Friends and Loneliness

I have debated with myself about releasing this.  Then I started thinking about my previous posting.  After all, there is no indication anyone but me will ever see it.  What am I afraid of?  Maybe someone won't like what I am saying.  So what?  There is a lot of things other people say that I don't like and that hasn't impeded them.  So, here it goes.  

It seems that things are different these days compared to many decades ago.  People don't often have a lot of friends.  They might have one or two and getting together to do things is not very common.  Then 2020 happened and the whole bottom fell out of being personally in touch with ... anyone.  It's been Zoom this, Skype that, Team something else plus working from home so that you don't even have in-person contact with co-workers.  I am retired since 2018 so I didn't even have that the last few years.  Everyone is just a picture and voice coming out of a computer or phone.  

My wife does much better at keeping in touch with remote friends.  She calls them  just to say hello and they call her just to talk about what's going on.  I do good to send a Christmas card once a year.  I am awful about maintaining contact with people over long distances.  It's kind of strange since I am the one whose hobby has been talking to people hundreds and thousands of miles away that I have never met personally.  

What I find with the remote interactions these days is such an artificial environment where I don't feel like I know anyone and I don't feel comfortable with letting anyone actually know me.  The exceptions to this are rare for me.  It doesn't help that the one time in my life that I felt like I had personal friends it all turned out to not be real.  It was all artificial, manipulation and fake.  I wasn't being fake but it seems that everyone else was.  As a result I developed a deep seated distrust of people because the people I trusted I found out were not trustworthy.

 In so many "remote" interactions with people I end up sitting there and saying absolutely nothing.  I listen, watch, and then after a while I just disappear fully convinced that no one ever even notices or cares for that matter.  I know this sounds depressing and it is.  I wish life was different and I think it was different at times in the past.  I am just not optimistic about where we are headed in the future.

 I relate to all the people who, for whatever reason, don't feel like they have ever been able to express who they really are inside.  Me too.  No, I don't have any deep dark secrets, but I think we all hide the parts of us that we don't feel are acceptable to those we are around.  It wears on  you.  You get so caught up in not being you until you finally discover you don't even know who you are anymore.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and I will start over and try to be my best self once again.

Where I Am With Regard to Religion

I've thought about writing this for a very long time.  It's been years in the making and over that time it has become increasingly something I have thought about.  Here's the short version.  I am no longer religious nor have I been for many years.  This is after growing up as a kind of generic Christian, later becoming a Lutheran, still later being part of a Baptist Church and yet another Baptist Church, Then becoming part of a non-denominational church, and then attending several other churches over a period of a few years. 

By saying I am no longer religious, I mean that I simply no longer believe in a God or gods.  I am not claiming that no God or gods exist, just that I am not convinced that any exists.  God or gods either exist or they don't, I just have not seen evidence that would convince me to the point of being able to convict a God of existing.  Any God.  All this means is that I now have a default lack of belief in something because I have not been convinced that it exists (rational thought process).  In the past I believed because everyone around me believed and I simply thought that they knew something that I just accepted as being true without full examination.  

 Having taken a good hard look at the situation for myself, rather than trusting others, I find no convincing evidence for belief.  When people cite evidence for the Christian God, it generally boils down to something said in the Bible which is a book that people claim "comes from God" without any supporting evidence that this is so.  Then they claim that God exists because of some philosophical reason which was never why they came to believe that a God exists themselves.  The philosophical reason, which is invariably flawed, simply has become the rationalization for the belief that they already had.  The result is a poor attempt to prove that God exists that often starts off by assuming that God exists and trying to show that this makes logical sense (circular reasoning).  

When all else fails what I hear mostly is that you just have to have faith.  As it turns out, faith is just the excuse people use for believing something when they have no evidence that it is true (otherwise they would cite the evidence/reason(s) for their belief).  Faith amounts to gullibility for believing something that is "too good to be true" and has no real supporting evidence for being true.  Faith simply is not a reliable path to truth since you can just as easily believe something that is NOT true by faith as something that IS true.   

I will pause to say the following.  If there really was a God who is maximally powerful, omniscient, and full of grace and truth, I believe such a God would have the power to convince me that he, she, or it actually existed.  Of course there are those who say God won't do that because it violates "free will."  Nonsense.  According the the biblical narrative the Devil himself absolutely would know that God exists and that didn't violate his free will.  Also, the God of the Bible violated a lot of people's free will whenever it suited him.  Knowing that God exists would simply give people a choice based upon knowledge, rather than giving them no choice (believe or go to Hell) based upon lack of knowledge.  

Any God who depends upon only ignorant people believing in him, is not really a God (Excuse me, why does God need a Starship?).  Yes, that is from a Star Trek movie, but it illustrates the problem of not questioning any agent claiming to be a God (a very powerful being was pretending to be God to get what he wanted - out of prison).  

By the way, for what it's worth, I don't believe in Satan/Devil/Lucifer/Baal either. It's just another character in the same mythology.  No I don't worship Zeus either and most likely neither do you for the same reason I gave up on the Christian God (also, not Allah, or anyone else).  

So now everyone who doesn't agree with me is probably thinking I am some immoral person who does terrible things because I am without God to give me moral guidance.  Sorry, but that is laughable once you actually read the Bible (Ex. 21 for example). No, there is NO excuse for the Bible (supposedly from God) telling you HOW to go about acquiring your slaves, how to beat them in an acceptable manner, how to own people as property and leave them to your descendants, and cheat them out of possible freedom.  Oh, but that was in the Old Testament people will say.  Well, guess what, slavery was treated as something completely acceptable in the New Testament as well. This kind of makes sense because the Bible says God is the same yesterday and today.  Yes, God, as described by the Bible, didn't change because a "perfect" God can't change (even if he is perfectly wrong).

Perhaps you get the idea that I am mad at God and "just want to sin."  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I can't be mad at something that does not exist.  That would make about as much sense as being mad at Voldemort from the Harry Potter books.  Also, my sense of morality does not come from a mythological being and instead tells me when that being is acting immorally (commanding murder of men women and children on multiple occasions, drowning the world to fix a problem he created, and playing games with human lives like in Job).  With regard to sin, that's about doing something against God which you can't really do if God doesn't exist.  Regardless, no I don't run around doing evil things.  Quite the opposite in fact.  Am I perfect?  Heck no.  Neither is any religious person I have ever met either.   

Frankly, even if the Christian God proved that he existed, assuming he was exactly as portrayed in the Bible I still would not worship him, her, it.  That God is a travesty.

There, I've had my say and I won't harp on it.  If you have any questions you can let me know, but I doubt that will ever happen.  As I said initially, this is the short version and there is a lot more to say on the subject, but it won't be happening here.  In the mean time I hope you all are recovering from what has been happening for the last year and a half.  This certainly wasn't the way I expected to spend my retirement. 

Random Acts of Kindness

I have hesitated to write this, but what the heck.  No one reads this stuff, do they?  So, I figure here is my chance to say something without anyone knowing. For a while now I have engaged in random acts of kindness.  I am not sure when it started, but I remember some of the earlier ones. 

There is a diner I have gone to periodically over the years.  I call it, "taking myself out to breakfast." I always enjoyed going there, just sitting at the counter instead of at a table, and watching everyone while indulging in a breakfast that I probably really should not have been eating.  It often included pancakes or waffles with a lot of syrup, and sausages (yeah, not supposed to be eating like that).  Anyway, one day as I was eating an older couple came in.  Yes, even older than me.  The wife was doing alright, but the husband was having to use a walker.  I watched them as they came in and were shown to their table just around to corner from where I was sitting and almost out of my sight.  Not that I was trying to do so, but I could not get them out of my mind.  I kept wondering what their life might be like, and realizing that, when you are having to use a walker, a little unexpected "cheering up" might be welcomed.

Somewhere along the line I made a decision.  As I finished my meal I received my check, put a tip on the counter and headed for the cash register.  When I got there I paid for my meal then pointed out the older couple nearby to the clerk at the register.  "You see that couple just around the corner where the guy has the walker?"  The clerk acknowledged that she did.  "Here,"  I said, handing her another $40, "This is for their breakfast too."  She accepted the money, "No change," I said as I turned and walked out.  It made me feel better on the way home to think that the couple would be surprised and maybe just a little bewildered at the mystery of why someone had done such a thing.  

 Since then I have done that and similar things on a number of occasions. I have asked servers for the check of people at the diner. Most recently I was having trouble picking someone.  I had some ideas, but none felt quite right.  Finally just before I left I called the waitress over and asked her, "If you had $40 to give anyone in this restaurant, who would you pick?"  It was a little unexpected, but she knows I have done this, so she started looking around and seriously thinking about it.  Soon she identified a person.  She told me it was a middle school teacher sitting where I could not see her.  "Good, "  I said, handing her $60, "Here is $40 for her and $20 for you."  She was a little surprised by that second part and she thanked me.  Then I went up front, paid for my breakfast and was on my way.

My wife and I both do this sort of thing.  She has bought groceries for people, as have I, and we both try to keep on the lookout for people who just might appreciate a "random act of kindness."  We've also done things that didn't involve any money.  I remember a situation years ago where we had gone to a restaurant for dinner.  As we were waiting we saw an older single woman who was also waiting for a table.  When our name was called and we got our table, we asked the woman if she might like to join us.  I am sure this was unusual for her, but she accepted and we had a nice meal together and had a very pleasant conversation.

I realize these small things may not make a huge difference in someone's life, but I figure sometimes all people need is to know that they are seen, heard and someone cared enough to do something for them that was out of ordinary.  

 I highly recommend doing "random acts of kindness."     

Left, Right, or Middle?

This whole thing about identifying yourself or others as being politically left, right, or middle is becoming increasingly annoying to me.  If you choose to identify yourself in that manner, it is certainly your right to do so, but to me it leads me to believe you don't spend much time doing any critical thinking about things.  I don't find any subject to be simple enough to think there is one simple position to take regarding it.  You name the subject, and I will find some things where I agree with the left, others where I agree with the right, and still others where my position is more closely aligned with those in the middle.  

Does that make me a centrist?  No.  It makes me someone who thinks about topics and is willing to consider all sides, their pros and their cons.  I don't think any political group has any corner on the truth, but what is worse is I think they all spend way too much time actually cornering the market on lies, misrepresentations, mis-characterisations, straw-manning, and ad hominem attacks (attacking the source rather than the issue).  

The other thing I am completely fed up with is judging people's character by one or two words in a Tweet.  First of all, I wouldn't bother to read a Tweet if you went to the trouble to put it in front of me?  Why? because few if any out there can adequately express themselves in 280 characters without inviting vagaries, mis-statements, and poor word choices as they issue things on-the-fly from their phones.  I want to actually understand what people mean to say rather than just what it might appear that they are saying.  I want to have an actual dialog where I can question whether I understand what they are trying to communicate.

I have often said that virtually nothing that is said or written by anyone is completely clear in its meaning except to the speaker or author.  Sometimes it is not even clear to them a few minutes after they have said or written it.  That even happens to me as I find that something I have written could be misunderstood.

Perhaps you may think that what someone has said is "perfectly clear."  That is seldom if ever the truth since the very act of reading something makes it subject to the interpretation of the reader which can itself be flawed or biased.

In the mean time I have decided that whenever anyone makes blanket negative statements about any group of people (race, political, religious, or otherwise), I am going to take that statement personally as if it was said directly to me.  I am going to do my best to walk in their shoes (not possible, but like I said "my best").  I am going to read and listen to those statements as if I was part of that group and deal with my reaction to it.  So if you want to call any group of people crazy, morons, stupid, hicks, genetically challenged, or whatever, you have just said that to my face and I just might not take it kindly.

Dark Matter and Energy in the Universe

A couple of years ago I wrote the following in an email that I intended to send to Sean Carroll PhD, Lawrence Kraus PhD, Jeff Hester PhD, and Lisa Randall PhD (all are Physicists and I have all of their email addresses).  I was going to send it because too often I have heard that people may have good ideas but never present them to people that actually know anything about the topic.  However, I kept it in my Draft email folder for a very long time and finally decided that each of these people would probably find it more of an annoyance than anything.  So like everyone else who never says anything my intent came to a grinding halt.

 Finally the other day I decided I would at least put it here in the unlikely event that anyone who might be interested would notice it.  So without further ado here it is...

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All,

The following is a speculation based on years of consideration, but with absolutely no proof.  You don’t have to respond to this, nor even acknowledge receipt. I just offer it as something that could lead to an interesting conclusion.

I have been very intimidated about sending this, but I figure what are the chances I will ever encounter any of you.  Well, I guess it could happen with Lawrence since I live in Phoenix and have even interacted briefly with Jeff Hester (ASU) as he was preparing for his debate with William Lane Craig that is scheduled for this April.  But what the heck.

Everyone seems to presuppose that in the absence of matter or energy that space-time would ideally be flat  (i.e., no reason for any curvature or distortion).  However, what if this presupposition  is wrong?  Of course describing 4 dimensional space time as being flat is probably an odd way to put it, but I think it is the best way of describing undistorted space-time. 

So now let’s consider the possibility of space-time being distorted or curved by something that is external to the known universe.  This is crazy, right?  But is it?

Matter that has collapsed into a black hole has for all practical purposes left the known universe.  With the exception of small amounts of Hawking radiation nothing entering a black hole can ever again interact with the known universe except for one very big effect that everyone just takes for granted.  Gravity.  Gravity does not “escape” the event horizon; it is the distortion of space time by something which has “left the building.”

At the event horizon of the black hole time stops, as viewed from our universe.  Matter entering the event horizon is gone forever, but the gravity associated with that matter persists as a continuing distortion of space-time.  Why?  Then over very large amounts of time I suspect that the gravity well may become more and more shallow (perceived as lower amount of contained equivalent mass) and slowly fade away almost as if the matter is getting farther away from a universe where it is no longer present.  This would be noted as a black hole appearing to shrink faster than can be explained by Hawking radiation.   

If we consider the possibility that our universe exists on a brane and that there can be other branes, is there a mechanism by which branes interact without being in a full blown collision?  Could there be an effect like gravity which can allow one brane to distort the shape of space-time in another brane?

If branes can in a sense feel the presence of nearby branes (via gravity?), then presupposing space-time being flat is probably a bad idea.

What if our brane is interacting with another large brane in a positive curvature sense?  Then we would perceive that our universe instead of being flat would have a positive curvature that gives us the impression that there is dark energy pushing everything away at an increasing velocity.  However, the positive curvature simply has all the matter in the universe rolling off the positive curvature hill of space-time. 

What if we are also interacting with other smaller branes which cause localized negative curvature “pot holes” in space time.  In those areas matter will roll into the pot holes just like water into regular potholes.  It wouldn’t be that there is matter in this universe that caused the original pothole, but as matter moves into the pothole it would indeed get deeper.  However, the matter in this universe will never explain the total depth of the pothole (gravity well).  The dark matter itself will never be found because it doesn’t really exist in this universe.  The distortion of space-time is being externally caused (perhaps by matter in an adjacent brane).

Galaxies will rotate as if there is dark matter because the total distortion of space time is not being caused by the matter contained within the galaxy.  The galaxies will be flying away from each other because they are all sliding down the big space-time hill in differing directions. 

If any of this is true it will be impossible to ever identify a source for dark matter or dark energy that resides within the known universe. All we are really detecting is a universe that is a big hill full of potholes and wrinkles caused by its interaction with other branes. 

Anyone want to take a crack at this idea?  You are welcome to it, or you can amuse your friends with a wacky idea from a crazy person.  I won’t send anything further unless requested to do so. 

All the best to each of you in your current endeavors.      

Curtis Eickerman

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Confirmation Bias - How it gets reinforced and how to reduce it

This post is somewhat related to the previous one.  It has to do with how we all experience confirmation bias, what is wrong with that and how to reduce this bias in our thinking.

Confirmation bias is what happens when we tend to look for evidence or "confirmation" that something we think or believe is actually the truth.  It can happen both consciously and subsonsciously.  We can actually look for sources of information that agree with us by, for example, typing a question into an internet search engine.  Say we type in "the earth is flat" into a search engine and sure enough we will see information pertaining to the idea that the earth really is flat (spoilers - it's not).  However, we could get the impression and confirmation that we are right in thinking the earth is flat simply because we have looked for articles that "confirm" what we have already thought.

We tend not to look up "what's wrong with the idea the earth is flat" which will present to you the articles that can show you what is wrong with what you have been thinking.  We seldom want to know that we are wrong.  It is our nature to want to feel that we are right in what we think or believe and will automatically look for this confirmation.

There is also a way we subconsciously reinforce confirmation biases.  We do it simply by associating with people of "like minds."  This can be based on any subject and some of it can be unintentional simply because we "like" people who agree with us and tend to distance ourselves from people with whom we might have disagreements.  This can be based upon religious beliefs, gun control, politics, or even such mundane things a music preferences (rock, country western, hip hop, new age, etc).

So is confirmation bias a bad thing?  In short, yes.  Why?  Because confirmation bias causes us to develop a blind spot with regard to our thinking and beliefs with regard to the truth.  It does this in two ways.  By only looking at or gravitating to the confirmation situations we tend to only see and hear the things that agree with what we are already thinking and remain relatively unexposed to alternatives.  This makes it very difficult to see in what ways our ideas may fall short of being the truth. This can insulate us from seeing actual evidence that our beliefs are not in accordance with reality.  Worse yet it gives those who "confirm" our idea the ability to easily misrepresent the other side of the issue.  It makes us gullible.

Let's take a look at a political example.  If you are a Republican and only listen to or watch Republican sources of news you are getting a biased source (the same goes for Democrats).  In addition you will constantly be exposed to those Republicans who tell you what Democrats are thinking or what Democrats want.  Again the converse is also true.  The end result is you can be easily manipulated into thinking you know what "the other side" thinks and wants which may be completely wrong.  You can even be driven by fear into making voting decisions for really bad reasons.  You also will think that only Republicans (Democrats) actually see the whole truth because you never actually hear the whole story.  You only hear a misrepresentation of the other side of the story.

So, what can you do about this?  Well, it's not easy and it's not comfortable.  You have to look at sources of information that you automatically find irritating, infuriating in some cases, and at least argumentative.  Are these actually telling you the truth?  Actually they are just telling you the story from another biased point of view and that is why this is difficult.  However, in the process you become sensitive to the biases you see from the other side.  For example, if you are a Democrat and you see a Republican source saying Democrats want "X" yet you know you really don't want "X" you now know what a biased statement this is.  Indeed "Democrats" (inferring ALL Democrats) want "X" is a biased presentation and you recognize this because you know Democrats who don't want "X" at all.  So now when you as a Democrat see a statement that Republicans want "Y" you know that this is a suspect statement.  Sure some Republicans may want "Y" but probably not all of them and you don't even really know if any of them want "Y".

When we see statements only from sources that agree with us we don't recognize the potential for manipulation and misrepresentation.

The same thing happens when we look at political advertisements.  You see an advertisement from the political group you tend to align with which says Joe Smith voted against helping Veterans with mental health care system improvements.  So clearly Joe Smith is a bad person.  What you never see is why Joe Smith voted against a certain proposition.  You never hear why Joe Smith voted against the proposal, when in fact it turns out he found it necessary to vote against it because of an amendment that was added that had nothing to do with Veteran's health care and did something very harmful or even unconstitutional.  Joe Smith, it turns out, is a veteran himself and is highly in favor of providing them with better care, but the proposal in question contained a problem that was completely unacceptable.  You don't get to vote against only parts of a bill, so he was forced to vote against the whole thing.

Another way to reduce confirmation bias is to do the same sort of thing in a more personal environment.  You literally put yourself in what you might consider the "enemy camp."  You interact directly with those you believe you have a disagreement with.  You listen to them and talk to them.  You look for areas where you agree or where they may point out issues with your beliefs.  You prepare yourself to be able to admit weaknesses in your position and find ways to respectfully point out where you have issues with the other side of the issue.  You avoid the "Republicans are idiots" or "Democrats are crazy" (us versus them thinking) and deal with the actual substance of issues without all the ad hominem attacks.

Too often right now, we are dealing with each other like this is WWI and we just sit in our respective trenches and lob artillery shells at each other and accomplish nothing.  It's not until we have a dialog that is not replete with idiot, moron, redneck, Nazi, bible thumper and other such comments will we make real progress.         

Us versus Them

I have started thinking about this lately because of the the recent problems that to some degree may be an outgrowth of the social isolation and stress many of us have been living under in the last few months.

More and more these days we find ourselves being subjected to and also being part of an "us versus them" mentality.  Of course in such situations we always think of ourselves as being completely justified in our beliefs and opinions.

In the following I am going to attempt to illustrate this with events from my own life without specifying my own particular beliefs.

Long ago I was associated with a certain religious group.  I subsequently left it after a rather prolonged affiliation.  More recently I have taken part in a social group where I have encountered the following statement multiple times.  A person in the group will say that they never were associated with such a group or that they immediately recognized a problem with such a group and they would "never have been idiotic enough" to participate in such a thing.

I generally just hold my tongue and say nothing, but realize rather quickly that I have just been called an idiot by someone with an "us versus them" mentality.  Of course they don't know what they have done, but I do.  I also know that I was not and am not an idiot.  Of course neither were the doctors, lawyers, engineers and even therapists who  were also participants in "such a thing."

On rare occasions I have responded to the, "I wasn't stupid enough to be part of..." statements with the following.  "Yeah, I once said publicly I wouldn't be stupid enough to be part of (fill in the blank), then I spent 13 years in there."  This tends to have the best effect after I have already convinced them that I am well informed on the subject (I think it kind of rattles their assessment of the situation).

This sort of "us versus them" mentality seems to surface more when the person believes themselves to be in the middle of a group that all completely agrees with them.

In the social group I previously mentioned there is a predominant, but not 100%, bent toward a certain political ideology.  One night a gentleman boisterously raised the question about what we thought of a certain political figure and how that person was just so great.  I guess my tolerance for the "us versus them" mentality had reached a low point and the gentleman was sitting too close to me.  So I responded as how I actually thought that person should be sitting in prison, then proceeded to state that facts that had been established which absolutely confirmed why.  Oh, and if you think you know who I am talking about you only have a 50% chance of being right because I was equally armed with a response pertaining to the the political opponent.

The point here is that even if I am affiliated with a group I am not "owned" by them nor are my thoughts or opinions.  I almost subscribe to the old Groucho Marx line that, "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member."

I do my best not to subscribe to the "us versus them" mentality because I am not "us" I am me.  I am not always right or all knowing, but also the people I disagree with are not idiots, morons, or deplorable. All people have reasons for believing or doing the things that they believe or do.  The reasons may be rational or irrational.  The reasons may also be good or poor, but the reasons are seldom better just because of their association with a particular group.