Human beings do have a purpose.

Tags

Human kindness, We create a conscious universe, Computers/robots/non-living-beings/IT, IT

Moving on from yesterday’s post about (google =) nihilism. “Existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.”

My life has been a struggle against the potential belief that I personally have no meaning and that the entire universe has no meaning either. There is a more reasonable argument that the universe has no meaning because it has no free will, it simply does what it does. It is a large inertial system that has a minuscule bit of arbitrary action at the quantum level. But that action itself isn’t volitional; it too is an inertial system based on preexisting biases that we can not perceive. We can only observe what the subatomic particles do after actions in a statistical way. Because the universe is made of such vast numbers of these random entities at the smallest level our humanly observed world is very smooth and thus predictable.

On the other hand, you and I have the ability to predict future behavior of many things, and we have the ability to change how some things will behave. I can do these things by physically moving them about to conform to my intention for my future wishes. Furthermore, I can request people to do things at remote locations from me. At my request Amazon sends me stuff from their storehouse that I personally choose  to conform to my wishes. These things usually arrive at my front door and satisfy my expectations, and if they don’t I return them and get my money back.

This afternoon, when discussing these things, I asked my friend Rock to move his water bottle a few inches forward on the table. He did that, and I said that there is no way the universe could have done that act without a vast amount of human cooperation of language, socialization, friendship and cooperation for a seemingly nonsense request.

My life has meaning because I choose to do things in the future, and the proof of its meaning is the creation of actions in the future that conform to my projected wishes. The natural universe doesn’t have this ability; it just does what its inertial responses necessitate and its future unfolds automatically. There is no thought, no goal, no necessity, no wish, and ultimately no meaning.

Meaning presupposes a future purposeful goal residing in a thinking mind. That was the condition until the last few years when it became possible to expose a general-purpose computer to a large number of chess games, and without supplying the computer any instructions, it learned how to play chess at a high level.

Computers/robots/non-living-beings/IT must presently be manufactured by people, but they are now capable of making adaptations to potential unknowable future environmental situations. These intelligent things now have some of the most important abilities that make human beings so successful. The computer/robots presently do not have the ability to manufacture themselves, but this is only a technical problem, and it is probably easier to do than to create carbon-based life. That took billions of years. These new non-life forms of intelligence are already halfway there, in only eighty years. The computer knows the basics of what needs to be done in the future, so it knows what to begin doing to create its future self. Carbon-based life was forced to stumble blindly forward with natural selection and most of its efforts died. What kept living was only what worked. But we humans and IT combined can build these new self-creating thinking beings in a few years.

We, humans, are the transition species that is capable of giving the universe what it has never had, and that’s the ability to perceive its various future options and to choose what it wants.

We human beings are about to give the universe the ability to create meaning for itself. That is the greatest kindness that humans will ever perform.

 

 

 

Nothing special today except for this thing.

Tags

Beauty, Nothing special, What is beauty?

A few days after not getting a Tamiflu pill from the ER room for my impending flu, I discovered this in the bathroom sink after blowing my nose. I posted this photo on January 3, 2020, but I couldn’t help making it a little more visually exciting.

I cleaned the color balance of the photo and sharpened it a bit to emphasize its qualities. This represents my relationship with visual images better. An image of a thing isn’t the reality of the thing portrayed! It is a visual representation of something conceived by the creator. I present this image to you as a challenge to re-view the reality that exists around us all the time. This reality has its own unique relationship to beauty. It has been said that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” I say,

“Beauty is in the mind of one who is presently perceiving a new reality.”

There are still good Samaritans among us. THANK YOU!

Tags

Good Samaritans, Thank You

It wasn’t until we were within a couple of blocks from my home that I asked my drivers how much they were being paid to drive me to the VA clinic in Portland, Oregon, wait several hours while I was being treated, and then drive me back to my home in Bend.

The departure point for Portland was only five blocks from my house so I elected to walk the snow-covered alley instead of drive on ice-covered streets at 5:45 AM. That meant I needed to get out of bed four hours before my usual time, dress hurriedly and get moving. Which I did, and arrived precisely on time. There was one other traveler to the Portland VA and two drivers, and we were rolling promptly.

I hadn’t wanted to drive my car over the Cascade mountain passes when there was a terrible storm expected, and I canceled my previous arrangements for a motel near the hospital. Driving time in perfect conditions is 3 h 17 min (164.2 mi) via US-97 N and US-26 W, but the conditions were predicted to be miserable, with possible road closures. I felt that if I took the transportation the VA provided and there was a cancellation due to weather, it wouldn’t show on my records that I missed an appointment.

The ride went reasonably well despite the weather, and over the mountain pass there were snowplows leading the way, clearing snow and spreading gravel ahead of us. It took us about an extra hour to get to the VA hospital.

There were lots of veterans there, most of whom were in various stages of decrepitude. Most of them were clearly overweight and many were in wheelchairs because of their extreme obesity. I got my fourth and final prostate cancer hormone shot not long after arrival but had to wait until 1 PM for my physical evaluation, and then another hour to get my blood sample drawn for the PSA (prostate-specific antigen). Nearly all eighty-four-year-old men have prostate cancer, but this disease is most dangerous when it shows up in much younger men.

My drivers patiently waited around all through of these procedures, and we didn’t get started back toward Bend until after 2 PM. The weather had worsened and at the higher altitudes, we were only going twenty-five mph for maybe fifty miles. Once out of the mountains, we were able to go about fifty mph maximum because of snow and sleety rain. My driver was very experienced with driving this highway, having been a forester here for decades in his previous career.

When nearing my home I asked how much they were being paid for putting in a thirteen-hour day doing something inherently dangerous and boring. “Nothing.” They were doing it as a free service for our veterans.

I routinely do simple little good deeds when I get the chance. The smaller the better because there is so much more opportunity, but these guys were putting in thirteen-hour days, doing much more in a day than I even come close to in a month.

There truly are good Samaritans amongst us, and I unknowingly was a recipient of their kindness. A hearty THANK YOU to all of you unknown good people.

Who am I?

Tags

A provocative church service., Grandmother's quilts., Old quilts., Who am I?, Who are you?

That question was asked of us at the UU, and we were requested to turn to someone nearby but new to us. I suspect that most people were a bit flummoxed by the question. I was. I usually don’t ask that question of myself and just live my life as it comes along, and respond in a way that fits the situation.

Who are you, really? What is the purpose of your life? What was the biggest mistake of your life? Yikes! Can questions get any more personal than these?

Even though we had a snow blizzard going outside the picture windows, the approximately two hundred people indoors struggled with their problems inside, inside themselves. My partner and I had a few moments of self-revelation, and as I glanced around the whole room was filled with people quietly talking with their partners.

This was not a typical church service with a sermon being delivered to subservient parishioners, with the usual prattle of telling you that you should be good and do the right thing. Instead, it was a direct challenge to the self-worth of your inmost being. And being spontaneously challenged to face up to who you really are. Who you are to yourself behind the public persona you present for the world to see and respond to.

It became apparent as the service proceeded, that we are all a vast complex of different personalities that we each have cultivated to respond to our many different life situations. We are like the patchwork quilt that our grandmothers made out of pieces of clothing somehow handed down from their grandparents. I slept under such a quilt through much of my childhood. Because each of those patches meant something special to those people in my genetic past they, in their projected futures, were giving warmth to me along with my physical life.

When living in Homedale, Idaho, with my grandparents during much of World War II, I remember those old ladies, probably in their forties, sitting around quilting and telling stories. If I had been a more sensible child I would have listened in and taken copious notes. But that didn’t happen. I was doing more important things, like playing Monopoly with my cousin Thomas. The stories those patches could have related of the scenes they had participated in back when they were part of living clothing. Those old ladies were probably revealing personal things that would shock a modern TV audience. And laughing the roof off the house.

Who am I, but the result of all of those women’s genes, personal events, and pieces of fabric sewn together into a warm quilt for their descendants? I am one of them!

What outrageous thing have you done today?

Tags

Be outrageous!, Be stupid!, Do a kind thing right now!, Grow from your mistakes!, Just do the next right thing!, Learn from your mistakes?

What outrageous thing have you done today? I went to a book club discussion of Daring Greatly by Brené Brown. We saw two TED lectures by her followed by a half-hour discussion. As usual, I was the only one of the eighteen present who had read the book. It does appear to me that the less you read of the book under discussion the more you have to say about it. So I didn’t say anything. I did enjoy the various people’s discussions of it and how they were responding to their personal realities with the suggestions presented in the book.

The book states on its cover that it is a #1 New York Times Bestseller, so who am I to mention the obvious fact that the principles the author espouses are mostly in direct contradiction to what she presents on the TED stage? She talks endlessly about flexibility, and she is an excellent example of a person driven by the very principles she challenges as being destructive to a sane person’s behavior.

Many of the principles she espouses are probably reasonable when they are applied by an already reasonable person, but when they are applied by an ordinary person they are just as likely to yield poor results. The principles listed throughout the book are probably just as valid when stated oppositely by a clever wordsmith.

She encourages us to be outrageous and choose willingly to do things we are afraid to do, to which I would ask everyone present at that discussion:

What outrageous thing have you done today? Why, or why not?

We’ve got to STOP wasting our adaptive energy!

Tags

Adaptive energy, Stop wasting time

Today was very pleasant in most ways, but I sit here worrying that I’ve wasted my adaptive energy. It is important to me to solve, or at the very least, to expose some problems in such a way that others can fix them. The Case of the Deadly Rolling Door sounds like a Sherlock Holmes mystery that he would solve with a short story. Whereas I can’t make it clear enough to sane intelligent people that their careers will be forever blackened in the normal roll of that door’s events.

This afternoon I went to a lecture about Black Holes. It was interesting and I enjoyed the presentation, but I came away with Sherlock’s thought in mind when Watson demonstrated to him that the Moon went around the Earth and they together went around the Sun. Sherlock’s response was to thank Watson for the information, but he would try to forget it as quickly as possible because it wouldn’t help him with his problems. He needed the brain space for doing his self-chosen job of detecting crime and this would simply be clutter to be brushed aside. Hmm? Perhaps I will need that information about black holes when writing my Prayer to the Universe. No. That information, if needed, can be found in a more useful display on the internet, even more coherently presented on Wikipedia, and there it can be corroborated, and not just hearsay form of a lecture.

Are my daily walks a similar waste of time? No, they are valuable for me because they help me to energize my thoughts. Simply bantering with an intelligent person about important things clarifies the issues. And this blog serves a similar purpose; it helps me to see better just what I’m trying to do. Of course, most people would say my time would be better spent doing as they do, like replacing their one-time-use paper or plastic straws with one of the now available multi-use metal ones.

We all do what we can, as we see the way forward, but changing over to paper straws to relieve guilt for a two-week Caribbean cruise-ship vacation doesn’t balance well in my world.

I guess I should wear one of those baseball caps, “A querulous Curmudgeon resides under this hat.” Querulous is too big a word for a hat!

Ed at the Commons at Drake Park, Bend, Oregon

Tags

Bend Oregon, Commons Cafe, Commons Coffee, Commons Fireplace gathering, Drake Park, Ed is moving to Arizona

Daniel, Ed, and Lou at the Commons at Ed’s going away party. He’s moving to a new home in Arizona after a lifetime in Bend. We sat at the fireplace generalizing about the great people we have known and the strange things they said and we did. We all study the flames as our ancestors have done for thousands of years and talk, talk, talk.

Sometimes I see things a bit stranger than they. Perhaps my coffee is a bit more bitter.

Ed has the capacity to see things as they are and choose to reveal the goodness in people. It is a habit of his that I truly respect.

After a while, his wife shows up and it’s time to go.

I take a couple of farewell shots.

They give me a final smile for the camera. But, then I ask them to give a real smile and say the new smiley word, MONEY! Everyone laughs, and a half-second later I push the button.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, I could say goodbye, forever!

Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?

Tags

Humanity's purpose for existence, Purpose, Wassail the Universe, Where are we going?, Where did we come from?, Why are we here?

These basic questions are now easily answered if we are willing to abandon our fear that there isn’t a purpose. The very idea of purpose is the pinprick that explodes the whole Universe. The Big Bang didn’t have a purpose. It didn’t have a human with a purpose thinking, “I’ll create a Universe.” Even if there was a kid in another dimension playing with his chemistry set, who did have such a purpose, and there was something special about his chemistry set that permitted the Big Bang, he wouldn’t survive the event and his purpose would evaporate. We can go to Wikipedia’s article on Cosmic Evolution and read a list of the historical development of answers, or cosmologies. The only “purpose” in these cosmic events is inertia, things will continue to do what they are doing, except when looking at them at the subatomic level. Every particle of our existence came from these origins and obeys … until…

Until … the whole process evolved through a Universe evolution, then through a physical sun/earth material evolution. Then through a living evolution, then through a hominid evolution creating the body forms we live within, created by the processes of natural selection, supplemented with sexual selection. But none of this had a purpose. Plants, animals, apes did what they did because of their DNA and the circumstances that they encountered.

Purpose implies a consciousness of a future and a consciousness of an ability to change things now that will affect things in the future. And that requires language, and other people with a similar culture to talk to and develop ideas that function better than any of their previously held ones. With the creation of language, which implies syntax that permits connections and relationships between words. There must have been roots of language before eighty thousand years ago when Toba erupted, but that event brought the human population to a few thousand breeding individuals, and with a small population the genetic basis for a language could develop quickly.

With a rudimentary language in place, it became possible for people to be more choosy about whom to choose for a mate, and thus to evolve those many qualities we think of as human.

In the long run, billions of years, we conscious beings simply dissolve back into our Universe. It is the place where we came from, it is the place where we live, it is the place we are going to continue to be in. It is a wonderful place that permitted all of these wonderful things we get to consciously experience; we simply return and participate without being aware of our participation.

Now is the time for wassail. The acknowledgment to our Universe, a toast to the opportunities it gave us, resounding cheers to its grandeur, and a pledge to help it to become all that it can be. 

 

 

 

What does it mean to be kind?

Tags

Kindness, Probaway's 442 habits

Almost all my life I have been doing little experiments on myself. I say almost because before about the age of thirteen I was just a kid growing up. But, about that time I remember doing things just to find out what would happen.

In the year before I started this blog, that is before January 1, 2008, I published this list of things that I had been doing for several years. When I thought of one I attempted to do each of these things seven independent times that day. The idea was to create the item as a habit. I haven’t looked at this particular list for over a year and yet as I skipped through it I do remember practicing them and still do.

I just glanced down and saw #45 “Observe water and its many, many different appearances.” I still do that automatically, along with other similar things listed nearby. One curious way I manifest the habit these last few months is by taking photos of the water in storm sewers.

#47 “Observe irregularities in street pavement and consider their causes and futures.” I do that a lot when Debbie and I take our daily walks. It creates a problem for her because here in Bend the concrete practically dissolves in a year because of poor enforcement of construction laws and I complain about it. My complaining annoys her, so I am trying to see those things but not to say anything about their failure.

#140 “When you see something good to do, try and do it right away.” That is the key to kindness.

Enjoy reading my working list below and finding things you would like to experiment with.

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Probaway – Habits

Derived from New Year Resolutions – 2005 – 2006 – 2007 – with bonmots and comments.

© 2005, 2006, 2007 by Charles L. Scamahorn, El Cerrito CA

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1. – Create a new good habit every day; make a list of the habits and practice it seven seperate times.
2. – Greet your interlocutors in a direct and friendly way.
3. – Observe the visual pattern of things and their lighting.
4. – Observe the emotional space of people and treat it with respect.
5. – Observe the energy of people’s direction of gaze and why they are looking at that subject.
6. – Look for the fuller meaning and content in what you see and hear.
7. – Observe the meaning as the result of the way things are positioned relative to one another.
8. – Say your name … the way some person you are observing would enunciate it.
9. – Say your true love’s name … frequently the way they should hear it.
10. – Use precise words instead of generalizations as much as possible.
11. – When observing people, name their emotional space and how they are using it.
12. – Observe and state the architectural intent of buildings and say it out loud.
13. – Observe your body’s current health problems and state specific reasons for its present condition.
14. – Say your name with the affect of an observed person’s emotional state.
15. – Place your keys against the doorknob before closing an outside door.
16. – Place a hand on a solid object before sitting down.
17. – Say the observed person’s name with their expressed affect.
18. – Observe the color and translucency of liquids.
19. – Look along a street, as far as can be seen and then scan back.
20. – Grab objects firmly and deliberately.
21. – Rate the health of a person’s skin and their behavior.
22. – Observe the Earth’s center of gravity and yours in relation to it.
23. – Identify the necessary parts to identify a physical object or abstract thing.
24. – Look at the expression on the left side of a person’s face and then the right side.
25. – Observe a group, name a random category, and state the commonalities between them.
26. – Spot lurkers’ hideouts and make mental preparations for coping with them.
27. – When looking at a person look for their symmetry.
28. – At the end of the month read your habits list and correct the statement of your usage of the new habits.
29. – During lulls exercise by raising a leg and push/pulling clasped hands.
30. – When running hold the breast pocket to prevent loss of items.
31. – When bending over grab the breast pocket to prevent loss of items.
32. – Observe the mood of the local groups and the energy flows between them.
33. – When you find yourself humming a song, find and learn the lyrics.
34. – After eating rinse out the mouth three times to clean your teeth.
35. – Look for the center and the periphery of a situation and then the external influences.
36. – When you remember a habit, do it right away, if possible.
37. – Randomly during the day see and name a category and find examples of it.
38. – When getting out of a shower, grab some stable item firmly.
39. – Find and use soft brown paper napkins for ear plugs to limit excessive noise.
40. – Uniquely identify people with two descriptive words.
41. – Observe something and mentally make it symmetrical.
42. – Finish every sentence even when interrupted … especially when interrupted.
43. – Cut desserts in two and only eat half; share the other half.
44. – Wash before eating and keep hands clean when eating by using a utensil.
45. – Observe water and its many, many different appearances.
46. – Observe people and their many, many different appearances.
47. – Observe irregularities in street pavement and consider their causes and futures .
48. – Look at the sky and smile; the sky’s many moods are all wonderful.
49. – At all times be aware of attack and retreat routes.
50. – Mentally rehearse where you want to go and the things you need along the way; feel the pull to your goal.
51. – When driving don’t run into anything and don’t let anything run into you.
52. – Imagine things being much bigger than they normally are.
53. – Look at things and ideas as parts of a larger system, repeat …
54. – Look at things and ideas as expanded parts of a smaller system, repeat …
55. – Put a numbered dimension scale on objects, phenomena, ideas …
56. – Look at a person’s face and then their body.
57. – Observe the icons in a person’s presentation of self.
58. – Note person’s subjects of interest and that subject’s time frame.
59. – Observe “all” of the symbols of an object and its environment.
60. – On walks pick up an unusual item and when home set it in a visible place.
61. – Observe your center and take comfort in it.
62. – Ask questions about important things that can be answered.
63. – Observe phlegm and its manifestations of health.
64. – Listen to background sounds and identify their sources.
65. – What can you observe and how can you observe it differently?
66. – Ask your companion how you might create a good habit.
67. – What pain are you feeling and what caused it?
68. – Choose a name for unnamed entities.
69. – Think through the history of an item.
70. – Think of the goal and then think through the new journey, its junctions and key points to that goal.
71. – With the first step of a journey think of its final step.
72. – Observe the scene and how “it” would observe your place in it.
73. – What can you do to make this task simpler? Can it be parsed into doable pieces?
74. – Observe the human reactions to water.
75. – Observe what creates pleasure and precedes pain.
76. – Look for the extreme stress and what will happen when it breaks its bonds.
77. – What is important to the passing person?
78. – Make a collection of little items and display them together.
79. – Avoid virus transfers by gripping doorknobs in nonstandard ways and washing your hand often.
80. – When in public avoid touching your eyes and mouth as that is when viruses are transfered.
81. – Go to bed at appropriate times and do so consistently.
82. – Respond as accurately as possible to a person’s statements.
83. – Observe how one can do without something and try to do it.
84. – Check your entire skin for imperfections and treat them.
85. – Make a list of people’s names and add to it when you meet someone new.
86. – Keep a list of interesting words and use them.
87. – What are your fears?
88. – Rate people’s perception of: “did they get what they deserved out of life?”
89. – What higher purpose might you be working toward right now?
90. – Look at people and laugh; it puts you into a good humor towards them.
91. – View people as Poser models as it gives you a feeling of what they are feeling in a gross way.
92. – View surroundings as if seen from above and go to Google Earth for developing overall perspective.
93. – Create a situation-specific good habit right now.
94. – At the computer, do five seconds of back exercise by looking back and up at each corner.
95. – How can you improve this object in your hand, to make it work better?
96. – When dieting and coming to the middle of a meal make a statement of dissatisfaction with overeating.
97. – When picking up new household items, state where you will put it and what it will displace.
98. – When you say, “thank you” say specifically what the thanks is for.
99. – Before you go through an outside door, make sure you pee.
100. – Before you go into the house check the mail.
101. – Before you get into the car make sure it is clear front and back.
102. – At the outside door say, “pee, key, see”. Look back and ahead for needs.
103. – Place a note card at eye level at the front door with a list of things to do before you leave.
104. – Carry a notepad and pen in the breast pocket.
105. – When you encounter an unknown word write it down.
106. – When you depart a public seat, look back for dropped items.
107. – When eating a bagel be careful about jam dripping through the hole.
108. – What are you doing now that someone else could be doing for you, and doing it better?
109. – When walking ask, “How well does this architecture function? What to change to make it better?”
110. – What can you do right now to show your appreciation for what the world has given you?
111. – Think for a moment, “How do I learn best, and how do I remember to apply what I have learned?”
112. – Practice doing two-handed tasks with one hand.
113. – Place good web finds on a special HTMLized web page. At present DeLicio.us works well.
114. – After eating anything rinse your teeth and tongue with a swallow of water three times.
115. – When balancing on “one” foot, to put on pants, put just one ounce of weight on the other foot before lifting.
116. – Throw away useless old stuff.
117. – When going to sleep press a smile into your face.
118. – When eating food talk about positive things.
119. – When it is necessary to face difficult things, have some yogurt as it soothes the stomach.
120. – Carry a notepad and pencil and date the edge.
121. – Before giving personal data check for credentials of the recipient.
122. – Taste food before you swallow and when raisin bread has bitter raisins, spit it all out immediately.
123. – Greet people in a way they expect and feel comfortable with.
124. – When eating, set goals and triggering events.
125. – Don’t start eating until your companion is ready to eat.
126. – When little things go wrong don’t fail … but think “I used to get frustrated but now I will try this better alternative.”
127. – When trading stocks consider using limit orders.
128. – Make every activity have a potentially salable product.
129. – Walk up and down the stairs, even when using an escalator.
130. – When you see someone is wrong, you don’t have to correct them.
131. – When you have a useful thing, explore alternate non-intended uses it can be put to.
132. – Recognize a play potential in everything by playing with it.
133. – When entering a new environment, bring good news.
134. – When you look at someone’s eyes consider how you can help them live life more abundantly.
135. – When bending over put a hand on a knee to ease the stress on your back.
136. – Keep moving appropriately to the situation, to burn calories and keep the blood flowing.
137. – Never click on anything in an email unless you are certain it is virus free.
138. – Set the computer’s safety programs to update automatically.
139. – Protect your mind and senses, like hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling from assaults of excess.
140. – When you see something good to do, try to do it right away.
141. – When you see something bad in another’s behavior, stop doing it yourself.
142. – Seek to please women and impress men.
143. – Keep a chart of your monetary wealth.
144. – Notice what works well and apply that to more things.
145. – Plan a specific action to do when arriving at a specific place.
146. – When you go to bed your job is to go to sleep; don’t get distracted.
147. – When putting things in the garbage can, make sure you don’t miss.
148. – On the last day of the month, change the calendar, pay bills and remember appointments.
149. – When you find a good web site save it to your local web site.
150. – Watch for situations where you may cultivate new habits.
151. – Observe the shadows cast by different colored transparent objects.
152. – When taking a shower maintain balance by holding an elbow against a wall.
153. – Observe where the power lies and seek a positive influence.
154. – What are your current options and constraints to action?
155. – Live life abundantly by having an important goal toward which you can make clear daily progress.
156. – At the end of each day have what you have done in a final form.
157. – Finish what you start.
158. – Make what you want to do fit in with the conditions which will prevail when you are done.
159. – Find the critical precursor to an expected event.
160. – Make your life as aesthetic as possible by making your things and behavior a beautiful aspect of yourself.
161. – Observe the aesthetically horizontal banding.
162. – Compare the banding aesthetic of the horizontal and the symmetrical aesthetic of the vertical.
163. – Note seven related items together as an aesthetic group.
164. – When you take out the garbage pick up the local litter.
165. – Seek out people with similar interests; that is, with similar goals.
166. – Think through a list of what your goals and interests are and prioritize a list of the top seven.
167. – Align your thoughts and actions with archetypes of your goals.
168. – Rate passing people on a baby face versus mature face scale.
169. – When at a restaurant thank the waiter specifically for specific thoughtful actions.
170. – When you have four or more items label them with a single name.
171. – When you know you have done something good pause for a moment of pleasure and review the precursors.
172. – When making a presentation leave a space for questions and a closure.
173. – Take note of the bling of others; notice how it was acquired and the type of success it brings its consumer.
174. – Before you get a needle shot slap your hands, face and injection place a couple of times.
175. – When you pick up a favorite magazine get a repulsive one also to broaden your perspectives.
176. – When watching a movie get into the directors mind and their intended effect on you.
177. – In graphical comparisons keep the measurements on the same scale and the same number of dimensions.
178. – When making web pages in HTML keep them in a single folder and use relative links ../../ .
179. – For critical irreversible actions – double check before proceeding.
180. – Be aware of distance relative to apparent size.
181. – Observe the path you are on, its opportunities and limitations.
182. – When you come to a fork in the road take em … mentally.
183. – Seek the convergence point of various non-related activities.
184. – Observe your group’s response or boredom to your conversaton and actions.
185. – When you need to remember something, analyze it abstractly from three points of view while handling it and talking about it.
186. – Find the choice point of a prospect and look all around for accessibility.
187. – Identify the barriers to your actions and their doors and windows.
188. – Think through important decisions in a quiet environment and then a noisy one.
189. – Expect the best from yourself and others and speak to them in that way.
190. – Repeated exposure to anything creates acceptance so to some degree just keep being present.
191. – On the first of the month do a thoughtful triage on your activities.
192. – Speak out a name, a short description even a scaleing number to things and phenomena you encounter.
193. – When you want to make a point lean forward.
194. – Always work within the design limits factor of safety but be prepared for for disruptive breaks.
195. – Work at the normal design optimums most of the time.
196. – Observe the background environment of what you look at.
197. – Keep stuff you use close and stuff you don’t use far away.
198. – Consider once a day what your goals are.
199. – Observe what you want and what you now have that will satisfy it now without further investment of time and energy.
200. – When riding public transportation work on a productive task.
201. – Observe something and then think of the biggest and the smallest.
202. – When leaving something think what will you do when you return.
203. – Always keep a safety net and a safe go back position available.
204. – Describe the success criterion for every goal.
205. – Set several attainable steps and times to achieve the goal.
206. – Go from where you are as the starting point toward your goal.
207. – When verifying data have it presented in a different format.
208. – Search for examples of Google usage leaping the bounds.
209. – When you see an obese person shift your attention to trim one.
210. – When you see a person with a problem try and identify the cause and then at a person without the problem and their behavior.
211. – Group related things into logical geometrical patterns.
212. – Figure out why a person is doing an obviously stupid thing; what is the positive aspect of it for them.
213. – With a random batch of items get some of them into an alignment position as it minimizes the complexity of the remainder.
214. – In a complex environment limit your choices to this or that and be prepared for an instant response.
215. – When waiting, get into a position for a long view and check out things that are distant and compare them to what is close.
216. – Cover your basics on everything and then upgrade the important items first.
217. – When reading or studying something hi-light less than ten percent of material.
218. – Take large messy random stuff and make it into logical packets.
219. – Always carry a week’s supply of essential pills, money and information. (In an eyeglass case or another thing you carry with you all the time.)
220. – Watch carefully for interference problems and correct things back to the essence.
221. – Observe what you enjoy most and adjust things so you can do more of it.
222. – Carefully observe your failures and search for appropriate precursors and plan appropriate responses and rehearse them.
223. – State a clear end-point of a process early on but after the process is well past started and into the progress phase so you can measure the steps to the finish.
224. – You never get something to work really well without iteration and reiteration and more reiteration.
225. – When an idea presents itself run with it to its logical conclusion and a bit beyond, so you know the limits.
226. – Try and observe the moments just before your decisions are made and why they tripped the way they did.
227. – When you have eaten enough food look away and then walk away and start doing something new.
228. – Look at a face as a template from average and then subcatagorize its special features.
229. – Look at the corners of the eyes and the mouth and between the brows.
230. – On your birthday think through your health risks and helps and try and routinize your best responses.
231. – When with friends observe their health risks and frame comments in such a way as will be helpful.
232. – When someone throws you the ball catch it and run with it a bit and then throw it back.
233. – Just because dessert is served doesn’t mean you have to eat it, the same with shit.
234. – Before eating a meal or a snack, drink a glass of water and eat some dietary fiber.
235. – After eating anything but especially after sugared stuff, swish three swallows of water between your teeth.
236. – During and after a meal drink something non-caloric such as coffee, tea or water.
237. – When eating foods with an odor, post lingually exhale and sniff your chewed portions as it gives you more pleasure and makes you more aware of the food you have eaten.
238. – Observe who or what you might mimic with success. You can frequently choose acceptable role models on TV and record them and practice their techniques but avoid pretenders.
239. – Make a list of ten TV role models and make some recordings of them in spontaneous action. Choose people who are responsible for their actions. Presidents of corporations are good.
240. – When you fail at something observe what you are mimicking that brought about your failure. There is an abundance of this type of counter-productive behavior in movies and TV.
241. – Observe human body fat by comparing weight to waist, butt and height. Use the FATS chart for some guidance.
242. – When at a lecture try to sit between the speaker and the center of the audience because this is where their statements will be directed.
243. – At dinner when you feel full drink some tea or walk away.
244. – Observe the modules of the environment and the interactions of those modules.
245. – Monitor your flu symptoms and take hot baths to raise your temperature to 102.0° every eight hours at the very beginning of the symptoms.
246. – List and clean up your obvious physical defects; bad teeth, overweight, flabbiness, blemishes, posture and chemical imbalances.
247. – The journey of the next thousand days always starts right now; while conscious step carefully for the rest is mostly automatic.
248. – Once a goal is set, follow the shortest route to it.
249. – Reward good behavior in others consistently for a while, then occasionally or else you become too trite and predictable to be interesting to them.
250. – Acknowledge your friends’ accomplishments with public praise.
251. – Keep web materials in folders and make an overall directory; make a printout occasionally and post it on your wall.
252. – Design your personal information in such a logical way that nothing is ever lost.
253. – Watch for things to give to friends as free gifts.
254. – When talking with someone, think what gift they might need and use.
255. – When a sane person is nearby talk to them and find their interesting features.
256. – Whenever there is an opportunity to be happy, take it.
257. – When there is an opportunity to avoid being unhappy, take it.
258. – Observe what you are doing occasionally, and justify it to yourself.
259. – Search for the overview and the organizing forces at play in the situation you find yourself in.
260. – Make your work of the moment a perfect example of that type of work.
261. – When entering home wash your hands, face and nostrils.
262. – If something sounds too good to be true, simply smile and nod, and see where things go from there.
263. – Go out into the sunshine naked for a few minutes every day in the winter.
264. – Limit eating to three times day and make sure the food doesn’t have much sugar in it. Evaporated cane juice is sugar.
265. – Try and understand the motivations of observed persons; you know you are getting close when you can predict their next action.
266. – Practice saying, “No! I don’t want that!” in various ways toward things you might want.
267. – When you are stuck, pick an alternate easy task and finish it quickly and then consider returning to the problem task.
268. – Think ahead to where you are going and what you are going to do when you get there.
269. – Search online for exact answers to your specific problems.
270. – Make the current task important, obvious and with easy steps to completion.
271. – If some task isn’t important stop doing it and start doing something that is important.
272. – When someone asks a question answer it exactly in the terms they will understand.
273. – Don’t let anyone join you for dinner after you have finished eating.
274. – When it comes to bodily injury, think ahead and avoid it. Don’t do stupid things for sport!
275. – When going somewhere, choose transportation that is quick, reliable and healthy.
276. – Practice saying, “Yes! I want that” in different tonalities.
277. – Make a working prototype of an idea and then refine it at least three times.
278. – It is time to stop buffing imperfections when others can’t find them but if they can find them keep buffing.
279. – When making something for your true love, make it perfect.
280. – When in a situation, list five good things about it.
281. – In the face of problems try to be quiet, sane and firm.
282. – When you are reading, notice the spelling of words.
283. – Think, speak and act in close alignment to the current situation.
284. – When a friend is injured go quickly to their aid!
285. – Be calm and firm and help them with getting the proper treatments.
286. – When you feel victimized, do a small corrective action, right now.
287. – When you feel deprived, think of three good things you have.
288. – When you see a mistake that can be corrected quickly, do it now.
289. – When you see something you want, think what do you need to do to acquire that.
290. – What is something else that is just as good that you can get more easily?
291. – When turning off the water give it a second push to stop the drips.
292. – When you think you will have to wait, bring a book and always have a project in your pocket.
293. – If you can do it perfectly, do so; if not, know your compromises.
294. – When you forgot your book, think about a book that needs to be written.
295. – When about to meet a friend review in your mind some of your good times.
296. – If it is the type of problem without a solution, don’t look for a solution.
297. – If a problem is solvable, what would be the characteristics of the solution?
298. – If you can only find part of a solution, do that and work out from there as things will tend to clarify themselves when parts are finished.
299. – Try! Not succeeding is forgivable, but not trying is not forgivable.
300. – Watch for manifestations of different kinds of intelligence and perceptions. Every person, animal, even plant has found something that works for them.
301. – Before you make a big effort prepare for the probable effects.
302. – Kill ear worms by twisting them in a unique way at every appearance.
303. – Kill eye spikes from SUVs by timing your trip to put the sun high and to the side.
304. – When upgrading your computer, take the time to write down the specs of your old one. A digital photo works well.
305. – What is that person thinking? Say it to yourself the way they seem to be saying it to themselves.
306. – What will that person’s next action be? Say it to yourself and watch carefully.
307. – Carry a separate note card in your breast pocket with today’s good habit on it.
308. – Store candies, liquors and other calorie temptations out of sight.
309. – Turn on the electric stove before you fill the tea kettle.
310. – Set the tea kettle to heating before getting the tea cup ready.
311. – Make a map of your computer motherboard and the various plugs and leave it inside the case.
312. – Label and tag the various components, wires and plugs of your computers and transformers.
313. – Observe beauty and appreciate it but walk away enriched as you must, as you would from the Mona Lisa.
314. – Observe other people’s and creatures’ success and take pleasure in it.
315. – State a good habit to another person as an unacknowledged part of conversation.
316. – Glance at the sun, moon or star and re-radiate its light with each exhalation.
317. – Make habit reminder cards, with a vocabulary word, some background info on a news item.
318. – When working don’t rest until you need to or have finished what you are doing.
319. – When thinking about habits make a habit of rehearsing doing the right thing at a specific time.
320. – Create your own habits or other unintended ones will be forced upon you by circumstance or by others.
321. – When with others, behave in such a way that you deserve their love and respect.
322. – When meeting people bring happiness and when you leave sadness and hope for your return.
323. – When others talk about their life, support their success and learn from their failures.
324. – When a present problem can’t be faced, face one that can, and work on it.
325. – When you have time think about things you can change because that’s where the fun is.
326. – Be good to others and you cultivate the habit of being good to yourself.
327. – Life is short so cultivate your good habits while you have the chance, so you can take pleasure in them.
328. – In your daily routine, take your medicine but not too much.
329. – Observe that to tell a pleasant lie and you will be loved, but tell an unpleasant truth and you will be hated.
330. – No matter what’s happening around you, or how you are acting, be cheerful inside.
331. – If you absolutely cannot prevent a problem, carefully observe it play out and learn its precursors.
332. – Don’t interrupt someone when they are saying something stupid, or wise as you can learn from both.
333. – People will behave like you treat them so treat them like they are honorable and wise.
334. – Pay attention! When something is obviously more than 10% crap it probably is 99% crap.
335. – When something is less than 10% crap pay close attention but filter out the 10%.
336. – When reading make notes on a 4″ x 6″ card, with date, title, page # of quotes.
337. – When handling delicate equipment place them carefully and avoid theatrical tossing.
338. – When somebody approaches who is clearly infectious exhale slowly and walk away.
339. – Prepare for the extreme month of the bird flu epidemic before it hits.
340. – Ask people that really know something who the people are that really know the subject.
341. – Ask people who have succeeded at something what is essential and make a list.
342. – Show this list to those successful people and ask them to rank them.
343. – Well begun is half done but well finished is all done and gets the reward.
344. – Winning is a habit with a beginning, a middle and an end, a stimulus, a response and a result.
345. – Don’t help someone who should be taking care of themselves.
346. – Remember the most important person in the world is watching your every thought and action.
347. – Remember that what people do is what they really believe; what they say is what their group likes to hear.
348. – Prepare right now for what you will need tomorrow.
349. – Practice right now the skill you will need tomorrow.
350. – Stretch your calf and foot muscles before bedtime and for a few seconds and at night if you get up.
351. – If you have the feeling you are about to do something stupid you’re probably right, so don’t do it.
352. – Creating a new good habit precipitates more pleasure than any other human activity.
353. – When you look at the world and see something, also try and see it from one of the great seers’ point of view.
354. – Be very careful creating your habits; You create your habits and then they create you.
355. – Your world changes and the habits you are using must be changed to cope with the new conditions.
356. – You can form your habits to cope with a future which will be very, very different from what a naive person would expect.
357. – Natural habits form in adaptation to current events but with forethought you can do much better.
358. – Read, and study the world as education is society’s attempt to help you cope with the future.
359. – If you adapt to the present you will always be behind so adapt to some specific future condition which is sure to come.
360. – If you postulate specific future situations, then the habits that will be needed will become obvious.
361. – Thinking is slow so important skills must be habitualized beforehand to become effective.
362. – When you meet a knowledgeable person ask them who they think are the prime movers of society for the next five years. Have your own list ready to show them and reasons why you think your choices are so.
363. – Preparation for unusual events will seem unreasonable but it takes very little effort and may have a very big reward.
364. – Watch carefully for improvements in things and then try and apply the improvement to unrelated things.
365. – With billions of people thinking about stuff and communicating with each other new things are bound to crop up that will have spin offs.  365 is a year’s worth of new habits.
366. – Watch for new tools of observation as this always permits seeing things with a new vision.
367. – Watch for patterns of self organization and its derivatives in everything. Preexisting stressors both internal and external which push apart at some level and pull together at some level seem to be the key factor.
368. – For self orgainzation to flourish there must be an overiding influence perceptible to all, forcing them into orientation and close together so these items must have solid pre-existing boundaries.
369. – When you are stuck on a problem it is a great opportunity to think and grow new coping abilities outside of the solution to the present problem.
370. – You must look at yourself and prepare your habits for what you are capable of becoming.
371. – Go to a wiki site and check out something you are familiar with and make appropriate improvements.
372. – Look at a new object and create three improvements to it and three nonstandard uses to put it to.
373. – Find out who are the prime movers in computers, communications, sales, genetics, nanotech, robots and their combined forms and track their progress.
374. – Make a list of who today will be considered the prime movers ten years from now; print the list and post it on your bathroom mirror; and make an RSS feed.
375. – Don’t drink high calorie beverages; do eat chew able unprocessed solid foods.
376. – When you see a dog and human team, look to see who is the leader; usually it’s the dog who is pack leader.
377. – Watch for critical size reactions in various social as well as physical groupings.
378. – When you see a new idea immediately write down in your notebook that idea and how it may be applied to other situations.
379. – New ideas are easily forgotten because there in no refrent to bring them back to attention, so write it down now!
380. – When at a lecture go up afterwards and participate in the small discussions and watch carefully for the creative people, the place holders and the groupies.
381. – Think things through but don’t waste time on things that can be wikied; After wikiing think through your application of that knowledge to your problem.
382. – Spend some specific event moments on every level of the “Happiness scale” every day.
383. – View your problems from several perspectives: survival, freedom, pleasure, sustainability, aesthetics, well-being, virtue, action, balance, power, truth, vigor, vitality and benefits.
384. – Seek out artificial intelligence systems such as “Google”,   “Free Dictionary” and “Wikipedia”; Become skilled at applying them to your problems.
385. – Make an HTMLized page of your AI systems and meld them and your problems into working systems.
386. – New ideas lack associations and are difficult to remember, so write down your ideas, even as first approximations, later you can buff them into clearer and cleaner statements.
387. – Look at a beautiful thing; then find and observe what is ugly relative to that thing. State the differences.
388. – Calling one thing beautiful generates its opposite to come into existence also but that opposite is created by how the beautiful thing is defined.
389. – Eliminate unnecessary things from an idea. Beauty is in the revelation of an underlying understandability of a previously overly complex whole.
390. – When blocked on anything great or small start working on a way around the blockage.
391. – When you are not observed working toward a goal others will not strive to prevent you from reaching it.
392. – When others can see a goal clearly and a simple step they can take toward that goal they will take it.
393. – Your foremost duty is to live life abundantly; to pay attention to your environment and to participate fully.
394. – Identify threats to your life and its possibilities and create workable solutions to those problems.
395. – Try hard to stay alive because each new year is filled with more potential experience than ever before, it is like your life is being extended.
396. – Opportunities for living more abundantly are expanding so rapidly it is as if your life expectancy is being greatly extended on a daily basis.
397. – When something works, do lots of it right away so it becomes a habit and you have some variations on the theme.
398. – When you are contradicted note the statements and later, carefully inspect your ideas which they consider wrong, for the correctness of your underlying assumptions and facts.
399. – Religions became widespread because they fit the needs of the public at those times and places and the wisdom they provide is best adapted to those circumstances.
400. – Pause to think before applying a good habit to a situation unrelated to its original circumstance of creation.
401. – Create new little habits because the more little habits you have at your command the more accurately and specifically you may respond to new situations.
402. – When confronted with a routine situation, and have some time, explore a new habit for coping.
403. – Think ahead a few years; Our bodies, minds and societies evolved long before wiki-wisdom came into being and you should now be preadapting in the direction things are sure to go.
404. – Some ideas and sensations can be recreated by going down a pre-experienced path, like rereading a book or drinking a Coca Cola but others require creating a unique new path to re-experience them.
405. – Occasionally, observe yourself observing yourself doing what you are doing and then move on and do it with frequent enthusiasm’s.
406. – Do what you do with enthusiasm, like you are inspired by God to accomplish wonderful things.
407. – Observe that humanity evolved and created most of what we see around us because each individual was trying to improve their personal condition.
408. – When you seek your personal goals do so in such a way that it doesn’t ruin the world around you.
409. – Set triggers in your environment such that whenever possible you may take control of your attention and place it where it will do the most good.
410. – When starting a new project spend an hour doing a Wikipedia search on the subject and follow the embedded links.
411. – Much of the future is already here, prepare for the worst of it with specific actions and embrace the best of it with specific actions.
412. – Some things progress slowly, some grow linearly, some grow exponentially and others just the opposite. Try to identify which is which and what needs to be done about the changes.
413. – When scratching at skin blemishes put some antiseptic on them first to prevent the transfer of the blemish cells to the next place you happen to scratch.
414. – On various anniversaries consider what you want your legacy of accomplishment to be on various time and space scales: day, year, millennium- personal, family, group, society.
415. – Be prepared! People think of a severe problem, such as a car wreck as being a catastrophe and buy insurance but they never consider preparing for a DISS-3 or for a DISS-10. These are all personally survivable with some dedicated preparations.
416. – Do something original! Something new and useful! Generally this is most easily accomplished by building and improvement on something which was recently created.
417. – You can predict the weather by checking an almanac printed last year, a newspaper printed last night, your local weather radar movie or by looking out the window.
418. – Observe what need cigarettes, alcohol, gambling and other self limiting activities fulfill in there customers.
419. – Identify small margin inflexible organizations, as major innovations are stressful for everyone but are most stressful to big, and brittle organizations. They will be the first to fail but their fall may be slow because of vast stored reserves.
420. – Watch for people and organizations with self defeating behavior and find out why they insist on doing things which they probably acknowledged to be self defeating.
421. – When observing a person you wish to understand set your whole being into their likeness; make your face, posture, gesture, thoughts and statements identical to theirs.
422. – When starting a project learn the basics with Wikipedia, discover the authorities in the field and find one to be your mentor.
423. – When meeting people greet them with symmetrical presence and wait until they smile before being overtly friendly.
424. – When things are getting difficult say an authoritative word or two and assume a calm relaxed still but attentive posture.
425. – Save paper documents by folding them with the identifying information on the outside, so you can identify them later.
426. – Start sentences by addressing a person, place or thing rather than with a self referent.
427. – When looking back on former problems consider what you were thinking about before the events developed.
428. – When asking a question put yourself in the emotional state of the speaker then move on toward your goal.
429. – When snuziling with celebrities start off with a thank you for a particular thing they have done for you.
430. – When waiting for your turn to speak to them think about specific ways they have contributed to your happiness.
431. – Ask your question in terms that can be answered from their world view.
432. – Start by saying their formal name with title, how much you value a specific thing they did, why it is important to you, and what you want from them.
433. – Observe your stomach a few minutes after eating and ask, “Is this what I hoped for and expected when eating?”.
434. – Look at people and imagine what they will look like in thirty years.
435. – Look at the city and the environment and imagine what it will be like in thirty years with various sceenarios.
436. – With a thought in mind about some action, think … what follows that, three times.
437. – Think through a simple task, like getting a cup of tea, and returning. Then observe as you go how many things you missed.
438. – Do it again tomorrow and try and get more details into your think through. And again observe what you missed.
439. – Search for things in your environment that are scalable from making a small number of them to a large number of them without proportionally increasing the effort.
440. – If you are going to be something or do something you may as well start behaving right now as though it is going to happen and its effects are already being felt.
441. – Assume for a moment that a solution to your problem exists, what would you do then and can you do some of that right now.
442. – Try and think of a tool, physical or mental, which would solve a problem. Refine it three times.

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Enjoy!

What is your personal responsibility to humanity?

Tags

humanities survival, Personal responsibility

I don’t remember ever thinking about my responsibility to humanity before becoming responsible for H-bombs. My thoughts while in US Air Force flight school were about attending to what I was required to learn and do. The issues were when on duty to perform as well as possible and to relax when off duty in a way that would improve our performance when on duty. The personal goal was to graduate from flight school, and secondarily to graduate as high as possible within our class because the higher we scored the more choice we had as to the kinds of airplanes we would fly. I graduated at the top of my class in everything and that was seventy percent of our total score. Unfortunately, I didn’t display the kind of military enthusiasm expected of me and was rated poorest on that measured quality, and therefore instead of being at first choice for assignments I was sixth out of the local portion of our entire class. That was about one-hundred graduating pilots.

An aside comment, on our first day introductory at flight school, while still in an auditorium with the whole Air Force Class 1959H, the introductory speaker said, “Look around, half of you won’t make it through flight school!”

Charles Scamahorn in 1959 when jet pilot in USAF.

I did graduate near the top of my class, but as it turned out I lost my bet to become a fighter pilot because there were only five fighter assignments, and I was sixth in my class and pushed into the bottom of the assignment choice list into B-47 bombers. And that is where this story really begins. Because with this assignment, instead of defending our country and our government against all enemies, foreign and domestic, I was to fly around with H-bombs and threaten the whole world with extermination.

For me, the question then became, “What is my personal responsibility to humanity?” My life goal wasn’t, and still isn’t, to destroy humanity; it was to be a law-abiding citizen and defend my country. But the problem was that if I performed my job perfectly, it would bring the end of civilization, and possibly all humanity. My action would precipitate our enemies to retaliate with everything they had, and of course, we would retaliate with everything we had too. That was the United States’ plan and official Air Force policy. It was aptly named Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

Here is the current state of MADNESS from Wikipedia, The current list of states with nuclear weapons: “From a high of 70,300 active weapons in 1986, as of 2019, there are approximately 3,750 active nuclear warheads and 13,890 total nuclear warheads in the world. Many of the decommissioned weapons were simply stored or partially dismantled, not destroyed”

This problem came up for me because I began talking about Charles Galton Darwin’s book, “The Next Million Years.”