Still alive and thinking
Hmm... I haven't posted in a while. How's everyone in LJ world doing? I've just been working and hanging out with friends. Very enjoyable and relaxing summer. I suddenly realized yesterday that in total, I'm going to be spending a month in Europe this summer :) It all actually begins this week, leaving Friday for Greece. Oh yeah, that other little thing is happening this week.... I TURN 21!!!!1! The horror, the horror. I'm reading a real interesting little book right now by the same guy that writes the Dilbert comics (Scott Adams)... he's actually a really interesting author IMO. The "book" (if you can call it that) is called God's Debris. He doesn't refer to it as book, but more as a "132 page thought experiment wrapped in a fictional story"... it's really an examination in human epistemology and I love it. I think I'll leave with an excerpt that was interesting to me...
"There is more information in one thimble of reality than can be understood by a galaxy of human brains. It is beyond the human brain to understand the world and its environment, so the brain compensates by creating simplified illusions that act as a replacement for understanding. When the illusions work well and the human who subscribes to the illusion survives, those illusions are passed to new generations.
The human brain is a delusion generator. The delusions are fueled by arrogance-the arrogance that humans are the center of the world, that we alone are endowed with the magical properties of souls and morality and free will and love. We presume that an omnipotent God has a unique interest in our progress and activities while providing all the rest of creation for our playground. We believe that God-because he thinks the same way we do-must be more interested in our lives than in the rocks and trees and plants and animals."
"There is more information in one thimble of reality than can be understood by a galaxy of human brains. It is beyond the human brain to understand the world and its environment, so the brain compensates by creating simplified illusions that act as a replacement for understanding. When the illusions work well and the human who subscribes to the illusion survives, those illusions are passed to new generations.
The human brain is a delusion generator. The delusions are fueled by arrogance-the arrogance that humans are the center of the world, that we alone are endowed with the magical properties of souls and morality and free will and love. We presume that an omnipotent God has a unique interest in our progress and activities while providing all the rest of creation for our playground. We believe that God-because he thinks the same way we do-must be more interested in our lives than in the rocks and trees and plants and animals."