A Man in Vegas

I was in Las Vegas yesterday. I had one of the strangest experiences there. I had been telling people before I went to Vegas that I was going to win $10 million. People called me crazy. I sensed doubt from them. But when I arrived in Vegas, I found that Megabucks was up past $10 million! So, played for a bit.

While I was playing, I was contemplating my victory. I asked myself, what will it be like when I win? People will ask me what I plan to do with the money, and I will tell them I was going to use it to fund my research. Or even make up something really weird, like use the money to promote the color red.

While lost in my thoughts, an old man came to my attention. He was standing next to me - too close for my comfort and so close I was surprised that I hadn't notice him approaching somehow. He spoke to me. He said "You are xx years old. What are you going to do if you win that $10 million dollars?" xx was indeed my age, so I was surprised. I usually just ignore people whom I do not know, but this was kind of odd, so I stopped playing the machine to pause to think what I was going to say to him.

I decided to just blow him off, so I smiled and said "I'm going to retire." He looked at me and said "No your not." Then he said "I guessed your age. You are not going to win. If you did win, you wouldn't quit working. You are not going to retire. You are not going to buy a boat, move to Florida, and sail for the rest of your days."

I was kind of taken aback. I was still unsure what to think of this situation. I decided to be honest, but curt, so I said "You are right, I wouldn't retire." He smiled, turned around and walked away.

I wonder still about this event in my life. Who was he? Was it a coincidence that he asked me the very question I was pondering how I would answer if asked? I guess I will never know...

The Edward

A day in Vegas

I was in Las Vegas yesterday. I was walking around comtemplating my life, as I always do while in Vegas, when I stumbled upon a thought. I have this nifty new job and all, but something seems to be missing. So I thought about it while walking around. I had just entered Casino Royale when I said to myself, "Should I stay or should I go? If I stay it could be trouble, but if I go it would be double." which left me no closer to a decision. I need a justification for my decision, whatever it might be. Then I saw a sign, "Change"!

-Edward

The Man Who Would Be King!

I was listening to my previously mentioned Joy of Science CD set when I stumbled upon a curious idea. The speaker was talking about some science dude from the good old US of A, though of course this dude's name actually eludes me. The speaker commented that though this guy did a something great for science, he had given himself the title of Lord (US citizens are title free, normally). Everyone at that time made fun of him, even the speaker on the CD set poked fun at this guy for giving himself the title of Lord. I didn't quite understand.

What is a Lord? Who gives out these titles? Why can one not start calling oneself Lord SomethingOrOther? Is it in the blood? Are Lords a different species than human? How would you spot a Lord in public? If you exhumed a hundred random bodies and included a Lord or two's bodies in the mix, could someone find the Lord? If not, then what is a Lord but an imaginary title, something that only exists in ones mind.

If I started calling myself Lord, what would be wrong with that? Do I need someone else to tell me that I can call myself Lord? Who would that person be? Why do I need that person to tell me that I can use the title Lord? What if that person told me in private that I can call myself Lord, but no one else was around to hear it, could I still use the title, or would people call me out?

How can someone give out titles to other people? It assumes that the title giver is giving out a title that is less than theirs, or else anyone could just hand out one of these nifty titles. So there is a top dog, and this top dog can say "You people, you are now bigger dogs than before, and I will let everyone know this, but I am still the top dog."

I really do not understand where these titles come from - it really seems so unreal. I guess I use a title, I have The in front of my name. Though, this wasn't something I thought of myself, someone else gave it to me. This person giving me the title of The is just as valid as someone giving someone else the title of Lord. Why not go out and Lord someone today!

The Edward

PS I actually have the title of Pope as well. I heard someone on Art Bell's show one night many years ago. He had his own church, and he clearly stated that everyone listen right then was now officially a Pope in his church! So, with the title of Pope, which seems to be a pretty high and mighty title, I hereby give all of my readers the title of Lord. Enjoy! And tell me how your friends and acquaintances treat you now that you call yourself Lord.

The Clothes

I saw something interesting the other day. It does seem that I see something interesting every day, but I guess how this blog came about. I saw two women talking in an office setting. One of them was obviously the boss of the other. How could I tell? Genius! Okay, I could tell not only by the body language, but by how they were dressed. I realized that other people could also tell she was an important person by the way she dressed. I then extended that to realize that the clothes really do make the person.

Everyone dresses their role. Would you ever expect to see a CEO wearing ripped up shorts and a t-shirt that says "Shit happens" on it? Even in the privacy of his/her own home? Never. And why is that? Because they have to dress the way they do or else people would know that they are important.

If people wore no clothes, no jewelry, no nothing, how would people know who is important? Body language, you say. How about in an email or in a blog where one never sees the other person? The words they use, the topics they discuss, etc, would give you an idea of who they are.

But what does this all mean? Aren't people just free entities, able to explore this rich world of ours, to live their lives, to be equal to all other humans? No, actually. People need to label and classify the group and level of themselves and others. Even the words I chose to use like "is important" were chosen to show the bias, because who can be more important than anyone else? It is all a belief, all created by each person, as to how important they really are, and how important they want others to see them as.

You can fool the masses. You can dress like a CEO - just walk into the store and by the clothes. You can learn to hold yourself like one as well. You can talk about the things that they talk about. What do you think this would do? As they say in Science: try it!

Why did I pick a topic that is so obvious? People know that the clothes make the man. I know I have heard it all of my life. But, I think it is all an act. If you start acting like someone else, or a different station in life, you will become that person/station. CEOs and such do not dress the way they do because they want to, they do it because it is an agreed upon way to mark themselves so that others might approach them with the correct attitude. How embarrassing would it be to start working at a new company, be less than friendly to some wandering stranger in the hallway, only to later find out that it was the founder/owner of that company?

So, it works both way. One can move up the ranks of society, and in doing so one must update ones wardrobe. Or one can dress as the upper ranks and one will nature rise with the force of the rest of humanity pushing them upward.

It is hard to dress in a manner that one believes is not right for them. If you change your clothes, you will change who are you. Try it.

The Edward

I'm not touching you

I have new job. It takes me between 20 to 45 minutes to drive there and an equal time to drive back. But I'm in luck! I bought the 60 part series called "The Joy of Science" back when I had my old, stale job. Back then, I lived so close to work that the CD player didn't even have a chance to warm up, so the CDs languished. Now, I am going through a CD a day! Oh joy! (See, I am seeing the bright side of traffic - in your face therapist! Or better yet, in your face people who tell me that I need a therapist! Okay, no one has ever told me that I need one and I never have gone to one. I guess people who know me know that if I ever went, I would be locked away immediately, so they keep their suggestions to themselves, for the fear that they would lose the goodness in their lives that they call The Edward to some psyche ward in the middle of Arkham, for all they know.)

See this fits into my New Year's resolution. I decided that I wanted to dedicate myself to my two main passions in life: science and pussy. So far this year, based on what I actually spend my time on, I would have to say it has turned out to be: TV and food. Close, but no cigar - if you know what I mean. So, to rectify (rectum?! darn near killed 'em!) this situation, I took this job that was far away at a place that is 50-50 men to women. So, I get to listen to science-y stuff on the way to work, and I get to be surrounded by women I will never get a chance to go out with. A win-win situation, to some.

In listening to this CD set, I realized something. Or better yet, I remember that I realized something when I was 10 years old, but was reminded of it on this CD. See, I have an aversion to touch. I'm working on it, but for most of my life, the thought of touching a human has been repulsive to me. Even the feeling of stuff against my skin just made my skin crawl. Probably that darn religious upbringing that told me that all physical pleasure was a sin, so even comfy bedsheets didn't bring me pleasure until recently. But now, oh my...

So, what I remembered/realized is that it is impossible for me to touch someone - it is actually physically impossible for any object in this universe to touch anything else. I can't actually touch anyone! Though, I guess I can get close enough to catch something - germs do not seem to understand this no-touching logic. So this really doesn't help me personally, this newly rediscovered insight.

If two objects are neutral or even attracted to one another, like elementary particles, and they get really close, they can not touch. Just like one can not put two dots on a line that touch. If one places a dot at the one inch mark, that sets a bounds, and it is mathematically impossible with real numbers to have to bounds touch - so two points can not touch! Any two points that can be placed, one can always place something in-between them. It is a set theory thing, but it is also true in our Universe of quanta.

My question has always been, if this is a quantum based world (ie a Universe with only discrete distances, ie a minimum distance to which no objects can get closer than), then what is that distance? Mathematically, it must exist. We know it exists within atomic structures, which is how we can make lasers, but what about outside of the atom, or even sub-atomic? Is this the Space that requires another dimension to describe? Like the classic hose problem? (From far away, a hose looks like a line, but if one gets close enough, one can see that that hose not only has length, but is cylindrical so an ant could not only walk its length, but also go around its thickness. ie it has more dimensions than it appears to have at a reasonable distance.)

Do not really have a stunning conclusion to this one. Just some thoughts of stuff from the past few months. But we now know a little more about each other, and isn't that what this is all about?

The Edward

Trapped

Have you ever seen Defending Your Life? I remember loving that movie years and years ago. I believe that I saw it more recently and didn't care for it as much - Albert Brooks really just annoys me as the perpetual nebish. Still, it had some really amazing scenes, some very funny and some that I still think about to this day. All of the interesting lines in the movie were delivered by Rip Torn's character: Bob Diamond. Do yourself a favor, watch this movie.

The one quote that I think about frequently is applicable to this blog and my time away. A problem is how I store information, though I guess most people store information this way, so I am not stating that I am unique in this way, just that I store information this way. I remember things by what I was thinking at the time the even in question happened. And I do not remember words, because I do not think in words. I remember the quote I am interested in, and I remember the power I feel when I think of it, but I just do not remember the words, just the thoughts it inspires within me. When I try to come up with the words to my favorite quotes, I do not even get close to the words, or even the actual meaning of the quote - it looses something in the translation back to English. So, with all of this stated, let's get to the my version of the quote.

Albert Brooks' character is dead and has to defend his life in order to move to the next phase of life. Very interesting premise for me. Rip Torn plays his lawyer in the afterlife. The people who work in the after life use around 50% of their brains, while in the movie we on Earth are considered to use only 3%. Using his big brain, Rip's character appears to Albert's character to be a sly lawyer who uses every trick in the book to defend Albert's characters life. At one point in the movie, Rip Torn's character misses a court date. The next time they meet, Albert's character is upset, he feels let down. He demands to know where Rip's character was, why he missed the court date. Rip's character says that Albert's character just wouldn't understand. He says try me. Okay, so here is the quote part. "I was trapped at the intersection of thought." Albert's character says, "Your right, I don't understand."

The Edward

Existentialism, part 3

Still on vacation, but I am back for a bit today.

What was wrong with that easy dismissal of a problem that has plagued me for years? Let me start off first with an easy dismissal of his argument: humans not only react to humans that way, they also react to inanimate objects as if they were alive. There are ongoing projects to create androids - robots that look and act human. They have some pretty convincing looking ones right now - they can do amazing things with rubber! The thing that researches noticed is that humans interact with these robots as if they were human, if the robot's faces kind of look human. In the example I saw, they have only a very good animatronic face, and people will vary the eye contact as if that face was human. People will blush or be embarrassed by that face as they would in situations with a real human. By Sartre's argument, does this mean that these animatronic faces should be considered real or proof that we are not just brains in a jar? I would think not.

A second argument is: If there was only one real person in the world and the rest in his or her mind, how would that person know how real people interact? This one person would be trained from birth to believe that all around him or her are just as real, so would therefore treat those others as one as learned. Unless there is some sort of psychic link to which I am not privileged, I can not tell that another person is really thinking or if that person is animatronic or something else. How could I know? That was the question that Sartre was to answer, but his answer was just a restating of the question. Utter crap!

I hope there was more to the Existentialist movement, but after listening to almost 12 hours of a college lecture, I have to doubt that there is much to philosophy at all. Such weak logic... I hope it is not pervasive!

The Edward

PS The physics department was way over budget with large expensive equipment purchases to test the theories of reality. So the President of the University asks the physics department head: "Why can you not be more like the math department whose only expenses are paper, pens, and a trash can. Or better still like the philosophy department who does even have a trash can."