Intruduction to my purpose

I have spent the last three months studying philosophy in a way that I have never done before. I am certain that I obsessed in this way because of our baby due in October whom we have nicknamed, Pumpkin. I have not yet learned why the birth of our children causes me to introspect and literally conclude questions that I have had all my life. Amy offered me an illuminated reason. She felt that I seek meaning of the lives of these two children and thus reflect on my life. I don’t remember her saying that verbatim but it is how interpreted her observation.

In the past few months I finished; Aristotle’s, Metaphysics, Kant’s, Critique of Pure Reason and a wonderful book by B. Alan Wallace called, Hidden Dimensions. It has all blown my mind into shards of chaotic perception. I am now at the point where I am begining to understand the meaningless of everything and in that, see it’s meaning. I know that seems like a contradiction but even the word, “contradiction” is self canceling word and thus to me non-existent but it is actually the best way that I can express what I feel.

Throughout my life I have listened to people express cliches like; “life is what you make of it”, “everything is an illusion” and of course, “man is the measure of all things”. On the surface, I felt that I understood those statements easily agreed but I could never explain them and that is where my search began.

Why is everything an illusion and as Einstein put it, a very persistent one. Do I understand what he really meant or am I merely distracted by the word, illusion.

• What is the nature of my distraction?
• Do I agree with the concept of consensus illusion because I do not understand my ontological place in the universe?
• Is believing that everything is an illusion simply an irresponsible and aloof escape from consensus reality?
• Have I earned the right and luxury of assuming that nothing exists?
• Those are words typical of Buddhist monk’s dialogue and another interpretation of the sacred Heart Sutra but do I really know what it means?

The conclusion I drew with respect to myself was that I did not deserve to think that the universe did not exist until I could explain it to a teenager and for that matter, anyone who asked me. Also,it must be a clear, simple and concise explanation and not one myred in abstract examples and more cyclical philosophical rhetoric that leaves the querent more confused and irritated. In fact, I feel that it is important that you address the querent and emphasize that patience, an open mind free of prejudices is required. To illustrate this example with a metaphor; when you paint a house using a different color, you must prepare the surface by striping as much of the old color and repair imperfections before you prime and paint. So must a person be prepared to receive a new idea. For some, it is something that they’ve considered all their lives and never understood how to express much less develop.

It is also important that I offer examples and ensure that the recipient of my explanation actually learn something valuable and is able to formulate questions borne of knowledge and not of confusion. This is the only way that I can think of actually passing a certain measure, my measure of enlightenment to someone else.

I suppose that I have until October to assemble a solid interpretation of reality that I am comfortable with much the way that I was able to position a solid place for Christianity when Max was born. For some reason, Pumpkin is somehow–or the symbol that is, Pumpkin–underline and understand my Buddhist practice in a way that I have never understood. For that matter, the concept of these two children become my teachers and I their humble student.

Precipice of futility

I have been at this place of my life before and I do not like it. It is a place where everything you do and feel seems futile despite the goodness in one’s life, it’s all for naught.

Things are making more sense now.

Believe it or not, the realization that reality may simply be a two-dimensional representation of a universe elsewhere is actually reassuring. I like thinking that everything around me may be illusory, it helps me relax a little more and not make such a big deal about everything.

If someone came up to you and said, “everything that you’re looking at right now does not exist–everything”, kind of like the movie, The Matrix. I think that the Matrix is a fun science fiction laced, interpretation of a holographic universe and in fact, represents one of the anthropic principle theories–that the universe is just one big computer.

I like merging concepts because that’s what humans are good at. There are people that enjoy having everything seperated but that’s an illusion and they’re basing their reality on that. Everything is connected in one or another but I don’t think that science has clearly or empirically defined all the connections. One of the big scientific endeavors today is to develop the theory of everything or TOE. Why would scientists stay up late at night and often devote their lives to developing a theory of everything? I could be taking things slightly out of context but I believe that it illustrates how much humans want to connect everything in an elegant and synchronous order.

I don’t think it is though. I feel that everything is connected but the shape of the universe is one ragged mess that resembles a complex neural network like the one in our brains rather than outside. The connections in the universe are based largely on how we want to make the connections. In other words, if we want to connect A and X, we will imagine or fabricate the links and eventually create the links if none appear to exist. To an outside obeserver, the connections don’t exist but then again, the outside observer has not been involved in the connection process and is approaching the situation as a critic rather than a participant.

The universe is based largely on expectation. We use all of our senses to shape the universe that we live in and we expect to see certain things in a particular order, whatever preconcieved order that may be or a priori universe.

It’s lunch time, more later.

What else do I need to do?

Once, you’ve mastered these subjects and can write a small book about them, take the metaphysics course that is offered through MIT.

with vim and vigor…

I know what I need to do now. I have a better sense of direction and feel like I now know where to direct my energy in my quest for reality and my truth. I have spun my wheels and chased my tail around many times over. Although it seemed like a fruitless exercise, it must have been a means to end because now I have a sense of direction.

My exploration of physics was amusing in that I asked physicists many questions about the nature of reality and ended up null–they didn’t know and didn’t want to know. All they had was a desire to calculate a math formula and solid, pragmatic proof. What I was looking for could not be observed or measured by current scientific methods. It was clear that I was barking up the wrong tree, eating another man’s cheerios or pulling the wrong beer out of the fridge.

My quest needs to be defined and fully explored not within physics rather in metaphysics since what I’m looking for is outside the realm of observed experience. So this is very brief list of subjects that I need to pour myself into to find the answers I’m looking for. Fear not its size, although I didn’t master quantum mechanics in a weekend, I do feel like I have a layman’s understanding for not being a physicist. Let’s say that I know why Schroedinger’s cat is scared and not.

Study the following topics:Use the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as a guide.

general metaphysics
1. Ontology
2. Neural correlates of consciousness (NCC)
3. Epistemology
4. Phenomenology
5. Logic
6. Spinoza
7. Descartes
8. Kierkegaard
9. Kant
10. Liebniz

There, that should do it for now. When you’re done studying these terms ad nauseam. Report back.

Good luck!

I got my ass handed to me on the Physics posts.

Ok, I’m not a physicist nor do I play one on TV–I don’t even look like one, whatever that is. But I love science and I enjoy finding relationships in nature. Today it seems like scientists are actively pursuing to keep things apart. To tell a scientist, “we are all one” is to invite scorned and pitchforked cry, “there’s no proof that we are!” Ah, it sucks is all I can say because socially, it would be nice if that that we are all one would be announced by scientists. I do find it fascinating how we(humans) fight so hard to stay seperated. We’re still cavemen living in seperate clans, there’s that old DNA that still keeps us savages.

During the airing of Cosmos, Carl Sagan said that we really are all star-stuff, meaning that we are essentially carbon based life forms–and oxygen and hydrogen–and that we are probably surrounded by some of the same atoms that were created during the big bang. Yeah, they’re all probably still here. It’s not an easy concept for a lot of people to accept but it makes perfect sense as it is a concept supported by Newtonian physics. Last week I got my ass handed to me at the Physics Forum because I asked why the connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics was not looked into more. That question went over like a fart in a crowded elevator. I was asked for proof, numbers, calculations, you name it. My biggest mistake was that I declared a connection between quantum mechanics and consciousness as “laughingly obvious”.

I learned that saying this to physicists or at least, pragmatists is the wrong approach but they’re going to ask me why. Also, these types of people do not accept hunches, feelings and other subjective phenomena–only facts. Needless to say, I rescinded my decleration and ended the discussion. It is clear to me now that physics cannot answer what I’m looking for. In fact, our level of scientific understanding is either non-existent or at best neophyte in understanding how consciousness affects matter. Is “affects” even the appropriate word to use?

Our scientific knowledge has accomplished breathtaking achievements in the past 400 years. But it has all been through observation and experimentation. How do you conduct experiments on the nature of consciousness? The very act of measuring anything in consciousness may change the results–it’s all so subjective.

In my next post, I’ll break down terms in philosophy as I understand them with the goal of establishing a strategy to the details of enleightenment. Physics, quantum or classical will not be on this list. If at any point I realize that I’m ready to present empirecal data, I’ll hit back at the physicists.

Ok, what are we trying to do?

Well here I am frustrated again. I feel like I’ve come full circle but not in a conclusive sort of way as though I had accomplished anything–I didn’t. The full circle I’m referring to is synonymous to a cat chasing its tail. A fruitless waste of time and he looks stupid doing it, which is exactly how I feel right now.

Amy sat here and listened to me for an hour and then had to move on after claiming that she had completed one full circle with me. I commend and applaud her for doing that and asking her to do anymore than that is selfish on my part. If she’s willing to sit there and listen to my bitch and moan about things neither I or anyone else can control then it’s gotta’ be love, or martyrdom–I don’t know, one of those. Regardless, I love her for taking the time and patience to do so.

I seem to be passing through a similar soul search that I went through when Amy was pregnant with Max, except that one was very religious and I felt like I received spiritual epiphanies back to back. Exactly how many, I don’t know but I felt that I understood my relationship with God and Jesus by the time Max was born. So how long was that? About eight months to enlightenment, exactly nine though (speaking of circles).

And now I’m waiting for another child. Amy is pregnant with our second child and I’m passing through a different type of awakening. This time it’s not spiritual. In fact, I feel like I don’t want God anywhere near this problem, I think that he has better things to do anyway. Besides, I solved my God situation back when Max was brewing. This time, my soul search appears very mechanical, technical. I feel like I want to pop the trunk on our universal car(analogy) and see exactly what makes it work. I want to know exactly how every frickin’ atom and its many accompanying particles work.

So how did I do this? The hardest way possible. I did it by pouring myself into quantum mechanics and trivializing the essence of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, E=MC^2. Somehow, I came to the conclusion that if I can figure out how Einstein demonstrated that light(c^2) links the relationship between (m)atter and (e)nergy, then I could know how to manipulate both. But to do exactly what?

Do I have a “God Complex”? I better go look that up and see if I’m showing symptoms of obsessive tendencies. But Amy told me that if I think I’m nuts, I’m probably not. I think she may be trying to make me feel better. I have been to a therapist for this and they didn’t find anything wrong. They simply told me that I was feeling anxiety over the pregnancy and to meditate more. I was also suffering many of the physical symptoms of stress which I won’t go into here.

Back to me trying to manipulate reality through Einstein’s theories. I’m not sure why my anxiety makes me choose soul searching reboots to my life. I have to consider the fact that I saw all the external signs prior to the birth of these children. It seems as though they somehow sent me messages or signals that they were arriving. For that matter, it seems as though I’ve know about them in one way or another all my life.

Max came to Amy and I as no surprise. We expected him and felt like we knew all about Max when she announced her pregnancy with him. But the little one that she’s pregnant with now gave her no signs, but I received them in the form of numbers–the six. I saw sixes everywhere, often–mostly on digital clocks. It’s hard to explain and most people would be content with an explanation of coincidence. But I don’t believe in that. These two children are here for a purpose, I believe although I don’t know what that purpose is.

I’m going to keep my eye and mind on this because I have a feeling that something interesting is going to come of all this. More later.

big changes.

A lot’s going through my mind right now. Amy and I are about to have a second child wich will add a fourth to our collection of children. This is what I always wanted and now I have it with the most perfect woman in the world. I can’t wait to start mixing formula again and all the other wonderful events that ocurr with infants.

So, who is the little child? I feel like I know this child but not in the same way that I know Max. I have to define this because it could be that both kids have the same psychic impact on me. The only thing that makes Max different is that he was the first–my first and that makes his situatuation unique.

I used to complain that I didn’t see any clues that this was coming like I did with Max but, that’s not true. The medical symptoms were identical. The psychic messages that this child was on the were all there and what about the fact that I kept hearing in my head, “but there is another…”

Why didn’t Amy or talk about contraception? It’s as though this child was always out there–like Max talking to both of us or me at least telling us, “wait, wait! I want to be with you too–you won’t regret it.”

This is what’s on my mind right now. I should probably get back to work and meditate on “the little one” later.

Max is 29 months old.

Amy and I sat here trying to figure out exactly how old Max is. I tell everyone he’s two and half because I don’t want to go through the hassle of counting months anymore. So here Amy and I were counting with out fingers to verify that Max is now 29 months old–I’m sticking with two and half and after he turns three, no more month counting.

Max is more curious now but not so curious that he breaks thingsm he’s more cautious now. If he does it is usually an accident that could have happened to anyone or something that he just wasn’t familiar with. His motor skills are really sharp now as he can do many things carefully using his hands. He still falls a lot though. Max is very eager to do things and seems to be in a hurry to get from one place to another, he runs everywhere. My mother calls him a “busy little squirrel”. He is not napping as much anymore so I am seeing a transition from a baby schedule to a curious little boy’s schedule.

I am a little confused by what Max is ready to learn. There are some things that he seems to understand the first time I tell him and other things that he does not appear to understand. I can tell when he understands what I tell him because he will take over whatever I just showed him and do it himself. When he does not understand something, he leaves–probably to do something he can do or more fun. Or, he understands and does not feel like listening to me. Obviously, teacher(parent)-student(son) relationship will improve as he learns to communicate.

Max had a difficult time at the barber shop, last week. He has a melt-down whenever I take him and kicks, screams and appears very, very sad and then gives me a dirty look, “how could you let them do this to me dad?”. His barber is extremely talented because she can cut his hair in sections as he shakes his head. I think he’s simply curious about why he needs this done and absolutely fascinated by the all the gadgets his hairdresser uses. Every time she switched clippers, Max would swing his head wildly to see what else she was going to do. He tracked her every move. I need to let him hold on to our clippers and run them so that he gets used to getting his haircut without being restrained by several adults. In the end, he walked out with a neat and short haircut and a brand, new lollipop.

Speech:

Max is putting simple two-three word sentences together. I think that he knows more than what he can say. He is very specific about his needs and if you cannot produce what he is requesting, he will push or pull you in the general direction of what he wants. Luckily it is mostly things like a DVD, cocoa or a snack. He is officially bilingual (English and Spanish) but he knows where to use the words. He never speaks Spanish to Amy in fact, if I saw something to him in Spanish, he will ignore me.

Toys:

We are doing everything we can to keep him well rounded in terms of his interests. I did not wan him to only be aware of toys for boys, (e.g., guns, lasers, grenades, robots, etc…) and gave him legos, chalk, a nice wooden train set. But it does not seem to matter. He likes robots (refers to them as “ahbahts”), jets, rockets (“ahket”). He frequently uses his robot to destroy the wooden train set. Yes, that’s probably all my fault(daddy) for showing him things that I thought were cool when I was a little boy. But I also showed Max other things, he just seemed attracted to the rockets and robots. He understands what batteries are and what they do. So, I may as well say it now that I am probably going to get him mostly science related toys.

Knowledge and memory:

Max can identify most of the letters in the alphabet and even some numbers but I don’t think that he understands what order these things fit in. When he does rocket countdowns, he’ll say, “2-9 blah blah!”. He knows what some of the planets are and seems understands that you need a vehicle of some sort to get from one planet to another although I don’t think that he understands what planets are, but he understands the concept of a vehicle. He appears to have an amazing memory but obviously selective. Sometimes I will forget where I parked the car, or approach another car that looks like mine and he will correct me immediately, “no, no, no”. Location of certain people and things he needs are important to him now and he will ask by saying, “where is he?” or, “where is she?”. Also, he can remember certain expressions made on movies and tv programs that he watches a lot.

Generally:

I can tell that Max is going to enjoy teasing people although I do not know how much he is going to enjoy being teased back. It is difficult to say what his personality is going to be like because I see new and wonderful developments every week.

Until next month…

28 months — yes, this is correct!

Ok, it’s been a while. I was asked to update this blog so here it goes. Max’s personality is developing now and whe’re starting to see what kind of a person he might be. I say that because he’s only two and a half and many, many things can change in his behavior. But the one thing that stands out to me is that he seems to be a very resilient little person that knows what he wants and appears to understand what he needs to do to get it. He’s extremely resourceful. I’ve seen him solve problems and improves objects.

Interests:
Max is developing interests typical of a little boy. I often forget that he’s only two and will get him a toy that’s designed for an older kid. He still plays with it–it’s a toy, something new–but he obviously doesn’t understand the concept of certain games yet. I don’t mind getting him toys like this because it gives me an opportunity to play with Max and the toy, we have fun. Things he likes right now are trains (choo-choo), all manner of aircraft, robots, playing in the kitchen helping momma mix things–when it’s possible and yelling at Spike–he’s two and we’re working on this. He’s developed an interest in mimicking the sounds that some of these vehicles make like jet and rocket blasts, rocket launch countdowns and vehicle sounds.

Behavior:
Max is fairly even tempered little boy with the expected ups and dows of any toddler. He listens and watches everything we do, carefully. I know that he’s watching because sometimes he’ll request something unexpected and calls it by name using max-only words. For example, he was moody last Friday afternoon and we didn’t know why. He pointed to the pancake mix and called it, “bah-beek?”. Amy knew immediately that Max wanted “Pancakes”, that was “Bah-Beek”. I was shocked because I didn’t think he knew what pancakes were much less what they’re called. Amy makes pancakes for breakfast and he obviously enjoys them but I didn’t think he was aware enough to ask for them. Because he’s two there are many tantrums as one would expect. But the cool thing is that they don’t last that long. But when Max does throw a tantrum, he throws himself on the ground, gently eases his head to the floor–apparently so that it doesn’t hurt–and starts wailing. After a minute into this tirade, he produces crocodile-tears and then about 15 minutes later gets up and does something else, it’s over. There have been times when it has lasted longer than that but it’s rare. He seems to be able to switch gears on his own. The only difference is that if there is something he really wants (or needs) he will not quit until he gets it, it’s interesting to watch. Max is starting to understand a few rules of conduct like, “thank you”, “bless-you”, “you’re welcome”. If we ask him how he’s doing, he’ll say, “ah fine, ah-q” (I’m fine, thank you). He might be a teaser, a trickster as he likes to tease Amy. He seems to get a kick out of saying, “Momma?”. When Amy responds, he’ll gigle and won’t say anything and then do it again–”Momma?”. I think this goes on for several rounds until either Amy or Max get tired of this game.

Development:
We work on numbers and letters regularly. I think Amy spent some time with Max and his letter puzzle and can identify 90% of the letters. He can also indentify many animals at this point and mimic their sounds(he snorts when he sees a pig–it’s cute). Max also identifies and finds a few important household items like shoes, keys, cell phones and wallets. These are things that we look for before leaving the house and he’s used seeing us run around the house looking for these items. What I don’t understand about Max is how is it that he seems to be able to learn how to play with a with a toys designed for older kids and can follow a few instructions but I can’t get him to identify numbers. What’s the difference between that objects that we show him and the symbols we use to identify numbers, “one”, “two”, “three”, etc. We’re not harsh parents that are forcing him to learn these things, not at all. In fact, we encourage Max to spend time playing with his toys and watch him make up situations that involve helicopters, trains and other toys he’s familiar with. I simply don’t understand what the difference is between a letter(symbol) and a number(symbol). We’re not even expecting him to count yet. Aside from all this though, Max spends a lot of time making up new games seemingly using his imagination.

Speech:

Max is learning two languages by default, English and Spanish. His grandparents speak to him in Spanish and Max is able to comprehend and follow instruction in Spanish. If I ask him a few things in Spanish at my parents house, he’ll oblige. But he will not respond to Spanish commands commands outside my parent’s house–it’s the weirdest thing. It seems that Spanish is something that is only spoken to my parents and their house–and that’s it. If I ask him anything in Spanish, he’ll ignore it. A large portion of what Max says is still baby-gibberish but we can tell that he’s going to have the gift of gab. He seems to have a lot of questions because he’ll launch into a bunch of gibberish with the tone of a question (ksalfkj klfjlskjd jlkjsdlfj??). I just say, “yes, I was just thinking about that, Max.” I wish I had a better handle of what he’s asking because it’s an observation that he’s making about a situation. I wish I could communicate better with him.

Below is a list of the words that I can think of:

• milk == “yup[k]“
• playdoh == “bay-boh”
• cocoa == “coco”
• to get anyone’s attention == “Ey! Ey!”
• apple == “Appo”
• Juice == “joos”
• cell phone = “seh-bo”
• robot == “ah-baht”
• Oh Man… == “oh man…”
• ice cream == “aee-kee”
• Spike = “sigh”
• light == “why”
• pancake = “bah-beek”
• space == “faish”
• space shuttle = “faish”
• moon == “moo”

There are a few more words that he’s developed into his own language but I can’t remember them right now.
Ok, I’ll make a better attempt of updating this blog. I’m not sure how long I’m going to keep this going. It’s an interesting log of his activities that he can visit as there is a lot of information about the pregnancy. If he’s as curious of his origins as I am about everything, he’ll love reading this blog. I’ll keep writing stuff in this blog until I stop.