Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Memories

When something happens to us, or we perveive it with our senses, wether through sight, smell, touch, taste or hearing, it generates something in our minds. An echo. That echo, which will sometimes return, even years later, is what we call memory.

Nobody is really sure how memories are stored. There are certain experts that assert that the brain can store as much as a terabyte. Some say more. In the end, I think, our similarities with our own creations (".. and God created Adam in his own image") are not really that close in the sense of how we remember things nor in the measurability in bits. Again, its probably more about how memory is conceptualized than how the data is stored.

We could be going down a highway we've travelled often and discover a smell that takes us back to our time in the military service (that happened to me in my recent trip to Barcelona). Or even listen a few notes of a song and remember a situation or feeling. Or that piece of poetry that we remember years and years later and still moves us like the first day. And the smell of someones skin which, one day, we smell again.

All these things and more strike chords in us and bring things from the past. Some good, some not so much.

However, that vital instrument can sometimes fail us at the worst possible time. Why? Those of you who know me will know what I'm talking about. Some "accuse" me of not paying due attention or not assigning the right priority, even though I've forgotten things that were only important (vital) to myself.

It's funny but I can recognize someone in a film, remember their movements, their phisonomy and place them in a radically different argumental environment. And I couldn't give you their name to save my life.

Writing these lines I am struck with a theory. Lets go back to the memory being like that of a computer. Whe computers store memory they do it by random allocation (actually, they follow an algorythm) of the space, thus the name RAM. Assume, then, that the mind does something similar, assigning space in the brain as well as synthesizing the concept to be stored. Naturally, humans being, we will assign a path to that memory, we will link it with others. A path that will later be reorganized and, of course, we will assign a priority to it in order to find it faster at a later stage. But, what would happen if, say, by a genetical flaw, the algorythm failed? What if the reorganization lost a path or misplaced it? what if the process was degenerative?

It offends some people. Others find it funny. Sometimes I worry...

... and then I forget...





Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

Imagine yourselves pusing a trolley up-hill. The trolley is heavy, but you can push it and you really want to get home with it more than anything in the world. You've been climbing the hill for a while when you trip over and fall. The first time doesn't really matter. Your will to get home with the trolley is too strong. You get up and keep walking even though you scraped your knee.

A while later your arms start to ache and then you trip over again. The scraped knee gets bashed again and now the other one, too. The trolley was getting heavy by now, but you still want to get it home. Getting up is a little harder now, as your knees hurt and the arms have not rested, but you get up nonetheless.

The street still climbs up in an endless hill and you see up ahead that the pavement has some loose pieces that may be treacherous. But, actually, this is the only road home, so you carry on regardless of the pain on your knees, the pain in your arms and that dull ache at the end of your back. You've been pushing the trolley for a while and tiredness is setting in.

And yes, once again you trip over. Both knees are hurt, open, your arms are in pain and so is your back. And you're tired... so tired... And the trolly weighs so much... so much...

But you really really want to get the trolley home. It's the only thing that matters. And there is no other road. When is it right to decide it's enough? That there are enough scrapes, bumbs and bruises and that the trolley is really too heavy to take home? When is it right to decide it is better to abandon that trolley and try to find a new one possibly closer?

This, of course, means throwing away all the effort and disregard the walk so far...

But the trolley is what is important. To get home with it is the only thing that matters.

How do you do it?





Friday, February 15, 2008

Dedicated photo

A promise is a promise.

Last weekend I was in Barcelona and, although the weather was good, I was planning to take a picture I wanted to take after some conversations I had with Edelweiss. It didn't quite end up as I wanted it. I didn't find the right subject, nor the right framing... and the camera was not really up to it (something I plan to solve soon).

However, here it is, in [my DeviantArt gallery] and, naturally, it is dedicated to Edelweiss for rightly earning the name.






Thursday, February 14, 2008

Against nature

We pride ourselves in being rational beings. We are "so far removed" from animals we can even use the term as an insult. We are so superior we can even class the rest of living beings into higher animals, lower animals, etc. But at the end of the day, we also pride ourselves in being able to enjoy our basic animal instincts.

But as the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it. Either we are rational or we are not.

Yes, the answer, of course, is that we are both. Ah, how nice to have double standards. To be able to choose when to be rational and when to react by instinct. We can decide when to see things with logic and when to... react!

Well then, as some of you know, after certain repeated experiences, certain recursve cycles, this is the moment in my life when I decide once more (once and for all) that logic, rationalism are what must prevail and to choose when instinct can have free run. Just because of this, a good friend of mine said I was going against nature. But ¿isn't that being human?

This morning, with the usual bombardment of a day like today, in the front page of a free newspaper, it said that 58% of couples break up. Its a statistic. And 97,3% of statistics are made up. No-one knows how many couples break up nor how long were they together for. The reasons are many and varied, simple, complex and a large portion of them are due to a lack of understanding, communication, differnt rules, deviations in knowledge... People change, as do the images we have of them as they evolve according to their changes. Action and reaction and sometimes intention is futile, promises are not kept... choose the sin and pick up a rock, you're sure to hit someone.

It's time to evaluate the lessons learned. How to act logically when there is no logic to be applied to a world where rational people don't decide when to be instinctive? Logic has its moments. Instincts have different ones. And it is rare when the combination is positive. It is therefore logical that the solution is to apply rational and instinct when it's their time. Set goals and ban roads, since some roads have proven not to be worth the trip regardless of who you walk them with. Those roads al end the same.

If there is an easy road and a hard one, why chose the hard one always? I'll miss things, yeah, sure. Am I contious of it? Yes. I've seen much and it hasn't given me as much as it was supposed to. Nature is not that pretty sometimes. Traditions aren't always valid to every one.

And if that is being anti-natural, if that is going against nature, someone should let ol'Cupid know:



Translation:
-So Cupid, how's life?
-I'm going to stay free and single. Some of the things I see in my work really get to me.





Friday, February 08, 2008

Real Guitar Hero

Here is a discovery I did in the most unusual of places: The [FIV'07] (no, not the [FIB]). A good friend of mine, Alvarito, knowing of my passion for electric guitars, also self-erected DJ of the day, showed me this great guitarist whom I previously didn't know of but who captured me from the very beginning: [Kiko Loureiro]

The first piece I say, Enfermo ("Sick", see video below, which, funnily enough is the very same video I saw), I thought was a spectacular display of tehcnique and great musical taste. Apart from using "the tipical tricks" any lead self-respecting guitarist uses, such as tapping, false harmonics, sweep-picking and fast-picking, this master also combines techniques to do things like harmonic tapping slap-bang in the middle of a solo, chord tapping (see first video, my favourite), etc.

Also, being a brazilian by origin, you can hear the influences of his mother-land's music both in the rythms used as well as the chord sequences and scales used. Please note he has a blog right here, at Blogger:: [Blog Kiko Loureiro] (there is an [English] version).

He first "appeared" as a guitarist for [Angra], a (Power) metal band where, in my modest opinion, they used very little of this talented musician.

So without further ado (and not too deep today, it's friday), I'll let you get on with a couple of videos of his "No gravity" record (highly recommended!).

Tapping into my dark tranquility


Enfermo


Dilemma


And... strangely... the only Kiko Loureiro video I found on Stage6(!!?).







Tuesday, February 05, 2008

How things do change in 30 years

A friend sent me this today. It was funny at the begining but as I read on I actually started feeling depressed. It quite sad, really.

(Translated)

Scenario:
John is planning to go to the forest after class. He enters school an shows his mate Peter the pen-knife with which he intends to make a slingshot.

1977: The principal sees it and asks where he they sell them and shows him his own, which is older but better.

2007: The school shuts down, the police is called and they take John away to the reformatory. The main channels start their news broadcast from the school's door.



Scenario:
Frank and Mark have a tiff and end up in fisticups after class.

1977: Their peers cheer. Mark wins. They shake on it and they end up playing billiards together.

2007: The school shuts down. CNN declares a month of anti-violence. the papers talk about the subject in 5-column width, and they bring Matias Prats (Spain's most famous journalist, sorry... no translation there) to the middle of the storm to present the news broadcast.



Scenario:
James won't sit still at school and disturbs his peers.

1977: They send James to the principal who tells him off. He returns to class, sits still and doesn't disturb the class again.

2007: They prescribe James some Ritalin. He is transformed into a zombi. The school gets a grant for schooling a disabled person.



Scenario:
Lou breaks the glass of a car in his street. His father takes his belt off and gives him a red bum.


1977: Lou learns to be more careful next time and grows normally, he goes to university and becomes a successfull businessman.


2007: Lou's father is arrested for child abuse. Without a father figure, Lou joins a street gang. The psichologists convince his sister that his father abused her, too and they put him in jail. Lou's mother hooks up with the psichologist. The final in Big Brother is started with a forum on the subject.



Scenario:
Joe falls in a race and scrapes his knee. His teacher, Mary, finds him crying at the edge of the field. She hugs him to comfort him.

1977: Shortly after, Joe feels better and carries on playing.

2007: Mary is acused for child abuse and is sacked. She may end up in jail for three years. The parents sue the school for negligence and the teacher for emotional distress and they win both cases. Mary, jobless and up to her ears in debt kills herself by jumping out of a window. She lands on a car and breaks a plant pot on the way down. The car owner and the plant pot owner sue the heirs for destruction of property, They win. Two main channels join in the production of the movie and the news broadcast officce is moved deffinitely to the street.


Scenario:
A white boy and a black boy fight because one called the other chocolate.

1977: They have fisticups for a while, get up and go home. The next day they are friends.

2007: CNN sends in the best reporters. The BBC with a team of reporters prepares an in-depth documentary of a day at school with the kids. Documentaries are broadcast on street gangs, racism, pseudo-hitlerian youths pretend to rise in revolution about this and the government instates new laws and they give the black kid's family a flat.



Scenario:
You are going to travel.

1977: You fly in an Iberia (ok, ok...BA), they feed you, they invite you to whatever you want to drink, all served by stewardesses that are a joy to look at and in your sit you could fit two of you.

2007: You enter the plane putting your belt back on, which you had to remove to pass the security check. They sit you in a seat that, if you were to breathe deep you'd poke your neighbour in the eye with your elbow. If you are thirsty a poofy steward will offer you a beverages price list in which all drinks are 50% more expensive just because. You don't complain just in case they later want to check you for drugs with the longest finger in the world...



Scenario:
Peter, aged 19, has a reputation for being hard, earned by hours at the billiards, leather jacket with metal studs and lighter caps and a supped-up moped; he lays Anna, a 15 year-old hiper-developed gal who stands out from her girlfriends on the street.

1977: Peter is the stud, the dude.

2007: After a national television level public lynching, specially by the usual criticists and progressive ministers, Mercedes Mila (look her up) obtains the reinstating of the death sentence in Spain. Peter has the honour of being the first one to be condemned by the retroactive quality of this new law.


Scenario:
Usual relationship between father and son:

1977: I ask him for money to go out.

2007: He asks me for money to keep the bank at bay.



Scenario:
School discipline:

1977: You misbehaved in class. The teacher gave you two well-deserved slaps. When you got home your dad gave you another two...

2007: You misbehave. The teacher apologizes. Your dad apologizes and buys you a motorbike.


Scenario:
October 28th.

1977: You change from summer-time to winter-time. Nothing happens.

2007: The time-change arrives. People suffer sleep disorders, depression and women loose the period.


Scenario:
End of holidays.

1977: After a major traffic jam with the whole family stuck in a Morris Minor after a 15 day holiday at the beach, the holidays are over. Everybody goes to work the next day and nothing happens.

2007: After returning from Cancun, a trip with all expenses paid. The holidays are over and people suffer sleep disorders, depression and seborrhea.





Traditions and religions

I wasn't too sure what to write about today. I'm not actually an endless pit of ideas nor do I always feel like writing long monologues. But this morning, whilst enjoying a nice coffee with Mente Inquieta (Restless Mind, someone who commented several times in my spanish-version blog), we touched a subject with can generate lots of thoughts: traditions and religions.

Specifically, we spoke about how women are in this area (generalizing, of course) and what their points of view are with respect to couples. For various reasons I will not go into details on this in this post. Maybe some other day.

It's funny, however, to think of the amount of decisions and actions with are decided upon with the simple basis of tradition and religion. Parents teach their children their moral values thus perpetuating them. But, of course, those values get mixed up as families combine their members. And even in our "equalitarian" society (I'll go into that one some other time...) boys are not taught the same as girls.

But what is really a "tradition"? A tradition is something that we do because "it is always been done like that", though obviously the term "always" is relative. Sometimes it means a couple of years, sometimes centuries.

Some traditions, even evolve. Others, however "de-volve". In a society like ours there are traditions whose meaning is long lost or distorted, as there are also traditions which completely lack any sense.

Family values are not what they used to be. But neither is everything that surrounds a family. The "traditional family" is still plagued with concepts that, applied to today's society can even cause more harm than good.

This is also true with religions. Religious traditions, and I don't just mean rituals but also dogmas and concepts, are also distorted through time. As an example there is the well known phrase that describes a difficult situation: (...) as trying to pass a camel through the eye of a needle. Apparently, the original sentence, which appears in the Scriptures, said something along the lines of "(...) like passing a rope through the eye of a needle" (the type of rope to tie boats with) which naturally makes much more sense. There was apparently some confusion when it was translated since the words "camel" and "rope to tie boats with" (khamelos) were similar. A simple translation mistake that gave birth to an almost senseless saying.

Imagine, then, how many other traditions have been misinterpreted. After all, most religions were based on the idea of mutual comprehension and were created, in the beginning, with good intentions. There have been, however, uncountable wars, conflicts and fights even to this day because of them. All for tradition.

Yes, resentment also become a tradition.

But not all traditions nor all religions are negative. It all depends on the colour of the glass you look through, as it often is. Even though the meaning of traditions are lost, some can remain. We still give each other presents on Christmas with the intention of showing affection, even if that has degraded to the materialism Christmas seems to be based on now and that we are flooded with advertisements from october and evern earlier.

There are, however, traditions and religions I still find very hard to comprehend. I will never understand how a religion will give someone rights over someone else, for example. Nor how, by tradition, someone is erected above someone else (that should surely only come through merit, if anything!).





Monday, February 04, 2008

Religions, dogma and more sheep

I'd been thinking for a couple of days now what to write about next without going into too personal subjects or whimping at the world again. So whilst I was thinking all this I started to think about God, and how people remember Him at certain moments and not the rest of the time, and what scientific basis there is for religious beliefs and all that.

There are people who will think that the subject is badly thought out, but if you look it up we can see that Religion is not the same as Dogma (great film by Silent Bob (Kevin Smith), though). I myself was uncertain untill I actually looked it up.

Since the beginning of time, the human beeing has sought the explanation for the unexplainable. Back from the discovery of fire (and even before) right up 'till today (and even further). It is, therefore, perfectly true to say that BELIEF is almost a genetic need for the human being.

However. As time has gone by, certain gods have lost the match against science, such as the god of thunder, the god of fire, the god of rain, etc. Some say even the christian god, Yaveh (please, no stoning) will go down the same road.

In the end, believers defend themselves by saying that even though unexplainable things can be scientifically explained, they don't deny, by themselves, the presence of a deity. Once all logical reasoning is exhausted, the believer always has the last ace at hand, the ace of Faith; since Faith is, by it's own definition, the fact of belief even in the face of demonstrations, proof, invisibility, incoherences, etc.

The need for belief has a (not very scientific) very logical basis: the person's own consciousness. It is very hard to conceptualize a beginning and an end of consciousness (even though we loose it every night). We have "first memories" we remember; those very early childhood memories (in my case, some from kindergarden). However, generally, we are not too bothered about not remembering anything prior to that. The reason for that is simple: it's in the past.

However, we all know death awaits in the future. And with it, the possibility that everything is over. It's hard to conceptuallize that: an end to consciousness. An end to I. No more thoughts. No more feelings. No more nothing. Some try to imagine, but it is a futile exercise. A friend of mine expressed it very well once: you cannot imagine consciousness outside consciousness itself.

Therefore, when confronted with a block like that, the human finds an "easy way out": life after death. Naturally, once that concept is created, we must administer it. It is not fair that both good and evil have the same chance to carry on. Naturally, the fair, the good, must receive their compensation. After all, that is what we were always taught: bee good and you shall be compensated, if not in this life then in the next (which is highly dissapointing to those being good in lives filled with injustice and where everything goes wrong). And, of course, we'll have to do something with the wicked: punish them for all eternity (which is a lot longer than you think... isn't that a bit like overkill?).

Btu true good is not in doing good so you get the compensarion, but do it because it is right. The problem is that, if we assume that dogma, we enter a logical conflict, since the moral values change from society to society and even from person to person. Just think, tere are killers out there believeing they're doing God's work. How will God judge them? Our morals and laws don't apply, remember, since man-made laws have no meaning in heaven.

In the end , then, logic reduces this to doing good because it is right, without expectations for compensation (and even expect punishment, since as the saying goes, "no good deed goes unpunished"); and we must take advantage of all the guidance at hand in order to define what is good and what is evil. This paradignm, however, if you deepen on it, invalidates the idea of a properly based religion.

So where are the sheep? The sheep obey the rules because they've been given them, withouth a thought as to why and never questioning their validity. Sheep go to church on sundays and then behave like savages in the road, they diminish their peers with pride and fill their lives with small sins which matter not because they'll be cleaned in the next confession.

There are very few Mother Teresa's out there, and even she got unfairly angry at some pont, had temptations and was even evil if viewed from a non-christian point of view.

So don't be a sheep, be good and love like you want to be loved... even if they don't love you... even if they strike against you... because it is right. And when you are unfair, don't beat yourself up about it, for when you know you've been unfair you are already doing the necessary pennance.

Before you have to ask, I'm a respetuous agnostic with a sufficiently open mind to believe, but I will ask no help from God for, if he really does exist, he's not there for that.





Friday, February 01, 2008

Facades, interpretations and sparks

Following the great response obtained from the last two posts and meditating about the comments receives, as well as other details of life in general, not for the first time, I started thinking about the interpretation of words, the intentions of the expression and the usually unnecessary defences that people offer, making the already arduous task of understanding each other even harder.

As an example I present you with an imaginary though plausible situation: we are in a public place, a street, for example, and we see a man jumping on another to beat him furiously and relentlessly. Our first reaction will normally be to rescue the victim from his beating. We interpreted the attacker must be evil and therefore the victim represents the good we must defend.

Continuing with the imaginary situation, once separated, we question both about their reasons for the attack and we find out the "victim" had previously caused some harm to the attacker in a situation previously unknown to us. Assuming we believe it, the roles of both characters has suddenly become not so clear.

If a change in interpretation can happen in such a black and white image (henceforth B/W since I will be using it repeatedly) one must stop to think, how many grey situations in our life do we interpret correctly? After all, life is never B/W (we wish!), the ying-yang is actually a circle of chromatic variance between black and white, the good has its dark side and the evil has its goodness.

I am specially concerned in that sense with concepts such as "justice" and politics. Something like Law which should be B/W and provide the moral grounds on which to base our decisions (after all it IS written in white paper with black ink, how much more B/W can it get??) still requires an external agent to interpret it on the basis of the situation being evaluated (judged) and prior similar situations (jurisprudence). So, if the rules society demands of its members is something so dependant on interpretation... Imagine what happens with unwritten rules...

I am currently reading a book which contains many of these moral philosophical dilemmas, "Xenocide", the third book in the saga of Ender, by Orson Scott Card. I recommend it, if you want to swim in the philosophical moral waters.

All this, also, comes from the interpretation of the renowned sheep's pen in yesterday's post. Although my intention was, indeed, to expose a metaphor about escaping the rules set by society, the actual field on which I had the intention to refer to was not quite as broad and generic as it was later interpreted in the comments, but something much closer and personal: couple's relationships (there, now go and give the subject another twist see what comes out... just don't be frightened by what you find out...). However, since I wrote the whole thing from behind a facade of metaphors and partial meanings (after all I do have a patched-up little heart to protect), each one read, interpreted and understood something different.

Even though, people sidestepped part of that self-imposed facade to expose themselves; some remaining in semi-anonymity, others sprinkling their sincerity with drops of humour.

Yes, us boys we tend to build elaborate facades to protect ourselves. Society has taught us repeatedly that boys don't cry, when in fact, of course they do. Even though sometimes tears don't flow, we cry. Other traditions erect the female side as the sensitive side and the male side as the cold analytical calculating side of consciousness. They are, after all, part of the same ancestral teachings. Adults do not engage in banalities as there are more important issues to address (false). You have to be strong (why?!?). No Christian uses a preservative (hehehehe... sorry, I digress).

Returning to the subject of interpretations, as I was saying, another concept that worries me is politics. If interpreting mucho more open, known and "simpler" situations is already hard, I cannot help questioning how much I do not know, I do not understand and therefore I misinterpret in the field of politics. Due to my political ideas I've often been classed as left-winged (yeah, sorry ;-) ). However, the fact that people side with one or the other with very little information is something I find disturbing.

Think of your own job, the amount of knowledge you have of it, every small detail. Now imagine someone from your own environment (obviously not in the same job) who, without previous training, has to sit at your workplace and do your job. What degree of success would that person have? Even the substitution of someone in a chain of manufacture could have disastrous consequences. Why? Precisely because of the small details we know by heart of our own jobs.

How, then, can we possibly argue, judge and make decisions on the field of politics? We have a minute percentage of the information on these people's jobs. Just whatever we get from the media. How many of you actually contrast information from varied sources? I naturally mean not only reading from this or that paper, but also reading state reports, public accounts, registries, socio-economical studies and other publicly available documentation which politicians are required to publicise. Only knowing this much information could we consider ourselves capable of voting one or other party.

May, as an example, serve the following news-flash (not political) I heard this morning on the TV news. In a brawl between gipsies, a pregnant woman was shot, though thankfully with no grave consequences, in the small back. Several times they referred to this by saying the woman was shot (actually, the interpretation is lost in translation, sorry) rather than the fact that she received a stray bullet or was caught in the crossfire. Why? Because a pregnant woman being shot is naturally much more scandalous than the alternative; although the way they conveyed it is not true it was said in such an ambiguous way as to not be a lie, either.

In the end, the truth is not on the eye of the beholder since the poor guy is subject to his own interpretations and exposed to the facades of the actors involved.