Booms

I've been visiting my home (weird phrasing, but it's the Army) in Indiana, and just about every night I've been hearing mysterious booms. The best description I can give is that they sound like foot steps that the T-Rex made in Jurassic Park. It's definitely not a weird type of thunder because the skies are clear and there are no storms in the forecast. I should also note that I've lived in Indiana pretty much all of my life and never heard anything remote to this.

My last post was my lambasting the 2012 prophecies, and while the world obviously didn't end on the 21st, I can't help but wonder if this could be related. Maybe these weird booms are the trumpets of Revelation heralding in the seven years of tribulation! Of course the closest instrument these booms sound like would be the tuba. 

I've searched online for an explanation, and I know I am not alone in hearing these booms. I've read everything from HAARP being fired to a bog belch. Frankly, none of these explanations sound really good. I guess it'll be a wonderful little mystery into the new year.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Have a great New Year!

The End of the World!

As December 21, 2012 draws ever nearer, we are constantly reminded of our impending doom predicted by the Mayans. This date is based off of the Mayan calendar. Most -if not all- scholars on the subject have rejected this idea. There is no indication that this date means any actual end of the world. In fact, it sounds like it's literally just the end of the calendar. It would be like finding a modern calendar, and then claiming the world is going to end on December 31. Assertions of a planetary alignment happening on this date have been disproven by astronomers too. Basically, this is just as over hyped as the apocalypse prediction from last year.

The Roland Emmerich movie, 2012, from 2009 capitalized on all of the various theories about the 2012 apocalypse. I think the main reason why I wanted to see the movie was just to see how Emmerich would end the world. Well I think he literally took every theory. You have a solar flare heating the Earth's core which causes the Yellowstone super volcano to explode and ultimately a polar shift. The polar shift is responsible for earthquakes and mega-tsunamis as well as causing California to sink into the Pacific Ocean. Not a bad movie, but I have no desire to rewatch it.

Despite the prediction of Christian evangelist Harold Camping last year, the Bible is very clear that the date of the apocalypse cannot be known. Matthew 24:36 clearly states, "of that day and hour knoweth no man." It really annoyed me when atheists were falsely attributing this doomsday prediction as an actual prediction from the Bible. Nothing annoys me more than blatant bad arguments. Point being, as a Christian, we should not take any doomsday date seriously. Of course, as rationale human beings, we should not take any doomsday predictions seriously - especially for 2012. There just is simply no valid reason to believe in the 2012 prediction. There's no biblical support, there's no scientific support, and there's no Mayan support who purportedly made the prediction.

Aliens

I've been fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrials for as long as I can remember. My first childhood dream was to become an astronaut, so I was deeply interested in space and space exploration. Strangely, these same books always had to have even the most casual reference to aliens. They weren't necessarily advocating the existence of aliens and that the government was covering them up, but they would speculate what aliens would look like on different planets. I distinctively remember one book showing what aliens would look like on Jupiter. They were interesting because it explained some basic characteristics that may develop due to gravity, temperature, and other factors. As with everything else, my mind is just naturally attracted to the fantastical.

So back in the early 1990's, cryptozoology was becoming a big pop culture hit with things like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and -of course- aliens. X-Files was really popular at the time too which purported the idea of the government covering up the existence of aliens. While I have never personally witnessed a UFO (or to be technical, nothing that seemed extraterrestrial like), the alien autopsy footage shown on Fox made us pause. Spoiler alert: it was obviously fake, but it wasn't deemed so immediately. I think Area 51 was still publicly denied by the government (even though it was easy to see) at this time too which only fueled the idea that the government may be hiding something.

Can you blame my younger self for fearing these?

Paradoxically, as much as I enjoyed reading about aliens, they were my childhood boogeymen. After watching the opening abduction scene from The X-Files, I was scared when going to sleep when the moon happened to be shining in my bedroom at night. The glow from the window made me check to see if there was a space ship outside. Nothing frightened me more than the movie Mars Attacks. I never saw the movie when I was kid, but the trailers truly freaked me out. I think I first saw it as a trailer preceding Space Jam whose aliens didn't quite frighten me in the same manner. Watching educational programs that further supported the idea of aliens (mostly the Drake equation) kept this fear in me for quite a while since the idea seemed very possible.

As I got older, the idea of aliens abducting me vanished and movies like Mars Attacks I was able to see as the comedy that it actually is. As I got more religious in my high school and college years, I actually became even more skeptical of the idea that aliens even existed. The basic premise of this idea is that if life was designed (by God), then life shouldn't exist anywhere else in the universe. There was no biblical reason for me to believe in extraterrestrials. In fact if aliens did appear, I would probably presume them to be literal demons of some sort.

Strangely, only one television show / movie -that I have seen- that has even addressed this idea of mine that is certainly more widespread than you would think. In 2009, a revamp of the show V aired. I think the show probably had bad ratings because it was hard to look up (only consisting of a single letter), but I thoroughly enjoyed the show up until its cliffhanger ending although it did get a little heavy handed with the aliens trying to search for the human soul. One of the main characters in the show was a Catholic priest who had a crisis of faith when the aliens first appeared and basically professed the exact same premise of mine. The priest even went so far as accusing them of demons which is what initially led him to believe that the V's may actually have malevolent intentions despite of all of the great miracles they were giving to humanity. While the show ended prematurely, there was no indication that the aliens were in fact demons by the way.

Aliens or angels?

While I may have had no biblical reason to believe in extraterrestrials, the Bible does have some extraterrestrial-like events in it. My first exposure was with the book of Ezekiel. Right in the first chapter, the prophet has a very strange vision of creatures in flying wheels. Slightly blasphemous, but the pillar of fire in Exodus that was leading the Jews through the desert could even be described as a UFO.

Other religions may allude to aliens as well. In Islam, there are references to the Djinn which has been anglicized to genie. I am not a subscriber to the Koran, but I did find it interesting that it makes references to another intelligent race that is neither angel or demon. Other theories suggest that ancient gods may have been aliens, and they were the ones who constructed all of the monoliths and the pyramids. Some Egyptian hieroglyphics do resemble flying saucers.

Today, I don't know if I would immediately jump to the demon conclusion, but my skepticism of aliens is entirely rooted in this idea at least as far as finding any life in the universe. I do find the possibility of aliens in other cultures to be fascinating, but ultimately it is the Fermi paradox that makes me most skeptical of Earth being visited by extraterrestrial life. Now there is an argument with Star Trek's Prime Directive (alien contact is avoided until interstellar travel is invented to allow a culture to grow naturally), but I still think we would have found something. The Wow! signal is the closest, and that has yet to be replicated. If alien life really has visited us in the past, why would they have stopped or have focused their attentions to isolated people?

Atlantis

Depiction of Atlantis from Plato's Critias

I'm surprised I haven't written about this topic yet. In fact, I don't think there is another topic that fascinates me as much as the lost city of Atlantis. Not just Atlantis, but anachronistic artifacts such the Piri Reis map, the Baghdad battery, and antikythera mechanism make me wonder if there is any validity to Atlantis.

Popular culture depicts Atlantis as being an ancient city that is typically more technologically advance than ours which eventually sank due to some various calamity. The other common depiction is a city under the water that is inhabited by sea people or mermaids. I can't pin point exactly when I first heard about Atlantis, but there are countless references to the lost city in almost all of my favorite television shows when I was a kid. I think it was in elementary school when we were covering the Trojan War and how Troy was actually a real city. This naturally segued to Atlantis, so the possibility that something so fantastic could be real inspired me when I was a kid. Unfortunately, I lived in the country when I was a kid, so access to a library (unless the book mobile stopped by) was not practical and the internet still wasn't a thing yet.

Origins of Atlantis

Atlantis originated from Plato's dialogues, The Timaeus and The Critias. More details come from the latter. The character in the story, Solon, said that he learned about Atlantis from an Egyptian priest. Now obviously, it is up for debate if Plato was referring to an actual lost city or if he was using it as an allegory, but these two dialogues contain the only known direct references to Atlantis from antiquity.

From Plato is where we get the location of Atlantis and the reference to the mysterious metal, orichalcum. Plato tells us that Atlantis sank about 9000 years ago after fighting a war with the Athenians. We also get some details about what Atlantis looks like. Beyond that, Plato doesn't tell us too much. In fact, just when The Critias is getting good, it stops mid-sentence much to my frustration and much to the frustration of everyone else who researches the topic.

Virtually all of the more fantastical and science fiction elements associated with Atlantis come from the psychic, Edgar Cayce. Through his psychic visions, we got glimpses of Atlantis powering high tech machines with crystals among other things. Whether he actually saw these things or not is unknown, but it is certainly imaginative for the time. I would speculate the association with mermaids is just artistic use of wanting a mermaid city, and since Atlantis was underwater, it just made sense. Everything else appears to be extrapolating through those details.

Where is Atlantis?

 Is Atlantis real and where is it if so? The main question. Based on Plato's dialogues, the legendary city was located outside of the Pillars of Hercules and was a considerable landmass. The Pillars of Hercules are commonly attributed to the straight of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco. Some say that the Canary Islands located outside may be former mountain tops of the sunken continent which may have been caused by rapidly rising sea levels possibly from a global deluge (Noah?). Others think that maybe the Americas could be Atlantis and that the "sinking" was actually just ships sailing away and was actually just the city going below their horizon.
 
Using a little imagination and being a little loose with plate tectonic theory, some speculated that Antarctica may be the lost continent. The continent simply moved south during a polar shift to it's current position. Using the polar shift theory but not proposing something as fantastic as a gigantic continental shift, some say that the Pillars of Hercules could be referring to the tips of Africa and South America and that the polar shift simply changed the climate of Antarctica. Both Antarctica theories fail to explain the sinking aspect of the story, but again it is taking some very liberal interpretations of what Plato meant. I find my current understanding of these theories to be the hardest to buy, but I thought they were worth mentioning.

Possibly the most credible theory is that Atlantis was inspired by the island of Santorini. This was actually referenced in my high school history text books. Again this uses a loose interpretation of Pillars of Hercules, but basically there was a Minoan civilization on this island until it was blown to smithereens by a volcano which would've produced earth quakes and tidal waves which could create a sinking effect. The other thing is that some say that the 9000 years could have been based off of a lunar calendar which does seem to align with the occurrence of this event. There are some problems with this theory, but it currently seems to be the best fit as far as an inspiration is concerned.

One of the more interesting and compelling evidence of an actual sunken city is the Bimini Road in the Bahamas. It's contested whether the road is actually man made or a coincidence, but it makes one wonder.

Not debated is if Plato was referencing the hotel in the Bahamas

Atlantis and the Illuminati

When the internet became a tool of research for me and my interest in conspiracy theories escalated, my research found it's way back to Atlantis. Apparently, a lot of famous thinkers such as Francis Bacon, the father of science, was a huge proponent of Atlantis, but he used it as a description of his perfect society. Interestingly, conspiracy theorists will claim that Francis Bacon was a member of the elusive order and ultimately influenced the founding of the United States. While that's interesting and even compelling, that's nothing compared to the idea that Atlantis may be the beast from Revelations.

But the beast is most assuredly a metaphor.

Comparing the beast of Revelations to Atlantis is admittedly very compelling. In Revelations 13, the beast does rise out of the sea. And in Revelations 17, the beast once was, now is not, and shall rise again. One problem, it's stated in Revelations that the sea is an allegory for people. Could be a double allegory, but I thought this was an interesting idea. The main question is (aside from some scholars thinking the beast is Rome): was Atlantis really that popular back then that it would be a common reference?

There are some other theories, but a lot of it seemed like unsubstantiated theories such as the Illuminati leaders being immortal Atlantean priests and other such things. I would say that a lot of these imaginative theories were people confusing the historical record with popular culture.

Conspiracy theories aside, if archaeologists actually discover an ancient sunken city and date it to 9000 years ago, it would change history in quite a substantial way. Things like the pyramids and other anachronistic artifacts would make more sense. Being responsible for changing our understanding of history in such a way would earn instant fame and a mark in history. While I have no desire to start diving into the Atlantic, just the thought that an entire civilization could be reduced to a myth fascinates and frightens me simultaneously.

[Spoiler Alert] The Dark Knight Rises (not a review)

SPOILER ALERT!

I'm a little late, so I'm not going to write a review for the movie, but I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it. With that said, there has never been another movie I've been more anticipated for than The Dark Knight Rises. I thought it would be fun to look back on some of my previous posts [1] [2] on my speculation on the movie.

Granted my second post on the subject was intended to be a parody of Spider-man 3, but it was still funny how some elements did bleed into the last Nolan Batman movie.

The Plot

Everyone knew that The Dark Knight was bound to have a sequel, so I wrote my first blog post just because I was so excited about how you could follow up such a spectacular movie. Now I still wish my movie title would've been used, but considering that a lot of people still don't know that Batman Begins is the prequel to The Dark Knight, I can see why they chose a similar sounding name. Regardless, I was still amazed how close I was to the actual plot before the movie was even named.

Obviously, the plot was different, but Nolan did draw a lot of inspiration from the comic Knightfall and even included Talia Al Ghul and her reveal was even a twist. Scarecrow did have a cameo appearance like I predicted, but in the actual movie, he was used as a kangaroo judge versus his scarecrow persona. Even more amazing was that there was a cop (not a politician) that wanted to hunt down Batman. Details were clearly off, but I clearly called Nolan's inspirations. Granted I think I would've been a little disappointed if the League of Shadows didn't play some kind of role in the final installment of the trilogy.

A fun little story about Talia Al Ghul. I think I posted about this theory on Digg.com back when Digg was one of the most popular websites on the internet. I commented about how cool it would be if Natalie Portman would play her. Easily my highest rated post ever. I don't know why Natalie Portman, but it probably had to do with her popularity at the time. However, imagine my surprise when I was watching Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and he actually asked Natalie Portman this very question on his talk show. I cannot confirm that I was the instigator of this rumor, but I know I didn't get it from anyone else.

Catwoman

Again, my second post was a parody. There was endless speculation on what the last Nolan Batman movie was going to be about, and the fan theory about the Riddler just annoyed me to no end. I specifically wrote that blog post for a forum on Spill.com which hosts podcasts that I highly recommend. The theory was that in The Dark Knight there was a character who figured out Batman's secret identity and was trying to blackmail him. Well the gentleman's name happened to be Mr. Reese which sounds a bit like "mysteries". Regardless, this theory annoyed me, so I wrote what I thought would be the worst possible version of the sequel. Of course the worst third movie in recent memory was Spider-man 3.

Batman has very few love interests, so I used the most well known which is Catwoman. Now Nolan did everything to avoid having her be called Catwoman, but he had his little Easter eggs in the movie such as a newspaper with the headline "cat burglar" and her goggles looking like cat ears when she lifts them up (see the image). Again, I was mirroring Spider-man 3, but I thought it was a nice little coincidence that the movie did end with Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle together.

Final Thoughts

The Nolan Batman trilogy was certainly a fun time to be a Batman fan. Reading all of the Batman fan theories were surprisingly enjoyable even though I found some of them annoying. After listening to the Spill review for this movie, they said something which I think is very true and especially relates to this post. No matter what your theory was for the third Batman movie even if they contradicted each other, they made it into it. Fortunately, the ridiculousness of Clayface and forcing too many villains didn't happen. The biggest question among fans was whether Robin was going to be in it. Well he was and he wasn't. I don't know if Nolan read any of these fan theories, but it's still fun to speculate. 

Freewill

Minus certain intellectuals, I think it is fair to say that everyone believes that they have freewill. The question is why? Unlike other philosophical questions, freewill is pretty much logically disproved.

1. If determinism is true, then there is no free will.
2. If determinism is false, then everything is random and there is no free will.
3. Determinism must be true or false; therefore, there is no free will.

Premise 1 says that determinism is true. All events are caused. All our actions are therefore pre-determined. There is no free will or moral responsibility. Premise 2 says if our actions are caused by randomness, we lack control. We can not call that free will because we could not be held morally responsible for random actions. There are arguments for reality being deterministic versus random, but regardless, it still means that freewill is an illusion. If you aren't sure about reality being random, then look up quantum mechanics.

But hold on! Surely we have freewill. I am in charge of my choices. If not, then what does this mean for our justice system? Not to worry, I believe I have a solution. Now I haven't thoroughly researched this, but I am certain that no one else has pitched this idea (or at least I haven't heard of it).

My solution to the freewill dilemma is the human soul. I believe that in order to believe in freewill you must believe in a human soul. Let's first assume determinism is true meaning that quantum physics is incomplete and that the phenomena of quantum mechanics is just not fully understood yet. If there is no human soul and consciousness is just a byproduct of the brain, then no matter how sophisticated the brain, it is still a slave of neurons and stimuli. If consciousness is yearned by the soul, then it is not subjected to that because the soul is supernatural. Therefore, if determinism is true and the soul is real, then there can be free will!

Now I will admit that this may be a stronger argument for proving a soul rather than the reverse, but let's assume you can at least buy into the idea of the soul. The strongest objection to this rationale is what about mental illness? Is insanity an illness of the soul or of the mind? More importantly, if the soul makes our choices and is immune to physical cause and effect, then how does a mental illness affect these choices? The best way to answer this is with an analogy.

Imagine you are the President of the United States. No matter how smart and capable you are, you have to act based upon information briefed to you from intelligence agencies. Think of the intelligence agencies as your brain. The president is independent of the intelligence agencies, but must make choices based upon the information given.

Likewise with your body, the soul is independent of the mind. Now the mind can give the soul bad information, but the soul is still making a choice regardless of the information given to it. For instance, you may believe murder is wrong, but if someone kills a loved one, you may feel righteous in murdering that person but then immense guilt afterward. This could be considered temporary insanity, and you may receive a lighter sentence than say premeditated murder. In the more extreme cases of schizophrenia, the same logic applies except your soul is trying to navigate through a reality that differs from actual reality.

Now my proof on freewill entirely rests on the existence of the soul. This is admittedly another reason why I am a religious person, but I really don't see any other way around this especially since it seems inherently obvious that freewill must exist and must exist for society to properly function. I would honestly like to know how a nonreligious person would rationalize the dilemma of freewill without the existence of the soul.

God

Before I begin, full disclosure that I am a Christian, so I may be admittedly biased on this topic.With that said, I do intend for this to be more philosophical than trying to witness. Spoiler alert: I don't believe that I can absolutely prove that God exists let alone prove in a blog that Jesus is the savior of mankind. My intent is to at least show it is plausible. The most intellectual position on God is truthfully agnosticism. But before I begin, allow me to share a quote that I think sums up my feelings on the existence of God.

"But a man is not really convinced of a philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, 'Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?' he would look wildly round at object after object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, 'Why, there is that bookcase... and the coals in the coal-scuttle... and pianos... and policemen.' The whole case for civilization is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many things. But that very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible." ~ Orthodoxy, "The Paradoxes of Christianity."

This is not a compelling argument, but the quote beautifully captures the frustration that a believer has when trying to explain his faith with a nonbeliever. After deeply analyzing my own beliefs, even I have to accept that my belief in God rests entirely on faith. I will give some reasons why God is more credible than say unicorns, but just like with reality there is a seemingly compelling force that convinces me that God exists.

The Uncaused Cause

To me this is probably the most compelling reason for belief in the existence of God. The argument is as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The Universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

This argument can be worded differently, but I thought this was simple enough. I doubt anyone would disagree with premise 1. It seems pretty inherent. You and I came from our mothers. A watch was made by a watchmaker. Premise 2 made be harder for a nonbeliever, but I will simply state that all current physics points to a beginning which is commonly known as The Big Bang Theory. Now where both sides will disagree comes with the conclusion. Now both will agree with the conclusion but will disagree on its implications, and that is the point I was trying to make earlier. The cosmological argument -at best- only really implies the existence of God. While more complicated, there are theories involving multiverse that theoretical physicists use to answer this question too. I only like bringing this up because it defeats the notion that some atheists will say about only stupid people believe in God, and it gives a good sound reason why God is more believable than unicorns.

Thanks to the popular television show. Pictures like these are harder to come by.

Life

This would be at best considered an a posteriori argument, but the existence of life - especially solely existing on Earth- is probably the strongest reason I believe in God from a pure logical perspective. Life is truly an extraordinary miracle that occurs in nature. So extraordinary that it is just hard for me to believe in abiogenesis which is the hypothesis that life sprang from non-life. Definitely more an emotional argument than a logical argument, but I think even nonbelievers can appreciate this. What I think gives the intelligent design notion (purposely avoided the term theory) is that we can't find life any where else in the universe. We have microbes on this planet that can survive the most inhospitable conditions, yet we can't even find a single microbe in the cosmos. While this is falsifiable, it still doesn't prove anything, but again, I consider it a strong implication.

The Soul

Belief in an afterlife may also compel belief in a god.

I don't believe in ghosts, but my reasons for not believing in ghosts are irrelevant to this topic. What is relevant is the notion of consciousness. Some dub this as the greatest scientific mystery. I -like many other believers- do believe in a human soul meaning that I am more than simply the collection of my parts. Not just a scientific mystery it is also difficult to define, but I will try to define it as being aware of the world around you versus simply responding to stimuli. I would also define it as having a sense of self. Most people would agree that by this definition that they are indeed conscious. Being creative and having an imagination are probably the greatest evidence of a soul. There is no survival need for art, yet we have an imagination for it or at the very least can appreciate it or enjoy it. It seems appropriate to refer to poetry as music of the soul. As with life, consciousness doesn't necessarily prove a soul, but it's harder for me to believe that something with no survival need could just spring up naturally.

Now why this is important to the topic at large is that if a soul does exist, then what does it comprise of? If we are more than the sum of our parts, then that would imply that the soul is not physical which would be it's very definition mean that it is something supernatural. Going back to the uncaused cause argument, something supernatural has to come from somewhere and there is only one conclusion - God.

Despite all of these points ...

Like with reality, there is a compelling force that compels me to believe in God and ultimately Jesus that transcends logic. In the Lutheran tradition, I would call this force the Holy Spirit. While I have made some non-biblical reasons as to why I believe in God, I still think this force is what ultimately compels me to believe. With that said, I still think my reasons are better reasons than simply saying, "The Bible says so" when asked why you believe in God because it begs the question for the only reason you would believe in the Bible is because it is God's Word. Definitely a critique of Sunday School, and ultimately the reason why so many people lose their faith when confronted with this obvious error in logic. Even faith still needs to have a reason behind it even if you cannot fully determine its truth.

 

Cognito Ergo Sum

For the first time in a long time, I finally have a chance to think and not worry about something. I'm actually able to enjoy a long weekend! Ever since I talked about AI, I've always wanted to sit down and think about what I think is true and figure out what I believe based on faith. Not to be too cliche, but whenever I philosophize, I try to follow Descartes' example and presume I know nothing.

"Cognito ergo sum" - Latin for "I think; therefore, I am"

To start thing off, I do agree with Descartes in that, "I think; therefore, I am". While I have read about some philosophers disagreeing with this, like Descartes I do consider this a fundamental truth. The simple fact that I can think must mean that I must exist in some capacity even if the rest of reality is an illusion.

I don't think your average person questions the very notion of reality, but I first pondered this notion after watching The Matrix (which is virtually a guarantee to be brought up in any intro philosophy class). This very questioning of reality also has implications with science since we generally will agree that something we observe is an undeniable fact. Science is really just a methodology of coming to the best explanation versus a pursuit of absolute truth. Regardless, there are at least three definitions of reality in the philosophical sense.

The first definition is perhaps the most inherent. Reality is composed of physical things, and we interact with those things whether we realize it or not. There is literally a keyboard that I am typing on, and there is literally a computer screen that you are reading this on. However, if you have seen The Matrix, you already know that this could be an illusion. If you haven't seen the movie, you may or may not know that everything you experience is simply electrical impulses interpreted by your brain. On a more rudimentary level, this text you're reading may be black, but in reality it is a combination of red, green, and blue pixels. I can go on and on about illusions and how easily your brain can be tricked, but surely, there has to be something that in front of you that is giving you information. You can put your finger up to the screen, and there is some force stopping you from moving it further.

This brings us to the second definition of reality. Reality is still composed of actual physical things, but our interpretation of what these things are entirely rests within our mind. Believe it or not this is where science actually operates. As I described in the last paragraph, the text you're reading is actually a combination of red, green, and blue pixels. If you had a really good magnifying glass, then you could actually see the truth of this. Now obviously science uses our senses, but it more often relies on instruments especially for precision. A simple example would be dropping two marbles from the same height and seeing if their own gravity would effect each other. To the naked eye there would be no change, but with a really precise measuring instrument they would have moved closer to each other ever so slightly. Now some may think I was being over clever and that this definition is truly what they mean; however, how do you know you are not in a dream right now or -using The Matrix example again- not in a simulation?

The final definition of reality is called Idealism. It basically says that everything we interact with is

Is your mind blown yet?

simply a part of our mind. Believe it or not there are some scientists who will agree with this notion because there are parts in physics that contradict each other denying us from creating a Theory of Everything. Now Idealism doesn't answer whether you are in a simulation or not, it just honestly says that every interaction you have is simply a stimulation of your mind. This does not have to be a machine poking your brain with an electrode. We can simply look at this from the vantage point of dreams. When we dream, we don't realize we are in a dream (except for some very lucid dreamers) no matter how fantastic they are. It's not until we wake up that we realize that we were dreaming. This brings us to the ultimate question: how do we know this isn't a dream? Is it because you wouldn't be dreaming about reading a philosophical essay? Perhaps, but it is a fundamental question that has no definitive answer yet seems obvious to all. In fact, I would dare even say that your belief that this reality you're experiencing is real is based entirely on faith. 

Natick to Washington

I haven't a chance to blog in a while. I've been busy with my ventures in Natick, Massachusetts and my moving to Joint Bast Lewis-McChord (JBLM), Washington. I must say that my Army experience has improved quite dramatically than when I was in AIT and basic training. The biggest thing I've discovered about myself is how much I enjoy exploring. When I wasn't being experimented on, I had a blast just exploring Boston and seeing all of the nearby towns. In fact I was surprised how practical it was from running on foot from one town to another. I tried various chowders and was not disappointed. One of my coworkers even took us to the New England Conservatory Philharmonic which was quite a pleasant experience.

Near the end of my Natick adventures, for St. Patrick's Day, we visited the Sam Adams Brewery for a BOSS (Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers) trip. Something I have always wanted to do since I am a huge fan of Sam Adam's Cherry Wheat beer. I must say though that there was a beer that was very exclusive to the brewery and was only distributed to a few local bars in Boston: Sam Adam's Irish Red. Red beers are right now my favorite beers, and this red beer is without a doubt my favorite. I have no idea why it's not distributed wider. I also learned a lot about beer and how it's made. I was surprised to learn how relatively easy it is although it makes sense since humanity has been brewing beer for millennia.

I definitely will miss Natick, but Washington looks just as promising. After I was done with in-processing which was needlessly a week long, I finally moved into my permanent living quarters. I must say that my barracks room is a lot more comfortable in Washington. Not only do I get my own bedroom, but it also comes with a walk-in closet. The common area that I share with only one roommate (who never seems to live here) has its own washer and dryer! Aside from my improved living conditions, JBLM is located near Seattle and Tacoma. As soon as I get my car, I can't wait to start exploring.