The Sage Forge

Lee Emmerich Jamison

Albert Einstein was famous for his use of mind experiments, little mental models and scenarios set up to explore ideas.  Let's try one here.

Imagine that you are a benign sentient microbe.  You and a social network of your friends live in a human brain, each of you able to observe the actions of at most fifteen or twenty neurons.  As individuals you would be able to observe the firing of these neurons.  As a group you might be able to ascertain that there is an order to the "universe" of the vast organism comprised of your, and their, neurons.  Would you, or all of you together, be able to detect the intelligence of the larger organism?

No.  Undoubtedly you would not.

Continue reading "Intelligent Evolution" »

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Lee Emmerich jamison

Go to: http://aimath.org/E8/

Here is described in the sort of unrevealing lay terms we can at least begin to grasp difficult ideas in the results of a pioneering study of very abstract multidimensional spaces in mathematics. 
This is important because one must have an idea what one is looking at before one can really SEE it.

Continue reading "Conception Precedes Comprehension" »

Posted by emmerichjamison at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes you just have to shake your head.  The link below tells of a science experiment revealing that people see what they believe to be true.  Duh.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070228/sc_livescience/therichseewhattheybelieve;_ylt=AttHhYvp0VV31i3xXmxZDVXMWM0F

It is called "prejudice".  You may have heard of it.  It is how we all work, even the poor, but revealing that would not have gotten you noticed on Yahoo! news.

Proof that an advanced degree is not a hedge against stupidity.

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Take a look at this article we found on Yahoo:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070212/sc_afp/chinaenergyenvironment_070212104027;_ylt=At2OEzsLu2MuWkXrx.fsVMbMWM0F

For a little historical background in 1950 the United States produced 69% of the world's man made CO2.  For the most recent year for which we have records (2004 or 2005) the U.S. produced 25% of the man-made CO2.  Well- the danger must be over!  right?

Wrong. 

If there is a smidgen of good news it is in the sulfur dioxide emissions, which are believed by many scientists to be the cause of the global cooling from W.W.II to 1984.

How long will it be before China is a pollution pariah among the media?  I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by emmerichjamison at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lee Emmerich Jamison

A peculiar inconsistency reigns in the worlds of politics and religion.  In America the religious right too frequently eschews the concept of evolution as a fact in the development of species while embracing it in the economy.  On the other hand the other end of the politcal spectrum wholeheartedly endorses evolution among species while decrying it as a form of economic dynamism. 

What goes here?

It is fairly simple, really.  Neither side knows what the heck they are talking about.

Continue reading "Evolution and the Mind of God" »

Posted by emmerichjamison at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Lee Emmerich Jamison

I got an e-mail with an article from Dr. Timothy Ball, a Canadian meteorologist who does not believe in human-induced global warming.  I read through the article and noted, as I often have recently, that the article spoke a lot of the psychology being applied to strong-arming the political process and stampeding the world's people toward drastic economic change.  This is all well and good.  Unfortunately it does not specifically refute the science on which the drivers of worldwide panic rest their case.

In short, this man's refutation, however much we may agree with his concerns, is nothing more than obfuscation.

Continue reading "Unscientific Method: The Global Warming Debate" »

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Continue reading "Omnipotent God" »

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Lee Emmerich Jamison

It was a long session writing yesterday's entry so I didn't get a look at the news until late, meaning that if you want to see Vinod Khosla's article on alternatives to oil and the energy and political rationales for pursuing them you'll have to find a print version of yesterday's (Tuesday, Jan. 23) Wall Street Journal and go to the editorial page.  I can't claim, because I don't have the readership, that others are hopping on my bandwagon.  Compare Khosla's article with "An Inexclusive Truth" from Jan. 19th, though, and you'll see other minds interested in the same sorts of things. 

Continue reading "In The News- The War on Oil" »

Posted by emmerichjamison at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lee Emmerich Jamison

I have been poring over a group of articles in the most recent Time magazine on the confluence of mind and brain.  This has been an area of particular interest for me for all of my life, starting when I was less than eight years old.  Life-long interest can sharpen the mind on many issues and this is one of them.  Over the next several weeks I will be addressing this growing interest in the mind, how it illuminates who and what we are, and how in some areas it is seriously flawed.  First, though, the reader should understand the foundation of my insight into the one mind and brain I know best, the one in which I reside.

Continue reading "Dichomaton" »

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Lee Emmerich Jamison

What shall we do?!?  What shall we do!?!

Mankind is warming the Earth!

Get used to it.  It is true.  Mankind IS, no matter how we twist the information, contributing to the warming of the Earth.  The following chart, sent to me by the University of Colorado's Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics in response to a query about the relative contribution of changes in solar output to climate change, (Their primary area of study is the Sun and its contribution to climate, etc.) shows the best current science on factors contributing to global warming.

For the time being I will set arguments about the science aside.  Not because they are not valid fodder for discussion, but because I personally am convinced after years of considerable skepticism that human contributions to the phenomenon of global warming are real. So, what's next?

Looking at the political landscape one sees two basic themes emerging.  The first is to use climate change as a political artillery piece with which to devastate all things conservative, to foreclose the economy of the Western world, and to redistribute the relative wealth of the world (while not actually changing things enough to do harm to the oil economy that props up some of the worst governments on Earth).

The second theme is to place fingers firmly in the ears and sing Dixie or Old Suzanna until the unpleasant sounds of revealed truth go away.

The first approach is epitomized by the rhetoric of Al Gore, the second by that of Rush Limbaugh. Both are irrational approaches.

Continue reading "An Inexclusive Truth" »

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