Philosophy
12:09 PM
Aside from the obvious technological problems, let's look at some different possible theoretical outcomes involved with time travel. I'm only going to focus on traveling to the past because that's the only one I can see any problems with at the moment.
To start, let's say there's something I want to change. I think it's impossible to go back and change that particular problem without causing yourself to be sent off in some sort of infinite loop. Think about it. You have this problem, you go back and you fix the problem. Simple right? wrong. You go back and fix the problem, which means that the problem, as you knew it and had instigated you to go back, no longer exists. Thus, you didn't go back to change it, causing it to never be fixed (and subsequently remain), causing you to go back again. This loop will continue on forever, since you'll constantly be altering the time-line and you will have no memory of any of the activities.
Psychology
9:39 PM
A topic that was related, but I felt would make the post too long and difficult to wade through, is the Fundamental Attribution Error. The FAE is when we attribute a person's behaviour to an internal, stable feature of that person. That guy was mean because he is mean. It came from inside of him, not the situation or recent events.
Conversely, there's something called actor-observer bias: when we are the person performing the action, we attribute it more to circumstance than to personality; this isn't me, the situation is causing me to act like this. In this way, we are much less forgiving to others when they do something that we don't like, but expect more forgiveness when we are the actor. The effect is stronger on negative actions than positive ones because positive actions are weighed less strongly in our minds - it takes four good actions to outweigh one bad action, generally speaking.
Just a quick note on this psychological phenomenon to keep in mind when you someone is having a bad day. Give them the benefit of the doubt!
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Philosophy,
Reaction
8:57 PM
I came across a blog named Atheist Spirituality and thought that I’d write a reply to one of their posts.
First, I'd like to say that I like the quote that they took from the movie "Waking Life". Great movie, check it out - though, be prepared to take a break halfway through. It's very philosophy heavy.
Personally, I'm not entirely convinced with the idea of existentialism. I'm not for the idea that god controls our actions, but I don't believe that we have entirely free will, either. Through this post, they discuss what reality we're left with if we discard the idea that god is a guiding force in our lives. They propose that we should seize the day; Carpe Diem!
Helpful
3:46 PM
Do the opposite of what this guy commands.
Hey Everyone,
If you're visiting this site and you enjoy the posts that I have up, please follow this blog (top left of the page). It shows me that you like what I'm doing and to keep on doing it. If you have any comments, feel free to post them. As well, I'm open to any constructive criticism.
Thanks.
Analysis
2:17 PM
It seems to me that many people are using words that they don't know how to correctly use. That's all fine and good; as I said, everyone does it. I just thought that I'd point out one of the more ironic words that people misuse: Ignorant.
Ignorant, as defined by dictionary.com, is "lacking in knowledge or training; unlearned". This is not at all an ambiguous word and it's difficult to see how its misuse has come about. People are using this word as if it means "rude" or "stupid". Stupid is close, but they're broadly painting people with it in a context that implies that some people are ignorant, and others are not. I've got news for you: everyone is ignorant in many different areas. In fact, we're ignorant of more knowledge than we actually know, so to paint one person as ignorant and another as not is missing the point. This word should not be used as an insult so much as just a statement, but to call someone ignorant lead people to think that you're overly harsh and mean. All you're saying is that they don't know something! To proclaim ignorance is also something that most people try to avoid because of the connotation that is now attached to the term.
But where did this all start? Where did this word, so unambiguous, get led astray? It's hard to pinpoint, but I'd say it started somewhere around the time when Michael Jackson claimed in an interview that people were ignorant if they had a problem with him sleeping with young children in his bed as you can see here:
Analysis
9:20 PM
Has anyone else noticed that there's this artificial inflation going on in stores? For example, "Williams" coffee pub only has three sizes: Medium, Large and Extra Large. Yes, you read correctly; there is no small. Though their medium is the size of a small of any other restaurant, they insist on calling it a medium.
My thoughts on this are that they're trying to make us believe it's larger and, more importantly, more valuable because it's perceived to be larger than it actually is. They don't actually change anything about the size of their drinks at all, but people may not realize that their medium is actually a small and are okay with paying that extra $0.50 over other shops for their drink.
