You are awesome, baby boy!
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
heavenly minds?
So I was reading something unrelated about the Singularity this morning and that made me think of something else which then made me think of...heaven.
What I'm curious about today may be of no interest to most folks out there, as it may seem a bit abstruse (or conversely may seem ridiculously simplistic)...is there a massive, expansive change in our "consciousness" at death, according to the religions that suggest the existence of a possible heavenly afterlife?
Where I stumble a little in my thought tumbler on this one is the perspective that a massive change in consciousness could effectively make you a different person (maybe "identity" or "personality" is a better word to capture the incorporeal persistent conceptualization of "you") - you see, because there must be a "you" remaining in some sense to enjoy heaven (or undergo punishment in hell), but if that after-life version of you is essentially a different person, does that not introduce a problematic disconnect?
I'm going to try an analogy, with full knowledge that analogies never work [NTTATS]: While it is common to hold campaigning politicians accountable for things they said, did, or promoted during their adult career years, I have never seen such a person excoriated for something they did when 5 years old...and I think the rationale driving that disconnect is that the "child" is essentially (in terms of consciousness) not the same person as the "adult".
OK, this may be a stub of a thought but I have to get to some other stuff this morning.
What I'm curious about today may be of no interest to most folks out there, as it may seem a bit abstruse (or conversely may seem ridiculously simplistic)...is there a massive, expansive change in our "consciousness" at death, according to the religions that suggest the existence of a possible heavenly afterlife?
Where I stumble a little in my thought tumbler on this one is the perspective that a massive change in consciousness could effectively make you a different person (maybe "identity" or "personality" is a better word to capture the incorporeal persistent conceptualization of "you") - you see, because there must be a "you" remaining in some sense to enjoy heaven (or undergo punishment in hell), but if that after-life version of you is essentially a different person, does that not introduce a problematic disconnect?
I'm going to try an analogy, with full knowledge that analogies never work [NTTATS]: While it is common to hold campaigning politicians accountable for things they said, did, or promoted during their adult career years, I have never seen such a person excoriated for something they did when 5 years old...and I think the rationale driving that disconnect is that the "child" is essentially (in terms of consciousness) not the same person as the "adult".
OK, this may be a stub of a thought but I have to get to some other stuff this morning.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
curriculum vittles
I have heard that the blank page is one of the most stressful things to confront, but I would suggest that page holding a draft of one's resume can offer much more anxiety.
Is there anything more depressing than an honestly written resume? Or is that just me?
Is there anything more depressing than an honestly written resume? Or is that just me?
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
the manual process
How often do highly complicated systems rely on some level of manual processes?
Or how about this: how often do highly evolved models (used for valuation or forecasting or decision support) incorporate highly subjective data?
In my experience, both of the above happen far more often than one might assume. I find this situation unsettles me. Our society derives much comfort from "systems", and yet very often the efficacy of a given system is highly sensitive to, potentially, one person's subjective input and/or one person's manual manipulation of relevant data.
On a somewhat related topic, how often does "success" in business or life come from non-intentional actions? Stories like the invention of Post-It Note glue being an accident that someone realized could be re-positioned as a new product in it's own right speak to this thought I'm having...
Or how about this: how often do highly evolved models (used for valuation or forecasting or decision support) incorporate highly subjective data?
In my experience, both of the above happen far more often than one might assume. I find this situation unsettles me. Our society derives much comfort from "systems", and yet very often the efficacy of a given system is highly sensitive to, potentially, one person's subjective input and/or one person's manual manipulation of relevant data.
On a somewhat related topic, how often does "success" in business or life come from non-intentional actions? Stories like the invention of Post-It Note glue being an accident that someone realized could be re-positioned as a new product in it's own right speak to this thought I'm having...
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Are we being myopic?
I'm going to forward the premise that for all of human history until the last ~ 100 years, the presence of some visible body fat was a widely accepted indication of both health and wealth. And now we elevate for acclaim body shapes that would have (historically) been signifiers of malnourishment.
Don't get me wrong - I understand that there are many robust studies linking high percentages of body fat to increased rates of heart disease and stroke - but there also seems to be ongoing controversy and debate as what the optimal diet is for folks (or even if there is one optimal diet for all folks).
The last three decades of "low fat" diets seems now to have only pushed people to eating other foods with high energy density, such as high sugar and high carbohydrate options.
I know that several of my regular readers will have immediate and strong reactions to this suggestion, but I keep returning to the idea of a diet based on a pre-industrialization supply of foods. Let me explain:
My theory runs that there is an ideal mix of those three macro-nutrient categories (fats, proteins, and carbs) that in their most "naturally" occurring forms will gives us the best basis for a healthy diet.
Industrialization and science have allowed us efficiently to separate those macro-nutrients into "convenient" and concentrated forms mostly divorced from their original source. Think of orange juice versus oranges: the amount of fruit sugars a person can consume in a single glass of OJ at breakfast may be equivalent to the juice content of 3 - 4 oranges; had that same person sat down to eat those oranges, the experience of peeling and eating, along with the consumption of the fibrous bits, would likely have limited the overall take of those fruit sugars (also, the fiber consumed would affect the processing of those sugars.)
The same effects appear on the fats side; butter and olive oil and frying oils separate naturally occurring fats from their context, allowing for incredible concentrations at the election of the food prep person.
Proteins seem a little more difficult to separate in this way unless you are willing to drink muscle builder shakes or eat "protein bars", but the idea holds in general that we have attempted to carve out the protein components to dial in to a much more targeted consumption.
It's at this point in the discussion that the "whole foods" folks chime in that their philosophy proceeds from these ideas, that consuming whole and / or minimally processed foods (mostly fruits and veggies) addresses the need for macro-nutrients in context. And I agree.
But I also wonder sometimes about our modern ability to source any food we want in huge quantities and with relatively little effort. I think about the current craze for fish proteins and fish oils, and I compare our access at the grocery store to some intense fish diet culture who historically devoted considerable energy resources to finding, catching, cleaning, and cooking those fish. I think about the pile of avocados at my local grocery, definitely grown and harvested and transported from a great distance, and yet I can take in that concentrated load of healthy fat and fiber in 10 minutes and for an all-in investment of $2-$3.
I'm realizing now that this is going long and rambly...I'll cut it off with a final comment that I want to eat more foods with healthy chunks of naturally occurring fats, proteins, and carbs.
Don't get me wrong - I understand that there are many robust studies linking high percentages of body fat to increased rates of heart disease and stroke - but there also seems to be ongoing controversy and debate as what the optimal diet is for folks (or even if there is one optimal diet for all folks).
The last three decades of "low fat" diets seems now to have only pushed people to eating other foods with high energy density, such as high sugar and high carbohydrate options.
I know that several of my regular readers will have immediate and strong reactions to this suggestion, but I keep returning to the idea of a diet based on a pre-industrialization supply of foods. Let me explain:
My theory runs that there is an ideal mix of those three macro-nutrient categories (fats, proteins, and carbs) that in their most "naturally" occurring forms will gives us the best basis for a healthy diet.
Industrialization and science have allowed us efficiently to separate those macro-nutrients into "convenient" and concentrated forms mostly divorced from their original source. Think of orange juice versus oranges: the amount of fruit sugars a person can consume in a single glass of OJ at breakfast may be equivalent to the juice content of 3 - 4 oranges; had that same person sat down to eat those oranges, the experience of peeling and eating, along with the consumption of the fibrous bits, would likely have limited the overall take of those fruit sugars (also, the fiber consumed would affect the processing of those sugars.)
The same effects appear on the fats side; butter and olive oil and frying oils separate naturally occurring fats from their context, allowing for incredible concentrations at the election of the food prep person.
Proteins seem a little more difficult to separate in this way unless you are willing to drink muscle builder shakes or eat "protein bars", but the idea holds in general that we have attempted to carve out the protein components to dial in to a much more targeted consumption.
It's at this point in the discussion that the "whole foods" folks chime in that their philosophy proceeds from these ideas, that consuming whole and / or minimally processed foods (mostly fruits and veggies) addresses the need for macro-nutrients in context. And I agree.
But I also wonder sometimes about our modern ability to source any food we want in huge quantities and with relatively little effort. I think about the current craze for fish proteins and fish oils, and I compare our access at the grocery store to some intense fish diet culture who historically devoted considerable energy resources to finding, catching, cleaning, and cooking those fish. I think about the pile of avocados at my local grocery, definitely grown and harvested and transported from a great distance, and yet I can take in that concentrated load of healthy fat and fiber in 10 minutes and for an all-in investment of $2-$3.
I'm realizing now that this is going long and rambly...I'll cut it off with a final comment that I want to eat more foods with healthy chunks of naturally occurring fats, proteins, and carbs.
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