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Memes. Memeplex. Memetics.
Fashionable bafflegab to allow pseudo-intellectuals to talk "intelligently" about things they don't really understand, or a useful context to examine complicated, difficult-to-pin-down ideas and concepts related to cognitive functions and social behaviours?
To be honest, I've not yet made up my mind. On one hand, it certainly seems to be bafflegab in the wrong hands, and very dangerous bafflegab if the baffled gabbers actually believe they understand it.
On the other hand, however, it does have a certain sense of "rightness" to it in some ways, and certainly seems to fit the some of the uses it's put to, at least in certain contexts. At the very least, it sort of makes what can be very slippery subjects more manageable and understandable, and even seems to allow aspects of cognition and social behaviour that were previously hard to 'connect' to be put into a context in which that can be made to fit together in some way - at least for the purposes of a given context, if not more broadly and deeply.
So, I guess it really comes down to who's "using" it and for what ends.
Personally, I think it's an important idea, and whether or not it ultimately turns out to be "right" (if it even can be ultimately determined or usefully considered as "right" or "wrong"), it is certainly a useful tool for examining a number of important phenomena from new perspectives, and allows them to be looked at, in many cases, in relation to each other to varying degrees as well.
I have a running debate with a friend as to the 'validity' of the ideas behind memetics; he takes the idea very seriously and feels it's the "right" way to look at the things it deals with. I take the view (at least for now) that it's merely a "useful" way to look at things. Personally, I am not convinced - yet - that it's essentially "right" in any way. While it does have a certain attractiveness AND seems effective in some ways, I do have issues that I have found hard to express verbally, although mentally/conceptually, they are pretty clear for me. I'll try to do a better job here of expressing those reservations; in fact, part of the purpose of this commentary IS for -me- to work through -my- thoughts on the topic and find an effective way for -me- to think about memetics, and the plusses and minuses as I see 'em.
For those of you unfamiliar with the topic, well, you're probably thinking about stopping reading this about now (even if you haven't already, otherwise you'd not be reading this). For those of you who are expert on the topic, what I have to say probably will do little for you, and likely you'll soon determine that what I say here is not substantive enough for you to bother with. This is for those of you who are interested in the subject, recognize you're not an expert on it, and are interested in whatever you can find on the subject that that could provide some perspective that you haven't considered yet.
Or not. Caveat Lector: Your risk, your decision. ;o)
Okay now...so, a quick review...
Memetics is often defined as "...an approach to evolutionary models of information transfer based on the concept of the meme." It generally has to do with certain cognitive functions and social behaviours, and largely placed in a "human" context when discussed (although I think that if it is a scientifically valid concept, then the supercontext should really be more broad in certain ways (eg. the concept can be, at least generally, applicable in many contexts), and I'll try to touch on that later).
A "meme" is essentially a "unit of information" (in memetic terms). Although the general idea has been around a while, the author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" (as sort of the informational analog to "gene"), and used it to mean things such as: "...tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothes fashions, ways of making pots, or of building arches."
Memes, in this view are "replicators" and subject to evolution and selection pressures much in the same way genes are, albeit with the pressures and environments in which they function being very different. Successful memes spread, unsuccessful ones don't.
Sounds really neat, doesn't it? Seems to make sense, too.
Yep.
But there are issues. Some of them arise from memes:genes analogy itself - certain aspects could be misinterpreted too 'strongly', perhaps, or not in 'quite the right' way. Some arise from the basic ideas, though, and assumptions made about them (memes and the things they represent, or express) that may or may not be 'valid', or at least not 'proveable'. And then, there are certain fundamental questions that need, in my view, to at least be asked - and either answered, or the questions shown to be irrelevant (note: SHOWN, not just 'asserted' to be).
For example, what IS a "meme"? What's it made of? How do we know one when we see one, especially a new one, or new "type" of meme? How do we tell one from another, especially in composite memes (memeplexes)? We know what "genes" are, and what they are made of, or at least pretty much "think" we do...
Very simply, genes are chains of four basic nucleotides (or nucleobases) the encode genetic information for biological organizms. The nucleotides cannot be thrown together in just 'any' order - to qualify as a gene, arrangement (order and structure) is important. So, essentially, genes are biological constructs that encode information. What information do they encode? Well, basically, they encode the information required to replicate themselves; hence, they are called "replicators".
We'll not get into the complex processes involved here - a high-level view is enough for now. But one observation is worth noting: it's not hard to see now how Dawkins, himself an evolutionary biologist, could come up with this way of describing the ideas involved here. He's already quite well disposed to looking at things from an "evolutionary" point of view, and on this point, I'm certainly in tune with his thinking here: I also see evolution as a principle that's expressed in many ways at ALL levels of structure, organization, and complexity; there's certainly no reason why it SHOULDN'T be found in cognitive processes and social behaviour (itself an expression of cognition, in any case).
(I'm also pretty sure he's quite pleased with himself in having played a key role in creating, or at least promoting, a "meme" that's become pretty successful itself!)
So, we have been told that memes are "replicators". But how does this replication work? What, exactly, is being "replicated"? Where does this replication happen, and what processes are at work? Here is one area where things begin to get dicey, I think; at least from a scientific, or at least empirical, point of view...
Genes exist in the "physical" world. They are molecules made up of atoms, and they undergo various chemical reactions to do what they do. Essentially, provided there are the materials at hand to continue doing what they do, i.e. energy and the necessary molecules needed to replicate, they keep on going. When those things are not availble, they don't. Essentially, this means that if whatever entity/organism the gene 'belonged' to was "successful" (either the original or offspring alive and metabolising), then the materials needed to replicate would be available and it could continue to replicate. If the the materials were not available, essentially, that means lack of success (at least for that individual organizm) and replication ceases. Hopefully, success continues to outweigh failures and many organisms survive to reproduce.
Evolution happens when changes to the genetic code occurs - generally through various random processes or causes (which do happen fairly frequently) - and the resulting change in genetic expression confers some survival advantage to the organism (more accurately, its offspring) within its environment. Most changes in genetic code have little, if any, result in this sense - not all genetic code is 'expressive'. Some is also "regulatory", some is "archival" (old, unused portions), and some is for other purposes. And of the changes that do get expressed, not all will have an impact on the survivability of the organism, although if the organism IS successful, of course other traits it has, regardless of their fitness impact, will also be passed on. (Of course there are changes, or mutations, that do have an unfavorable impact, but presumably (usually), they affect the survival (or at least the odds of reproduction) for the organism involved, and don't get passed on.) But anyway - the short answer is that evolution of a species requires both numbers (of reproducing individuals) and time (so that a large enough number of reproductions (replications) can occur) for evolutionary changes to occur.
But what, really, IS the replicator? We know it's not really the organism itself; that's more an expression of the gene, and serves as a vehicle that's 'used' to promote replication, essentially. So, is the replicator the "gene" itself, or the pattern (information) encoded within the gene? My position is that it's the pattern, and in a sense, the idea of memes supports that idea. What is needed is a mechanism for a pattern to be encoded, preserved, and "passed on". Genes are encoded in physical constructs - arrangments of nucleotides (molecules) - made up of molecules, etc. Memes, however, are a bit different. You could look at them as being encoded in songs, books, manuals, stories, and modes of behaviour, but all these are really just sort of temporary "vehicles" to facilitate the preservation and transmission of the memetic patterns. The pattern itself gets embedded in our minds, and that's where it becomes active and important - that's how it gets 'expressed' in real terms.
But can a pattern really "exist" in some non-physical sense apart from the the structure in which it's encoded? Sure, we like to think in terms of 'abstraction' and so on, however we can't even think "abstractly" without a physical substrate for both the thought processes and the information involved. Any pattern, it seems to be, is really a relationship between physical entities/structures/processes, and without this physical underpinning, no 'pattern' - abstract or otherwise - can possibly exist. Even if you can 'encode', say, the "idea" of something in many ways, is this merely the creation of copies of some original "idea" (with varying degrees of completely/accuracy), or is it truly a case of some idea-pattern transcending physical dependency?
Is there some "memetic" code? I think, so far, that's not been determined, and although one would tend to think there should be, perhaps it's carrying the analogy too far. Or is it? Information is encoded in SOME way. It HAS to be for it to be percieved and transmitted between individuals. And it has to be encoded in some consistent, and potentially (or just possibly) universally intelligible way, too (remember the comment above about non-human contexts?). Can there be different ways to encode memes, or the information carried by them? In other words, are memes and/or memetic structures able to encoded via different methods and still retain their "integrity" as memes?
Can a given meme be encoded in very different ways (with very different sets of "nucleobases" or "alphabets") and transmitted (or even stored) via and within different methods and media? Or do these things somehow also contribute to the integrity/consistency of the meme itself in some way, and how it is transmitted and evolves?
In one way, language can be seen as serving as the 'code' for this, however, language itself can be considered as a meme as well. So, to me, what this implies are 'levels' of encoding at work here, levels "below" language. So, while we can point to language as a means of encoding (some subset of, or some types of?) memes at one level, there has to be something more fundamental that underpins the language meme. Also, there are clearly some memes that do appear to be "language specific/dependent", while others seem to be free of this dependency, with language serving mainly as a convenient vehicle to more easily describe/transmit/store them. So then - do memes and genes exist in some way separately from the 'language' that describes them and the media that stores them and through which they propagate? Or is that where we begin to 'reach' a bit?
In what "space" do memes exist? Is it so that we cannot really "see" them; we can only see their expression or some 'representation' of them? Or are these "expressions" and "representations" actually in some way copies (or replications) of the meme itself?
Now, don't misunderstand me here; I'm quite capable of accepting and grokking memes as mental abstrations. In fact, in many ways I prefer to. But let's take an example. Let's take a tune, for example...
I select for this example the tune "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as an example of a successful meme. It's existed for a long time, and has a powerful effect on those who hear it, but with the nature and degree of the effect varying based on the context it's 'experienced' in and the person it's being experienced by. As a work of music, it's encoded both in musical notation and human language (lyrics). However, it's percieved by a person as sounds - music and voices (language) which are then stored in the brain. Anyone who's heard a good rendition of the tune (let's say, by Jim Nabors, for example), can attest that it has a powerful emotional effect on a person - even if you're not particularly religious. The tune's construction, musically and emotionally, hits a person at several levels...
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These are, for me, interesting questions - and it's not just the obvious answers to some of them that makes them interesting, but the fact that it seems these ARE 'valid' questions and they DO seem to have answers - and are interesting to think about.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Commentary: The Voice of the Universe
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I think heard God speak a few years ago.
Not "god" in the Judeo-Christian or Muslim sense, nor even to me, at least not directly. But there is, I feel, a message being delivered by "something" powerful to all people who can and are willing see it. And I'm not talking about some mystical "voice from heaven" booming from the sky, either.
Not at all.
In fact, it came in the form of a blonde wraith with an angelic voice singing a song that had lyrics with such a profound meaning that I had to wonder: could the human author of those words really have such a deep and powerful understanding of the world as the one expressed in that song? Or did - somehow - this "force" manage to get itself expressed in such a way as it could be percieved and understood by those who may be able to recieve it? If the latter, could it have been a 'concious' effort, or is it simply "inevitable" - something that was bound to happen sooner or later, almost by "accident"?
I don't know.
All I DO know is that the message is there, and clear as a bell for those with the background knowledge and understanding of certain things to be able to easily decrypt it, and a willingness to "hear" such a message to begin with. Or, at least I think it is...
Don't get me wrong, here. I am NO mystic by any means. I am not into this "New Age" bullshit. I believe that for something to be true, it should make some sense in some way in relation to other 'true' things. And, in a wierd way, this does, and also in some ways, it turns some things I hold to be true updside down, while at the same time reinforcing others. I haven't let go of them, but I do admit to be being a bit taken aback, and forced to look at things somehow differently in some ways.
The "force" I am talking about is not, in my view, some ethereal intelligent, all-knowing awareness. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I'm talking about what most people call the "evolutionary algorithm'. However in my way of thinking, that 'algorithm' is simply the mathematical description of something more 'vague' or 'general' that I call the 'evolutionary principle' - the principle that allows for, even forces, change to occur in this world, and that this change leads inexorably to increasing complexity (decreases in entropy) in "local" systems on a scale that converges somewhere near the middle between the largest (cosmic) scales and the smallest (atomic to Planck) scales.
I also not suggesting that this force is 'consciously' directed by some "intelligence'. Rather, I think it's a natural property, emergent from the fundamental characteristics of nature, such as the Laws of Thermodynamics and the properties of matter and energy, and, in some way, is also somehow responsible for them, in the sense that these characteristics ARE the result of the earliest stages of the evolution of the universe. For me, this is perhaps one way to define 'god', if one needs to define something as such; it's the fundamental driver of change change and complexity in the universe and makes everything - from heavy metals to Heavy Metal - possible.
Most people look at "evolution" as the process that governs how biological life changes over time, or evolves. Generally, life is the only context it's even considered in. But in reality, there is no dividing line between "life" and "non-life" in the universe. That's an arbitrary disctinction that we give to systems that exhibit certain qualities that we specify, and even there, we have certain problems in demarcating the line between life and non-life when we get down to the lower ends of the life chain. Things like viruses and prions, for example, raise the question of whether or not they are 'alive'. Some even go so far as to say that the nucleic acids are essentially 'alive'. Basically, in the "spectrum" of processes and systems through which the evolutionary principle is expressed, biological life is just one part of it.
What we call 'life' is really just a very complicated system of non-living components. We have to conciously try to keep in mind that 'life' is a human distinction, and that what we call biology is just one context in which evolution can be expressed. However, let's not make the mistake of over-generalizing, either; the degree of complexity involved in what we call 'life' is an important stage in evolution, and I'll come back to why that is so shortly. But in essence, life is really just a set of emergent qualities arising from systems of systems built upon layer upon layers of change and complexity that have been 'evolving' over billions of years through a combination of the laws of physics and what basically amounts to 'luck'. A direct line can be traced not just back to the earliest life forms on earth, but back to the very origins of the universe itself.
You can see evolution expressed in many ways. The 'universe' has evolved and continues to evolve from the Big Bang onwards. Matter and energy 'evolved', with protons, neutrons, electrons, and all the other "elementary particles" being built up of simpler particles, themselves constructed of even smaller parts that we have yet to fully understand, that condensed out of the hot soup that was expelled from the initial singularity at the time of the Big Bang.
Not all evolutionary "lines" need be long or complex, stars are not going to evolve into something more than they already are. However, they DO lay the foundation of and become components themselves of further evolutionary systems to be built on top of them, and this can even happen in different ways. Matter was formed with certain inherent characteristics that allow for change and emergent complexity, even starting with a relatively limited set of materials having a limited number of qualities. In fact, the vast majority of matter created in the early universe consisted of only hydrogen and some helium.
It took further steps for the other elements necessary to our existence to be created, such as carbon, oxygen, iron, and the rest. These elements were formed in the heart of stars through nuclear fusion, itself only possible through the fact that hydrogen and helium, being matter, have a property called "mass" and therefore have gravity. Without gravity, the first stars could not have formed out of the primordial hydrogen, nor could the nuclear fusion required for the transormation of hydrogen and helium into all the other elements we know be started, lighting the furnaces that essentially were the foundries in which all the components necessary for complexity - and life - were forged.
This is amazing.
Chemistry, and hence biology, would not be possible without this evolutionary step. to have more to think about, even that is not 'enough', though. Without elementary particles having a property known as 'charge' (itself one of the properties stamped on the elementary particles during the Big Bang), even chemistry, dependent upon the positive and negative charges of atoms, would not exist.
But it does.
And it is chemistry which allows atoms to combine in myriad ways as molecules, the building blocks of the everyday matter-based objects and systems we see around us: water, rocks, and so forth. Of course, just having 'matter' doesn't allow for chemistry or biology to happen. You need also something to "instigate" it: energy. Luckily, that's also provided for. Light is one form. Heat is another. Kinetic energy - movement - is also another. The fact that different forms of energy can be converted into one or the other is also important.
Anyway...moving on - starting from this level and moving up, it becomes clear that the Universe is an amazing construct. Many different aspects of it combine to generate the sorts of change that allow for increasing complexity at many levels in many ways, each of which in turn allows for more further 'up'. The atoms of the various elements can combine in different ways - in understood and specific ways - to create more complex molecules, and so on.
Water, for example, is one composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Iron and other elements can combine to create other materials. Eventually, this type of "inorganic chemistry" leads to another, more complex one: organic chemistry, through which the molecules required for what we call "life" are built up.
When you look at a planetary system like our own Solar System, you see a fairly complex system that is the result of billions of years of evolution, even at this scale. There is structure and complexity there, though to be sure, of a rudimentary and gross kind - at least at the planetary scale. There are many forms of energy at work keeping things 'going' - heat, light, kinetic energy, etc. There are complex organic and inorganic materials there in various forms. And such planetary systems themselves allow for more complex degree of evolution to occur within them at another scale and degree of complexity - life.
I don't know if there are some sets of conditions in which life (or something similar enough to it in certain ways so that we could generally call it 'life), can exist outside of a solar system, but I tend to think not. Of the things necessary for the evolution from organic molecules to what we call 'life', some important 'ingredients' are needed, such as time, different types of energy within certain 'ranges' as to type and quantity, and an environment with some 'mix' of stability and enough 'elbow room' for incremental change to occur without drastic changes frequently 'wiping the slate clean'. Such systems are hard to find outside of a planet with the right composition and conditions located in an orbit around a star within certain parameters. Other environments generally seem to be too choatic and unstable or too homogenous. Some have too much energy, some too little.
Very few seem to be 'just right'.
Once such a situation exists, however, I feel pretty certain that the evolutionary processes that can lead to life will proceed and, given time, will eventually lead systems that we'd call "life". In fact, I think it's inevitable, given the right conditions and time: it's all based on the laws of physics, and the same laws operate everywhere all the time.
I further believe that - at least at the 'lower levels', life in one system would resemble life in most any other, much as our solar system likely remembles one in any other except perhaps in certain details like the number, types, and sizes of planets, and their orbits, for example. Variety can only vary (increase) so much at a given degree of complexity in structural possibilities.
This means that life in other places could be (and in my opinion is most likely) based on nucleic acids, or perhaps on different but very similar molecules with a similar purpose, and if so, then you have your viruses and prions and perhaps even bacteria and simple plant life being very similar from planet to planet, all else being 'equal' (or close). While it's very unlikely that life would evolve exactly as it has on earth - there are far too many variables involved - there would be perhaps similar stages of evolution and similar solutions found to various environmental problems.
Just look at the variety of life on earth - millions of species in most any environment possible. Still, all have certain similarities, and some due not simply to relation through direct genetic lineage. Many are due to environmental influences on evolution across species, with different species working out similar solutions to the same environmental problems: fins to get around in water, legs on land, and wings in the air, for example. Fish and dolphins have fins, bats and birds their wings, and so on.
I'm not going to get into a discourse here on Darwin's work on the evolution of species - all of this has led up to a conclusion I've reached in a slightly different context, and that is that evolution is a 'force' or 'principle' of the universe that is created by and expressed through the very structure of the universe itself and what it's made of. It began at the Beginning and continues on up through every level of structure and complexity that exists. It's unavoidable and inexorable. It's everywhere, all the time. I will say, however, that Darwin, Dawkins, and Stanovich are pretty close, but their context is too limited; genetics, and even memetics, are only a couple of contexts in which evolution is at work...
And it continues to work.
Is all change 'evolution'? Well, that's hard to say. I would say that generally all change is (or can be) a PART of evolution. The water cycle - where liquid water evaporates to water vapor through being heated, rises into the air, cools, condenses back into a liquid and falls to the gruond as rain would not be considered 'evolution' by most people. But it CAN be seen as a system, or process, that has arisen THROUGH evolution (let's remember that most elements and their properties are the result OF evolution!) and is important TO evolution at other levels or in other systems.
Or take a few other examples...
Knives, for example, have evolved over time. Cars have evolved. Look at them - from the earliest stone-flake knives on up through the huge variety of them available today. Your Model-T up through the modern F1 racer or passenger car or 18-wheelers of today. Then take a look at the famous picture illustrating the evolution of Man, from the early australopithecines up through modern Home Sapiens. I don't think you can say that is evolution, but the others are not, simply because one occured through 'nature' and the others are 'man-made'. Look close - the Evolutionary Principle is there, if you care to see it, and not just metaphorically or analogously...
...which brings me back to my earlier point about why 'biology' is an important step IN evolution. Biology allows for the creation of systems that can be ACTIVE agents OF evolution, agents that can participate in the process - and even direct it. This seems perfectly logical to me - an almost inescapable conclusion, in many ways, if you think about it. We, for example, as 'agents of evolution', participate in and direct the evolution of many types of systems ourselves: our technology and social structures, for example, all 'evolve' through us. It's also very possible we're more involved there than we may know or want to be in evolution; in creating computers and - eventually - artificial intelligence, are we perhaps creating our successors at the 'pinnacle' of evolution - that of the evolution of intelligence in the universe?
I've now reached a point in this line of thought where it can branch off into a few other directions that I don't have time to get into just now (but probably will later). This discussion started with a message in the lyrics of a song...
Given what I've said above, and assuming - simplistically as I've put it - that it's somewhat close to 'correct', then I think it's hard to miss the message embodied in the below lyrics. Yes, you can limit the the context to a 'genetic' one, but I see it as also valid in the more broad, general sense I describe above.
And that's also where my question comes from - is the writer of the lyrics intentionally expressing the above idea - even if in the limited genetic context a la Darwin and Dawkins - or was he meaning to express something else - perhaps a people's cultural heritage - and it just "seems" like there's a deeper meaning?
Personally, irregardless of what was in the lyricist's mind when he wrote the song, I feel that the message I percieve IS there, and it's an important one. It's one that allows a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world, and also one which connects those understandings in a clear, logical, and useful way...if we chose to get it. It is not at all a big stretch to consider it as 'god' talking to us - by whatever mechanism. And regardless of your belief or faith, or even how you elect to define what 'god' is, it works on different levels, and in that sense, it can also be seen as a sort of 'bridge' between people of different points of view. Even the most diehard atheist cannot but avoid being touched by this song, I think, and the truth it carries.
Read the lyrics...
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THE VOICE
winner 1996 Eurovision Song Contest
performed by Eimear Quinn
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I hear your voice on the wind,
And I hear you call out my name...
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"Listen, my child," you say to me
"I am the voice of your history.
Be not afraid - come follow me,
Answer my call and I'll set you free."
REFRAIN
I am the voice in the wind and the pouring rain,
I am the voice of your hunger and pain.
I am the voice that always is calling you,
I am the voice, and I will remain.
I am the voice in the fields when the Summer's gone,
The dance of the leaves when the Autumn winds blow.
Ne'er do I sleep throughout all the cold Winter long,
I am the force that in Spring-time will grow.
I am the voice of the past that will always be,
Filled with my sorrows and blood in my fields.
I am the voice of the future...
Bring me your peace, bring me your peace,
And my wounds - they will heal.
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And now, watch the video:
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Oh well. Maybe I'm just nuts. Or a misguided romantic with a too scientific view of the world.
Or maybe...
I think heard God speak a few years ago.
Not "god" in the Judeo-Christian or Muslim sense, nor even to me, at least not directly. But there is, I feel, a message being delivered by "something" powerful to all people who can and are willing see it. And I'm not talking about some mystical "voice from heaven" booming from the sky, either.
Not at all.
In fact, it came in the form of a blonde wraith with an angelic voice singing a song that had lyrics with such a profound meaning that I had to wonder: could the human author of those words really have such a deep and powerful understanding of the world as the one expressed in that song? Or did - somehow - this "force" manage to get itself expressed in such a way as it could be percieved and understood by those who may be able to recieve it? If the latter, could it have been a 'concious' effort, or is it simply "inevitable" - something that was bound to happen sooner or later, almost by "accident"?
I don't know.
All I DO know is that the message is there, and clear as a bell for those with the background knowledge and understanding of certain things to be able to easily decrypt it, and a willingness to "hear" such a message to begin with. Or, at least I think it is...
Don't get me wrong, here. I am NO mystic by any means. I am not into this "New Age" bullshit. I believe that for something to be true, it should make some sense in some way in relation to other 'true' things. And, in a wierd way, this does, and also in some ways, it turns some things I hold to be true updside down, while at the same time reinforcing others. I haven't let go of them, but I do admit to be being a bit taken aback, and forced to look at things somehow differently in some ways.
The "force" I am talking about is not, in my view, some ethereal intelligent, all-knowing awareness. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I'm talking about what most people call the "evolutionary algorithm'. However in my way of thinking, that 'algorithm' is simply the mathematical description of something more 'vague' or 'general' that I call the 'evolutionary principle' - the principle that allows for, even forces, change to occur in this world, and that this change leads inexorably to increasing complexity (decreases in entropy) in "local" systems on a scale that converges somewhere near the middle between the largest (cosmic) scales and the smallest (atomic to Planck) scales.
I also not suggesting that this force is 'consciously' directed by some "intelligence'. Rather, I think it's a natural property, emergent from the fundamental characteristics of nature, such as the Laws of Thermodynamics and the properties of matter and energy, and, in some way, is also somehow responsible for them, in the sense that these characteristics ARE the result of the earliest stages of the evolution of the universe. For me, this is perhaps one way to define 'god', if one needs to define something as such; it's the fundamental driver of change change and complexity in the universe and makes everything - from heavy metals to Heavy Metal - possible.
Most people look at "evolution" as the process that governs how biological life changes over time, or evolves. Generally, life is the only context it's even considered in. But in reality, there is no dividing line between "life" and "non-life" in the universe. That's an arbitrary disctinction that we give to systems that exhibit certain qualities that we specify, and even there, we have certain problems in demarcating the line between life and non-life when we get down to the lower ends of the life chain. Things like viruses and prions, for example, raise the question of whether or not they are 'alive'. Some even go so far as to say that the nucleic acids are essentially 'alive'. Basically, in the "spectrum" of processes and systems through which the evolutionary principle is expressed, biological life is just one part of it.
What we call 'life' is really just a very complicated system of non-living components. We have to conciously try to keep in mind that 'life' is a human distinction, and that what we call biology is just one context in which evolution can be expressed. However, let's not make the mistake of over-generalizing, either; the degree of complexity involved in what we call 'life' is an important stage in evolution, and I'll come back to why that is so shortly. But in essence, life is really just a set of emergent qualities arising from systems of systems built upon layer upon layers of change and complexity that have been 'evolving' over billions of years through a combination of the laws of physics and what basically amounts to 'luck'. A direct line can be traced not just back to the earliest life forms on earth, but back to the very origins of the universe itself.
You can see evolution expressed in many ways. The 'universe' has evolved and continues to evolve from the Big Bang onwards. Matter and energy 'evolved', with protons, neutrons, electrons, and all the other "elementary particles" being built up of simpler particles, themselves constructed of even smaller parts that we have yet to fully understand, that condensed out of the hot soup that was expelled from the initial singularity at the time of the Big Bang.
Not all evolutionary "lines" need be long or complex, stars are not going to evolve into something more than they already are. However, they DO lay the foundation of and become components themselves of further evolutionary systems to be built on top of them, and this can even happen in different ways. Matter was formed with certain inherent characteristics that allow for change and emergent complexity, even starting with a relatively limited set of materials having a limited number of qualities. In fact, the vast majority of matter created in the early universe consisted of only hydrogen and some helium.
It took further steps for the other elements necessary to our existence to be created, such as carbon, oxygen, iron, and the rest. These elements were formed in the heart of stars through nuclear fusion, itself only possible through the fact that hydrogen and helium, being matter, have a property called "mass" and therefore have gravity. Without gravity, the first stars could not have formed out of the primordial hydrogen, nor could the nuclear fusion required for the transormation of hydrogen and helium into all the other elements we know be started, lighting the furnaces that essentially were the foundries in which all the components necessary for complexity - and life - were forged.
This is amazing.
Chemistry, and hence biology, would not be possible without this evolutionary step. to have more to think about, even that is not 'enough', though. Without elementary particles having a property known as 'charge' (itself one of the properties stamped on the elementary particles during the Big Bang), even chemistry, dependent upon the positive and negative charges of atoms, would not exist.
But it does.
And it is chemistry which allows atoms to combine in myriad ways as molecules, the building blocks of the everyday matter-based objects and systems we see around us: water, rocks, and so forth. Of course, just having 'matter' doesn't allow for chemistry or biology to happen. You need also something to "instigate" it: energy. Luckily, that's also provided for. Light is one form. Heat is another. Kinetic energy - movement - is also another. The fact that different forms of energy can be converted into one or the other is also important.
Anyway...moving on - starting from this level and moving up, it becomes clear that the Universe is an amazing construct. Many different aspects of it combine to generate the sorts of change that allow for increasing complexity at many levels in many ways, each of which in turn allows for more further 'up'. The atoms of the various elements can combine in different ways - in understood and specific ways - to create more complex molecules, and so on.
Water, for example, is one composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Iron and other elements can combine to create other materials. Eventually, this type of "inorganic chemistry" leads to another, more complex one: organic chemistry, through which the molecules required for what we call "life" are built up.
When you look at a planetary system like our own Solar System, you see a fairly complex system that is the result of billions of years of evolution, even at this scale. There is structure and complexity there, though to be sure, of a rudimentary and gross kind - at least at the planetary scale. There are many forms of energy at work keeping things 'going' - heat, light, kinetic energy, etc. There are complex organic and inorganic materials there in various forms. And such planetary systems themselves allow for more complex degree of evolution to occur within them at another scale and degree of complexity - life.
I don't know if there are some sets of conditions in which life (or something similar enough to it in certain ways so that we could generally call it 'life), can exist outside of a solar system, but I tend to think not. Of the things necessary for the evolution from organic molecules to what we call 'life', some important 'ingredients' are needed, such as time, different types of energy within certain 'ranges' as to type and quantity, and an environment with some 'mix' of stability and enough 'elbow room' for incremental change to occur without drastic changes frequently 'wiping the slate clean'. Such systems are hard to find outside of a planet with the right composition and conditions located in an orbit around a star within certain parameters. Other environments generally seem to be too choatic and unstable or too homogenous. Some have too much energy, some too little.
Very few seem to be 'just right'.
Once such a situation exists, however, I feel pretty certain that the evolutionary processes that can lead to life will proceed and, given time, will eventually lead systems that we'd call "life". In fact, I think it's inevitable, given the right conditions and time: it's all based on the laws of physics, and the same laws operate everywhere all the time.
I further believe that - at least at the 'lower levels', life in one system would resemble life in most any other, much as our solar system likely remembles one in any other except perhaps in certain details like the number, types, and sizes of planets, and their orbits, for example. Variety can only vary (increase) so much at a given degree of complexity in structural possibilities.
This means that life in other places could be (and in my opinion is most likely) based on nucleic acids, or perhaps on different but very similar molecules with a similar purpose, and if so, then you have your viruses and prions and perhaps even bacteria and simple plant life being very similar from planet to planet, all else being 'equal' (or close). While it's very unlikely that life would evolve exactly as it has on earth - there are far too many variables involved - there would be perhaps similar stages of evolution and similar solutions found to various environmental problems.
Just look at the variety of life on earth - millions of species in most any environment possible. Still, all have certain similarities, and some due not simply to relation through direct genetic lineage. Many are due to environmental influences on evolution across species, with different species working out similar solutions to the same environmental problems: fins to get around in water, legs on land, and wings in the air, for example. Fish and dolphins have fins, bats and birds their wings, and so on.
I'm not going to get into a discourse here on Darwin's work on the evolution of species - all of this has led up to a conclusion I've reached in a slightly different context, and that is that evolution is a 'force' or 'principle' of the universe that is created by and expressed through the very structure of the universe itself and what it's made of. It began at the Beginning and continues on up through every level of structure and complexity that exists. It's unavoidable and inexorable. It's everywhere, all the time. I will say, however, that Darwin, Dawkins, and Stanovich are pretty close, but their context is too limited; genetics, and even memetics, are only a couple of contexts in which evolution is at work...
And it continues to work.
Is all change 'evolution'? Well, that's hard to say. I would say that generally all change is (or can be) a PART of evolution. The water cycle - where liquid water evaporates to water vapor through being heated, rises into the air, cools, condenses back into a liquid and falls to the gruond as rain would not be considered 'evolution' by most people. But it CAN be seen as a system, or process, that has arisen THROUGH evolution (let's remember that most elements and their properties are the result OF evolution!) and is important TO evolution at other levels or in other systems.
Or take a few other examples...
Knives, for example, have evolved over time. Cars have evolved. Look at them - from the earliest stone-flake knives on up through the huge variety of them available today. Your Model-T up through the modern F1 racer or passenger car or 18-wheelers of today. Then take a look at the famous picture illustrating the evolution of Man, from the early australopithecines up through modern Home Sapiens. I don't think you can say that is evolution, but the others are not, simply because one occured through 'nature' and the others are 'man-made'. Look close - the Evolutionary Principle is there, if you care to see it, and not just metaphorically or analogously...
...which brings me back to my earlier point about why 'biology' is an important step IN evolution. Biology allows for the creation of systems that can be ACTIVE agents OF evolution, agents that can participate in the process - and even direct it. This seems perfectly logical to me - an almost inescapable conclusion, in many ways, if you think about it. We, for example, as 'agents of evolution', participate in and direct the evolution of many types of systems ourselves: our technology and social structures, for example, all 'evolve' through us. It's also very possible we're more involved there than we may know or want to be in evolution; in creating computers and - eventually - artificial intelligence, are we perhaps creating our successors at the 'pinnacle' of evolution - that of the evolution of intelligence in the universe?
I've now reached a point in this line of thought where it can branch off into a few other directions that I don't have time to get into just now (but probably will later). This discussion started with a message in the lyrics of a song...
Given what I've said above, and assuming - simplistically as I've put it - that it's somewhat close to 'correct', then I think it's hard to miss the message embodied in the below lyrics. Yes, you can limit the the context to a 'genetic' one, but I see it as also valid in the more broad, general sense I describe above.
And that's also where my question comes from - is the writer of the lyrics intentionally expressing the above idea - even if in the limited genetic context a la Darwin and Dawkins - or was he meaning to express something else - perhaps a people's cultural heritage - and it just "seems" like there's a deeper meaning?
Personally, irregardless of what was in the lyricist's mind when he wrote the song, I feel that the message I percieve IS there, and it's an important one. It's one that allows a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world, and also one which connects those understandings in a clear, logical, and useful way...if we chose to get it. It is not at all a big stretch to consider it as 'god' talking to us - by whatever mechanism. And regardless of your belief or faith, or even how you elect to define what 'god' is, it works on different levels, and in that sense, it can also be seen as a sort of 'bridge' between people of different points of view. Even the most diehard atheist cannot but avoid being touched by this song, I think, and the truth it carries.
Read the lyrics...
***********************************
THE VOICE
winner 1996 Eurovision Song Contest
performed by Eimear Quinn
***********************************
I hear your voice on the wind,
And I hear you call out my name...
---
"Listen, my child," you say to me
"I am the voice of your history.
Be not afraid - come follow me,
Answer my call and I'll set you free."
REFRAIN
I am the voice in the wind and the pouring rain,
I am the voice of your hunger and pain.
I am the voice that always is calling you,
I am the voice, and I will remain.
I am the voice in the fields when the Summer's gone,
The dance of the leaves when the Autumn winds blow.
Ne'er do I sleep throughout all the cold Winter long,
I am the force that in Spring-time will grow.
I am the voice of the past that will always be,
Filled with my sorrows and blood in my fields.
I am the voice of the future...
Bring me your peace, bring me your peace,
And my wounds - they will heal.
***********************************
And now, watch the video:
***********************************
Oh well. Maybe I'm just nuts. Or a misguided romantic with a too scientific view of the world.
Or maybe...
Poetry: Quantum Indecision
.
Quantum Indecision
do i do this,
or do i not?
or do i, or not,
do something else?
decisions, decisions,
or so it would seem;
but reality intrudes,
and in making just one,
all the others are made...
or...are all the others
just denied their fruition?
do i do this,
or do i not?
or do i, or not,
do something else?
Quantum Indecision
do i do this,
or do i not?
or do i, or not,
do something else?
decisions, decisions,
or so it would seem;
but reality intrudes,
and in making just one,
all the others are made...
or...are all the others
just denied their fruition?
do i do this,
or do i not?
or do i, or not,
do something else?
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Poetry: A Postcard from Cartesia
.
***************
"Postcard from Cartesia"
I write, therefore I am.
I am, therefore I feel.
I feel, therefore I write.
***************
***************
"Postcard from Cartesia"
I write, therefore I am.
I am, therefore I feel.
I feel, therefore I write.
***************
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Poetry: for 'someone'
.
This is a poem I wrote for "someone" who once meant a lot to me, and whose memory still does...
***************
just for you
i just shed a single tear,
just one,
and just for you.
i shed one every single year -
just one,
and just for you.
***************
This is a poem I wrote for "someone" who once meant a lot to me, and whose memory still does...
***************
just for you
i just shed a single tear,
just one,
and just for you.
i shed one every single year -
just one,
and just for you.
***************
Friday, May 11, 2007
Lucky: Meet my dog...
I have a dog. More specifically, I have a female yellow lab named "Lucky".
More honestly, I have a walking garbage disposal that is 50 percent nuclear excitement, 65 percent clumsy enthusiasm, 43 percent constant hunger, 53 percent large white teeth, and 127 percent unconditional affection.
Don't bother checking the math - it's right, and believe me, I know.
She's also pretty damned smart for a dog. By my count, she recognizes about 72 words that she reacts appropriately to - I think mainly because they fall within her idea of Things That Are Important - and I suspect she also understands pretty much the rest of the English language - when she so chooses - but normally blows it off as unimportant yakkity-yak.
She can also spell at least three of them. We've experimented.
At the moment, I'm teaching her to count. So far, we've gotten up to "2" consistently, and I think we'll hit a breakthrough point soon, and "3" thru "5" will come rather quickly together. I'm teaching her by telling her to "gimme five" (as opposed to "gimme your paw") 1 or 2 times when I give her a treat, and more often than not, she gets it right.
Sometimes, though, she gets excited if there is some especially good "treat" material around, and she's go through her entire begging repertoire whenever she thinks there's a chance that one or more of them may work. So far, it consists of:
"Gimme Five" - laying her left paw in your hand briefly while in a sitting position.
"Gimme Other Five" - same thing, but with the right paw.
"Down" - getting "down" as flat as she can, but still vertically oriented, and with her chin on the ground between her front paws and tail straight out (if it's not wagging uncontrollably).
"Half Up" - sitting, with both paws in the air, often cutely 'posed', one just above the other.
"Half Down" - Similar to "Down", but with her butt sticking up in the air.
Believe it or not, she taught herself half of these tricks - we just supplied names for them. She also housebroke herself in the course of about 2 days (she's NEVER peed or shit in the house since then, even once when she got stuck home alone for a weekend when a day-trip turned into a 3 day ordeal when our car broke down in the middle of New Hampshire. Ironically, one of the problems was that I had left my cell-phone home so we couldn't easily contact people we needed for help (and there was no help readily available where we were). It was the only thing that she destroyed during that weekend, and I think it was not an accident that she chose that particular object.
She also taught herself to grab a toy or a bone in her mouth in order to contain her extreme joy at special occasions, such as when I come in from bringing out the trash or come home from shopping, the kids come home from school, some visitor stops by, or we're getting ready to take her out for a walk. It seems that she's not so "jumpy" when she has something large in her mouth, but still, according to the laws of thermodynamics, the energy that would otherwise go to jumping up on a person 234 times over the course of 3 minutes or so still needs to go "somewhere", so it's released as kinetic energy in other ways - you should see her body wiggle and shake - her tail seems to be wagging HER instead of the other way around!
And speaking of her tail...her tail has to be one of the single most powerful hind appendages of any animal in this world (or any nearby). At its base and for about 6 inches out, it's nearly as thick as my arm, and about a foot and a half in length in total. When it's going at full speed in close quarters it DOES leave marks - bruises on people, dents on anything less solid than galvanized steel.
Sometimes, when my mother visits, she smokes in the dining room (my wife doesn't allow me to). When my wife wants to clear the air after she's gone, she just calls in Lucky and says, "Who's the good girl??" That's enough to get that tail wagging, and in a minute or two, the air's as fresh as it can be. Of course, there is also some displaced furniture and a number of pieces of mail and magazines scattered about the room, too, but that's to be expected when you have a yellow lab anyway - or so I'm told.
//to be continued...//
More honestly, I have a walking garbage disposal that is 50 percent nuclear excitement, 65 percent clumsy enthusiasm, 43 percent constant hunger, 53 percent large white teeth, and 127 percent unconditional affection.
Don't bother checking the math - it's right, and believe me, I know.
She's also pretty damned smart for a dog. By my count, she recognizes about 72 words that she reacts appropriately to - I think mainly because they fall within her idea of Things That Are Important - and I suspect she also understands pretty much the rest of the English language - when she so chooses - but normally blows it off as unimportant yakkity-yak.
She can also spell at least three of them. We've experimented.
At the moment, I'm teaching her to count. So far, we've gotten up to "2" consistently, and I think we'll hit a breakthrough point soon, and "3" thru "5" will come rather quickly together. I'm teaching her by telling her to "gimme five" (as opposed to "gimme your paw") 1 or 2 times when I give her a treat, and more often than not, she gets it right.
Sometimes, though, she gets excited if there is some especially good "treat" material around, and she's go through her entire begging repertoire whenever she thinks there's a chance that one or more of them may work. So far, it consists of:
"Gimme Five" - laying her left paw in your hand briefly while in a sitting position.
"Gimme Other Five" - same thing, but with the right paw.
"Down" - getting "down" as flat as she can, but still vertically oriented, and with her chin on the ground between her front paws and tail straight out (if it's not wagging uncontrollably).
"Half Up" - sitting, with both paws in the air, often cutely 'posed', one just above the other.
"Half Down" - Similar to "Down", but with her butt sticking up in the air.
Believe it or not, she taught herself half of these tricks - we just supplied names for them. She also housebroke herself in the course of about 2 days (she's NEVER peed or shit in the house since then, even once when she got stuck home alone for a weekend when a day-trip turned into a 3 day ordeal when our car broke down in the middle of New Hampshire. Ironically, one of the problems was that I had left my cell-phone home so we couldn't easily contact people we needed for help (and there was no help readily available where we were). It was the only thing that she destroyed during that weekend, and I think it was not an accident that she chose that particular object.
She also taught herself to grab a toy or a bone in her mouth in order to contain her extreme joy at special occasions, such as when I come in from bringing out the trash or come home from shopping, the kids come home from school, some visitor stops by, or we're getting ready to take her out for a walk. It seems that she's not so "jumpy" when she has something large in her mouth, but still, according to the laws of thermodynamics, the energy that would otherwise go to jumping up on a person 234 times over the course of 3 minutes or so still needs to go "somewhere", so it's released as kinetic energy in other ways - you should see her body wiggle and shake - her tail seems to be wagging HER instead of the other way around!
And speaking of her tail...her tail has to be one of the single most powerful hind appendages of any animal in this world (or any nearby). At its base and for about 6 inches out, it's nearly as thick as my arm, and about a foot and a half in length in total. When it's going at full speed in close quarters it DOES leave marks - bruises on people, dents on anything less solid than galvanized steel.
Sometimes, when my mother visits, she smokes in the dining room (my wife doesn't allow me to). When my wife wants to clear the air after she's gone, she just calls in Lucky and says, "Who's the good girl??" That's enough to get that tail wagging, and in a minute or two, the air's as fresh as it can be. Of course, there is also some displaced furniture and a number of pieces of mail and magazines scattered about the room, too, but that's to be expected when you have a yellow lab anyway - or so I'm told.
//to be continued...//
Poetry: How I remember feeling about my wife...
I met my wife under unusual circumstances, and we have lived an unusual life. Sometimes things have been very good for us, and sometimes - often, even - very bad.
The below was written one day during an especially good time for us, and I can still close my eyes and imagine being there and feeling the very same feelings as I wrote them...
Such A Beautiful Morning
early this morning,
as i was waking up,
i heard the birds singing
in the trees outside,
and i could feel
the warm summer breeze blowing
through the open window
and across our bodies
as we lay together
in our bed.
then I opened my eyes
and looked upon your lovely face
and i thought to myself,
as i admired your perfect form,
"what a beautiful morning!"
and as i lay there,
just looking at you
as the sun began its day,
my heart overflowed with love
and i just had to smile.
i reached out and touched you,
just to be sure
that you were real...
...because i felt
so very lucky and happy
just to be with you
in that magical moment
while you lay sleeping
on such a beautiful morning.
***************
The below was written one day during an especially good time for us, and I can still close my eyes and imagine being there and feeling the very same feelings as I wrote them...
Such A Beautiful Morning
early this morning,
as i was waking up,
i heard the birds singing
in the trees outside,
and i could feel
the warm summer breeze blowing
through the open window
and across our bodies
as we lay together
in our bed.
then I opened my eyes
and looked upon your lovely face
and i thought to myself,
as i admired your perfect form,
"what a beautiful morning!"
and as i lay there,
just looking at you
as the sun began its day,
my heart overflowed with love
and i just had to smile.
i reached out and touched you,
just to be sure
that you were real...
...because i felt
so very lucky and happy
just to be with you
in that magical moment
while you lay sleeping
on such a beautiful morning.
***************
Poetry: "An Oath" - another poem by "me"
The below poem "celebrates" the betrayal of me by some friends and business partners some years ago. Without going into details, I wound up losing my home, my livelihood, ten years of my life, and almost any possibility of getting a life going again in any legitimate context in the span of about 24 hours.
As a result of related circumstances, my youngest daughter suffered from selective mutism for about 5 years, and we were "Homeless in Helsinki" for a winter, one during which we lived on the hosptitality of friends or in extremely "humble" hostels.
I can remember walking the windswept streets of Helsinki at night in the subzero temperatures of the Finnish winter, searching for empty beer bottles to return the next morning for money to buy baby food and diapers.
It was a dreary time, one which changed the life of my family forever and crushed the fire out of the relationship between my then new wife and I.
The poem below was written during an especially dark period for us, just a few years after the events which inspired it. The anger expressed below is real, and is still there. Though I do my best to keep it buried, I'm told it still comes through...
***************
An Oath
I am He who Nemesis wed,
and He for whom Thoth has spoken.
The Sons of Horus - my loyal knights,
until my Enemies all lay broken.
For Them there can be no escape,
nor hint of Mercy shall They see.
Not ‘til I deliver Them unto Their Fate
Shall my Fury leave and set me free.
They rule their Empire at my expense,
while my family suffers from Their pretense.
But Wreckoning Time shall come for Them,
Their lives and souls - mine to condemn.
A simple crime - a trust betrayed,
of debts reversed, yet not repaid.
Murdered, yet still drawing breath,
My gift of fire will be Their death.
For I am He who Nemesis wed,
and He for whom Thoth has spoken.
The Sons of Horus - my loyal knights,
until my Enemies all lay broken.
***************
As a result of related circumstances, my youngest daughter suffered from selective mutism for about 5 years, and we were "Homeless in Helsinki" for a winter, one during which we lived on the hosptitality of friends or in extremely "humble" hostels.
I can remember walking the windswept streets of Helsinki at night in the subzero temperatures of the Finnish winter, searching for empty beer bottles to return the next morning for money to buy baby food and diapers.
It was a dreary time, one which changed the life of my family forever and crushed the fire out of the relationship between my then new wife and I.
The poem below was written during an especially dark period for us, just a few years after the events which inspired it. The anger expressed below is real, and is still there. Though I do my best to keep it buried, I'm told it still comes through...
***************
An Oath
I am He who Nemesis wed,
and He for whom Thoth has spoken.
The Sons of Horus - my loyal knights,
until my Enemies all lay broken.
For Them there can be no escape,
nor hint of Mercy shall They see.
Not ‘til I deliver Them unto Their Fate
Shall my Fury leave and set me free.
They rule their Empire at my expense,
while my family suffers from Their pretense.
But Wreckoning Time shall come for Them,
Their lives and souls - mine to condemn.
A simple crime - a trust betrayed,
of debts reversed, yet not repaid.
Murdered, yet still drawing breath,
My gift of fire will be Their death.
For I am He who Nemesis wed,
and He for whom Thoth has spoken.
The Sons of Horus - my loyal knights,
until my Enemies all lay broken.
***************
Poetry: Selected Haiku
Haiku, a Japanese form of poetry, is very effective sometimes at succinctly expressing/elicting certain feelings and thoughts. It's one of my favorite forms to write and to read (short is good when reading poetry, no?) ;o)
While I do try to stay as close to the traditional form as possible, sometimes I do take minor liberties (I personally don't like those 'haiku' where people take too much license and more or less completely ignore the form - there's a reason for it, and if you cannot or will not stay within it, then, in my view, what you're writing is no longer "haiku"). I hope you don't feel I go too far out.
Anyway, here's a few of mine for ya'll to check out...
***************
a dark winter's night -
heaven's mirror reflecting
on the face of god.
**
fleeing butterfly;
a warm summer's day takes wing
with a child's delight.
**
oh! how heaven blazed!
love's arrow has me smitten,
blinded, i'm amazed.
**
fear reigns in silence,
heavy darkness brings the night;
children softly cry.
**
warm sunlight beckons;
a seedling, reaching upwards,
tries to grasp the sky.
**
touch the rose of love -
pricked, we bleed upon our sleeves;
cut, we hide the scar.
**
spellbound she holds me,
sweet mysteries unfolding,
she reigns over me.
**
we cry, denying
results of our decisions;
destined to defeat.
we seek, not finding
the answers to our questions
lying at our feet.
**
While I do try to stay as close to the traditional form as possible, sometimes I do take minor liberties (I personally don't like those 'haiku' where people take too much license and more or less completely ignore the form - there's a reason for it, and if you cannot or will not stay within it, then, in my view, what you're writing is no longer "haiku"). I hope you don't feel I go too far out.
Anyway, here's a few of mine for ya'll to check out...
***************
a dark winter's night -
heaven's mirror reflecting
on the face of god.
**
fleeing butterfly;
a warm summer's day takes wing
with a child's delight.
**
oh! how heaven blazed!
love's arrow has me smitten,
blinded, i'm amazed.
**
fear reigns in silence,
heavy darkness brings the night;
children softly cry.
**
warm sunlight beckons;
a seedling, reaching upwards,
tries to grasp the sky.
**
touch the rose of love -
pricked, we bleed upon our sleeves;
cut, we hide the scar.
**
spellbound she holds me,
sweet mysteries unfolding,
she reigns over me.
**
we cry, denying
results of our decisions;
destined to defeat.
we seek, not finding
the answers to our questions
lying at our feet.
**
Poetry: A couple of examples
From time to time, I write what I loosely consider 'poetry'. Some I think is pretty good, some I know is pretty bad (I'll keep to myself which is which). I'll share some of it here every once in a while and see what you think. Feel free to let me know...
***************
Wistful Cynicism
come and sing a song with me,
one of joy and laughter,
one of pain and weeping,
and of all that may come after.
come, tell me a story
of how it all began,
and fill my mind with wonder
at the miracle of Man.
come and let's explore
the mysteries of life,
the Questions of the Ages,
and the deepness of the night.
come, let's find the meaning,
or some underlying reason
for us to keep on keepin' on,
and for us to keep believin'.
come, let's not and say we did,
and fool ourselves some more
let's imagine that we can dream
and can hope for something more.
***************
Lost
peace is something strange to me
a thing I'll never find.
so I wander this world aimlessly,
and slowly lose my mind.
truth is something dear to me
but all they do is lie.
and always when I do believe
in the end I always cry.
***************
***************
Wistful Cynicism
come and sing a song with me,
one of joy and laughter,
one of pain and weeping,
and of all that may come after.
come, tell me a story
of how it all began,
and fill my mind with wonder
at the miracle of Man.
come and let's explore
the mysteries of life,
the Questions of the Ages,
and the deepness of the night.
come, let's find the meaning,
or some underlying reason
for us to keep on keepin' on,
and for us to keep believin'.
come, let's not and say we did,
and fool ourselves some more
let's imagine that we can dream
and can hope for something more.
***************
Lost
peace is something strange to me
a thing I'll never find.
so I wander this world aimlessly,
and slowly lose my mind.
truth is something dear to me
but all they do is lie.
and always when I do believe
in the end I always cry.
***************
Resistance is Futile
I've tried. God knows I've tried. Everyone who knows me well knows I've tried. But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you fail.
I've tried to resist the pressure to "blog" for years. I'm not one to follow the crowd, and I've always preferred either the 'real time' communication that IM and chat offers for when I want to talk to someone, and web-based message boards were fine for expressing thoughts on other topics to larger audiences, especially when I didn't have time for a long discussion or when I want to express something to people who may not be there when I am.
But it seems that everyone is using this blog-thing to express their thoughts and opinions these days, and regardless of whether or not those thoughts and opinions have any value outside the minds of those expressing them, people read them. People quote them. People comment on them. Some people get rich and famous from them. Some people even become "pundits" from blogging, considered as "experts" just because they have something to say, and decide to say it publicly.
And dang it, if Paris Hilton can do it, well hell, I figure I can do it, too.
And you know what? That's maybe a "good thing". What is the point of even having a thought or an opinion if you can't share it? Minds, despite being the accidental result of the need for an organism to be able perceive and process information about its environment better than its competitors in order to better compete for survival in this world, really ARE a terrible thing to waste. What nature has essentially done is create a loophole that can be used by the organism to do all sorts of things not necessarily aimed at survival.
Maybe.
In any case, I've decided to give this blog thing a whirl for myself and see how it goes. I am not really thinking about the survival value of it to me or my species when I use it...at least not to a large degree. It may help me retain some semblance of sanity through letting me externalize some of the things going on inside my mind, and thereby in some way affect my chances of survival in a positive way.
Of course, there's also the possibility that some of the things that will be expressed here will be somehow toxic to others and detrimental to THEIR survival, or, it could be that some of the convolutions in what's expressed here will be too tangled for some, causing what could later turn into severe, if not fatal, confusion - perhaps, in a sense, a form of 'contagious confusion' being transmitted from me to those susceptible to it?
I don't know.
But I'm going to give this a shot, and see where it leads. I can't fight it any more, and if I want to continue to sanely exist and find out if any of what I think has any meaning beyond the limited context of my mental universe, I guess I've got to open some sort of window to it and give folks a peek.
If ANY of the above makes any sense to you, or conversely, already causes you to scratch your head and think, "WTF?", then watch out!
This is only the beginning.
It gets worse. Or better. Let's see how it goes, shall we?
Resistance really is futile.
I've tried to resist the pressure to "blog" for years. I'm not one to follow the crowd, and I've always preferred either the 'real time' communication that IM and chat offers for when I want to talk to someone, and web-based message boards were fine for expressing thoughts on other topics to larger audiences, especially when I didn't have time for a long discussion or when I want to express something to people who may not be there when I am.
But it seems that everyone is using this blog-thing to express their thoughts and opinions these days, and regardless of whether or not those thoughts and opinions have any value outside the minds of those expressing them, people read them. People quote them. People comment on them. Some people get rich and famous from them. Some people even become "pundits" from blogging, considered as "experts" just because they have something to say, and decide to say it publicly.
And dang it, if Paris Hilton can do it, well hell, I figure I can do it, too.
And you know what? That's maybe a "good thing". What is the point of even having a thought or an opinion if you can't share it? Minds, despite being the accidental result of the need for an organism to be able perceive and process information about its environment better than its competitors in order to better compete for survival in this world, really ARE a terrible thing to waste. What nature has essentially done is create a loophole that can be used by the organism to do all sorts of things not necessarily aimed at survival.
Maybe.
In any case, I've decided to give this blog thing a whirl for myself and see how it goes. I am not really thinking about the survival value of it to me or my species when I use it...at least not to a large degree. It may help me retain some semblance of sanity through letting me externalize some of the things going on inside my mind, and thereby in some way affect my chances of survival in a positive way.
Of course, there's also the possibility that some of the things that will be expressed here will be somehow toxic to others and detrimental to THEIR survival, or, it could be that some of the convolutions in what's expressed here will be too tangled for some, causing what could later turn into severe, if not fatal, confusion - perhaps, in a sense, a form of 'contagious confusion' being transmitted from me to those susceptible to it?
I don't know.
But I'm going to give this a shot, and see where it leads. I can't fight it any more, and if I want to continue to sanely exist and find out if any of what I think has any meaning beyond the limited context of my mental universe, I guess I've got to open some sort of window to it and give folks a peek.
If ANY of the above makes any sense to you, or conversely, already causes you to scratch your head and think, "WTF?", then watch out!
This is only the beginning.
It gets worse. Or better. Let's see how it goes, shall we?
Resistance really is futile.
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