Well, I think I'll write a little bit. Interesting thoughts in the past couple months:
Lately, I’m really digging some different podcasts. Some that have stood out are:
o Theopologetics
o Say Hello to My Little Friend (by Dr. Glenn Peoples who I heard about on Theopologetics)
o Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot
o Philosophy Bites
o NPR- Environment
o Indiefeed: Performance Poetry
Some new Biblical interpretations from Glenn Peoples that I like, but haven’t thought through entirely:
- - Non-reductive physicalism, instead of immaterial dualism
- - Annihilationism, instead of hell/eternal torment
I’m much more comfortable with non-reductive physicalism than dualism, but am not wholly certain what effects this has on Christian texts and interpretations. From the examples I remember, it fit with the ancient language better and could be applied to readings about ‘spirits’. I never really thought too much about hell or what it entailed, but annihilationism makes a lot more sense than eternal torment. In my tearing down of all old philosophy and rebuilding, I’ve been running the gamut in trying to understand people. Philosophy of mind and issues of consciousness have been big obstacles to understand- especially with so many different ideas in these areas and my limited understanding of philosophical arguments.
Awesome things I learned about today when listening to recent Philosophy Bites episodes
-
Universal moral grammar (it’s a strong maybe)
- “Alison Gopnik on the Imagination”
- Free will, who knows?
Oh man, the piece on imagination was awesome. She talked about how young kids have huge imaginations that end up as testing ground for reality to figure out how things work and what is possible. They go through the tons of iterations of what’s not feasible and some eventually become more adult-like and imagine less. They are scientists in their adventure to figure out what is right and good. But imagination is the total driver for innovation, and good companies don’t have sweet lounge areas for no reason.
Apparently, sociologists have done some studies on people where they’ve found people who don’t believe in free will are more anti-social and less functional. To them, and me, it seems very hard to be positive or motivated if one doesn’t have free will because as a robot, not much matters. The cognitive neuroscientist on there, who was watching fMRI and other brain scans to predict what people are going to think of doing, before they consciously think about it- given a limited number of options, didn’t think that free will would be proven or disproven my science. This guy was able to guess with 60% accuracy what someone would think 6-8 sec before they had the though; it’s only 10% more than random, but still impressive if it’s significant. They said they could be more accurate for different situations depending on what was going to happen and the brain regions that would be involved.
In my mind I might sign up for the Baltimore Marathon. I’m going to try to follow a training guide for July and if my body cooperates I’ll sign up before the end of the month. The areas of concern are my right knee and left shoulder blade area. Today I bought an ipod holder and good running earbuds so I can listen to a bunch more podcasts while running and learn a million things.
Tonight I went in to lab for like 2hr, because I don’t know many people doing non-drinking things on a Sat night. Sitting at my desk without a computer, I realized how much more often my desk looks without a computer screen- like it’s a real desk! Also, my productivity while at work will skyrocket without a computer, so no more computer on my desk for me. If I need something, I’ll go down to the computer lab.
I’m kind of writing this cause I saw Mel updated her blog, and I’m reading it as I write. Shh don’t tell her (?). I got a GPS in the mail last night from my parents cause I told them I thought I needed one when I went west on this street, when google said to turn onto ‘W something St’, but really it meant go east on W something st- lame. Then I spent an extra like 20 min driving around. But I realized a GPS takes away the most fun part of driving- hollering out the window and asking for directions. I tried it out last night to find directions to this bike store I wanted to ride from this morning, but it couldn’t find the place and the internet wasn’t working, so I didn’t go biking there this morning.
A couple weeks ago I got an okcupid account. I was on some other dating site for like 2 weeks, when I was like this is stupid. I got this one cause a guy in my office has one and I think I remember someone else mentioning having one, and it being decent. I’ve gone on to answer questions on my opinions on ethics, religion, etc. and I just have no idea what to put down. There are some weighty issues for just a yes, no, ___, etc. Also, I’ve been telling myself since January I need to things out about myself first before doing ___ (i.e. applying to medical school). In this light (not!), I’m hoping (at least for the past week!) to go to India/Southeast Asia after graduation to do stuff related to Dr. Sengupta’s HAIX and arsenic removal, as part of a research project with the Fulbright Fellowship.
I’m sleepy, so I’m going to bed. For a week I was good about getting up for the sunrise, after hearing that Rabindranath Tagore always watched the sunrise, and he was a badass poet. But, getting up at 5AM stopped a bit ago, I think I should get back in habit. In the last 2 weeks I think I’ve gone on STEPS roof like four times to see the sunset/night sky with other civil/environmental engineers . Also, I need to plan meals better instead of eating random things. Anyway, gnite.
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