Categories: Bush, Photos, Humour, News, Politics

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Halloween is here, a chance to celebrate 1500 years of Pagan icons being transmogrified into popular Christian symbols of evil. To celebrate in time honoured Catholic Papal tradition The Huge Entity will issue each one of its readers with a Halloween Indulgence. All you have to do to claim it is post a comment below and print it out to your heart's desire.

Let's make sure Halloween stays fun, and thoughts of Hell and Purgatory shall never bother your conscience again.
rAmen

Categories: Religion, Halloween, Controversy, God, Sin, Humour, Nonsense, The Huge Entity

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Southern Japan revels in their insect devastation. The supermarkets seem to hold host to a wide variety of poisons, traps and sprays designed to cause insects a breakdown in their existence. On a recent shopping trip there amongst the cockroach neutralisers and fly drowning systems I noticed a box of ant bait, lovingly packaged with depictions of ants dragging said pellets of poison into their nest, effectively murdering their own queen. I was intrigued. Ant bait that is taken inside the nest by the ants themselves, and distributed as if it were their usual nourishment. I had to investigate further, and as I did the similarities between the workings of the human brain and the running of an ant colony came more into focus. Bear with me here:

"...Most fire ant bait is an insecticide and an attractive fire ant food (generally processed corn grits coated with soybean oil) combination. Baits are taken into the colony by ants searching for food. The bait is distributed to other members of the colony through the exchange of food known as trophallaxis. One key to the efficiency of baits is that the insecticide gets to the queen. Although several fire ant baits are available, there are two main types: insect growth regulators and actual toxins. Hydramethylnon bait is a toxin (slow acting stomach poison) that disrupts the ant's ability to convert food to energy. Spinosad bait is a slow acting biorational toxin derived through the fermentation of a soil dwelling bacteria.... Fenoxycarb, Precor or methoprene, and pyriproxyfen are all insect growth regulators that prevent queens from producing new workers..." - link

Fascinating stuff indeed, but what's this got to do with brains?

The ant colony has a lot in common with the human brain. From the simple, rule lead interactions of the ant with its environment; ants with other ants; ants with food sources, an incredibly well organised and highly complicated pattern of behaviour can emerge. Science dudes call this an emergent property, basically the complex arising from the simple. Here are just some of the complex things ant colonies can do:

Colonies build intricate nests which when damaged are communally repaired

Ant colonies appear to learn from past events and react differently in the future

Older ant colonies seem more 'wise' than younger colonies

Ants can form into distinct 'highways', pushing nourishment and materials back and forth efficiently

Some ants are known to farm 'livestock' and grow 'crops' within their nests - otherwise known as symbiosis

...and much more.

There is no central control issuing orders over the colony (the Queen is in fact the dumbest member of the nest) and yet incredible behaviour, and even some aspects of conscious awareness emerge. If some of the scientific data linked above is anything to go by then some colonies can understand, can learn, can possibly even grow and mature as a single entity or neural network, sound far fetched?

"Incredibly complex systems turn out to be governed by few and very easily comprehensible rules, where the complexity is totally invisible until the system is examined as a whole.

Compared to the human brain, the neural network of an ant is extremely small. Ants have 10,000 - 100,000 neurons depending on the species. Yet these small neural lumps, communicating using very simple methods result in this complex phenomenon that is the living, learning, growing ant colony.

...A big ant colony may have all in all 500 billion neurons (5 million ants with 100,000 neurons each). This is about 5 times as much as a human brain (which has about 100 billion neurons), but the neurons in the ant colony are all but isolated in the individual lumps of up to 100,000 neurons that are the individual ants. Studies of E. O. Wilson in the sixties showed another ant species, so-called fire ants, to have about 10 signs in their "language". So while this interaction is what allows for the emergent behavior of the colony, the limitations in the interactions is what keeps it from showing even more complex behavior.

The human brain on the other hand is highly interconnected. Neurons in the brain are cross linked and interconnected within the whole system. An average neuron is linked to a dozen others, some to thousands. The neural connections are over the neuron's so-called synapses, to other cell's receptors or so-called dendrites. It is estimated that there are 1 quadrillion synapses in a human brain. That's 1015 or 1,000,000,000,000,000." - link + another

Taken in this way the human brain is nothing but an elaborate neural colony, each neuron an ant, each pathway a trail of scent, each portion of the brain a different sub-system of the colony at large. Let's hope that ants don't expand on that 10 signs of language, or we are in deep kakka!

So where do the ant pellets come in?

Disguised as nourishment the pellets are dragged nest-wards by the ant, (the neuron) and inserted into the colony (configuration of the brain). Is this not a good metaphor for drug taking?
Some hallucinogenics (LSD) mimic the chemical structure of serotonin, fooling the brain into operating in various alternative configurations. LSD is distributed throughout the brain, simply because of its similarity in chemical structure to serotonin. Other drugs (MDMA) effectively 'uninhibit' the supply of serotonin to the brain, giving users the characteristic high associated with the drug:

"As with all neurotransmitters, the actual effects of serotonin (5-HT) on the human mood and state of mind are very difficult to ascertain. One way of understanding it is through the use of MDMA, which is thought to cause a mass release of 5-HT, possibly by drawing it back through the transporter....

5-HT receptors are also used by other psychoactive drugs, including LSD, DMT, and Psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychodedelic mushrooms." - link

...and taking the metaphor further some poisons and pharmaceuticals act on neurons individually, shutting them down and/or blocking their effects on the brain/neural network/colony.

Anyway, just an idea. Can anyone else think of similarities? What do you know about drugs and how they intimately effect the workings of the brain? of consciousness itself? Are you against the idea of brains as highly advanced ant colonies?

Comments highly appreciated, as always.

Categories: Science, Nature, Consciousness, Human, Nonsense, Ants, Reality

I've been in a very contemplative mood recently, mulling over the books I've read this year, and the notes that go with them, and feeling as if this website has evolved to the stage where its character has been realised.

I keep aiming to start writing something soon, that is what all these books, notes and weblog meanderings are moving towards; a fiction not yet fully realised in my head. So I ask you:

Where is your head at right now?

Books or articles you're reading. Ideas and thoughts you are pondering. I'd love to know.

At the moment, amongst other things, I am reading the third novel in the His Dark Materials series (by Philip Pullman). If you've come across this trilogy you'll know that putting it down is as close to impossible as anything can get. So I'm off again, and burrow my head deep I shall into a reality rich with the imaginations of an infinity of worlds.

I await your comments...

UPDATE: The guy pictured above is Unzie, a travelling freak-show Albino from times gone by. He is officially my new hero - consider his contemplative gaze as inspiration.

Categories: Books, Weblog, Nonsense, Consciousness, Writing

"Scientists have discovered that schizophrenia sufferers are not fooled by a visual illusion and are able to judge it more accurately than non-schizophrenic observers. The study by UCL (University College London) and King's College London suggests that in everyday life, schizophrenics take less account of visual context. If this is part of a more general failure to deal appropriately with context, it could explain why some sufferers might misattribute people's actions or feel persecuted." - link

This little snippet blew me away, not least because of its ramifications for understanding schizophrenic sufferers and how they interact with society, but for the underlying distinctions in our realities it exposes. I was reminded of a quote by Phil K Dick, always the most distinctive voice when it comes to alternative perspectives on perception and reality:

"Too much is emanating from the neurological apparatus of the organism, over and beyond the structural, organising necessity. The percept system in a sense is over perceiving, is presenting the self portion of the brain too much. The organism is seeing what is there, but no one else does, hence no semantic sign exists to depict the entity and therefore the organism's empathic relationships break down." - from The Shifting Realities of Philip K Dick...

Phil is here talking about the social outcomes of hallucination and schizophrenia. Could it be possible that in moments of alternate consciousness, such as drug taking or religious experience, our brains tune in to aspects of reality we otherwise cannot perceive? And further more, as the study cited above may show, in the social irregularities of the schizophrenic could there be signs of windows looking out over varied vistas of reality? Aldous Huxley defined it best for me in his culturally-reforming Doors of Perception:

"Reflecting on my experience, I find myself agreeing with the eminent Cambridge philosopher, Dr. C. D. Broad... "The suggestion is that the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful."...

...As Mind at Large seeps past the no longer watertight valve, all kinds of biologically useless things start to happen. In some cases there may be extra-sensory perceptions. Other persons discover a world of visionary beauty. To others again is revealed the glory, the infinite value and meaningfulness of naked existence, of the given, unconceptualized event. In the final stage of egolessness there is an "obscure knowledge" that All is in all - that All is actually each. This is as near, I take it, as a finite mind can ever come to "perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe." - link

For a brief, but scintillating reality check have a look at this previous post on optical illusions and the way your brain fills in the gaps of reality...

And for a glimpse into the kind of mind that is "capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe" the stunning book 'The Mind of a Mnemonist' is no greater guide...

UPDATE: You can now try out the visual illusion mentioned in the article above on the BBC online website. The BBC story also goes into greater detail on the implications of the study for our understanding of schizophrenia - link

Keep perceiving.

Categories: Consciousness, Reality, Perception, Schizophrenia, Psychology, Science, PKD, Books, Weird

Mu is a Japanese and Chinese word regarding an absence of/in the negative. When one desires an answer, but your question makes false assumptions, the answer can only be Mu. A radical change of perspective is required before the Mu can be overcome.

With this in mind, and a love for a multiplicity of nonsense, I have spawned the new:

Huge Entity - Mu-Haiku; all the Haiku, Mu-sense.
Today's topic is inspired by the heathenoid Carnival of The Godless campaign... Blasphemy

Mary was easy.
Had Father and Holy Ghost,
The Queen of threesomes

Submit your own blasphemy themed Mu-Haiku in the comments section, and don't worry, we're already guilty in the eyes of the Christian God:

"...whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin..." Mark 3:29

Mu to that!

Categories: Haiku, Poetry, Mu, Nonsense, Philosophy, Humour, Religion, Christianity, Blasphemy, Meme, Weird

Labels: Mu Haiku

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Have your dreams turned into a 4-frame comic masterpiece by Jesse Reklaw over at his Slow Wave website. The archives are well worth a glimpse, bringing into clear focus the surreal comedy of her readers' unconscious. I only wish I remembered my dreams better, it's an on-going frustration of mine...

Thanks Mind Hacks!
Categories: Dreams, Consciousness, Humour, Links, Weird, Surreal, Comics, Reality

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If you thought religion grappled with a multitude of concepts that border on the insane, you should take a look at The Huge Entity archives sometime. Is there some sort of higher purpose behind the pulsating nonsense this blog continually erupts? What have I been playing at?

Come with me my friends on a voyage to where the unsinkable ship of reality collides head on with the iceberg of nonsense, and maybe together we'll find out some excruciatingly large things. Truth AHOY!:

• Augmenting The Doors of Perception : The Simulacrum
• Simulating the entire Universe within a computer made from bits of the Universe
• Simulating the Human Brain within a computer designed by the Human brain
• As Dreams Are Made of
• Where reality ends and your brain begins : Optical Illusions
• A continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space
• 3.141592653589...
• Harnessing Quantum Weirdness
• Neurons, Consciousness and Believing you are Dead
• Science vs God's Phenomenologically Inferred Love

...and lastly, thrown as if an explosive afterthought into the parting mists of time, a post I really enjoyed which never received the attention it deserved. Twas thus:

• Robotic Haiku

Categories: Science, Future, Writing, History, Weblog, Human, Consciousness, Reality, Nonsense

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Been meaning to blog this for a while...

Agathidium bushi, Agathidium cheneyi, and Agathidium rumsfeldi - three recently discovered species of slime-mold beetle - got their names from obvious members of the US government in a bout of headline grabbing metaphorical entomology. But what were the entomologists in question trying to say?

"The decision to name three slime-mold beetles after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, ...didn't have anything to do with physical features, says Quentin Wheeler, a professor of entomology and of plant biology at Cornell for 24 years until last October, but to pay homage to the U.S. leaders. "We admire these leaders as fellow citizens who have the courage of their convictions and are willing to do the very difficult and unpopular work of living up to principles of freedom and democracy rather than accepting the expedient or popular," says Wheeler, who named the beetles and wrote the recently published monograph describing the new slime-mold beetle species while a professor at Cornell." - link

Let's brush aside the possibilities of irony for a moment and examine what this 'homage' is supposed to symbolise. Surely if the beetles are the leaders of the richest country in the world then that makes the slime-mold society itself. A slow developing infestation of primitive amoebae, dissolving the wonderful variation of planet Earth, molecule by molecule:

"Slime moulds generally move only about 1 millimetre per hour, although some can reach 2 centimetres per minute. They engulf their food, which can include bacteria, fungi, and decaying organic matter, and can eject inedible material.... It has been observed that they can find their way through mazes by spreading out and choosing the shortest path, an interesting example of information processing without a nervous system." - link

So maybe the metaphor of society as slime-mold isn't so misplaced afterall, and bushi, cheneyi, and rumsfeldi in their slime-devastation are simply out to hamper our 1mm an hour progress? The consumption of slime never seemed so politically motivated. The hidden world of entomological metaphoric categorisation uncovered.

Categories: Nature, Bush, Science, News, Politics, Entomology, Society, Humour

The oldies are always the best. Here are just a few of my favourite psychologically recognised phobias:

Agateophobia: Fear of insanity
Allodoxaphobia: Fear of opinions
Apeirophobia: Fear of infinity
Barophobia: Fear of gravity
Blennophobia: Fear of slime
Chronophobia: Fear of time
Decidophobia: Fear of making decisions
Eleutherophobia: Fear of freedom
Epistemophobia: Fear of knowledge
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: Fear of long words
Sesquipedalophobia: Fear of long words
Japanophobia: Fear of Japan or the Japanese
Levophobia: Fear of things to the left side of the body
Linonophobia: Fear of string
Lutraphobia: Fear of otters
Uranophobia: Fear of heaven
Papaphobia: Fear of the Pope
Philosophobia: Fear of philosophy
Symbolophobia: Fear of symbolism
Theophobia: Fear of gods or religion
Xerophobia: Fear of dryness

I'm off, the internet is far too devoid of moisture for my xerophobic liking. But before I do, here is my own, home-brewed phobia:

Megateratophobia: Fear of Huge Entities

What's your phobia?

Categories: Humor, Links, Phobias, Weird, Fun, Memes, Meme, Psychology

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My smallest and most double-plus good school. Hakamano has 10, count them, 10 pupils in its joint elementary and junior high school, and as the only local Gaijin/English Teacher I have almost infinite free reign over what I do. Lessons carried out have so far included:

Henry VIII, his wives and the formation of the Church of England

The evolution of British pop-music from the 1960s onwards

English Haiku writing

Influential British Literature of the 20th Century (and the movies thus far spawned)

British cooking - beans and cheese on toast

...and lots of more simple pleasures for the elementary kids. Life, it can be said, is easy going in Hakamano. Today we went outside for an hour and cut back a wild grassy-bank, last week we spent an afternoon making miso. A sweet way to watch the last dregs of summer weather drain away. I will freeze my bollocks off just as soon as the Japanese winter hits my carboard box of a house.

Pray to your God/gods/enormous monster made of spaghetti for me. Cheers.

(P.S. If you click the picture you'll get taken to my flickr account. Want to see how much Japanese folk love American Country & Western music? I'll say no more...)

Categories: Japan, Culture, Weblog, Huge Entity, Kumamoto, Photos, Education

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In response to the increasingly popular pursuit of offering reward money for the proof or verification of every theory/belief/idea in the cosmos I have decided to introduce the very first:

Huge Entity 'Can you Prove Religious Superiority?' Competition!
I will award a 25000 Yen prize to anyone who can give any reason whatsoever for believing in one specific religion* over any other. My ¥25000 offer demonstrates that the hypothesis of religion is nothing more than a difference in belief.

People believe in things; they may hold that their belief is more important to their own views on reality, on morals, on being human, but they can never know that their belief is the only truth to be held. While beliefs are certainly fine to have, it is not fair to conclude that one belief system is more justified than any other.

Prove beyond reasonable doubt that one specific religion is the only possible way the observed world should be understood and the ¥25000 is yours. Any evidence is acceptable. Persons wishing to collect the ¥25000 may submit their evidence in the comments section below. A committee of one blogger (i.e. me) and the other commenters to this site will provide review of the evidence offered and, to the best of our ability, will be fair and honest in our evaluation and judgment as to the validity of the evidence presented.

*NOTE:

When I use the word religion, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various beliefs held by humans across the world (otherwise known as their individuality or the freedom of their will). I am referring to the specific beliefs labeled under the header of one religious denomination (or as I like to call it: 'belief system'). To avoid confusion this includes at the very least the following categories of (religious) belief:

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese traditional religion, Primal-Indigenous, African Traditional & Diasporic, Sikhism, Juche, Spiritism, Judaism, Bahai­, Jainism, Shinto, Cao Dai, Zoroastrianism, Sant Mat / Surat Shabd Yoga, Tenrikyo, Neo-Paganism, Unitarian-Universalism, Rastafari movement and Intelligent Design...

According to some people the theory of Evolution should also be included in this list. I disagree. It is my contention that Evolution is a theory that has never aimed to conflict with the many religions I list above, and that although it has surely brought some people's belief systems into question it is so much more the deeper and most accessible of any single 'belief system' that all religious inclinations can be easily accommodated within the view of reality it elegantly explains. Therefore the teaching of evolution can be seen as a stabilising force to unite all belief systems, increasing the mutual understanding of each man, woman and child and as such benefiting all the variations of belief across humanity.

For the reasons why I set up this competition in the first place please consult Dr. Kent Hovind here... Comments on re-drafting this proposal are very much appreciated, and as always, criticism is welcome in all forms. The Huge Entity awaits your proposal.

For more on the current evolution debate : Snowdeal, Paryngula ,
Uncredible Hall Q, Boomerang and Panda's Thumb - Thanks!

Categories: Religion, Belief, Science, News, Politics, Education, Creationism, God,
Intelligent Design, Evolution, Darwinism, Competition, Huge-Entity, Humour?, Nonsense?

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In the past year I have read a heap load of books (my job gives me a ridiculous amount of free-time) most of which were superb. And so in recognition of my affliction for thrusting information into other people's faces, here are some of my favourite quotes collected so far, organised for your relish. Enjoy:

Science:
"It would be a poor thing to be an atom in a universe without physicists, and physicists are made of atoms. A physicist is the atom's way of knowing about atoms..." - George Wald

Technology:
"As soul is to man, man is to machine: It is the added dimension in terms of functional hierarchy. As one of us acts godlike (gives his cloak to a stranger), a machine acts human when it pauses in its programmed cycle to defer to it by reason of a decision." - Philip K Dick, The Shifting Realities of...

Progress:
"We have caused so many extinctions that our dominion over the Earth will appear in the fossil record like the impact of an asteroid." - Ronald Wright, Short History of Progress

Evolution:
"We ourselves are technological devices, invented by ancient bacterial communities as means of genetic survival - we are part of an intricate network that comes from the original takeover of the Earth. Our power and intelligence do not belong specifically to us, but to all life..." - John Gray, Straw Dogs

Society:
"The masses are the increasingly dense sphere in which the whole social comes to be imploded, and to be devoured in an uninterrupted process of simulation" - Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

Religion:
"Night has fallen. He has died now.
A fly crawls over the still flesh.
Of what use is it to me that this man suffered,
If I am suffering now?" - Jorge Luis Borges

Human:
"Every human being was a melody demanding completion within the greater musical theme of society." - Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men

The Self:
"Among the imaginary constructions created by the intellect working in service of the will, perhaps the most delusive is the view it gives us of ourselves - as continuing, unified individuals." - Schopenhauer

Reality:
"What you ask, was the beginning of it all? And it is this...
Existence multiplied itself for sheer delight of being and lunged into numberless trillions of forms so that it might find itself innumerably." - Sri Aurobindo

More to come soon as I plough through the notes I've made this year. What am I organising for? It's written down here somewhere...

Did any of these quotes get your cogs moving? Have you read any of these authors yourself? You know where the comments button is...

Categories: Books, Quotes, People, Ideas, Nonsense, Reading

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Here's some photos of various sized balloons snapped at Kumamoto's Country Gold Music Festival... Ain't the sky pu-ridee?

Categories: Japan, Culture, Kumamoto, Music, Photos

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Categories: Humour, Intelligent Design, Science, Education, Politics

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As you may have noticed I have seriously overhauled my blog's design.

Where once resided a dodo of the blogging world - incredibly unique, yet clumsy looking; a creature destined to go extinct - you will now find something akin to a duck-billed platypus - ruthless, efficient, stream-lined and set to surprise everyone with its evolutionary tricks.

I will leave it up to you to play with The NEW Huge Entity. Let me know what you think...

Categories: Weblog, Internet, Links, News, Huge-Entity

Japan's recent announcement to send noodles where no noodles have gone before surely means the future of noodle technology is looking bright. But what of the past? Step in, The Origin of Noodles, courtesy of the BBC:

"The remains of the world's oldest noodles have been unearthed in China. The 50cm-long, yellow strands were found in a pot that had probably been buried during a catastrophic flood.

Radiocarbon dating of the material taken from the Lajia archaeological site on the Yellow River indicates the food was about 4,000 years old...

...Professor Houyuan Lu said: "Prior to the discovery of noodles at Lajia, the earliest written record of noodles is traced to a book written during the East Han Dynasty sometime between AD 25 and 220, although it remained a subject of debate whether the Chinese, the Italians, or the Arabs invented it first.

Prof Kam-biu Liu said: "Our discovery indicates that noodles were first produced in China," the researcher from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, explained to BBC News. " - link

Tracing the evolution of human food through the discovery of Late Neolithic noodles sure makes my stomach growl - rAmen.

Categories: Food, China, Science, Japan, Culture, News, History, Future

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Absorboration is the cultural equivalent of osmosis: The diffusion of memes through semipermeable human-brains from states of low data concentration to regions of high data concentration, resulting in a potential difference across the human culture which drives the diffusion. That is, the meme flows from the side of the culture where the potential is weakest to the side where it is strongest, until the culture on both sides is the same strength (that is, until the cultural potential is equal on both sides).

(ABSORB, infORmation and regurgitATE - a special coinage brought to you by The Huge Entity in a moment of Wednesday afternoon revelation)

It's everywhere; from the common triangular-topography of a Japanese rice-ball to the realisation that the vast percentage of your life is spent pursuing; engaging and reforming culture. Whether perusing multifaceted civilization conduits (television), engaging your pocket reality data transducer (a book) or browsing the hyperspace info up-inhibitor (the internet) reality in bite-sized chunks never flowed so freely as it does these days.

And why not stalk it? absorb it? regurgitate it so that the cultural potential reaches a state of reality morphemic equilibrium?

I implore you: ABSORBORATE! (for our very cultural future depends on it)...

For a start why not explore the 213 post strong Huge Entity for muchos Absorborbic Potential, and don't forget the newly extended Delicious links... for amongst them must there be life affirming splendour aplenty. Its in the memes...

Categories: Weblog, Nonsense, Absorborate, Information, Links, Huge-Entity, Humour, Memes

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Japan often throws up gorgeous surprises, as if deep under its enormous exterior there was an intention behind its insanity, but it is rare that the insanity, you and your camera all intersect in the same place, at the same instant. So today I decided to do some cataloging of wonders I should have done a long time ago.

Just to the South of Kumamoto city there is an old, derelict Pachinko Parlour I have noticed and laughed at uncontrollably on occasion. Welcome to derelict Pachiko!

Welcome to The 21th Century!
Click for more...

Categories: Japan, Culture, Photos, Humour, Engrish, Pachinko, Nonsense, Kumamoto

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"George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.

...Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it."" - link

Of course God's history of talking to people is well documented no more so than in that most violent catalogue of genocide and hatred for other human beings: The Bible...

"Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." - (1 Sam. 15:3)...

..."He betook himself to slay the women and the children, and thought he did not act therein either barbarously or inhumanly; first, because they were enemies whom he thus treated, and, in the next place, because it was done by the command of God, whom it was dangerous not to obey." - (Flavius Josephus, Antiquites Judicae, Book VI, Chapter 7) - link

... and after this little 'incident', King Saul - whom received the mission to exterminate the Amalekites directly from God - was punished for not carrying out his murderous actions to the letter. God the pacifist showed no mercy on either side of this bloody exchange.

So let's suppose for a minute that Bush truly believes he was ordered(?) by God to carry out his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (and later solve the Palestinian/Israeli conflict). Did he carry out these perceived orders efficiently enough? and if he didn't, is he now quaking under the uniquely Christian fear that his all loving, all forgiving God is going to smite him down like the failure that he is?

Scary to wonder about these things, isn't it... In this supposedly enlightened age could it still be that the fear of God governs the actions of the most powerful empire the world has ever known?

"If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia." - Thomas Szasz - (thanks to Heathen Dan for that)

"The primary sign of schizophrenia is considered to be fragmentation of basic thought structure and cognition, and the inability to distinguish between internal and external experience.... The term schizophrenia comes from the Greek words σχίζω (schizo, split or divide) and φρενός (phrenos, mind) and can be translated as "shattered mind."" - link

A shattered leader for a shattered world. Sounds about right to me.


UPDATE: Links on this around the blogsphere Rational Thinker, Pharyngula, Meat-Eating Leftist

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The future of technology seems bright. We live in a world where 'progress' is perceived as a defining feature of what makes humans different from the rest of the animal kingdom, but what does that word mean? Where are we moving from and what are we moving to? If Arthur C Clarke has anything to do with our future then the colonisation space is our ultimate aim:

"The analogy I often use is this: if you had intelligent fish arguing about why they should go out on dry land, some bright young fish might have thought of many things but they would never have thought of fire and I think that in space we will find things as useful as fire." - link

...and Arthur should know, he predicted the coming of the radio transmitting satellite way back in 1945, a good 12 years before even the most primitive chunk of human technology was put in orbit (Sputnik in 1957).

But it often seems in these days of anti-GM protests and the cutting of space program budgets that technology is something to fight against, something outside of the realm of the ordinary man on the street - something that scientists and governments alike waste our hard earned taxes on for little, short term return. How then to dig up the treasures of 'progress' and keep everyone happy? X marks the spot:

"A series of X-Prizes for the scientific or technological breakthroughs that tackle the most important challenges facing humans are being planned.

The World Technology Network (WTN) and X-Prize Foundation are asking the public to help them decide on bids.The multi-million dollar prizes intend to emulate the space X-Prize, which kick-started private space tourism.

Although currently at the planning stage, it is hoped the prizes would be won in the next five to 10 years."The basic idea is that the X-Prize for spaceflight taught or reaffirmed some previous lessons about how to jump-start fields and focus people around certain technological challenges," James Clark, WTN chairman, told BBC News Online." - link

A fast and furious future building prospect indeed. But what happens next? When the computers out think us and the bio-technology remoulds us in its own image, where to progress for the human race? Could we, the ten thousand year old children of the African Savannah, remodel ourselves in our own God's image? The singularity is coming:

"[Ray] Kurzweil....is busy inventing a future in which humans merge with machines and the pace of technological development accelerates beyond recognition.

The concept is known by its proponents as the Singularity, and until recently it's been the province of science fiction authors such as Vernor Vinge and Ken MacLeod.

Now Kurzweil, in a new book called "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology", claims that the inexorable pace of technological development and its exponential growth will usher in the Singularity by 2045.

...the condensed version [of Kurzweil's predictions] goes like this: Thanks to Moore's Law and other exponential growth rates, by 2030 a $1 computer will be as powerful as the human brain. Information technology's exponential curve will fuel advances in biology, robotics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence--with world-shattering results including radical life extension and practically omniscient and omnipotent abilities for humans who elect self-augmentation." - link

Ah, so that's progress: Earth Orbiting, Radio Tranmitting, All Knowing, All Seeing, Human Self-Augmentation Units - at 1$ a pop - and here's me thinking satellites were cool enough! Sound any good to you?

Categories: Future, Human, Technology, News, Singularity, Space, X-Prize, Nonsense

This bemused and amazed me, I hope it does you too...

"This object (shown in sketch) was found in 1898 in a tomb at Saqquara, Egypt and was later dated as having been created near 200 BCE. As airplanes were unknown in the days when it was found, it was thrown into a box marked "wooden bird model" and then stored in the basement of the Cairo museum.

It was rediscovered by Dr. Khalil Messiha, who studied models made by ancients. The "discovery" was considered so important by the Egyptian government that a special committee of leading scientists was established to study the object.

As a result of their findings, a special exhibit was set up in the center hall of the Cairo museum, with the little model as its centerpiece. It was even labeled as a model airplane...

...In that context, it seems rather incredible that someone, more than 2,000 years ago, for any reason, devised a model of a flying device with such advanced features, requiring quite extensive knowledge of aerodynamics. There were no such things as airplanes in these times, we are told by archeologists and historians. But this case seems to be an exception, living in the midst of the rather unimaginative and rigid paradigm of contemporary science. It is also necessary to point out that Egyptians are known to have nearly always made scale-models of projects and objects which they planned to create or build..." - link

The linked article goes on to assess a handful of other possible ancient flying machines, but this one takes the biscuit for its sheer plausibility. I always have problems with how often ancient artifacts are viewed symbolically, even metaphorically. Humans have been using the same basic brains for the entirety of our 'civilised' history, is it so impossible to assume that practicality or vanity sometimes took precedent in these remote, symbol driven cultures?

Will future archeologists look back at our culture in 2000 years time and marvel at how advanced we were? I would love to think so. I would also like to believe that this Egyptian model really was used as a flying toy, or as the basis for a full-scale version, but the 'symbolic purpose' argument is so easily wielded and often impossible to argue with. It's probably been labeled as a 'soul ascension vehicle' by now and put in cold storage with a heap of shiny scarab beetles. (check out this link for some highly ridiculous hieroglyphic readings...)

What do you think? Is it possible that the Egyptians were flying primitive airplanes 2000 years before the Wright brothers got off the ground, or are mummified-pigs more likely to fly?

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"According to Mr. Bernard (see diagram) our world is hollow, with the crust of the earth being 800 miles thick. There exists two openings at the North and South Pole, each hole having a circumference of 1400 miles wide. At the center of the earth is not a molten core but an inner sun which is six hundred miles wide and is 2900 miles from the Inner Surfaces. The diameter of the lip at the opening at the poles is 1200 miles long, thus a person can not see the other side of the opening. - link"

Now quack science is one thing, but something deep inside my cavernous interior screams that this 'theory' quacks, woofs, meows and baaas in equal measure. But surely if you can't beat the woof-meow-quack scientists it's better to join them, right? Well here's your chance:

"Would you be interested in a once-in-a-lifetime chance to discover Our Hollow Earth first hand? If so, we invite you to join us for an expedition to the North Pole with Steve Currey, one of the leading river explorers in the world!

Indigenous Eskimos believe that there is a hole in the Arctic Ocean and observations by several Arctic explorers like Olaf Jansen and Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, U.S.N., who claim to have seen mirages of exposed land near the North Pole, indicate that the most plausible location for an opening is located at 84.4 N Latitude, 141 E Longitude.

Steve Currey's Expedition Company has chartered the Russian Nuclear IceBreaker YAMAL, to take 100 adventurers to the North Pole for an expedition to conduct scientific observations that could resolve once and for all whether the Hollow Earth Theory has any validity! - link"

Now the thing I like about this most, however ridiculous it may sound, is that these quacks have a verifiable way of testing their thesis. Theory, predication, experiment, verification. Its the base of ALL science. I bade them well on their journey, truly wishing I could join them myself. And finally, in a blaze of quacking, woofing and baaing, I urge Intelligent Design advocates to take a leaf from the Hollow Earth proponents' book. They just might learn something.

Categories: Science, Humour, Hollow-Earth, News, Science, Intelligent Design, Myth, Weird, Nonsense, WTF?

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Every night I die. Causation departs the wide eyed experience, inner motions shuffle mental chaos into a semblance of order. A flash of colours, a distant homogeny of previous selves relate in the stasis of dreams my memories and realities. Consciousness wanes, the urge I feel to have identity becomes fluid, I am a thousand burning suns, I channel forgotten childhoods, I taste the heavens, drink sensate imagery, chaos becomes truth, fiction is motion, memory bubbles liquid.

Sensation amassed in living memory reorders tonally. That scrap of awareness or inch of inner narrative, each breath of daily routine become all one, in melody and dynamic visual harmony. I become all, and all I in these timeless spaces, futureless voids of zero dimension, infinite distinction. Outside there is sense, emotion, reality, fiction, hope, desire, belief - all distinct. Yet here, in conscious death they merge as one, metamorphosise beyond what each to each can be.

When comes the infinite edge of this void no I will be aware and yet time meanders the basin of my life, the harmony of my mind to emerge, re-born, as repetitive morning tones hack my dream world into formless pieces. A thousand suns implode, motion tip-toes from its hiding place. I am one again, waking life is that conscious urge to be. My world, again, is me.

There go my dreams again. What inspired me to meander the dreamscape on a flying tapestry of prose? It was those crazy scientists it was:

"Deep Sleep Short-circuits Brain's Grid Of Connectivity

In the human brain, cells talk to one another through the routine exchange of electrical signals. But when people fall into a deep sleep, the higher regions of the brain - regions that during waking hours are a bustling grid of neural dialogue - apparently lose their ability to communicate effectively, causing consciousness to fade.

Writing Friday, Sept. 30, in the journal Science, a team of researchers led by UW-Madison professor of psychiatry Giulio Tononi reports that the fading of consciousness during dreamless sleep seems to occur as the different regions of the cerebral cortex that mediate perception, thought and action become functionally disconnected..." - link

Categories: Dreams, Consciousness, Poetry, Science, Brain, Nonsense, Reality

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