makeshiftmind

My brother reminded me today that I have not updated my blog in some time. To justify my inaction would take a monumental amount of space, so instead I have chosen to take this opportunity to discourse a bit on a rather technical concept called “twitterpation”.

If you remember correctly, the term “twitterpated” became part of the common vernacular with its appearance in the movie, Bambi. Observe:

“Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime. You get weak in the knees. Your head starts to whirl. Before you know it, you’re knocked for a loop!”

In this context, “twitterpation” is clearly a natural phenomenon observed among members of the opposite sex during a period of romantic interest. This phenomenon is often characterized by strange, erratic behavior, feelings of euphoria, loss of appetite, extended nervousness, and extreme difficulty in directing the mind to think about things OTHER than the object of “twitterpation”.

Urbandictionary.com offers a far more concise definition:

1) to be completely enamored with someone/something.
2) the flighty exciting feling you get when you think about/see the object of your affection.
3) romantically (ahem) excited (i.e.: aroused)
4) the ever increasing acceleration of heartbeat and body temperature as a result of being engulfed amidst the exhilaration and joy of being/having a romantic entity in someone’s life.

Though this definition may sound formal and cold, the fact of the matter is that twitterpation involves nothing less than a revolutionary change in one’s state of emotion, health, and mental activities. The topic usually receives a “bad rap” because its participants are normally so stricken that their vocabularies are instantly reduced to “cutsie” words projected towards one another. This tends to embarrass the nonparticipating observer, mostly because he or she knows that they are guilty of the same and wishes desperately that THEY were in that situation, and not vice versa.

In summary, twitterpation is probably responsible for most of the positive things in the world, such as the invention of anything important, the major philosophic thinkers, the advancement of western civilization, and the founding of Taco Bell. None of this can be substantiated of course, but the circumstantial evidence is credible. The fact that most people secretly enjoy it is also reason to believe that it serves as a motivating factor in life. On the whole, I think it is most wonderful, and would highly recommend it to anyone within the sound of my voice.

There, I’ve updated. )

In lieu of my post below, I found some comments on the story at Slashdot.org, one of which struck me as particularly funny:

Things To Look Forward To In Immortality:

# 3D High Def THX Surround Sound home entertainment (some brain surgery required)
# The 100th season of the Simpsons
# 200 more years of Dick Clark in Times Square
# Windows Cthulhu (C’mon, you know it was coming some day…)
# Baseball players finally agree to seriously address the steroid issue after a homerun ball is driven through the skull of a guy two miles away from the stadium.
# No matter how well you cared for your teeth, you’ll eventually lose them.
# Watching every public retirement system go into the stock market and then watch it really tank! (Alpo! Yum!)
# Liver Spot removal pill spam
# Survivor Krakatoa
# Final Fantasy LXXVI: The ploy that isn’t beaten to death, yet.
# After about 20 presidents claiming to reduce spending you realize they’re full of shit as the world runs out of money to finance the US debt. And those guys who said, “The debt doesn’t matter”, they died, so it didn’t matter to them.

Tech Review has an interesting article about a man named Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey, a self-proclaimed futurist who taught himself the intricacies of genetics. He now believes that our level of technology is sufficient to begin seriously attacking the problem of old age in hopes of achieving physical immortality (or at least, extended longevity). The article’s author states that Aubrey:

“…bases his certainty that there are only seven such factors on the fact that no new factor has been discovered in some twenty years, despite the flourishing state of research in the field known as biogeron­tology, the science of aging; his certainty that he is the man to lead the crusade for endless life is based on his conception that the qualification needed to accomplish it is the mindset he brings to the problem: the goal-driven orientation of an engineer rather than the curiosity-driven orientation of the basic scientists who have made and will continue to make the laboratory discoveries that he intends to employ. He sees himself as the applied scientist who will bring the benisons of molecular bi­ology to practical use. In the analogous terminology often used by historians of medicine, he is the clinician who will bring the laboratory to the bedside.”

Obviously the possibility of prolonging life and reducing the suffering that old age brings is tantalizing, and Aubrey’s basic justification for his work is that since life is the first and most important right of man, it should be the one which he works most to preserve and extend. The article’s author doesn’t agree with Aubrey’s ideas, however, and states that:

“For reasons that are pragmatic, scientific, demographic, economic, political, social, emotional, and secularly spiritual, I am committed to the notion that both individual fulfillment and the ecological balance of life on this planet are best served by dying when our inherent biology decrees that we do. I am equally committed to making that age as close to our biologically probable maximum of approximately 120 years as modern biomedicine can achieve, and also to efforts at decreasing and compressing the years of morbidity and disabilities now attendant on extreme old age. But I cannot imagine that the consequences of doing a single thing beyond these efforts will be anything but baleful, not only for each of us as an individual, but for every other living creature in our world.”

Most people think of biological death as a certain evil–that it is an attack against our humanness. Hence, Aubrey’s passion for eliminating it altogether. But films such as Bicentennial Man offer a different perspective: namely, that death is just as much a part of being human as is life. This thought had never occurred to me before, as I had always been in the former school of thought. I have to admit, death as a final point of rest does have a certain appeal, but is that just because we lack the passion for life that we should have?

Aubrey sees aging as primarily the result of seven different factors: 1) cellular atrophy, 2) accumulation of unwanted cells, 3) mutations in chromosomes, 4) mutations in cell mitochondria, 5) the accumulation of “junk” within intercellular structures, 6) the accumulation of “junk” outside of the cell, and 7) cross-links in a cell’s proteins. Aubrey readily admits that only a few of these are currently addressable, but he is confident that cellular transfusions (which would include stem cell replacements) are possible in the future.

The ethical questions are, of course, 1) at what cost will prolonging life occur? and 2) is it beneficial to man to live as long as he can? The social consequences would be quite interesting–the technological fountain of youth would essentially wipe away any physical distinction between the elderly and younger generations. The physical state of both would be, for practical purposes, identical. Obviously man’s physical capacity for happiness could be prolonged, but would his mental capacity follow suit? What would it mean for a person to acquire hundreds or thousands of years worth of memories?

The toll on natural resources would also be great, propelling us to come up with alternative methods of living (under the ocean, anyone? in space stations or on other planets?), which is not of itself a negative thing, but would require careful planning and significant effort.

The economy could theoretically be stimulated by the preservation of able-bodied laborers, and social security could wither and die like it should because no one would need to draw it.

In short, the possibilities are profound, but the ethical and practical questions need to be probed further. What thoughts, if any, do you have on the subject?

I was digging through some old files and came across this image that I had worked over in Photoshop to use in a web project:

As you can see, I heavily altered the colors to make them more vibrant, removed some of the dirt path, eliminated a large tree off to the right, and created a totally different sky. The final picture is very believeable, and looks much sharper than the original.

I thought I would just take a moment and explain the theme of my site in a nutshell — what does makeshiftmind mean? The quote in the upper right-hand corner reads:

…cataclysmic minds unite to procreate, perverse offspring of our technology…”

This is, more than anything else, a commentary on the process of thought, or lack thereof, that has become characteristic of a generation spoon-fed by television, video games, and boy bands; a generation that holds, as its official philosophy, some clever line from Seinfeld or Family Guy; a generation who knows not the capacity for original, creative thought.

But before I sound too pesimistic, I must say that over the years, I’ve met many young people who give me hope. They DO think–and think a lot. They don’t just accept the status quo, and they have informed opinions on everything from politics to art to education to science. They come from all different backgrounds–religious, non-religious, public educated, private educated, homeschooled, artistic, technical, social, introverted–but they all have two things in common: they want to know TRUTH and they want to live LIFE, as it is meant to be lived.

This site is my small contribution, and believe me, it is SMALL. I have no preconcieved notions of solving the world’s problems–I can’t even solve mine!–but I do believe that there are answers to the questions we have, answers that will show us how to live fully and fruitfully. This is my goal, and I want to make this a place of exchange for those ideas.

ArsTechnica is running an article titled Creationists lose round in textbook sticker fight about a Georiga school board that decided, in response to parental requests, to place a sticker on the inside of every science textbook in the school that reads:

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

Apparently this act of intellectual integrity has spurred the ACLU, at the request of several upset parents, to file suit in federal court against the school district. Ars reads:

The District Court Judge, Clarence Cooper, wrote that, ‘the sticker sends a message to those who oppose evolution for religious reasons that they are favored members of the political community, while the sticker sends a message to those who believe in evolution that they are political outsiders.’

Now, apparently I must be incredibly dense, because I can’t find the words “religion”, “God”, “creation”, or “faith” in the text of the sticker in question. In fact, it only addresses one point of view: Evolution, and it’s message is simply “don’t swallow hook line and sinker without testing the water first.” Can this seriously be construed as a conspiratorial plot by evil fundamentalists to teach religion in the public classroom? I hardly think so. To prohibit criticism of any idea–no matter how “established”–is in effect, censorship. The ACLU should wither and curl up in shame for promoting a cause which effectively silences free speech in the name of established norm. It is the government who is now refusing to look through Galileo’s telescope.

To excuse his decision, Judge Cooper claimed that Evolution is more than just a theory–that it is, in fact:

…the dominant scientific theory of origin accepted by a majority of scientists…

There you have it–case settled. Free speech may be revoked when dominant views are questioned. I guess that means the liberals can quit squaking about Iraq–or the ACLU might go on “dominant view” alert.

Not only is this profoundly hypocritical, but it also hinders science as well. Science is built on active investigation coupled with evidential integrity. If scientists can’t be honest with the facts–if they have to silence their opponents by force instead of by evidence, then their theories should be questioned. Even if creationism were a breach of the legitimate seperation of Church and State, that does not bar individuals, teachers, or schools from qualifying their approach to the subject of Evolution. The outcome of cases like this will be the litmus test for free speech in this country. The ACLU might think they’ve won, but all they are doing is setting precedence for totalitarianism.

Friends, as you can see, I have totally re-designed makeshiftmind.com from the ground up. This is my “2.0 Beta” release, so the comments aren’t working yet and there are very few things you can actually do here, but please keep checking back, as the new features should be coming along shortly. I really wanted something more like a traditional blog, with my own “flair”, so this is my compromise.

Testing the blog stuff.