January, 2008
16 posts under this date.
I’d rather be me, right now, right here —an upper middle class 22-year-old male Mexican in Guadalajara—, than any other human —emperor, king, sultan, noble, philosopher, artist, scientist, genius,...— from any time before, any place. We have been humans for some 15 thousands years and there’s no time past I’d rather be at.
I don’t mean this as some outburst of excitement, it’s just a calm realization that downed on me a while ago, out of the blue—a surprising measure of the reality of progress, the splendor of the present, the promise of the future.
Speaking of dogs, I wonder: if a dog is just about to be ran over by a car and you suddenly save her, would she be aware she almost became roadkill? Would she be shaken afterwards, replaying endlessly in her mind what could have just happened? Would she be grateful? Would she even understand what you just did for her? Could that be as life changing a moment for her as it could be for a person?
More than the past, the present, or the future, our true home as humans is the could. Even more, it is only by reflecting in it the past, the present, and the future that we can see them clearly. A near-death experience—an unhappening in other words—could well be a turning point in our lives, rearranging in one fell swoop our past, present and future. Could matters to us, its phantasmagoria walks among us, and it is or, fittingly, could be, a major component of every single issue that we care about.
Consider abortion
One important problem with it is that even if you don’t consider an early fetus alive or aware, by impeding its growth you’re stumping the future possibility of a very alive and aware being. What are the rights of the inhabitants of could? The ingredients of a cake don’t make a cake until mixed and baked but how can a human not look at flour, eggs, and butter and not see the cake?
Consider sex
Imagine we come up with something to prevent absolutely all STDs and unwanted pregnancies (we ain’t far). Would you still think of sex as something sacred? Would premarital sex or promiscuity still strike you as taboo? Would whores or pedophilia or incest still shock you? Would you consider sex as just one more source of meaning and pleasure, like, say, food? Next time you are shocked by something sexual consider this and realize how much of your shock hinges on pregnancy and STD considerations.
Consider death
What if, as has become increasingly likely the more we learn about biology and our bodies, we could stop it or at least hold it at bay much, much longer? What if we could reverse aging? Doesn’t that possibility merit our consideration? Shouldn’t helping this research or at least knowing about it be one of our top priorities? Who among the death scarred won’t cry could tears if the day comes when it becomes clear that death is not only defeatable but could have been defeated—should have been defeated—decades, centuries ago?
Could matters.
Aristotle famously said that the mark of an educated mind was being able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Personally, I think the mark of an educated mind is to be able to entertain unrealities and see how they matter to reality, to be able to act and think dreams with open eyes.
(It is, by the way, my fascination with could that makes me a fan of science fiction and fantasy—could’s official literatures. Even more than sensawunda I crave sensacould.)
Una sociedad es subdesarrollada cuando no es ella quien sabe mas sobre si misma, sino que hay otros pueblos que la conocen mejor.
Marcelino Cereijido, Laura Reinking, La ignorancia debida
A society is underdeveloped when it’s not her who knows more about herself, when other countries know her better.
The words came to mind when I was looking for a great Mexican restaurant around town (figured better late than never to get to know my city!) and by far the best online resources I found where English-language Frommer’s and Fodor’s.
I ended up going to Sacromonte and it was excellent. Interestingly, I ate some of the best Mexican food this city has to offer surrounded by foreigners.
I’ve been meaning to learn me some physics since forever and I think I’ve finally found the right textbook in Motion Mountain: a beautiful, massive (1498 pages!), free book on physics.
The brainchild of one Christoph Schiller, after some 17 years it’s in its 21st edition (though still unfinished!) and has been enriched by the suggestions and contributions of the web community. Elegantly type-set, full of multimedia (graphs, photos, animations, tables, videos), problems, experiments, and excellent quotations (in the original Latin, Greek, German or French), the book covers pretty much the whole of physics with a passionate, philosophical approach (there’s a whole subchapter on language and many a Wittgenstein quotation!). Forget condescending, dull textbooks, this is one man who thinks (and argues! see subchapter 39) that “exploring physics is more fun than making love” (“Sex is the physics urge sublimated.”).
Truly breathtaking. One of the best web finds in quite some time. Download the book and flip through it just to marvel at one’s man labor of love.
From Nick Bostrom’s Golden—a fictional interview of Albert, an uploaded dog. His cheeriness and good disposition are attributed to his being a golden retriever. His wisdom I attribute to Bostrom, who’s one fascinating philosopher (don’t miss the fable of the dragon tyrant!).
Larry King: What are your plans for the future?
Albert: I take one day at a time. I enjoy learning new things, playing games and talking with my friends. I just love being alive and savoring every new experience. It is so exciting and so much fun! I love it all so much, I wish it will never end!
Larry King: Do you even wonder about how you came to be so lucky?
Albert: Yes, I once asked Dr. Cole about that, and he said there was no scientific answer. Then I asked if there was an unscientific answer? And he said: “Well, there will be if you make one up”.
So then I went away and thought about that for while. I thought about Laika, the unlucky dog that they sent up into space, and all the other dogs that never became famous. I thought about the rabbits in the animal labs, the pet rabbits, and the rabbits in the wild. Then I thought about the foxes that ate the rabbits and the hounds that hunted the foxes. Then I thought about all the humans, and how some had been kings and some had been slaves; how some had had families and loved ones, and how some had died alone in the cold. And again I asked myself, how come I had been a lucky one? But I couldn’t think of any answer. Not even an unscientific one.
Larry King: (pause) Do feel that you have a mission?
Albert: I want everyone to be the lucky one.
This has to be one of the best sex interfaces ever. Breathtaking:
So all these animals, having left the sea, solved the problems of moving around and breathing air in their own differing ways. But there was another difficulty, mating. In the sea, animals need only release their eggs and sperm and the water mixed the two together. On dry land that couldn’t happen, even for the most moisture-loving of creatures. An individual slug carries both male and female organs. But even then, that was of no help. Each had to both give and receive. Somehow or other, pairs of individuals had to get together and the ways the have evolved in which to do so are quite extraordinary. Indeed, some of them are almost beyond imagining.
The leopard slug, you might think, has the simplest of habits. Maybe, but not when it comes to mating. When an individual is looking for a partner it give its trail of slime a special taste that advertises the fact. Another, if it feels the same way, will detect the invitation and start to follow. The pursuer, to confirm that it’s there and it’s ready to mate, gives the pursued a nibble. The leader heads upwards. An overhand is what’s neeeded. The underside of a branch will do very nicely. The two start to circle one another more and more closely until they entwine. For an hour or so they continue to wind themselves around one another. Then, suddenly, the pair releases their hold on the branch and start to slide downwards on a rope of mucus.
Now, in midair, they move to the next stage in their pairing. Each everts its male organ from just behind its head. These grow longer and longer. Then they, too, begin to entwine. They fan out to form a translucent, flower-like globe. And now, at last, sperm passes from one slug to another. The transfer is complete. Each has been fertilized.
Finally, their strange, balletic relationship comes to an end… with a bump.
There are now almost a quarter of a thousand tags densely covering every single post I’ve written since February 8, 2006. Hopefully, these will mean a better related posts, better serendipity. The categories themselves should also be a nice way to navigate around the archives. Among the many new categories, there were many surprises, like questions, arguments, rain, touching, or three, and there were many, many long overdue ones, like interesting people, inspiration, introductions, sex, symbols, ethics, venting, transhumanism, or experiments.
After commenting, you can now choose to be notified by email of new comments to the post. This is long overdue and the hope is it will keep conversations alive. You don’t need to comment to subscribe by email to a post’s comments, you can subscribe right through the new form at the beginning of the comment section. Finally, you can now subscribe by email to the posts themselves, to all of them or only the favorites, and even just to a weekly digest (sent on Sundays). The subscription form is right below the ELZR logo. These should be an easier way to keep track of this blog than RSS (which a surprising amount of people still don’t have the foggiest idea about).
La cultura del terror/4
Fue en un colegio de curas, en Sevilla. Un ninho de nueve anhos, o diez, estaba confesando sus pecados por vez primera. El ninho confeso que habia robado caramelos, o que habia mentido a la mama, o que habia copiado al vecino de pupitre, o quiza confeso que se habia masturbado pensando en la prima. Entonces, desde la oscuridad del confesionario emergio la mano del cura, que blandia una cruz de bronce. El cura obligo al ninho a besar a Jesus crucificado, y mientras le golpeaba la boca con la cruz, le decia:
—Tu lo mataste, tu lo mataste…
Julio Velez era aquel ninho andaluz arrodillado. Han pasado muchos anhos. El nunca pudo arrancarse eso de la memoria.
Eduardo Galeano, El libro de los abrazos
The culture of terror/4
It happened on a school run by priests, in Sevilla. A boy of nine years, or ten, was confessing his sins for the first time. The boy confessed he had stolen caramels, or that he had lied to mother, or that he had copied from the neighboring desk, or maybe he confessed he had masturbated thinking on his girl cousin. Then, from the darkness of the confessional emerged the hand of the priest, brandishing a bronze cross. The priest forced the boy to kiss the crucified Jesus, and while he punched his mouth with the cross, he said:
— You killed him, you killed him…
Julio Velez was that knelt Andalusian boy. Many years have passed. He could never tear that from his memory.
Put the effort. ”An overemphasis on intellect or talent—and the implication that such traits are innate and fixed—leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unmotivated to learn.” That, in a sentence, is Scientific American’s excellent The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. It’s really some of the best life advice you can get (intelligence is just a nice case example).
The result plays out in children like Jonathan, who coast through the early grades under the dangerous notion that no-effort academic achievement defines them as smart or gifted. Such children hold an implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving to learn seem far less important than being (or looking) smart. This belief also makes them see challenges, mistakes and even the need to exert effort as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to improve. And it causes them to lose confidence and motivation when the work is no longer easy for them.
Praising children’s innate abilities, as Jonathan’s parents did, reinforces this mind-set, which can also prevent young athletes or people in the workforce and even marriages from living up to their potential. On the other hand, our studies show that teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in school and in life.
[The other test group], meanwhile, focused on fixing errors and honing their skills. One [schoolchildren] advised himself: “I should slow down and try to figure this out.” Two schoolchildren were particularly inspiring. One, in the wake of difficulty, pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips and said, “I love a challenge!” The other, also confronting the hard problems, looked up at the experimenter and approvingly declared, “I was hoping this would be informative!” Predictably, the students with this attitude outperformed their cohorts in these studies.
In the growth mind-set classes, students read and discussed an article entitled “You Can Grow Your Brain.” They were taught that the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger with use and that learning prompts neurons in the brain to grow new connections. From such instruction, many students began to see themselves as agents of their own brain development. Students who had been disruptive or bored sat still and took note. One particularly unruly boy looked up during the discussion and said, “You mean I don’t have to be dumb?”
It’s a tough call, distinguishing talent from effort. Intimidation and discourage further muddle the waters. But the question is rather whether or not you want to get better. Talented or not, you will not get magically better without effort. Talented or not, you will get better with effort.
So rub your hands together, smack those lips, and join that wonderfully ridiculous schoolboy: “I love me a challenge!”
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