Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Limones' LiveJournal:

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Friday, December 10th, 2010
5:23 pm	The times they are a-Changin' Hope the video won't get taken off youtube. Seems to be the case with most of his songs. Oh, and btw, I kinda missed you ^.^ (Comment on this)
Monday, June 29th, 2009
7:39 am	The Myth of Sisyphus Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. It can be done but the frog dies. The romanian word for entertainment is "distractie". Looking at the semantics of this word, it is easy to realize that it literally means "diversion of attention" because it is the noun form of the verb "a distrage" (to distract). This would, however indicate that entertainment is nothing else but the distraction of attention. One might want to ask then, what is it exactly that we are distracting our attention from and why do we (supposedly) derive joy from this process of distraction? I believe the Myth of Sisyphus might be a good place to look for a satisfying answer. If you recall (as I am sure you do) the story of Sisyphus, as it appears in ancient greek mythology, is an account of a king being punished to spend his eternity rolling a boulder up a hill. When the boulder got to the top of the hill, it would roll down and the process would have to be repeated. Not only is the myth of Sisyphus a marvelous sample of yet another story of heroes, gods and monsters of greek mythology, but it can also serve for a nice parallel to life itself. To illustrate why let's start off with agreeing on what I consider to be a somewhat disputable axiom: to some extent, most of the things that we do in our lives are pretty much the same. Depending on some factors (perhaps our level of education or our social position) the chores that comprise the body of our daily activities are sources of higher or lower "amounts" of excitement. One might say, without being too far from the truth, that being a pop super-star (like Michael Jackson) certainly makes one's existence more thrilling or exciting than being a clerk working on a 8-hours per day job in a small patent office (unless the name of the clerk is Albert Einstein, of course). However, despite the different levels of excitement in these two examples there is one thing that they both have in common: the amount of different chores is limited. What changes from one day to the other is precisely which of those chores we choose to do and perhaps the order in which we perform them. Our evolution along these parameters can be depicted by a horizontal line, with a peak here and there when something really unique or out of the ordinary happens (e.g. the Earth is attacked by aliens or Michael Jackson dies or you buy your first Macbook, etc). In other words, we are doing roughly the same things over and over again. Come morning time, we start off at the bottom of the hill, pushing up the boulder of our own existence only to reach the top by night time and prepare ourselves to take it all from the beginning the following day. Pushing a boulder up a hill seems to be a daunting task. It has that sort of repeatability in it that is both alienating and depressing. But how can Sisyphus, carry on doing his task, despite its evident futility? Well, maybe his secret is that he never stops to think about what it is that he is doing. Maybe pushing up that boulder is consuming enough of his awareness that it distracts him from thinking about his actions. And maybe, he is doing this on purpose because he knows that if he started thinking about them, he would be faced with the grim perspective of his own reality. So, out of a sense of preservation he devises this simple trick that keeps his mind on the realms of sanity. Maybe us humans, with our ambitious quests for finding a meaning to everything, can learn distraction from Sisyphus. Perhaps his apparently sad story tells us that life is for living and that its meaning is the very wrapping within which life itself resides; the frog that, in a moment of contemplation, we are trying to understand, to dissect. And in so doing, we realize that living with the certainty of our own death, there is a lack of purpose to our actions. But maybe, just maybe, the order of worldly things is set up in such a way that the essence of life is not to think about it at all. Maybe if we did what Sisyphus does, if we distracted ourselves from thinking about the meaning of our own actions, if we lived life to the fullest making the most possible out of the occasions that meet us along the way, then there would be more room for happiness in our lives. Maybe the story of Sisyphus is, in effect, saying that life is just a silly joke that we often laugh about, but that we hardly ever understand. (Comment on this)
Friday, June 26th, 2009
1:28 am	MJ I simply can't believe Michael Jackson has died. As foolish as that may sound, my mind keeps refusing to acknowledge it. God!! Later edit: Did you know that there are official statistics according to which he is the most well known celebrity of all times? You can test this. If you have older grandparents or grandparents who live in more remote areas where there's not much contact with the media, just ask them whether they know who Michael Jackson is and chances are they will say yes. Have a thought about the dimensions of that... (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
2:38 am	25 not-so-random facts about me This has been going around on facebook far too long, so it was bound to happen. Here goes: 1. There are 3 things that I've made up in this list. And this is not one of them =] 2. I was born in Romania, in an area called Transylvania. As I haven't seen any vampires yet I have concluded that they're either invisible or too good to be true. 3. By the time I was 10 I had already managed to make a name of myself by being able to hold my breath longer than any one of my closed-aged friends. In time, smoking would *cough* slightly *cough* change that. 4. When I was about the same age, my father bought me a huge inflatable teddy bear toy for my birthday present. That night, I couldn't sleep and, as I opened my eyes and looked at the spot where I had put the teddy bear, I thought I was seeing the teddy bear morphing into a scary sailor man with a pipe. The next morning I would grab a stick and kick the hell out of that teddy bear. Later on that day, upon finding out, my father did the same to me :P 5. When I was a child I used to think that I could fly if only I'd manage to flap my arms fast enough. I would sometimes climb on high grounds and jump flapping my arms as fast as I could in order to resist falling. 6. I still do it from time to time, just to make sure that the laws of physics are still in effect. 7. Every picnic that I had been on as a child, I would end up falling in a river (if one was around). Knowing this, my parents would always bring along a new change of clothes for me. Which didn't really help if you know what I mean :P 8. I once found a 5 leaved clover. Anyone know how much bad luck that means? :P 9. My favorite computer game is, by far, Grim Fandango. I don't think I'll ever play another game that would have the same impact on me. Unless people @ LucasArts decide to make a sequel of course. Which they won't. 10. I am absolutely obsessed with creme brulee. I have attempted baking it 8 times until I eventually got it just right. I think it's the most divine thing french people have invented ever since smoking :P 11. When I'm speaking in English it isn't my own voice who's talking to me in my mind. There is a tiny little black woman living inside me dressed up all in purple, whispering all my thoughts in her Mahalia Jackson - like accent. Sometimes she makes me do terrible things to myself :P 12. I own a lot of things that I hate, in one form or another. One of these days I will do some sort of cleaning up, me thinks. 13. When I buy a really nice smelling hair shampoo I taste it just to see if it tastes as good as it smells. It usually doesn't. And it makes my tummy hurt too. 14. (Intentionally left blank) 15. I really, really, really, really like artistic movies. They're like... my marijuana. 16. The only things I miss from Romania are mindless TV entertainment, my grandma and my friends. 17. I've never had coffee. I don't think I'll ever want to. 18. I sometimes find myself talking to myself out loud when I'm alone. I even reply to my own remarks sometimes and then burst out in laughter from what I said. 19. I'd like to write a book some day. It would have a lot of colour in it and the story wouldn't make too much sense. 20. I have an obsession (which I've yet to explain) with how much people lived. Every time I go to the cemetery I find myself reading dates on tombstones just to find out how old they were when they died. 21. It's also the first thing I do on wikipedia when reading up stuff on someone important. 22. Sometimes when I'm bored and don't feel like attempting to fly, I will try to move things with my mind. 23. I sometimes *CENSORED* and *CENSORED* with a *CENSORED* and a midget. :P 24. Sometimes when I look at myself in the mirror I have a genuine feeling that what I'm living is not reality and that I'm nothing but a character in some sort of dream that someone is dreaming. 25. I then get scared that, that someone might wake up. Happy end! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 15th, 2009
6:13 pm	Under the urge of a feeling Do you know when you happen to have one of those feelings that something incredibly magical is going on in the world around you? That hidden inside the obvious there is something deeply and utterly amazing which has been put there by someone for you to notice. Well, maybe not just for you, but for anyone who decides to cast attention on it. I had one of those feelings today when I decided to go out and buy a pack of smokes. I had just seen a movie and was probably in one of those emotional states that usually follow a great happening. So as I was walking out of the campus to the store where I usually buy my cigarettes from, when I noticed that everything around was shrouded in the peculiar crepuscular light of a spring soon-to-be-evening. Mind you, this is not one of those abducting stories that you read in the paranormal section of a tabloid. No, I was not abducted by aliens as some readers of this account might deviously infer for I wouldn't be here, writing these very lines if I had. Anyhow, as I was pacing along the sidewalk, I noticed the reflection of the sun beams in the windows of the houses that were flanking the street from each side. That made me think of autumn. And of how incredibly fantastic autumn evenings can be. And of leafs. And, right there, for an instant I could vividly remember the strong smell of leaves and of campfires burning slowly in the growing certainty of the upcoming dusk. And as I was approaching the traffic light on the corner of the street, a man with two dogs in a leash was crossing the street on the other side. They were two small dogs, I'm not sure about the breed, but seeing the man carrying them across the street reminded me of Amelie. Which in turn made me feel that I, myself was a character in one of those french movies, and that this one was taking place right then and there in that frozen moment in time. And then I found myself engulfed by a feeling of happiness. For there I was, in that place, in that moment of time, able to see and feel all this mute spectacle (of which I had by now decided I was now a part of) that was slowly unfolding under the very perception of my senses. It made me think of "The Hours" and Mrs. Dalloway and her mornings in which there was such a "great sense of possibility". That anything, no matter how strange or bizarre was possible in this frozen moment in time. Oh, well, here I am now, writing this thing, trying to pick the right clothes for my thoughts and pin them down as words in a futile attempt to describe a subjective episode of my life. To be honest, I think it would be better if I would just excuse myself and say that I don't remember what really happened. That perhaps it was nothing but another regular spring afternoon in which everything around me was blatantly regular. That nature was doing the same thing it has been doing for centuries, each and every spring afternoon. But there is one thing that not even the most objective reader there is can deny me from: that these kind of things might just happen. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
12:56 am	A Tale of Two Cities When we think about something like a city, something that we are a part of, our feelings are shaped by the preponderance of our day-to-day experiences. And every single city has a whole spectrum of different subtle messages that it sends to you, a mere part of the whole. No matter how little or insignificant you feel like, the city, the big organism that has temporarily or perhaps, permanently, adopted you, has something to tell. It might be that sometimes the deafening noise of our own worries, concerns, inner-thoughts will interfere with those messages, dimming them out, or it might be that sometimes we're just too tired or too fed up with everything to pay attention to any of these things, but the truth is that if we you start listening the city will eventually have something to tell. You'll then notice how you can hear its mechanical heart-beat in the sound of every car passing by, how you can find its breath touching the back of your neck in every wind breeze, how every street you venture on eventually teaches you that your search is a journey, not a destination. I've had my decent share of cities throughout time and each of them has left its unique mark on me, that's why this entry will be about two of the ones I've spent a good amount of time in. So, let me think. Where does this all begin? Once upon a time, in a land far, far, away.. Ooops! Wrong story! Just give me a second here. Ah, right. First things first: Sebes. The city of my childhood. Also known in the old schwaben dialect as Mühlbach. Which literally translates to "the mill on the river". To be honest, I've never seen the mill even though I can assure you the river is real. Maybe there used to be one, you know, during those old forgotten days when knights walked about in shinny armour, but since by the time I decided to pop up into the world it had long ceased to exist, people thought they should change its name into something that's less confusing. That's when they had this huge brainstorming session, where people from all around Sebes (even though, by that time, they did not know this will be the name they will come up with) gathered in the city market and everybody was asked to write a name on a small piece of paper and then put it in the ballot. Obviously it all started with a few pints of good old 'ale, but they photoshopped that part out of history books. You should only have seen the names some of them put down: London, Nameless, Zmxktsa, 0732...*censored due to privacy reasons*, My city, I don't know, Tehmoatepetcl. But fortunately natural selection (or perhaps providence, who knows) was once again kind to us humans on that particular day and had the proper city name extracted from the ballot. And I personally believe it is a sound name for a city. It's very modern, quite posh and you can even write it using numbers on any regular keypad of an arithmetic calculator. 53835. Now flip it. No, not like that! The other way... See? It's technology-aware and future-oriented as the guys in the marketing department might have it. Anyway, back to the sentimental bit (*insert heart emoticon here*). To me, there are two different cities overlapping in time and space. The one I remember from when I was a child, and the one that's out there now. The first one is my paradise lost. Inaccesible. Ideal. Worry-less. And, in some way.. forsaken. There was a certain touch of timelessness to everything in that place. There was always a tomorrow for all those things that you didn't want to do today. Time used to be so patient with the plans people made. It never asked why nor when. There was only this eternal now. Just like in Groundhog Day. The movie. You could live the same day over and over again in an endless timeloop trying to make it just perfect. I know it sounds a bit utopian, but that's only common with paradises. My second Sebes is so much different from the first one, in so many respects. And that's only natural, for times have changed, people have changed, I have changed. Time is money. Money is little. Ergo, there is little time. Everybody is in such a rush. Everyone has something to catch. A bus, a train, a movie, lunch, a meeting, a cold. All this rush has terribly devoided people of their inner spiritual essence leaving out animated empty shells moving about, bumping into each other, with no directions other then the aim for a better polish and a harder shell. You are what you own, what you wear, what your friends are. Shallow, isn't it? As children don't play out in the streets anymore, as there's no more hide and seek, no catch me if you can, no cops and burglars, everything has become digitally enhanced and moved on the Internet. People spend more and more time indoors, some for fun other just to save money. The only things that ever drive them outside are school, work, the promise of a beer or the need for (let's be gentle about this one, shall we?) well... copulating. OK. Enough said. Next! Well, it was a sunny autumn day (actually it was very late at night, to be honest) when I first set foot in Bucharest. The city of erm... Oh, well, maybe not. Bucharest! The capital city of Romania! For some reason I was quite nervous about leaving Sebes for Bucharest. I was beginning to realize I was leaving behind a world spiritually so significant to me for one that promised to be so much less in this respect. Time would not prove me wrong. Needless to say that I'd soon come to hate the city. Not because Bucharest didn't seem to be a nice city. No. Bucharest is nice. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It was merely because of the people. Not all of them, but certainly most of them. Compared to people back home they all seemed so rude, so unwelcoming and often times I would find myself utterly intrigued by their behavior. I was of course, expecting Bucharest to resemble somewhat of a jungle, or at least the more organized version of one. Paradoxically, despite all these less appealing things, I've met some amazingly interesting people here. Some of them I've met during my university years, some of them I've met outside school, and obviously some I've never got the chance to know. There's also a whole bunch of things to keep you busy in Bucharest when it comes to fun. With so many bars, pubs, restaurants, cafeterias, tea rooms, book shops, clubs, exhibitions, there's essentially something for everyone's tastes and pleasures (does this sound like an ad in a travel brochure yet?). And where there's supply, there's also naturally, demand. It's reasonable to say then, that Bucharest is the kind of place where you could, potentially, easily become whatever you'd want to be and moreover, even that which you'd never ever want to be. So it's fairly easy to screw up things. Nobody would really care. Let me say that one more time. Nobody cares. You are on your own. No sense of community. No nothing. Of course people living in the same building with you might kindly jump in to help, but often times you would probably not want to ask for it in the first place. There are some really messed up people which you don't want to run into. One thing I completely hated about it was that it didn't have even the slightest instance of what I'd call a decent park. And in those that do exist, you're not even allowed (technically speaking) to step on grass. And I really wonder why? Am I a grass eater? Are you? Last time I checked it tasted really horrible, so that rules me out as a potential grass-eater. But here comes the really interesting part: the grass is unlike the grass you see in parks of more civilized countries. It's all so brown and looks so dirty that you'd rather call it 'hay-coming-out-of-the-ground'. And I think it's all part of the "but hey! who cares anyway?" attitude that people seem to have employed by default around those parts. Oh, and have I mentioned the traffic? Well, there's this boulevard very near to my flat. And every Monday and Wednesday morning the traffic was completely jammed for distances spreading at times to up to 2 kms. To get a sense of how busy it can be, I remember doing the home to the railway-station distance, which is usually a 10-15 minutes taxi ride, in roughly 2 hours. It's infernal. Now, I've been to larger cities and I must confess I have never seen such busy traffic. Not even to this day can I explain why on earth is the traffic so heavy in Bucharest. I mean, have cars become that cheap? Or has the fuel price just dropped? Last time I checked we were going through a major global oil crisis. Aa-anyway, here comes the most intriguing part. And it definitely proves that Bucharest as a whole is a living organism, acting and feeding on people's needs and ambitions. If I were to be asked whether I missed Bucharest, I would be unable to give a clear answer. Odd, isn't it? You would expect me to give a resounding NO to that one, would you not? Well, for some reason, which I've yet to discover, this city has a way of its own to make you like it in the end. After some time you become (more or less) a part of it. That's why, Bucharest, is an utterly convincing blend of love and hate. With extra ice, during winter time. Okay, now prepare yourselves for a really abrupt ending. Ready? Okay. Here we go: End. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 29th, 2008
11:15 pm	The Doors Waiting for my Indian Summer. I hope it's going to be just like this: (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
11:24 pm	Green Apples and Limes The color. The texture. The clean and almost liquid water drops clinging to the glass. The tiny granules of brown sugar laying on the bottom, just waiting to be sipped before they begin to melt. The two straws. There's always two of them reaching out for your pleasure. One's for sweet and the other one is for sour. The ice-cubes and their interesting shapes. The games you and them can play. The heath. The anticipation. The dilemma: sweet or sour? Pavlov. A sip. Sweet. Sour. Sour, and then, sweet again. Relief. A smile. The empty glass. The walk home. A blog entry. This sentence. And... oh, yes, I almost forgot: The Secret Recipe: - 250 mL green apples juice - 125 mL juice from freshly squeezed limes - 10-20 grams of brown sugar sprinkled on the bottom of the glass - 1 lime cut into quarters - 3 ice cubes - 2 straws (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 16th, 2008
2:50 am	On Determinism, Amoebas, Free-Will, Lady-Bugs and Quantum Physics [A more condensed read, but one that's well worth the effort] We have been given the fortunate opportunity to have been born. To exist. Everything around is, in some way, magical. The universe, the Sun, Earth, Nature, people are all things that we come to interact with during our lives. And it seems that our perception of those things is layered. One can look at something from a macroscopic perspective and draw some conclusions or one can look deeper into the nature of things and derive a whole different set of conclusions. Take a flower for example. Some may find it so aesthetically appealing that, impressed by its beauty, feel the need to paint it. We call those artists. Yet, some others may wonder how or why do flowers grow the way they do. How do they reproduce, what is their preferred habitat. Those are, as you may have guessed, botanist. Others may simply resume to picking it up and giving it to someone that's special to them. We say about these people that they are simply in love. But the deeper we go into the nature of things, magnifying reality through a highly capable microscope, the further we reach into the very fabric of the universe. At a certain level we discover the building blocks of this world: atoms. Moving hazily around, bumping into each other, exchanging electrons, creating and breaking bonds, grouping themselves into ever more complex structures, giving shape to life as we normally know it. Regardless of how chaotic their behavior might look, it is important to realize that atoms have no will of their own. This means that if you have two different molecules, let's say two of hydrogen and one of oxygen and moreover if they are close enough to interact, the end result of the experiment, each and every time will be two molecules of water. That's what chemistry tells us and this is what we see in practice. So, all they ever do is react, obey the laws our universe comes with. Whether they like it or not (but I honestly think they do like it). Now, take a somewhat larger group of atoms, structured in such a way that the final compound makes sense to us. A most primitive life form would do. An Amoeba for example. A microscopic, unicellular organism consisting effectively of a large number of atoms grouped in a certain stable structure. Place that organisms in a chemically active environment. A drop of water for example. As soon as the molecules that compose the Amoeba make contact with the molecules in the water (please note that it is highly probable that a drop of water, besides water, consists of other 'ingredients' some of which are nutrients to the aforementioned Amoeba) a whole set of chemical reactions are unleashed. The Amoeba needs to feed in order to survive. But is this need a conscious thought? It seems unlikely. Since we've agreed that the organism is nothing but a lump of molecules, the need for hunger the Amoeba 'feels' is nothing but the result of some chemical reactions triggered inside it as a result of some lack of resources. Just as the atoms have no will of their own, the Amoeba, being a sum of those atoms, doesn't have one either. It is a mere subject to those laws and to the effects they have on its structure. Now, consider the following, somewhat inductive reasoning. As Darwin puts it, primitive life forms gradually evolve into more complex structures. This is a slow, incremental process. It doesn't happen overnight. And as organisms become more and more complex, new functions appear as a combination of more primitive ones. At some point in this evolutionary chain, it becomes really hard to look at the system as a sum of its components. We rather tend to perceive it as a monolithic structure, acting as if it had a will of its own. We humans, for example, are endowed with very complex mental abilities. We are conscious, aware, able to empathize, to make decisions and to have second thoughts about them. But if we now, reverse the whole process, break the system into pieces, essentially speaking, are we so much different from an Amoeba? Are we really in control, here? Are we the ones pushing the buttons or are we in fact merely responding to the environment just as an Amoeba does? Is, therefore, everything determined by our structure (please note that I'm assuming memory to fall into this category), our chemical inner state and the external stimuli (like a biological state machine)? Definitely not an easy answer. I will, however, present some opinions that may (or may not) provide a partial answer. But first, this being a rather lengthy entry, let's take a small break and admire this little lady bug as it is climbing up this beautiful yellow flower. Do you think she might be just taking a morning walk? I wonder what's going on in her little mind. Autumn's coming, so I really hope she's ready for it OK. Back to our topic. Let's examine the following theoretical experiment. Take one person, who for tracking purposes, we will call person A. Person A, is a regular person. There's nothing special about its upbringing, about its structure or about its mental characteristics. Person A is representative for any human being out there. Place person A in a certain environment and ask him / her to take a decision regarding a specific issue. Person A makes a choice and acts according to that choice. Now, make an exact copy of person A, a copy that's identical to the original in terms of structure, memory, past experiences and so on. Moreover, person B does not know that she / he is a copy of person A. In other terms there is no difference between the original and the copy. We now place person B in the exact context person A was placed in. The environment is just the same. Humidity, air pressure, temperature, wind speed, and any other condition is just the same as in the initial experiment. Ask person B to make a decision regarding the exact same issue person A was asked to. The question is, will person B make the same decision as person A did? The most plausible answer would be yes. Given that they both are (do excuse the highly technical metaphor) a lump of molecules structured in exactly the same way, it seems to me, there would be absolutely no reason why their decision would be different. The atoms composing them will not act on their own. They will simply behave according to the laws of chemistry and since the external conditions are the same, it is reasonable to expect the same outcome. We could now ask ourselves whether such an experiment is even possible. Surely replicating a human being and the environmental conditions the experiment takes place in is not only hard, but probably impossible. Nevertheless it might be possible on a smaller scale. If, for example, instead of complex organic structures we would use more simple ones. Maybe even more primitive than Amoebas. So, according to the above experiment our response, our decision making might be determined. Maybe not necessarily predictable, but surely determined. There would also be no such thing as free will because we wouldn't be the ones actually making those choices in a conscious manner. This seems rather contradictory to way we perceive reality and the decision making process, which makes it all even harder to imagine. Given the fact that our mind is constantly monitoring our interaction with the real world, we are somehow living the illusion of being in control; that those decision are taken based on our free will. But this monitoring mechanism, itself is just a highly complex function consisting of basic building blocks which in turn consist of molecule structures and their chemical interaction. From a programmer's standpoint of view, the functions our brain provides can be compared to the services an operating system provides to a user. It runs on top of the hardware (neural network + other biological structures) and through complex mechanisms (similar to interrupts, maybe) provides the whole experience of being aware. The code that's being executed whenever an interrupt occurs is itself a sum of chemical reactions producing a desired result. There are procedures that are vital to our proper functioning (as are the ones controlling digestion, breathing, sight) and there are procedures that handle higher, more abstract needs. At this point the discussion hits a very interesting topic. If we wanted to build an artificial entity, would we be able to program it in such a way that its behavior resembled exactly the human behavior? If we would be able to do it, we would perhaps start from building some basic blocks and then combine them into more complex structures, giving thus birth to more complex functions, to the point where we reach our goal. So if this would be possible, I believe it would further prove the fact that us humans, are biological computers. We surely wouldn't like to be living in such a mechanical world. That's why, there is one strong argument that, from my point of view partially stands against this theory. Surprisingly (or not) it comes from quantum physics. Unlike classical physics, the physics of the macroscopic world, where every experiment happens the exact same way every single time (i.e. if you drop a weight to the ground and keep the conditions the same, it will always fall in the exact same manner every time) in quantum physics (i.e. the physics of the subatomic world) different outcomes for an experiment are possible. The reason is that at a subatomic level the world is so much different than the one we are used to. It's a realm of probability, where particles appear and disappear out of the blue, of matter and antimatter, of gluons, quarks, leptons and other such sub-atomic particles.What this means is that the subatomic world is a constant source of randomness. If this randomness is able to influence / propagate to the macroscopic world, then it would be reasonable to infer that there is randomness in complex macroscopic structures. That might influence the decision making process of person B and thus lead it to taking a different decision than the one previously taken by person A. If this is the case with human beings, then would it be reasonable to ask whether randomness is what might make an artificial entity truly intelligent? Well, maybe it would, but then again, wouldn't this randomness itself be nothing else but a cause determining our actions? Would it be enough to make free-will plausible? Are our minds, in fact affecting matter at a subatomic scale? (i.e. can our minds influence that randomness?) Or is everything just randomly determined? I really don't know. What do YOU think? (Comment on this)
Monday, August 11th, 2008
5:24 pm	Of bats and men So, I've just seen Batman - The Dark Knight. For, like... the third time For now. I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I'm a big Batman fan. No, wait, make that a HUGE Batman fan. Back to when I was just a child (yes, there actually was such a time), I used to have a costume that, to me at least, looked just like his. Needless to mention all the broken windows, acquired injuries and tormented friends that have resulted from the elaborate plots my childish mind was devising back then in order to fuel my heroic ambitions. Because to me, you see, I was saving the world. Or at least, some sort of imaginary world. I always loved the idea of a regular person who, in order to overcome his most inner fears (of bats, in his case), would take them, face them and turn them into a weapon against villains. For that is what, essentially, Batman is for me. Now, as far as the movie is concerned, I believe it to be one of the best movies in the Batman series. Interestingly, enough, it wasn't because of the storyline (as was the case with the previous Batman movie), neither was it because of the way he is portrayed or the special effects (which I can assure you, are abundant), but instead because of... *drums* Ledger's interpretation of Joker. Given the fact that Joker is one of the most liked (twisted world out there, eh?) of the Batman villains I was unsure whether Ledger would be able to convey the image I had of him. The pitfall, was overacting. That way we (i.e. me and a bunch of other Batman fans) could have ended up with a Joker that's either way too funny or psychotic. But guess what? Ledger got it just right. He IS Joker. You can tell that by the way he walks (when he walks out of the Gotham General hospital for example; or the scene on the roof of the Prewitt building just after he unleashes the dogs on Batman), by the way he talks (his first line in the movie is "What doesn't kill you, simply makes you... stranger"), by his attitude, make up and last, but not least, his voice. Of course the plot adds up so much to all these. Based on the idea that everybody, no matter how good, has a dark side and that, just like gravity, it sometimes only takes a small toss to make someone fall from the highest peaks of righteousness to the pits of evil , the plot provides the perfect circumstances for such a character to evolve. It's the interaction between Batman and Joker that kept me watching until the end (and believe me, I'm talking a 2h+ movie here). I'm really glad they're making all those movies based on comic books. They bring out from dusty shelves stories that speak of fictitious worlds in which people are not very different from the ones in our world. In which primitive desires turn good into evil. In which, in times of darkness, people need a hero to cling on. And if Batman is the hero of Gotham City, I'm sure our own hero lies in each and every one of us. So, until the next Batman movie comes out, stay safe, eat your greens and be your own hero. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
11:36 pm	He He knew he hadn't done this before. It wasn't because he had never thought about it in the past, but merely because he always believed it would be difficult. Previous attempts had proven this to be true and so, most of the times he would rather delay it than risk a failure. Trapped in the shadows of these thoughts, which he called his own, it felt as if they were inflicted upon him by someone living deep inside, at the very core of his being, playing him, out of a perverse sense of amusement, like a puppet on short strings. Time would soon add a certain touch of despair to this mute spectacle of foul play, aggravating his feelings of low self esteem and dragging him down that steep lane of thinking from which he knew there was no return. Ironically, with every new occasion, he kept trying to convince himself that this thing that had been tormenting him for as long as he could remember was, in fact, easy. That looking someone in the eyes, meeting their glances as they walk by him, that this problem of his was, as he called it, manageable. He fancied the word. He thought it brought a touch of importance to any sentence carrying it. But he knew, well enough, that words were of no use in his case. He knew well enough that he was merely deceiving himself; that he wanted to avoid the glint in their eyes at any cost; that he did it out of a desperate need to escape the feeling of intrusion which accompanied him every time he knew he was being looked at. He could never understand where this inner demon had come from, neither did he know how his entire being had so rapidly become soaked in disease. He only knew it was there, because it felt real, and that it was there to stay. But that evening, the strangest thing happened. Something not even the demon could have planned for. Shortly after the streetlamps blossomed in their stark yellow glow, flooding the gently falling darkness with much needed light, he was having his regular walk, the sound of his footsteps echoing upward from the cold, wet and empty sidewalk. Approaching in the distance was the faint silhouette of that which he immediately knew it carried the very essence of his turmoils: a human being. A faint feeling of numbness was now crawling down his spine, his balance became weaker, his look sank deeper and deeper until, eventually, it met the ground. As fear was seeping into him, steadily growing into certainty, he found himself reciting words from a litany against fear that he had once found in a book from his youth ... I shall not fear, for fear is the mind-killer, fear is the little death that brings total obliteration ... knowing all the time that he never meant those words as anything else but what they were: words. The shape ahead of him grew closer and closer, its features becoming clearer in the streetlight, until it was so close that if he wanted to, he could stretch his hand and touch it. But he didn't. It was only after it had walked past him that he felt it. The scent. One so exceptionally delicate and fine that it almost eluded his perception. Musk... A touch of cinnamon... Jasmine oil. All blended and soaked in honey and milk. Unmistakeably clear, yet delicate and fine. He knew it was the scent of a woman. He stopped with his numb senses now enveloped in the odor rolling on him like a soft ribbon and turned his head to look back in the direction the scent was coming from. There, he fond the young lady that had passed by him a few moments ago. She too had stopped and was now looking back at him with her gentle gaze. And as he was standing still in the cool, bright light of the musty night, looking at her as if they shared the same secret, he realized that the corners of his lips had curled upwards into a soft smile. One that he knew he had never worn before. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
4:34 pm	Gutenberg Galaxy - Where Do We Go from Here? A time of darkness, superstition, occult practices and secrecy. Written knowledge was, in those times, scarce, mainly in the possession of monasteries (which took great pride in boasting with their impressive libraries), and accessible to only a handful of learned people, usually monks or scholars. Books were expensive, hard/costly to duplicate and access to them was very limited. Information was spread by word of mouth. Moreover, given the very institutions which governed this empire (abbeys to be more precise), there were two types of knowledge: there was the knowledge that would spread the word of God and of the Holy Church, and which was considered good-knowledge and then there was the evil-knowledge that, if gathered, would stir doubts, passions, desires of unholy nature. Books conveying that type of knowledge would have to be either destroyed or kept away with access granted only to a small, trusted fraction of the educated few. Until... the Gutenberg moment. In a few centuries, books would become accessible, The Word would spread unhindered (despite futile attempts of those good-abiding institutions to stop 'evil' from reaching the uneducated) and thus, would shape and lever our society from a knowledge standpoint of view. As years have passed, books have become a commodity, people have since then, read and written (even more than they should have, according to some philosophers) millions and millions of miles of meaningful character strings to which we now simply refer as words. The only constraint a reader might still encounter is, not finding a certain book of interest in his/her local library. So, in some way, a certain degree of limitation (even though different in nature) in accessing information was still there. Until... the Internet moment. In what was to be no more than 40 years this amazing network of computers would literally bring knowledge to the click of a button. And just as books have, across so many centuries, eliminated the word of mouth as the natural way of passing on information, the Internet will, potentially, have the same impact on other means of communication. It would be possible that, in the near future, kingdoms of paper material will crumble under the sign of a digital empire. It is perhaps, just a matter of time and skepticism (which, statistically speaking is, after all, only natural). The truly deep question to be asked at this point is, not so much whether the Internet will prevail over other media of communication, but how will this impact our society as a whole? In order to answer this question, it would be useful to take a look at the present impact the Internet has on our society. For this I will name name but a few differences between real life interaction and online interaction. Over the Internet your offline ego is generally protected by anonymity and repudiation. That means that you don't have to tell people who you really are and you don't necessarily have to assume the consequences of your online deeds (as long as these don't break some law and the police finds out, of course). You could be 'a nick' posting your latest impressions on your online blog (which, incidentally, i kind of am), you could be spending time in a chat room bullying people around (which, I hope you're not), or other sort of activity that your heart might desire. It has all the advantages wearing a realistic concealing mask has in the 'real' world. An immediate consequence of this would be that the Internet could become a virtual society populated not so much by our real life social images (crafted by long established moral laws, etiquette, etc) but, instead, by our egos, our personal selves, our most intimate thoughts, our interior frustrations and desires. The pitfall of this is the possibility of transforming this society in a look at me type of culture. A culture in which individuals are dependent on approval, in which people are spending hours upon hours of work on carefully crafted profiles just to attract attention, effectively begging other people to watch them, kicking back/dismissing anything that would endanger or threaten their hard-earned online identity. In some sense this would no longer be a natural, organic, democratic society as the truth would belong to that individual who shouts the loudest. Given the abundance of social networking sites, the vast number of hi5 profiles (which never cease to amaze me), sites like Stickam where people spend their time live streaming moments of their ever-more-important daily existence trying to look as interesting as one possibly can, all those conflicts carried on online blogs in which the sole purpose would be to come with the best insult at hand (one that would make you look intelligent, nonetheless; never mind the fact that you're actually insulting), I ask you to ask yourselves: are we not there, already? (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 29th, 2008
2:56 am	This is not a pipe It is said that, when the tall European ships first approached the shores of South America, the native people could see the small boats the explorers landed in, but were unable to see the tall ships anchored offshore. The reason for this was that they hadn't seen a tall ship before so the image of a tall ship was impossible in their vision of reality and would thus be filtered by their perception. The shaman of the tribe, who was more open to the possibility of strange things, would eventually see the ships and point them out to the others until at last everybody could see them. Even though there is no reliable evidence to support the above story as a fact, I believe it is the starting point of a very interesting discussion which I'll only briefly touch in this post. I shall leave the reader to make his/her own reflections on this matter. For the noble purpose of this endeavor I shall ask you, the one reading these very words, to picture yourself as you are looking at the objects spread around your room. Beams of light coming from these objects hit your retina repeatedly, only to be transformed into a neural signal which, in turn, is interpreted by your brain. The end result of that interpretation is the fact that the brain will identify a concept and link it to the object in the real world. The whole process is rather sophisticated and could include several steps among which recognizing the shape of that object based on previously known shapes, placing it into perspective taking account of the distance between the viewer and the object, creating a mental map of the room, etc. It is natural to assume that all these steps are performed according to several hard coded rules. These rules stem from a long incremental process of learning which probably occurs in the early stages of our development. Acquiring new concepts, i.e. seeing an object that we didn't see before, might be accomplished by associating that particular object with a series of other concepts already known to the brain. The new concept will be thus defined by its relation to these other concepts. The concept of chair for example might be associated to the concepts of wood, roughness, yellow, edgy, four, etc, given that those concepts have been previously acquired. So each time we see a chair, unconsciously the brain will see all those concepts simultaneously. An immediate consequence of this would be that, to some degree, we will somehow associate everything the brain receives from the outside world with concepts. The fact that other people can actually 'see' those objects combined with the fact that we can actually receive feedback from those objects (by touching them for example) is the certification the brain needs to asses their validity, their existence. These concepts will in turn become the building blocks used in mental processes for creating new worlds or alternate realities. Take dreams for example. Sometimes they are so accurate in depicting real situations that our brain has to induce sleep paralysis to prevent the body from making any movements during REM sleep. So, even though dreams reside in what we would normally refer to as an imaginary world the dreaming experience seems genuinely real. Still not convinced? Take reading as another example. As our eyes move along a text, our brain will map words to concepts and use them to build visual images of what we're actually reading about. Or daydreaming, when the brain uses existing concepts to emulate wishful thinking. The world our brain 'sees' is therefore a world of concepts, no matter how real the living experience actually feels like. It is indeed hard to perceive words, images, sounds, everything that is meaningful in some way to us (ourselves included) as nothing more than hierarchies of concepts stored inside our brain. So many different relationships between those concepts, thus so many different people. That is why two persons can look over the same painting and see different images, that is why two poems might sound completely different when read by two different people, that is why there is such great diversity when it comes to music, sports, opinions and feelings. That is why, the picture below, is not a pipe, but the concept of a pipe residing solely inside our minds. Just think about it... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 17th, 2008
9:35 pm	Make the most of now The common mayfly has a life expectancy of just one day. But is he miserable about it? Not one bit. He fills his day with the things he loves. He soars... He swoops... He savors every moment... Maybe there is a lesson in this for us, longer living creatures. Just think: if we embrace life like the mayfly, what a life that would be! Comments: Perfect Ad! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 27th, 2007
7:46 am	Drama.jpg You will forgive me dear reader for the horrendous confession I'm about to make, the events of which have since terrified and come to destroy any sense of sanity I might have had left. It is impossible to say for how long had such an idea been rooting around in the drawers of my mind, until it popped out in the shape of a hydra-headed monster rushing upon the innocent object of its wrath: a lime. Yes, dear reader. Even though all my senses reject their own evidence, I have no other choice but to admit: I have killed a lime. As to the motive behind such a terrible deed, which I'm sure you'll do me the favor of keeping safe from the slip of tongue, I must confess it's rather dull: a photo shootout. Not of myself, even though that thought did cross my ego-centric mind for a second, but of the poor fruit which has been ruthlessly sacrificed for the mere pleasure of the eyes. And behold, ye, the results of such endeavor lay now barren, right beneath your very eyes and almost speak for themselves. Almost, if you get my drift. That is why I have also included a tag for each of them. Click! It will only cost you about 5 calories. Oh, and enjoy! Even though THAT... is an option. (Comment on this)
Monday, September 17th, 2007
8:50 pm	On Bravery and Distance Have a second and try to recall the last time when you said something offending to someone... Done? Ok. I bet you 10$ that he or she was someone you've seen on TV or maybe talked to on the Internet. Am I right? What do you mean I'm not? Oh well, sorry then, but I'm not going to give you 10$ just for that. If that doesn't suffice you, then go ahead and take 10$ from the people that lost them to me on that bet. I think the numbers are pretty even. Anyway, let me rephrase the bet in a somewhat more neutral form: the greater the distance between you and the person you're having a conflict with, the dirtier the language used. I've even made a diagram to illustrate just that. Have a look below! Yeah, I know it looks crappy, I made it look like that on purpose (lame excuse for poor drawing skills, don't u think?). Figure 1. Really crappy diagram relating bravery to distance As you can see in the above attempt-of-a-diagram, the more you travel along the X axis (a.k.a the more the distance between you and other people increases) the higher you climb the Y axis (a.k.a the braver you are). That is, we are very brave in speaking badly of people we don't agree with when we see them on TV, than we are when we're talking to them on the phone. Similarly, we might be telling more lies over the phone than we would if we were standing next to them in the real world. Notice, I said real world. It's funny such a term should even exist since there is no other world but the real world. The one we can perceive with our senses. Even this very text that you're now reading resides as particles of ferrum oxides oriented under a magnetic field on some hard drive, which i assure you is as real as real can get. Apparently we've created a world of reality and a world of concepts and the two of them get mingled together in our perception of things in such a degree that you end up not knowing where one ends and where the other begins. You end up refraining from speaking out your thoughts because the distance you need in order to feel safe has been breached. You feel open... You feel exposed. Speaking of which, have you considered where you draw your own safety distance line? (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 9th, 2007
11:46 pm	"L'enfer c'est les autres" . . . or as one might have it in Shakespeare's mother tongue, "Hell is other people". I really can't say I'm particularly fond of such exhibits of great words of wisdom often spreading along several page wide rows. On the contrary: most of them sound pretty dull and much like empty words to me. I never liked mottos and never was a big fan of quotations either. But this one, which is attributed to Jean Paul Sartre, has really gotten my attention. I'm sure there are lots and lots of interpretations that can be found for these 4 words, but my personal take on it is that it speaks about labels and their consequences. So bear with me if you have some spare time at hand. I personally believe that there is no such thing as born-talent. Or to be more precise, the genetic factors involved in establishing how talented one is, play a minor role in this matter. That's why I'd like to believe that anybody can be anything he/she wants (but perhaps even more easily become what she/he doesn't want). And this is where other people come into play. I think that nobody will argue if I said that human beings need certainties in their lives in order to feel safe. (Why are we here? Who are we?) Some are found along the way (a.k.a our life) and some are never answered. But in order to establish a pseudo-sense of certainty (sorry for the mumbo-jumbo fancy words) we invented labels. Take astrological signs for example. What's yours in particular? Oh, Cancer. Then surely you must be sentimental, romantic and maybe an introvert. See? I already know more about you, and this kinda makes me feel safe (even though it's not necessarily perceivable as a conscious thought) Not convinced? Take sexuality as another example. People feel anxious about sexual identity. It's something we like to believe it's biologically fixed. Like eye color or height. The merely fact of it being in question is considered very threatening and will probably get you frowned eyebrows or at least down-curled lips. And when people start labeling you, they do it so that they know and avoid you if you're not compatible with their vision on life (remember how prostitutes were marked with a red hot iron in the Middle Ages just so that people could tell them apart?). How do all these blend in together? Well, if you wish you'd become a good painter, or a good dancer, or perhaps an actor, and people beside you wouldn't believe in your dreams but would, instead, shatter them, leaving you with nothing else but the bare and cruel reality, then it's very probable you'll end up believing that you'll never be just that. Maybe the process is not as straightforward as i am laying it out here, but the very fact that someone doubts your abilities to perform, raises at least an inner question of the "can it be true" type. It's only a matter of how many people tell you that, or how many times you hear it before you begin losing confidence in yourself. Are you a visionary? Oh, sorry, vision is scary (thank you Eminem for this one). Even though we are living the interesting times in which science breaks down barrier after barrier of conformist thinking, in which the dark veil of myth and speculation seems to fade out as we gather more knowledge about our surrounding world, in which this mega-super-computer called universe seems to obey rules of a cruel and cold formalism, it is now, more than ever, that we need visionaries among us. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 6th, 2007
2:23 pm	Medi Tation You've come here, to move through time and through space. Allow the eyes to genlty close. Smile your very best smile. Swallow the smile down into your heart and let the heart smile back at you. And there's a warm and a welcoming feeling. Joy, without end... Grace, beauty, laughter... The deep knowing of the wise being that you are. And the golden glow that comes from your heart comes from a golden flower. Use the gold light from the center of the flower like a sun beam and beam it onto those petals and wake them up. There is a second path that's very personal and this is to step inside the perl itself. Because if you step inside the perl, you could find out who you are. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 30th, 2007
2:47 am	Bad == good? One of the reasons I sometimes hate a particular movie (except for the ones i'm not smart enough to understand) is because of what I call "a perverted sense of justice". In a nutshell, this means that a bad guy is the "bad guy" due to his evil deeds (like when he destroys a dam, or perhaps the moon, or God knows what other mischievous plans might arise from the depths of a diabolical mind), whereas the good guy remains a good guy despite a few evil deeds. The latter are supposedly minor and committed in the name of a greater sense of good and therefore seem pardonable and even ignorable. Yes, Lucky Luke or Rambo, this post is about you. And since we're at it, let me ask you: how many evil deeds do we have to count until you change your status from a hero to a bad guy? A hundred? A thousand? How much is enough? I personally can't believe in a character endowed with those kinds of "assets". That's why, for as long as I can remember, instead of falling for what I label as a "fake" positive character, I was and still am a big fan of the bad guys. It's the cold-blood-lizard-like figure of Anthony Hopkins as seen in Hannibal, or the cunning intelligence of Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son, or perhaps the primitive instincts of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, that I fall for. They give us the possibility of being (in a harmless way) everything that we normally can't and shouldn't be in a normal and decent society. And let us keep it that way, shall we? I would probably hate to live in a world in which evil turns out victorious in the end (even though I'm not sure whether or not we're all already living in that world). So no more Spiderman for me, no more Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins and no more Pinocchio. You're all OFF of my Christmas presents list! Oh, oook, Batman... You can stay. Yes, you too Simpson :) (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 11th, 2007
4:14 pm	Average... "Consider the nature of a beautiful woman... The nose of a somewhat average shape... The dimension between her eyes gloriously average... Distance from nose tip to chin dimple average perfection... Now, if each feature in every respect is exquisitely average than we call that woman beautiful... Thus the trick that nature plays upon mankind and the artist is to reveal the average as... breathtaking." :) (Comment on this)