Thoughts On Karma...

Some people reject the idea that Karma is a natural phenomenon. We do not.

They argue that the "science" around Newton's Third Law doesn't take into account the "cause and effect" required for Karma to take place.

They're right that "cause and effect" have no use when calculating the forces generated when a piece of poo hits a fan.

But, think of it this way. This is a law of motion correct? So does this hold true for the molecules in our cells? The cells in our organs? The organs in our bodies?

No you can't apply the same mathematics when you consider people as the actors but if it is a law then the collective effect of all of our actions must have an equal and opposite effect on our environment. This has to be if Newton's law is to stand.

Given two steel ball bearings that are bouncing into each other the calculations are easy (relatively speaking). And if we bring it down to thermodynamic levels we can say that the amount of energy required for a specific action will cause a reaction that consumes an equal amount of energy.

Now consider the cold war.

The buildup of nuclear weapons on one side of the ocean caused a buildup of nuclear weapons on the other side. Equal

The weapons on one side were pointed at the other side and visa-versa. Opposite

Imagine if a weapon on one side was used on the other side. What did Americans think would happen? Retaliation.

But it didn't come to that did it.

It certainly looked grim. Creation of nuclear weapons (bad act to them, good act to us) on one side causing the same (bad act for us, good act for them) on the other.

Equal but opposite reactions that cause what could possibly destroy both agents. That sounds like a Karma loop to me.

Imagine the co-evolution of cheetahs and gazelles. Would the cheetah be as fast as it is today if it weren't for it having to adapt to speed increases in it's prey?

Both gained in speed. Equal

Both used this gain to try to cheat the other out of something. Life or a meal. Opposite.

The Evolution of greater running speeds on one side (Good for cheetahs, bad for gazelles) and the Evolution of greater running speeds on the other side (Good for gazelles, bad for cheetahs).

This also sounds like Karma.

Now, consider an agent that, when acted upon, can either have the equal and opposite reaction or can choose to have an equal and similar reaction based on electrical and chemical signals.

That sounds like what's happening when a Mormon actually convinces a person to join their faith.

Karma is the result of Evolution acting upon thousands of millions of 3rd law actions and reactions.

Son of a gun...

I watched the idea of a gun evolve through my son's mind.

He knows what guns look like. He's seen them in movies, on TV and video games. Many things in his head are associated with the word gun but when he drew one today it looked like an L on it's side. The only detail he added was the fact that it had two barrels but I'm pretty sure that extra line was a mistake before it got turned into a feature*.

Then I drew one for him. I, added a shoulder rest, sights, a clip and I made it look, at least a tad, like an Uzi.



He thought that was pretty hot shit so he wanted me to make one on the other side of this guy. I told him to but he didn't think he could. All I had to do was point out that the main shape was just a rectangle with little pieces added to it.

He took that info and made...



Notice how his gun includes things that mine didn't but are to be expected on a gun. He remembered the friggin trigger even. Now granted, the front looks kinda like a cat but looking at the rest of it will tell you its a gun.

He also associated the word gun with a type of person. A soldier.



And what is associated with a soldier? Notice the camo helmet and...



...grenades...

The reason they look like sticks with a knob at the end is because he's seen the game Call of Duty II...



http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule2



As I was writing this...

I caught Brendan peeking at me from the other side of the couch. I wrote the sentence below while he thought he was still hidden. Then without looking at him I told him to come over and read...

...Brendan I can see you over there. You aren't as sneaky as you think. GO TO BED...

I love that stinker...

Everything is evolution...

As I was creating this blog I was wondering what I was going to do my very first post on.

Then as I was picking my template, my first blog popped into my head.

First and foremost, I'd like to state that I hate the word blog. I really do.

And now...

Did you see all the templates that you could choose from when you first created your blog? They all have the same function but just look a bit different. Different blog templates have evolved. If this is correct then we'd see growth in the number of blog templates (btps) from the blog's inception to now. I haven't done the research but I'll bet anything I'm right.

How did blogs come to be? They evolved out of a combination of (sexual reproduction?) the ability to save a user's settings, edit html using WYSIWYG, authenticate users, save data to a database, retrieve data from a database, allow a registration site to interface with a dns server, etc, etc. Each of these things evolved separately and were combined in a special way to create a blog.

I'm an evolutionist. I'm not just telling you on which side I land in the whole evolution vs creation debate. I'm telling you that evolution is my religion. Believing in evolution and not worrying about how the retarded creationists are taking it or how they'll use my words against me in an argument is extremely liberating.

I decided recently that I'm finished arguing. Evolution is fact. Everything in my life has made this extremely obvious and if I can't be convinced otherwise, there's no use in arguing :D