He is a genus, but I fear his time may have passed him by. Same for Stephen Hendry, altho he can’t seem to take the hint. Anyway, I like snooker, but it’s not the kind of thing you can really think about too much, or it stops making sense. Snooker, like nearly all sports, consists mainly of people paid a lot of money to do very simple tasks (yes, I know it takes a lot of skill, but the point is, the idea is very simple). In this particular example, I just spent 18 days watching people on television hitting balls into holes with sticks. What kind of statement is that to base your life around?

“Hi; what do you do for a living?”

“I hit balls into holes with a stick”

“Ah, yes… pay well?

“Well, when I’m successful at it, yes”

Snooker players practice four to five hours a day or more to be the best at hitting balls into holes with sticks. Instead of living their lives with loved ones or friends, they’re usually down at some dingy club under a fluorescent light, hitting balls into holes with a stick. While doctors and firemen are saving lives and making differences in the world around them, other people are using up their alloted days, hitting balls into holes with a stick. It’s a funny world.

And other sports are just as odd; tossing balls through a hoop, fighting to move a ball over a goal line, hitting a ball back and forth over a net, running faster, jumping higher, picking up the heaviest thing, etc. You get the point. Not that any of us are doing much better, but you have to wonder at the possible conversations that could occur in the afterlife:

“Welcome to Heaven; What did you do with your life?”

“I hit balls into holes with a stick.”

“What? Your whole life?”

“No, I also… well, maybe I did!”

Snooker players don’t go to Hell tho, since it’s probably full of the rest of us who just watched instead.

If nothing else, a blog is a handy way to empty your mind of stuff that’s been pasted to the inside of your brain for some time. This is something that’s rattled around in my skull for years. A good example of what I get up to when I’m not doing anything else.

Imagine for the sake of argument that everyone has a built-in digital display over their heads. Assume it’s a part of nature that we evolved with, just like five fingers and two ears. The display measures the difference between physical time and the time in our heads. You know how you get impatient when you sit at a red light that seems to take forever to change? When it turns green, what do you do? Usually you then try to rush to catch up to where you think you should have been, had the light changed sooner. It’s this difference between where you are vs. where you think you should be that the display measures.

For most people the display would nearly always be lagging behind to some degree. It seems we’re always in a hurry, or always behind where we should be. As we run late, the display would provide proof of this. Some people, like obsessive-compulsives, would be manic to make sure their display was as close to ‘proper’ time as possible. A few would even be ahead of where they should be. Lucky bastards. Remember, I’m asking you to assume that this is a normal part of human physiology; it wouldn’t even bear much comment, unless someone was seriously ahead or behind.

Got that? If so, then the thought experiment itself is much simpler to describe:

What (if anything) would Frankenstein’s display read?

I guess I really am getting old if I think that music today is deplorable. I stopped listening to the radio about three or four years ago, and don’t miss it. Most of what I listen to is from my collection (several hundred CDs) or music made by myself or people I know. I have several friends who have CDs that should be available world-wide, but don’t. Such is the nature of the biz. I’ll get to them another time, because they deserve some mention.

For now, I’m listening to much older music. I’ve grown to appreciate what would be considered “classical”, altho most of what I like really isn’t “classical”. It’s baroque, it’s medieval, it’s ancient, it’s Renaissance, it’s Elizabethan. I find it takes me back to those days, perhaps literally. If you believe in past lives, then it’s nothing new, just remembering a glint of sunlight on a lock of golden hair. If not, then it’s just good music; truly timeless.

At the moment I’m listening to one of my favourite discs -
On the Banks of Helicon: Early Music of Scotland by the Baltimore Consort. It’s a collection of songs and instrumentals, mostly from the mid-15th to mid-16th century (the newest song is from 1719). It would have been considered ‘folk’ music of its day, and you can hear echos of it in Appalachian music such as Bluegrass and the like (brought over to the hills by emigrated Scots in the 18th and 19th centuries). The title of this entry is one of the selections on the disc.

Listening to their music reminds me that once this was their world, when they were alive and experiencing it. Now it’s our world, and yet we can still hear the songs they sang. I get the same feeling when I look at old paintings or architecture. Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to cathedrals. I don’t go to any church, but I enjoy walking the naves and aisles that people long dead once trod through. It’s an amazing thing to wonder if all these things will still be here in the 25th century, long after we’re gone, and it’s somebody else’s world. I really hope so.

I’m a 60′s child. I was born in the Sixties, grew up in the Sixties, I remember the first moon landing. The music of that era still resonates in my bones. You’d be hard pressed to find a non-Beatles song that best sums it up like Scott Mackenzie’s When You Go To San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair). Written, by the way, by the late great John Phillips of Mamas & the Papas fame.

Anyway, I was musing the other day about the people of my generation. What the hell happened to us? As we are now rapidly approaching the deep end of ‘middle age’, it seems we have somehow lost our way. Or perhaps never really got started. It seems that so many people I went to school with never really ‘became’ anything. We just grew up and started getting old. What about our dreams? We were going to do so much, and now we’re stuck with a moron in the White House, the world is labouring under the illusion of the ‘war on terror’, and most of us are content to watch American Idol. Huh?

Not everyone fell through the cracks – I have a very good friend who became an accountant. While not the most glamorous job title, he works for a very large and well-known company. They pay him pretty @#$% well, and he’s constantly traveling around to look at client’s books. Said clients will wine and dine him, and he makes a pretty comfortable living. But he’s an exception. Too many others just twiddle away their time. Me too, I guess. Another fellow I know has lived on both coasts pursuing an acting career. Except for a few shots as “guy leaning on bar in background” on some tv shows, he seems to spend most of his time partying (and lying about his age). A girl I used to date is living alone now that her daughter is in college. She looks like a Grandmother. I saw a recent picture and didn’t recognize her. Another is singing with a tired looking band in a bar in Georgia.

Maybe this happens to every generation – they come out ready to rock the world, and in the end just whimper away to eke out an existence until death mercifully claims them. Maybe I’m indignant because it’s finally happening to us. Maybe I’m frustrated because I recall all those idyllic summer days and know we’re getting a bit short on those. Maybe I should have been an accountant.