tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41795330947307419152024-03-07T20:50:37.983-08:00Dr. Caco's notesDr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-45257731299796658952020-07-11T05:49:00.001-07:002020-07-11T06:00:45.591-07:00Altazor, Canto II ... in English<p>One of the most beautiful poems ever written in Spanish is Altazor by Vicente Huidobro. I really love it and feel identified with its beauty and from time to time I love to share it with friends, particularly, the Canto II, a truly amazing love poem. Last week I wanted to share it with someone who does not speak Spanish whatsoever but English, so I tried to find a good translation in the internet. It became evident that there is only a couple of translations that I didn't quite like, but hey, is a Huidobro's poem and any attempt of translation is epic. I decided to try doing it by myself and I believe the result is acceptable... I have decided to share it here, so it is available for free to English speaking people, I hope you enjoy it as I do every time I read it.
</p>
<p>
Canto II<br/>
<br/>
Woman, the world is furnished by your eyes.<br/>
The sky goes higher when you are here,<br/>
the earth extends from rose to rose<br/>
and the air extends from dove to dove.<br/>
<br/>
When you go away, you leave a star in your stead.<br/>
You drop your lights like the passing ship<br/>
while my haunted song follows you,<br/>
like a faithful and melancholic serpent.<br/>
And you turn your head from behind a sun.<br/>
<br/>
What battle is waged in the space?<br/>
Those spears of light among planets,<br/>
reflection of merciless armors.<br/>
What bloodthirsty star does not want to give way?<br/>
Where are you, sad night walker?<br/>
Giver of infinity<br/>
who walks in the forest of dreams?<br/>
<br/>
Here I am, lost between deserted seas<br/>
Alone like the feather, falling from a night bird.<br/>
Here I am in a tower of cold<br/>
sheltered by the memory of your maritime lips,<br/>
the memory of your surrender and your hair.<br/>
Bright and unleashed, like mountain rivers.<br/>
Were you going to be blind so God gave you those hands?<br/>
I am asking you again.<br/>
<br/>
The crossbow of your eyebrows tensed for your eyes’ weapons,<br/>
in the winged triumphant offensive, reassured with flower pride.<br/>
The beaten rocks speak to you on my behalf,<br/>
the waves of heaven-less birds speak to you on my behalf,<br/>
the colour of landscapes without wind speak to you on my behalf,<br/>
the flock of silent sheep speak to you on my behalf.<br/>
Asleep in your memory,<br/>
the exposed stream speak to you on my behalf.<br/>
The surviving grass bound to adventure,<br/>
adventure of light and blooded horizon.<br/>
Without more covering than a withering flower<br/>
if there is a bit of wind.<br/>
<br/>
The plains are lost under your frail grace.<br/>
The world is lost under your visible pace<br/>
because everything is not real when you appear<br/>
with your dangerous light,<br/>
innocent harmony without fatigue nor oblivion.<br/>
Fragment of a tear that rolls inwards,<br/>
built with proud fear and silence.<br/>
You make time and heaven doubt<br/>
with instincts of infinity.<br/>
Away from you everything is mortal.<br/>
You send agony throughout a night-humbled earth.<br/>
Only what thinks about you tastes like eternity.<br/>
<br/>
Here is your star passing by<br/>
with your breathing of distant fatigues,<br/>
with your gesturing and your way of walking,<br/>
with the magnetic space greeting you,<br/>
keeping us separated like night-leagues<br/>
<br/>
Yet I warn you, we are sewn<br/>
to the same star.<br/>
We are sewn by the same music stretching<br/>
from one to the other.<br/>
By the same giant shadow shaken like a tree.<br/>
Let’s be that piece of heaven,<br/>
that fragment where the mysterious adventure unfolds.<br/>
The planet’s adventure that explodes in dream petals.<br/>
<br/>
You would try in vain to escape my voice<br/>
and to climb over the walls of my praises.<br/>
We are sewn by the same star,<br/>
you are tied to the nightingale of moons,<br/>
which has a sacred ritual in its throat.<br/>
<br/>
The night’s signs, their roots and funeral echoes in my chest<br/>
don’t matter to me.<br/>
I don’t care about the shinning enigma<br/>
or the signs shedding lights on the randomness.<br/>
I don’t care about those islands traveling in chaos, without destiny, towards my eyes.<br/>
I don’t care about the flower-like fear in the void.<br/>
I don’t care about the name of the emptiness,<br/>
the name of the infinite desert,<br/>
or the will and randomness they represent.<br/>
And if in that desert every star is the desire for sanctuary,<br/>
alas! flags of premonition and death.<br/>
<br/>
I’ve got my own atmosphere within your breath.<br/>
The mighty security of your gaze with its intimate constellations.<br/>
With your own seeded language,<br/>
your bright forehead, like one of God’s ring.<br/>
Stronger that everything in heaven’s flora,<br/>
without the restless universe’s whirlpools,<br/>
like a horse due to its shadow upon the air.<br/>
<br/>
I’m asking you again:<br/>
were you going to be mute, so God gave you those eyes?<br/>
<br/>
I have your voice for every defense,<br/>
that voice that comes from you as heartbeats.<br/>
That voice in which the eternity falls<br/>
and breaks into fragments of phosphorescent spheres.<br/>
<br/>
What would be life if you were not born?<br/>
A comet without a cloak dying of cold.<br/>
<br/>
I found you like a tear in a forgotten book.<br/>
With your sensitive name from before my chest.<br/>
Your name made from the doves’ noise, flying.<br/>
You bring with you the memory of other, higher life,<br/>
from a god found somewhere.<br/>
And deep inside yourself you remember it was you<br/>
the ancient bird in the poet’s key.<br/>
<br/>
I dream a submerged dream.<br/>
Your tied hair makes the day,<br/>
your untied hair makes the night.<br/>
Life is beheld in the oblivion.<br/>
Only your eyes are alive in the world,<br/>
the only unstoppable planetary system.<br/>
Serene skin, anchored in heights,<br/>
devoid of all webs and tricks.<br/>
In its force of self-absorbed light,<br/>
behind you, life is afraid<br/>
because you are the depth in everything.<br/>
The world becomes majestic when you pass.<br/>
Falling tears from heaven can be heard<br/>
and you erase the sleepy soul,<br/>
the bitterness of being alive.<br/>
The orb becomes lighter on the back.<br/>
<br/>
My happiness is hearing the sound of the wind within your hair<br/>
(I recognize such noise from the distance).<br/>
When the boats capsize and the river drags tree trunks,<br/>
you are a flesh lamp in the storm<br/>
with your hair unleashed in the wind.<br/>
Happiness is seeing you alone on the world’s divan,<br/>
like the hand of a sleepy princess<br/>
with your eyes evoking a piano of fragrances.<br/>
A paroxysmal drink,<br/>
a flower no longer fragrant.<br/>
Your eyes hypnotize the solitude,<br/>
like the wheel that continues spinning after the catastrophe.<br/>
<br/>
My happiness is looking at you when you listen.<br/>
Such beam of light walking towards the bottom of the water<br/>
and you stay motionless for a long time.<br/>
So many stars going through the sea’s sieve.<br/>
Therefore nothing has a similar emotion,<br/>
neither a mast begging for wind,<br/>
nor a blind airplane feeling the infinite,<br/>
nor the emaciated dove sleeping on a sorrow,<br/>
nor the rainbow with sealed wings,<br/>
more beautiful than a verse’s parable.<br/>
The parable laid in a nocturne bridge from soul to soul.<br/>
<br/>
Born in every place I put my eyes,<br/>
with a raised head<br/>
and all the hair in the wind.<br/>
<br/>
You are more beautiful than the cry of a stallion in the mountain,<br/>
more beautiful than the siren of a ship yielding all its soul,<br/>
more beautiful than a lighthouse in the fog trying to find someone to save,<br/>
more beautiful than a swallow pierced by the wind.<br/>
You are the sound of the sea in summer,<br/>
you are the sound of a full street, full of admiration.<br/>
<br/>
My glory is in your eyes,<br/>
dressed in your eyes’ luxury and their inner shinning.<br/>
I am seated in the most sensitive corner of your gaze,<br/>
under the static silence of motionless eyelashes.<br/>
An omen is coming from the bottom of your eyes<br/>
and an oceanic wind curls your pupils.<br/>
<br/>
Nothing compares to this seeded legend left by your presence.<br/>
Nothing compares to that voice searching for a dead sun rather than coming back to life.<br/>
Your voice sets an empire in the space<br/>
and that hand raising on you as if you were going to hang suns in the air.<br/>
And that glare writing words in the infinite<br/>
and that head bending to listen a murmur in the eternity<br/>
and that foot, which is the party of chained roads<br/>
and those eyelids where the ether’s sparks strand themselves<br/>
and that kiss swelling the prow of your lips<br/>
and that smile like the banner at the front of your life<br/>
and that secret driving your chest’s tides,<br/>
sleeping in the shadow of your bosom.<br/>
<br/>
If you were going to die,<br/>
the stars, despite of their switched-on light<br/>
would lose their path.<br/>
What would happen to the universe?<br/></p>Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-65903822011722558942015-06-28T04:01:00.001-07:002015-06-28T04:01:42.238-07:00ContinuityIndeed there is an element of continuity with the past in every single aspect of modern life even if we don't noticed. In many cases, this can be tracked clearly way back, in many others, the actual connection is usually forgotten by most of us, generating the idea that something is supposedly new or random.
Let's talk about something supposely random... anyone knows what is the standard train gauge? It happens to be exactly four feet and eight inches! It is also a perfectly reasonable width in its context, back from the time of the train development: in the begining carriages began to be made by.... horse carriage builders! The natural width to then use was the width of the standard horse carriage... rounded within the imperial units (which they have a lot of continuity stories on their own, beyond the scope of this argument anyway).
How about language? I am not going to go in much detail here as we all (I hope) know about this etymology bussines, which helps to have good spelling and so on; for example, it turns that romans soldiers were paid with bags of salt hence the word "salary"... lots of this stuff can certainly fill an enjoyable trivia evening!
A subtle language I am going to explore in a bit more detail here is the one of music, in particular, the way occidental music works. The main questions here: why a piece of music sounds "good" and another not quite good or bad? What is the foundation for modern music and how it is assessed as "good" or "bad"? It turns that this continuity bussiness has lots to do with it and reasons can be track easily at least to the Gregorian chant. This ancient form of music was originally designed to be sang by a human voice based on a written text. Melodies were in fact an extension on the inflections in the text and phrasing, pitches well defined by a singing voice. As a matter of fact, many centuries later, these simple constrains evolved into rules of good melody creation, and still we divide any melody (even those that are not to be sang but played by an instrument) in phrases and motives. In a nutshell, effective melodies are of course those easier to sing!
So it turns that continuity somehow develops what is good or bad; godness what is been laid out by tradition, badness what wonders out too far from it. Having said that, little by little, things change; after all we don't compose Gregorian chants anymore! This is usually done in little unnoticeable steps since bigger steps wouldn't be allowed easily as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring proved at the beginning of 20th century. And the most important idea of this post, backed up by modern musicians: nothing really sounds bad! It is all a matter of getting used to new sounds, providing that there is an structure of a kind under (I give credit to the intention of making music! Long life to the structuralism!).
In summary, I am pointing out something broader than music or languages here, as the concept of good or bad are linked with continuity. in that context, moral not just has the breadth of the struggle between subject and society (as claimed in a previous post), it has also the problem of context or continuity related to how a moral idea has evolved in a particular society. Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-14423580530596606922015-06-06T16:39:00.000-07:002015-06-06T16:39:33.553-07:00According to Adam Smith the human being is selfish and only selfish reasons are his main motivation. Indeed, we cannot perceive reality from outside of ourselves and everything is done or assessed from that subjective perspective. Psychologically, the first human crisis is when he/she realizes that he/she is not the centre of the universe and parents won't do everything wanted! So selfishness is natural and central to explain primordial human behaviour, any other behaviour being learnt later by interaction with other human beings and reality. Under this perspective, selfishness (i.e. to put our conscience first, the remaining of reality including other beings, second) is not immoral and it is a natural consequence of our perception: everything is thought from our perspective.
Now the obvious question here is in what instant selfishness becomes immoral and why. We need to broaden the original definition given by Smith. The human being is a dual entity, subjective and selfish from his/her point of view, but at the same time member of a group that exist outside of himself/herself. Humanity is the permanent struggle between being ourselves and make the effort of putting that into a social context. From that struggle morality is created and from the idea of "outside" combined with morality the idea of a higher entity follows. Because of this struggle, moral rules need to be stated and written down; the contract/compromise that we will sacrifice our subject when is time to put it in the social context, which is outside of ourselves. Because this structure cannot be proved from the subject, the idea of higher rules that are valid outside have to be introduced.
I think I have answered from where comes the moral, God and the struggle, however I cannot address the moral value of being selfish because such assessment is done in the structure outside the human being and from that perspective selfishness is always immoral. Along the same lines, assessing the moral value of selfishness from the subjective perspective produce the opposite result. Because a moral system should apply in the dual perspective, it follows that it cannot assess concepts that are not part of the duality like itself.Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-91148725702146743412015-03-25T01:36:00.000-07:002015-03-25T01:41:00.773-07:00Scotland's referendumAlthough I usually don't blog about political issues I am going to make an exception today regarding the Scottish referendum (enough time has passed anyway). The main issue that bothered at the time was the actual motivation everybody had to actually vote yes or no! I'm not European so I couldn't vote, but still I am interested in human relations transcending a particular political aspect. In fact is back to my theme on selfishness from older posts if you really think about... All the arguments in favour or against independence were crafted around the lines of whether it was going to be better or worse for a given individual in all the possible scenarios, along the lines "<i>you</i> will be doomed if you do it" or not (I personally liked "<i>you</i> still will be able to watch Dr. Who" in the TV).
Well, I believe that decisions like these shouldn't be based on arguments for the good of the individual because from my personal view the concept of a nation ought to supersede it. Or, as John Stuart Mill put it, the concept of common good is more important than personal good. Its boils down to the question "is a nation only the sum of the individuals or it is something else"? In my opinion, it is indeed something else! A nation is the synergy of current individuals plus the past individuals and the individuals to come. It also includes heritage and tradition, which in turn affect the individuals. So, it seems to be a higher value that should be considered at the time of make decisions; it is not whether a given alternative will be economically better or worse <i>for you</i> but along the lines of what is right or wrong in the broader context of the future of a nation. And I believe, both campaigns somehow failed presenting that mostly focussing in the pros and cons of the decision for somebody like <i>you</i> rather than the nation and its heritage. Politicians, should give more credibility to the public, not everybody is selfish! Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-50467839733986272762015-01-11T15:03:00.003-08:002015-01-11T15:05:37.467-08:00On Social MediaA few days ago it was my birthday. Normally I don't make a big fuss about it and generally eating out is enough treat at my, almost, fifty years hanging around.
I do social media. The fact that you are reading this post proves that! I have a Facebook account, an internet web page etc. but at the same time I am a bit reserved with my personal data, particularly, my date of birth, which exposed a very interesting issue that happens with social media, which I will try to describe in this post.
Facebook is an interesting beast with a very fast dynamics. For example, it is almost impossible to find the same post twice (and a humble suggestion for the developers would be to have a "search" option for posts' keywords) and particularly, birthday notifications happen at the speed of bites.
This because, as many of you surely already know, one of the features of Facebook is to automatically remind you the birthday of a friend and thus, almost every day these are posted in the news feed. Consequently, the birthday boy or girl gets lots of posts of his/her friends wishing happy birthday, which, kind of loose meaning if the list is vast and thus, it becomes a formality. In any case, this is not new and social media is not particularly responsible of such formality, which I am not going to criticize here.
I don't list my birthday in Facebook and as expected I didn't get posts of people wishing me a happy one. However the unexpected point is that I didn't get meaningful greetings either as I used to by any other means, and that is the aspect I am interested on commenting today.
You see, lots of the greetings are meaningless whether they come from the social media or not, and now they simply get reinforced and increased by this modern technology. Hence, what social media really does is decreasing the importance of meaningful greetings by boosting the reminders of every potential greeting.
In the old time, only the relevant birthdays were remembered and perhaps annotated in a diary in a proactive way, since the date was relevant. Those few greetings had meaning as the consequence of a proactive intention: I love X --> I care about X. Today, we get all the dates in a passive way; I don't need to do anything but log in to know who's birthday is today and worse, I don't care to remember the birthday of X because I am assuming the system will tell me so precisely on the right day. So, I am not surprised not getting greetings from every single friend I have in the social media, but it is really disturbing that people who used to remember proactively those dates don't do it anymore and rely on the reminders, first of all, forgetting the relevance of a date watered down among many other dates and second, rendering the relevance into irrelevance when the date is not remembered proactively.
Today, we chose to transfer our brain and thinking from our heads into our pocket, inside the case of a smart phone and choose to forget what the phone can remember on our behalf. The question is what is left behind for us to remember?Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-23403346604240032142014-08-17T14:43:00.001-07:002014-08-17T14:43:09.476-07:00FairnessIn this entry I will write on one of the key aspects that seem to give shape to human behavior and society. I will not mention particulars or specific events, suffice the fact that, no matter the century or place, there is what we call injustice in the world. Since I am not religious, I will argue that this is not an absolute condition of reality, but rather the biased perception that comes from our first person witness of reality.
The key point is about the duality of fairness in terms of the universe and in terms of ourselves. Imagine an infinite checkered board in which an enough large amount of pawns of different colours, not just black and white, stand filling a many of the squares. Now imagine that randomly, a finite number of these pawns are taken out of the board by an invisible hand for no particular reason, just wanted to take some pawns out of the infinite board. First of all, from the point of view of the board, nothing fundamental has changed (!!), even if the invisible hand takes the pawns from a specific corner of it and as many as it wants (remember... the board is infinite). From the point of view of a taken pawn, things are radically different, from being on the board to being dumped out of it (the chosen one!). From the pawns left on the board, the fact that a particular pawn was taken and not itself also has an implication; it has to be a reason why that particular pawn was taken instead of itself (has it?).
If some higher entity is really there collecting pawns, from the point of view of them it must be of course a reason why a given pawn was collected while another was left on the board. But from the point of view of the collecting hand, independently whether there is or there isn't an entity behind, all the pawns are irrelevant, no particular reason why choosing one instead of another, only an hypothetical higher purpose concerning the overall board. The hand is not interested in the particulars of a given pawn when there is an infinite board with them to collect and move! If there is no superior entity or higher purpose; pieces are just taken in a random way one after another no need of fairness in the process.
So reality (a.k.a. the positions of the pawns on the board) doesn't have a special condition that make the pawn collection fair or unfair, even if there is a higher purpose collecting the pieces; the concept solely comes from the pawns and their circumstance on the board and their relative perceptions. We have indeed trouble to perceive the reality outside of ourselves and thus, it is very difficult to avoid assessing how fair or unfair is a circumstance in the context of pure reality devoid of our own presence.
The moral of the fable is simple, the fact that human beings cannot behold reality outside of themselves give them a strong bias about reality and morality. We are inherently selfish.Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-66357317557999131802014-07-25T15:39:00.004-07:002014-07-25T15:39:46.127-07:00Cynical behaviourI am always surprised of cynical behaviour, particularly in the context of environmental and some other related issues:
A tragically funny example is the legislation that counts pizza as vegetable in school lunches, on the basis of the tomato sauce. A not so funny example, when a lawyer specialized in car accidents goes to the same school to talk about car safety and give to the children pencils, t-shirts and action figures... everything with the logo "Hurt in a car... call me"
Yesterday, I was thinking on this cynical behaviour related with the environment, because I noticed that the company that makes the water bottle I got from the supermarket claims that they are environmentally friendly now producing bottles with less plastic, particularly tiny tops. While it is true the new bottle contaminates a bit less (although not sure whether the process to make the new top is less or more contaminant than before) the true motivation of the company is really not very clear to me... not just saving money but using the concept as advertisement: We are cool, we care about the environment!
Typical example of this is in an hotel in which they advertise that they care about the environment with the towel business (we won't wash them on a daily basis to save energy and water) and then they give you breakfast with everything disposable knife, cup, saucer.
So the real question is: are these tiny, pitiful initiatives useful? the fact is there are indeed some improvements! Is it worthy? Should we better invest in a change of attitude, saving some of this cynical gathered petty cash to really produce a change beyond the crumbs represented by the wet towel hanging on a rail?Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-47310245323658236032011-08-25T13:34:00.000-07:002014-07-28T06:20:50.776-07:00no differences here!Although it is evident that in the modern world, there are huge differences in science and/or technology compared with any preterit time, I will, in this post, claim that these only represent changes in form, whilst humanness remains the same. I believe I have mentioned my position in previous posts, but in any case, it is based in the lack of changes in what I will call the "human hardware". In other words, amazing changes can be developed in technology: thus my son plays with a little Nintendo, whilst at the same time, people browse the Internet and in a second can be connected with a friend in China, and in another, reading the news in the New York Times. On the other hand, the human brain hasn't changed at the same speed than everything else, thus it is always, in the first place, dysfunctional, always craving to catch up with the modern reality. Going to my point: the human brain is limited, processing the overwhelming information that comes through the wire. In practical terms, with potentially infinite more sources to search that a Victorian scholar, the fundamental aspect of the human condition is in essence the same: there is no time to process all of that information! It is fair to argue that in this modern world, somebody who lives in Morocco can be aware of the style of life of a fisherman in the Chilean Patagonia, knowledge that was forbidden to him before. But the fundamental question regarding humanness is: does the modern variety on the information truly change the understanding in a human brain or merely change the flavour of such understanding? Towards the end of a human life the essential aspects of how such life was lived are probably the same than a life from medieval times. God has been replaced by other deities and the Catholic Church now has a different name. The Bible has been rewritten in a digital media but still carries the same amount of information than the illuminations of the Book of Kells. On a more vain aspect; we would watch a football game with the same fervour than the Romans were watching gladiators in the coliseum. Therefore, perhaps with all the information widely available now, still the time is short, the length of a human life far too short to read and grasp everything available.
<br />
<br />So a curious insight regarding virtual money, those "numbers" used to buy goods in Amazon or iTunes. There is nothing new here! moving funds from one pot to another using a media like a credit card in a virtual transaction was invented many years ago when money was introduced as the "media" in bartering. Paper money was a promise to pay to the holder in services of goods, so the actual funds, the actual value of work, are virtually transferred from owner to owner in exactly the same way than the digits stored in the hard disks of two different banks. There are not conceptual differences here!Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-31721942899154126692010-09-12T19:29:00.000-07:002010-09-12T19:31:54.651-07:00The song remains the same!Although it is evident that in the modern world, there are huge differences in science and/or technology compared with any preterit time, I will, in this post, claim that these only represent changes in form, whilst humanness remains the same. I believe I have mentioned my position in previous posts, but in any case, it is based in the lack of changes in what I will call the "human hardware". In other words, amazing changes can be developed in technology: thus my son plays with a little Nintendo, whilst at the same time, people browse the Internet and in a sigh can be connected with a friend in China, and in another, reading the news in the New York Times. On the other hand, the human brain hasn't changed at the same speed than everything else, thus it is always, in the first place, dysfunctional, always craving to catch up with the modern reality. Going to my point: the human brain is limited, processing the overwhelming information that comes through the wire. In practical terms, with potentially infinite more sources to search that a Victorian scholar, the fundamental aspect of the human condition is in essence the same: there is no time to process all of that information! It is fair to argue that in this modern world, somebody who lives in Morocco can be aware of the style of life of a fisherman in the Chilean Patagonia, knowledge that was forbidden to him before. But the fundamental question regarding humanness is: does the modern variety on the information truly change the understanding in a human brain or merely change the flavour of such understanding? Towards the end of a human life the essential aspects of how such life was lived are probably the same than a life from medieval times. God has been replaced by other deities and the Catholic Church now has a different name. The Bible has been rewritten in a digital media but still carries the same amount of information than the illuminations of the Book of Kells. On a more vain aspect; we would watch a football game with the same fervour than the Romans were watching gladiators in the colosseum. Therefore, perhaps with all the information widely available now, still the time is short, the length of a human life far too short to read and grasp everything available.<br /><br />So a curious insight regarding virtual money, those "numbers" used to buy goods in Amazon or iTunes. There is nothing new here! moving funds from one pot to another using a media like a credit card in a virtual transaction was invented many years ago when money was introduced as a media in bartering. Paper money was a promise to pay to the holder in services of goods, so the actual funds are virtually transferred from owner to owner in exactly the same way than the digits stored in the hard disks of two different banks. I'm afraid.... there are not conceptual differences here!Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-79448312507339578782010-04-14T18:05:00.000-07:002010-04-14T18:12:39.237-07:00optical ilusions and other conundrumsIt is quite cool how I never end on getting amazed by simple things that have deeper meanings! Last week I bought a second hand little book with pictures of optical illusions as a present for my daughter. We ended quite enjoying it, looking the pictures together. One of the simpler ones depicted a circle in which several curved lines were drawn so the actual image resembled the typical representation of an sphere in two dimensions i.e. a page in a book. The figure had also a couple of points located more or less in the centre and below a single question: "what dot is exactly in the centre of the circle?"<br /><br />As probably it is expected, the illusion was the fact that the dot located on the centre was the one that didn't look there, whilst the correct one seemed to be misplaced. So, my brain was playing tricks on me, even rationally knowing the fact that the drawing was in 2D! A sudden realization came to my mind, noticing that it is not enough knowing "rationally" what is the trick (the fact that the drawing of a 3D object in a surface involve the perspective distortion)... because some other area of the brain will still play a trick in our grasp of the reality! This issue, obviously provoked quite a bit of thinking (plus this article) and perhaps other ideas that I am still sorting for future posts. The main subject I want to mention in today's post is the amazing fact that even knowing that there is a trick and have a complete intellectual understanding of it, still we are deluded with the optical illusion. From there it occurred to me that this "decoupling" might explain why sometimes it seems that there are two sides, the rational one and the visceral one, that normally come in certain arguments, which involve politics of religion. It is amazing that no matter how good is an argument, at the end of the day the conclusion are always the same. It is therefore plausible that there is a genetic basis behind this behaviour, a mental constrain that forbid certain operation, even when some areas of the brain acknowledge the change. Thus, for example, you can forgive the behaviour of a scientist who believe in God... it is perhaps only a limitation of his/her human brain!Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-40372549289821078432010-03-10T13:49:00.000-08:002010-03-10T13:50:37.063-08:00Panem et circenses?Panem et circenses? ....not really!<br /><br />The thought came as a realization the first time I went to watch a hockey game with my kids; I wasn't sure of my exact pathway of thinking at the time, but then I understood the meaning when later I went to a couple of basketball games with no relation whatsoever with the first hockey game. The actual insight is very simple when you have time to think about it... but that is, of course, something that never happens, I believe related with the main conundrum: no time to think about it, every single second filled with information or distraction. This is particualrly interesting in a basketball. Pauses are very short and there is no time to almost anything between segments of the game. No matter how short, several things happen simultaneously involving cheer leaders or a band playing or some raffle or something else. The idea is actually spooky, no time to think when there is a pause! <br /><br />Now, broaden this to some other leisure activities, it is easy to notice (if you have time to pause) that modern americans are driven to spend their time without to have any pauses in their lives. For instance, television now has got remote control for swapping channels or can show simultaneously two channels in the screen. Cable or satellite can show any kind of programs 24 hours a day as a solid stream of information. Take for example an average american news broadcast. The signal will have a main screen with a permanent main history, a written transcription of the spoken script and an additionally endless text with the highlights of other news, overdose of stimuli. And for the computer realm, many people browse the internet while they are listening their mp3 players and texting with their mobile phones... again endless solid stream of information, no time for a pause. <br /><br />And this obsesive compulsion is also introduced as a very tender age: it is fairly normal that school children are scheduled to have "activities" after (and sometimes) before school; on top of the activities, they have to do their homework and get up early every morning, usually before 6 am. <br /><br />So why is that? the conspiration model would suggest that invisible thinking forces are behind the phenomenon for controlling purposes (sort of X-file approach) but there are good reasons to disregard such posibility:<br /><br />In the first place knowledge and information are not really hidden but rather highly exposed, so everybody get a taste of it in a permanent overdose, what is the point of that? the "hidden" forces are not actually hidden and controling does not fulfill any reason since there is no secret! ....unless it is the "Purloined Letter", which would be exposed for the very few that hypothetically the hidden forces need to control!<br /><br />In the second place, a "black & white" scenario with naive goodies and baddies with intentional strong will seems to be an oversimplification. There seems to be a vast amount of gullible people, but not clear people with real power but rather blind systems that are self-organized. This structure is a clear consequence of complexity and the synergy of the systems, which is probably the product of the dissipative structure that comes from the chaos of a blind society... oh well, this seems to be plausible; in fact the belief of "somebody" trying to control is like believing in God... who would bother to control us? who would bother to create us?<br /><br />I think the truth is actually even more scary: we are affraid of true spare time because we are afraid of truly think on ourselves and truly look back to us. We are affraid of the madness that comes when a man is able to position himself in his true circunstance in the space-time continuum... i.e. with no God or control, left to our own freewill to take control of our lives in the context of being a grain of sand in the middle of tidal forces.Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-71312289729792713432009-12-14T05:58:00.000-08:002014-07-28T06:43:10.146-07:00The convexity of the systemThe other day checking the post, among all the rubbish that you get with the letters, I found a consumer survey. It was interesting, the main claim was that filling it would improve my life in many ways, if you consider an improvement in your life getting more leaflets, or telling Wallmart or Target what would I like in their shelves. Freaky enough, my name would enter in a raffle in which the first prize was a $1000 cheque to be spent in goodies from those shelves!<br /><br />Anyway, I was amazed with the questions; I have a cat, but I don't particularly buy cat treats or stuff like that. I don't buy hand sanitizing products or bottled water but I learnt on products, which I didn't know their existence. So, I got really interested in the survey because it was pointing to a certain citizen who live in a certain part of America who seems to be my neighbour, and more important than that: somebody out there is sending me a lot of stuff in the post that I don't even bother to open and goes straight to the recycling bin!<br /><br />So, I did the exercise and spend about half an hour filling the survey, skipping whole sections (like cigarettes) or answering "We don't buy" or "One every ten years". Some question had to be answered in an additional added line, because my option wasn't considered within the answers. <br /><br />I have to say that it was quite satisfactory to fill. In fact, I had a very entertaining half an hour doing it, learning about my neighbours and on brands of products that I don't even know of their existence.<br /><br />So I sent it; they provided a paid envelope so it was the case of just stick it in the mail box, which I did (what would be the point of an incomplete exercise)... and I forgot about it.<br /><br />And now the amazing fact and the title of this article in one go: you really cannot leave the system as some people (California?) might believe. You can pretend that you are out, buying organic products and composting your green left overs. But you cannot really leave!<br /><br />Few weeks after the exercise the amount of posted material did not decrease; but the kind of leaflets that I am getting now are from companies who offer subscriptions to "lefty journals", charity organizations with the same flavour, and organic products that you can buy in a catalogue. In particular, I was surprised with a journal of clear anarchist flavour... asking for a formal subscription; what kind of anarchy is that one?<br /><br />You never leave, the options can be disguised or adapted to fill your particular profile... but at the end of the day, there is a label stick on your forehead always.<br /><br />But I personally, don't have any problem, I really don't want to leave. If I need food I buy it in a supermarket, if I need some electronics I will head to Target, but if I need clothes of shoes I guess I will end in a charity shop (thrift store in America). I am trying to get the best of both worlds in a cynical way. I might not have a straightforward label in the consumption map (or perhaps the label "cynic"), because I move through the categories horizontally. This is a sort of label anyway, one that the system does not take care because the numbers or cynic people are very small... so far I haven't subscribed neither bought anything that it has been posted at my door. Freedom is to be alone.Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-31109060931044814022009-05-19T10:46:00.000-07:002009-05-19T11:04:40.645-07:00The ResuméYesterday I was updating my Curriculum Vitae (i.e. Resumé for American speaking people), updating all that kind of irrelevant information that seems to be relevant only at the time of showing the CV to a new employer or else.<br /><br />I was told that it is the standard in American CV not to put the date of birth and I was told is for avoiding discrimination that could come linked with age, dodgy to say the least.<br /><br /> Anyway, I also realized that in most cases an update picture is not normally included in this particular kind of documents, and, I am guessing here, for the same reasons (discrimination) age is not included. So, where is the line? it could be argued that profesional qualifications shouldn't be added because that will bias the employer in a clear extent (in fact it happened to few years ago; I was "overqualify" for a particular job and I wasn't hired because the company realized that a less qualify bloke was cheaper)... What about your name? Perhaps the company does not like some ethnic group so your chances are slim because your name is Pedro or Muhamad? Gender is out of question; it is in fact the most recurrent issue in term of discrimination in human societies.<br /><br />So my suggestion: next time when your CV is requested you could send 6 or 7 A4 pages neatly stapled in utter white! (an electronic file pdf or Word can also be prepared for printing purposes).Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-66785535025686455362009-04-13T13:17:00.000-07:002009-04-14T10:07:43.881-07:00On the Barbie dollPerhaps dolls are one of the oldest toys that can be found among archeological objects. I have seen in a museum a roman "pupa" and also Egyptian dolls (quite a thing that we now use the word "pupa" for the early stage in the develop of some insects). All of these dolls are representations of babies or children and clearly they represent dramatic playing so children learn by playing the real roles of adult life. Thus, as felines learn the art of hunting pretending fight with the other cubs in the litter, little girls used to learn the concept of maternity, playing with dolls. In other words, doll playing used to be a instinctive behavior inherited from our primate past. Now, what's all about the Barbie doll, which does not seem to fulfill such instinct? I have been thinking what does she represent and how it found such place in our culture. Barbie dolls appear in the American society as a sort of post war toy, roughly at the time when women left their houses and became an essential part of the working force. Feminism as a movement dates from the beginning of the 20th century but became a practical issue during the same period when women began to fully support their families with their work. Under this context maternity became an out of date concept, being replaced by the idea of the working woman, no longer motherhood an accepted game, since a mother is primarily the sales manager of a very important company rather than a mother. Now the paradox: dramatic playing is pretending to be what we will be doing when adulthood comes; rather than a doll, girl should be playing with toy computers or mobile phones to pretend to be their mothers! Instead, doll playing is not abandoned in the same way than such sales manager cannot simply forget that she is a woman and also a mother. The solution is the "voodoo" projection of the dramatic playing to the doll, transforming the baby doll in a sales manager doll. So Barbie replaces the pretending daughter for a pretending mother, subtle changing the dynamic of our instinctive background. It is not clear whether this development is positive or negative, there is not enough data to assess this, but it is clear from the way that children are growing faster and Barbie dolls are hated and tortured by angry children, that it is indeed a deep change in our collective subconscious.Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-44499894939708467842009-03-20T13:37:00.000-07:002009-03-20T13:57:45.519-07:00On the ontological argumentOne of the most subtle arguments to prove God's existence is the ontological, first articulated by Saint Anselm of Canterbury during the eleventh century. The arguments goes more or less like this:<br /><br />God is “that than which nothing greater can be thought”; in other words, he is a being so great, so full of metaphysical oomph, that one cannot so much as conceive of a being who would be greater than God. The Psalmist, however, tells us that “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’ ” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1). Is it possible to convince the fool that he is wrong? It is. All we need is the characterization of God as “that than which nothing greater can be thought.” The fool does at least understand that definition. But whatever is understood exists in the understanding, just as the plan of a painting he has yet to execute already exists in the understanding of the painter. So that than which nothing greater can be thought exists in the understanding. But if it exists in the understanding, it must also exist in reality. For it is greater to exist in reality than to exist merely in the understanding. Therefore, if that than which nothing greater can be thought existed only in the understanding, it would be possible to think of something greater than it (namely, that same being existing in reality as well). It follows, then, that if that than which nothing greater can be thought existed only in the understanding, it would not be that than which nothing greater can be thought; and that, obviously, is a contradiction. So that than which nothing greater can be thought must exist in reality, not merely in the understanding.<br /><br />To me, the ontological argument does not prove the existence of God, but rather, the existence in the human brain of the need of a God's idea; the need of constrain the infinite in space and time in a finite framework in space and time. In other words, why we produce concepts that we cannot constrain, why we have the skills to think on unthinkable problems?Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-58885683318166569932009-03-12T20:55:00.000-07:002009-03-12T21:26:03.064-07:00On semanticsI am not very surprised with the fact that semantics is not just about language or linguistics; it is also about politics, marketing and finally... money!<br /><br />To give you some key examples in the groceries field (although this is very general), those products that are made with "natural and artificial flavors"... it is quite clear to me what is an artificial flavor; I haven't been able to evaluate what exactly means a natural flavor. You see, you could argue that they are natural because they are made with natural products, but then the raw material to make an artificial product was taken from the "natural word"! so it seems that artificial means that the actual flavor is quite far away from the original raw material while "natural" is closer to the raw material, few processing going on.... so the semantics? in my dictionary a natural flavor comes from natural flavors, no process ought to be involved!!! thus the definition is twitched quite a bit to label the cans of products that you would buy in a supermarket; i.e. from a hard semantic point of view there is not such a thing as a natural product.<br />Another interesting example is found in some products that are sold in California, in which there are some chemical or something that probably is (very!) harmful for human beings. You will notice that those products would have a label that begins with a sentence more or less like this: "It is know by the state of California that this product can produce cancer" ... what does it means this? that the people in NY don't know or the people in NY pretend that does not know? here is a beautiful example of how politics change the meaning of words; in California the product is not acceptable because could produce cancer, but in some other state, this is perhaps known but not legally addressed... it wouln't be ok accept something that is not accepted in a different state unless, of course, the subject is not known! so California knows something that some other states don't know! better to be dumb and blind than an inmoral seller!<br /><br />Finally, my favorite one, a "Guacamole style" sauce that does not contains avocado, the meaning of the word "style" would be "fake" but at least with "style"!Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4179533094730741915.post-49295160713935537302009-02-07T20:10:00.000-08:002010-03-10T16:57:42.637-08:00Phone SurveyQuite an interesting morning; just finishing having breakfast when the phone rang. It was a Survey on TV, Radio and Newspapers. I did have a bit of time (considering the fact that it was Saturday morning and the kids where hollering while having their breakfasts) so I answered the questions, which were quite redundant and some of them at a stupid level of detail (what is the dial number of the radio station that you were listening last week? 92.1 or 92.2? I have no idea! I just turn the knob until the music shows up!). Then, 'twas the time to answer question on TV and I answered that we don't have a TV at home... The lady couldn't registered that information in her brain immediately; in fact she had to ask the question again after the shock was over to be sure of what she was listening... that was more or less the end of the survey. So, I was wondering today whether that was the actual meaning of my status in the USA; i.e. a "resident alien"!!!!! I wouldn't know what to do with a TV plus the fact that the time (as the Bible says somewhere) is always short and there are too many things to do before tomorrow, even Saturdays.Dr. Cacohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14383089419472877465noreply@blogger.com1