and we will soon be off, onto a new year

As this year draws toward a close, perhaps it is time to reflect on the past. Appetite is a physical thing, and is therefore beyond the control of the brain. When we fast, or on a deducing diet, regardless of the type of diet, we are likely unsatisfied. Lower carbohydrate may reduce the dissatisfaction for some. To low of carbohydrate content also also caused physical dissatisfaction for some. The brains' desire is quite a different matter.

In the matter of brain dissatisfaction, there is remarkably little of any value written on the correction of this issue. There is some in research language, but it is either research without anything that I understand as relevant or nothing that I can apply, or just beyond my simple understanding. Sam Harris demonstrated how little free will we actually have, and the Stoics said some things are up to us and some are not. We need to be the dog tied to the cart and the cart driver at the same time. Not easy to acheive. With 2/3 of the people obese in developed nations, what does that say about the state of affairs.

A 5, 7 or 9 point true/false or truth scale is a wonderful tool to add evidence to. Each bit of evidence or lack of evidence moves the mental pointer toward or away from the central neutral point. And in the end we have a probability thing. If there is no evidence, something has a substantial probability of being wrong or false.

Critical thinking is a wonderful tool, but it has its limits. Absolutism is also dangerous. Fracking operations can destroy aquifers; the method of distraction has to do with subsurface communications, and is often more correctly identified as well casing cementing failure, casing perforations, and uncased exploratory holes than the actual fracking operations. It may be the fracking that releases the gas though.  Vaccinations are generally safe, however there are antidotes that suggest this is untrue. These are often associated with early vaccinations, and that may be the real danger. Introducing chemicals before the brain has formed may be the cause of autism, as autism is a brain structural issue. There are no studies that show no damage from too early of vaccinations. These two examples are often used by promoters of critical thinking but are aborted by absolutism.

The global warming, over world population are real, but we may get a reprieve on the critical nature by a mini ice-age due to solar cycles. Anyone who does not accept climate change is not dealing with the truth. Trump may wish to ignore reality and try to reap the profits rather than deal with the problem, but this will severely bite the US in the future. We say this with Hunter Harrison reaping the profits on the CP and CN rail lines, and the subsequent rebuilding required.

        

and a merry christmas to all

Just to wish you a merry christmas, happy new year, and/or what ever you celebrate this time of year. We have passed the solstice, the days are getting longer, spring will come, and life is good.

Several blogs have there best book of the year reviews out, but I will simply list the book that had the most impact on my life this year: Donald Robertson; The Pphilosophy of Cognitive - Behavorial Therapy.

During the reading of this book it became clear to me that all religion are just the sum of the past beliefs, and the sum of the decisions of those who are dead. The book does not suggest this, but it was during my reading of this that that obvious belief came to me. It points out so many historical sources of concepts; I had to look up a few of these in more detail. It clears away some more wrong beliefs. It became clear that all religions just fill up time with useless fiction. It is that displacement of time that has value to we humans who live in a time of excess, when all of our time is not used to obtain what we need for survival. Our mental time exceeds our physical time. Full stop. What? When we run out of physical energy, we still have mental energy left. Exhausted physically, but mentally aware, we need something to think about. Religion provides that, as does reality, or anything else. Religion took a run at teaching, but the subject matter is no longer of value as it has not been upgraded. Oh well, religions could be studied as historical myth systems. Anthropologist like studies in some cases.

Going forward from here, reality is all that matters.

After knowing what food one should eat, and what to avoid, and approximate quantities, the issues of doing that remain. And then there is all the other time that must be used. Retirement has freed up much time, as has letting go of the time sucking concepts of religion. Now that I understand what time sucks religions and religious thinking is. Now I have time, and little interests to fill that time. And limited physical ability, motivation, desire, energy, what ever is really short in the process of turning it into action or time filling pursuits that are driven. Action with no utility, beyond burning time, just does not cut it much.

The concept of time burning utility-less activity just does not appeal to me much. Understanding one more thing, say the evaluation of Eulers constant e, or wau, F, is just not moving me much. I spent much of my working life evaluating physical properties, some of which are system properties that change as a function of time, moisture content, stress history, structure development, chemical cementing, and all those weird and wonderful thing that happen in one off design and construction or geology formations. I have dealt with many theories that in reality are so wrong. Like pavement modulus, which is not a soils property but a system property. The equations need a constant pavement modulus, when in reality the value is space-time-rate dependent variable. In Engineering, everything needs to be reduced to simple usefulness, and simple enough that understanding all the inputs is not required.

We see "engineering design" utilizing programs that the designer does not understand how it works, but has nice input and output forms; some have crap models hiding inside, but nobody cares. It is quick and simple, and sort of works, except when it does not, and then much of the time it was close enough anyway. There was no longer any satisfaction in the engineering, it was just about making money. It is all done with, now, for me anyway. It is time to go forward into something new... or old.

In search of dopamine

In search of dopamine

Is all overeating beyond that to remove acute hunger actually a response to a biochemical desire for more dopamine?

That is what Lustic's book, Hacking of the (Yanky) Mind suggests. Well, it implies that, with a few twists. It is the biochemical reactions that drive feelings, the chemistry leads the thought, or the feeling, or releases the eating machine. It does not take much food to take away acute hunger, but it takes a great deal more, too much, to stop the eating machinery. That is the problem. It is the drive for dopamine that must be satisfied. At the same time, serotonin must also be replaced. Stress of any kind causes cortisol to be released, and that is a dopamine antagonist and a serotonin antagonist.

So you or anyone can believe any kind of odd shit you like, and do what ever bat shit you like, but that is not my concern... well it should not be. But yet it bothers me to see people who obviously believe something that is wrong... and are not willing to examine their beliefs. It is non of my business, yet it bothers me. There is one absolute right; all else is wrong, is a belief that I have that is likely correct, yet so many do not believe that either. The society we (I) live in is essentially Orwellian, they believe what they are being told by the groundnut, or the "authorities have jurisdiction", politicians, or religious leaders. There are those of us who have examined the beliefs, and have different views, but... little influence. Society changes one mind at a time. We are on the verge of a major change, in the next half century or so.  

So you have the right to believe garbage. That is your right, and I struggle with that, and I must give up that desire to correct others. It is like arguing with some idiot on the internet, that does not want to know the truth. Why should I care? Even when they are family. I need to get on with my life, right or wrong. Family will just need to resolve their own issues.

  

Truthisms or trueisms

Truthisms are statement that are true or sort of true, but are found lacking in some respect. an example may be the typical 'existence of gods', that is to say the believer thinks it is true, but when one goes through the logic, using evidence as the basis, it cannot be true unless god is just a concept, an idea, or the result of free floating rationales. This is not the result that the religious want, so they often apply a "beyond space and time" line, which upon inspection, leaves just concepts, or the environment that only concepts occupy. Oh well. It is just a truthism.

One more is the "to lose weight, eat less and move more". Which in the long run may be mathematically correct but it is useless in the application. It ignores the fact that we animals are biochemically driven with little actual free will. But the medical field is what it is, a knowledge industry that only has some of the answers, there is much that they do not know.

Another trueism is to make money buy at low price and sell at high. Anyone who has tried to apply this to something like farming know that survival is often just luck, along with doing the right thing some of the time. Doing the right thing does not result in success some of the time.

Of late we have seen the opioid issues and all those who become addicted due to pain medication, and then the medical profession lays the blame on those biochemical units that do not use as directed, not accepting that we have little free will. We may also need help with addiction recovery, especially when we have been addicted in the past. Use as directed is a medical trueism, and should be seen as one. The drug companies, both domestic and foreign, are making money off  these synthetic opioids, and are over promoting there use. We humans cannot live pain free, or pain reduced. We must suffer, especially at the hands of the medical industry, if we wish to abuse ourselves, and remain active. It is the over promotion of  these youth forever concepts that cause many of our problems.

My father always cautioned many around him to be cautions with our bodies, but nobody listened. He managed to walk to the end, but not too much, and all those around him suffered in old age with hip problems, as had his ancestors, and most of my ancestors on both sides. What change do I have?

A life of chronic pain is what many of us have. In my case, first psychological chronic pain, later back and now hip. Chronic pain is just chronic pain, regardless of the cause. Not being able to deal with a irrational situation in youth is not much different than as a senior. There is no solution, other that just ignoring it, as best as we can. Life is suffering until death. Oh well, in the end we just die anyways.