Expansion On the Sentient Non-Life Form (rfc1437)

Definition 1: that which is aware that it does not exist (I think therefore I'm not)
-explanation: According to quantum mechanics and probability it is possible for an inanimate object to gain sentience. Normally, it has just enough time to realize it does not exist (is non-living matter), before setting things to rights and promptly forgetting itself. Ironically it can be argued that forgetting itself in the first place is what led to it becoming something else, that is sentient, when it was not intended to be. Furthermore one could argue that the sentient non-life form was in fact a sentient life form, but with no mouth (or the necessary organs) was simply incapable of communicating this fact, thus leading to the assumption that due to lack of any life-like activity it must in fact be a non-life form.

definition 2: sentient life form. (I think but that doesn't prove anything)
-explanation: Due to lack of understanding of sentience itself this topic becomes difficult but in the spirit of discovery we'll forge right ahead anyway and pretend like we know what we're doing. Quite simply we know that the various parts of the human body (bones, muscles, organs, brain etc.) do not make it "alive". Without life it decays, with life it regenerates until it no longer has life. We are aware that life comes with sentience and assume quite logically that sentience leaves the body when it dies (at least we hope so, otherwise that's a quite disturbing thought). The body requires regular signals from the brain to remain alive. If the signals from the brain to the heart cease, the heart stops functioning and you die. Therefore we look deeper into the brain. It would appear that sentience (conscious and unconscious) causes the brain to generate these signals. If this is the case as is nearly universally accepted then sentience (and therefore life) is a function of the ethereal mind or spirit and thus is not in any way a true part of the physical body. Therefore it is never alive. Therefore sentient life form and sentient non-life form become the exact same thing.

The Unbelievable Cost of Owning a Home

I'm no expert on this stuff, so if I've made any mistakes, by all means leave a comment and let me know.

Lets assume for a moment you buy a home with a $300,000 mortgage. This is high no doubt, but not unheard of these days.
If you take the whole term of 30 years to pay it off, assuming a low 6.29% fixed interest rate (which according to myFico.com is the standard rate as of this posting if your FICO score is above say 760 which is the highest range you can be in) you'll have paid nearly $670,000, or over $700,000 if your score is significantly lower.

This means that without including down payment, closing costs with all the fees, insurance, taxes, maintenance or other expenses you're already paying more then two times the total price of the house.

This means that these mortgage companies are making the entire cost of the house every time they make a loan, talk about a good business. Where else do you get a 100% markup on costs?

Then take into account that they'll add in fees, some of which are understandable, others like document preparation basicly charging you to run their printer to spit out the forms, or charging $150 for a $15 credit report check clearly ripping you off. After all how likely are you to complain about being ripped off for $100 when you're laying out maybe $50,000 of your own cash and agreeing to pay thousands every month for decades to pay off this loan?

It's also a bit depressing to know that with nearly $2,000 a month payment, less then $400 the first month pays toward the principle, the rest paying only interest.

You'll have paid more then the $300,000 original loan within the first 13 years. After that is pure profit for the loan company, 17 years worth of payments for their profit.

Now I understand that without this system it is difficult for anyone who's not born rich to get their own home. To save enough money would take them maybe 15 or 20 years and thats if they didn't spend it on something else in the mean time. And then what do you do if you want to start a family? You'll have a home to raise them in about the time the oldest is off for college. This is most certainly not an acceptable option to nearly everyone.

Now think of this: Lets assume the house was originally worth around $360,000. Once it's paid off in 30 years, if you ever wanted to sell it, you'd have to recieve more then $750,000 for it before you actually made any profit. If you take inflation into account assuming 3% per year, you'd actually have to recieve over $1,820,000.00!!!
So, do you think a $360,000 property will sell for nearly 2 million dollars in 30 years?
I really have no idea.

I do know that at a conservative savings rate (say $8,000 a year, inflation adjusted) for 40 years will net you (assuming a 10% interest rate) just a few million dollars with which to live through retirement. At least you shouldn't need to buy a home by that time.

I think this system is just one of many plaguing our society which simply is not good enough.
It takes advantage of the people who have the least money (after all those born rich can buy the house outright saving themselves a good $400,000+ now are they the ones who need to save that money?) and really what other choice is there if you want your own home?

Tenacity of Life pt 2

On the equalization of existence...

In the physical world there are several things which are well known and directly related to this particular topic. Any system tends toward greatest entropy, ideally (though not really) a zero state where all forces balance all others, and mass is evenly distributed throughout all space.

What's most interesting about this to me is its relation to life. Life tends to counter this action. Life exists in cycles where it is broken down to be useful, and used to build up systems in defiance of this tendency. Life creates order as the universe tends toward chaos. This is precisely the central idea within every religion. God, gods or creative force by any name all share the role of essential life. They are oft defined that way. They create life, actually creating the means to maintain order.

In most religions the universe, the world is created by or made from the body of the 'other'. The evil, destructive or malignant force opposed to the 'good'. In our own scientific system we see the universe tending toward chaos, and life holding it back, leading it towards order.
In religion god always wins.
In our universe chaos will ultimately triumph.

This also brings up an interesting question. Once the god figures are associated with life and order and the devil figures with chaos and death, it suggests the ancients knew far more of our universe than historians and archaeologists give them credit for. It suggests that wise men from the past codified their understanding of the universe, the physical world, into a complex abstract form that could more successfully survive through the ages then facts and theories.
How better to save such knowledge then in abstract stories like the common ones told and passed down through generations.

Using stories and other associations to remember facts is a well known teaching and memorization tool, which has become quite common due to its efficacy. The key to memory is building associations. Stories present an excellent medium where the facts are associated as key elements to other parts of the story. As the story is repeated and retold, the events are easily remembered, and the associated facts can be recalled easily by thinking of the story. Using symbols and anagrams are two of the most common techniques used these days, with such well known ones as "my very eager mother just served us nine pickles" or its variations, each word of which represents one of the nine planets of our solar system, starting with the same letter.

So think about your favorite story or movie that you've seen, read or heard many times over. How much of it can you recall? I have several favorites which I can recall in complete detail, and a few which I know word for word. When I was younger my siblings and I had a game where we'd try to memorize, and try to mimic, entire movies. It actually becomes quite easy when you do it regularly.

Consider that story telling was among the most common forms of entertainment in ancient times, that you'd hear (and ask for) your favorite tales over and over. Anyone (like many people today) who really loved the stories would be most inclined to memorize them so that they could enjoy them when they wanted and pass them on to their own children when the time came.

Anyway, back to the original thought...
The parallels of reality to the stories show that at some point people knew what was going on, though the stories degraded as they forgot the original intent, and people became more concerned with the characters of the story then the lessons it was meant to teach.

Lets face it, TV exec's make millions for their companies because they know people like to get involved (intellectually and emotionally) with their characters far more then they like to just learn things. This has been the key to the success of such educational channels as Discover, History and others, they take historical facts and weave them around characters times and places to which people can relate. It draws you in and is easier to remember because the information is based around associations.

(Never fear tangents. They may take you to places you never knew you wanted to go to.)

Tenacity of Life

It is now a commonly held belief within the scientific community, supported by much evidence, that life (at least in its basic bacterial stages) is in fact quite common throughout the galaxy, and by extention the Universe.

There is a certain tenacity with which all life exists. What is true on our own planet is this: life will find a way. If it can exist it will exist, in whatever form is most conducive to its existence. Life therefore, is not rare at all. It is safe to say life exists everywhere in the galaxy where it possibly can exist.

It seems safe to assume (and this is an assumption, with no evidence yet mind you) that since life exists everywhere it can, and life takes the forms which are conducive to its continued existence that complex life will exist where it will flourish. This means complex life elsewhere in the galaxy is not only possible, but likely.

--The Law of Large Numbers--
Quite simply, the law is this: any event, no matter how improbable becomes likely given a large enough set. If the odds of intelligent life forming are one in a billion, then it is highly likely that it will exist several times over if you have one hundred billion possible locations for it to exist.

This still leaves the difficulty of any of these still relatively few and scattered intelligent races finding and communicating with each other. Programs such as SETI have spawned such considerations as people try to determine just how likely it is that we'd successfully make contact with another intelligent species.

You may want to check this out for related reading (although opposed to the idea of complex life appearing widespread) I haven't read the book but the article is interesting.
http://www.forum2.org/tal/books/rare.html

Definitions

Counter-Proximity Error
-A computer error which occurs when a given person is not in vicinity of the computer afflicted. Error immediately disappears as soon as the person is near.

see also: proximity error

Proximity Error
-A computer error which occurs only when a specific person is standing or seated near the computer (without actually using any interface).



Customer: "Can it damage a mouse to be thrown at a wall?"

Issues of Free speech

I regularly listen to a local radio station which has a fairly skilled staff. Every so often they make their own songs and parodies based around other songs and/or current events. It's very funny. They've made songs about gays, referencing brokeback mountain when that had come out, and made a song about illegal immigration (making fun of a stereotypical border crosser). Just recently they made another song about immigration which remains a big topic. I was fortunate enough to hear it once before it was stricken from the air.

Now, this song was no more offensive than the past ones. It did not encourage or condone violence in any way, it merely made fun of a topic of current interest to many people. Yet it caused enough offense to get complaints and the station management decided to ban it from the air.

This right here is what I hate most at this point about the illegal immigration. (Don't get me wrong, this is not the only group to get something banned because it was "offensive", just the most recent example).

So now they, and their legal immigrant counter parts, become the latest group to want us to limit our freedom of speech so as to avoid offending them. Again they are not the only group to want to prevent offense. This goes equally well for the two school districts that BANNED THE DISPLAY OF THE AMERICAN FLAG because it might offend immigrants. (This was the district, not the illegal or legal immigrants that made this decision)

What ever happened to "I may not like what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Our country was founded by those willing to fight and die for freedom, and now we are overly concerned with "avoiding offense."

Free Speech was created specifically to protect the speech we DO NOT LIKE. Don't like it? Find it offensive, rude, mean, hateful or ignorant? TOO BAD. Free speech is one of the things that makes America a great nation. NO OTHER NATION ON EARTH has this freedom so completely as we do here in the U.S.A.

Want to live in a country where offensive speech is illegal? Go to Canada. They have a better health care system too. Want free speech? Accept that you just may be offended.

So to all the wetbacks, spics, chinks, guidos, micks, krauts, dot-heads, 539's, 927's, camel jockeys, Adolfs, Amerikkkans, obsolete farm equipment, bamboo coons, banana benders, barcodes, bath toys, frogs, bull-baits, bead rattlers, beaners, crackers, honkies, bhindus, binks, bjorks, blanket-asses, block hoppers, blood suckers, bludgers, boat-rowers, boches, boogalee, spaghetti benders, canuckleheads, chosenjin, cloggies, pillow biters, carpet cleaners, cow kissers, ddang kong, dune-coons, eurotrash, falasha, parkhursts, fischkopfs, fogs, fobs, frostbacks, fumblin' dublins, gatemasters, goatbangers, gooks, goombahs, gwats, harpoon chuckers, herring chokers, ice monkeys, kanaka, kamikaze, grounded kamikaze, med wops, north mexicans, palewhineans, reds, riceballs, roos, zeppos, skinnies, smoares, spongeheads, swedish meatballs, swamp donkeys, vodkalkies, and turbinators...take offense and know you are free.
(I think I got everyone at least a few times over.)

So much has been lost, yet everything remains

I find it interesting, after the vast scope of my own readings, to see the understanding of others. When it comes, for example to the nature of existence and the universe. After so long of struggling to find any useful information in the exorbitantly vast number of volumes on the subject, and finding how few of them have much of anything to say... Realizing that claims of "hiding" the knowledge intentionally to prevent those of ill intention from acquiring it usually (always?) means the author has no idea what he is talking about.

And the others? The readers? Their half-formed ideas are complicated with the views and ideas of a plurality of disparate systems which do not compliment each other, but stand opposed in fundamental constructs. They mix the thoroughly complex (and not so understood) karma with the 3-fold law while portraying a clear misunderstanding of the distinctions of black and white.

They follow disparity where there is unity, but not due to their own short comings by any means. They are nearly unanimously intelligent and well intentioned but there exists an over abundance of misguided literature by authors who know little yet speak much, and wish to appear more powerful then they are, all the while profiting from this.

The lack of a unified cannon and the tendency of those interested in the occult to pursue multiple paths (from celticism and druidism to Isis, Buddhism, Taoism and the kabalah) has much to do with a well known loss of knowledge. This exists because what tomes there were have mostly been destroyed by the Christian church, and the spread and teaching of this knowledge was strongly opposed (sometimes with violent and deadly force).

The gathering of knowledge from these systems is an attempt to fill in the gaps. While understanding of many systems can be informative, it has overall done more harm then good. They search for answers in ancient lore, when the truth has never changed from when first discovered, yet how many seek to honestly re-discover? Within the world is all the truth that has ever been lost and it can be found again.