Archive for April, 2006

A Brief History of my Scientific Experiences Saturday, April 29th, 2006

I always hated science at school; it was just too anal for me. All facts and no creativity. There wasn’t anything I could do with science, and even had there been, I wouldn’t have been allowed to bend or break the rules. Also, I disliked the fact that we were only ever given the answer to the first “why?” Why do we need to breathe? To carry oxygen to our muscles. But why do our muscles need oxygen? Uh, see you next week. For the most part all we seemed to do was memorise crap such as the names of the various parts of the eye. Well, who really cares?

But recently I’ve been getting really, really interested. I couldn’t stop looking at the stars last night, and marvelling at the fact that we see them as these tiny sparkly dots when, in fact, they are far larger than our own planet. Katie and I, between us, came to understand the meaning of e=mc2 the other night. For two confirmed science-phobes(?), that’s quite something. Did you know, for instance, that:

The farthest object we have viewed in space is 8,000,000,000 light years away from us. Its light has taken eight thousand million years to reach us - which is to say that it might have ceased to exist seven thousand million years ago, but we wouldn’t know it. (The Sun, for comparison, is a mere eight lightminutes away.)

Quite fascinating, I think.

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Meditations Wednesday, April 26th, 2006

In the pub the other night, Thom and I were talking about prejudices (and try not to think of that word meaning bigotries, because I’m talking about preconceptions and prejudgements). No matter what anybody might think, the pub is where the great philosophical discussions of humanity all take place. Nietzsche probably lived in a pub.

I told Thom that I didn’t have any prejudices. Everything I think, or believe, or do comes from a point of complete rationalisation, as far as my average brain will let me, I said (perhaps not so articulately). There is nothing that I have been told that I have accepted without questioning; no conclusion that I have myself that hasn’t come from a point of total reasoning: the “doubt everything” that Descartes screwed up in his desire to prove the existence of his God. My idea of what is not acceptable is: what forseeably does more harm than good.

And Thom said, “your idea of what ‘good’ is and what ‘harm’ is is a prejudice.”

And he was right.

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Today I want to talk about abortion. Tuesday, April 25th, 2006

So today I want to talk about abortion. Specifically, about the naivety of those people who think that illegalising it would be benficial to anyone at all. The argument essentially simmers down to sanctity of life vs. quality of life, and it’s purely a matter of personal opinion which you feel is more valuable. I’m not going to argue whether abortion is “right” or not. I’m going to be pragmatic about this.

Exactly what would happen if abortion was illegalised?

Well, firstly, abortions wouldn’t cease to occur. Didn’t America learn anything from prohibition? Abortions will continue - in hiding, in people’s back rooms, performed by semi-professionals and non-professionals. It will be unpleasant; it will be dangerous; it will be horrific. Of course, not everyone will take this route: some will be too afraid - either of the law or of the natural dangers of a stealth abortion - and be forced to have children. What, exactly, are you going to do with these children? I don’t like treating them as stasistics but you have to accept the reality of the situation you’re promoting: apparently, 32,000,000 fetuses are aborted in America each year. Are you going to throw them into adoption to accompany the other thousands of children who don’t find parents each year? (And while you’re at it, you’re probably the type to restrict the right to adopt only to male-female married couples.) Or will you force the parents to bring up their unwanted child? That sounds like an equally smart idea. If only a tenth of prospective mothers avoided an illegal operation, that would be over 3,000,000 more children with no real hope. America would descend into poverty.

Whether or not you think that children, unborn or not, should be allowed - or forced - to live regardless of their circumstances, you have to accept the consequences of such an assertion. I think that most people who hold the view that abortion is Wrong and thus should be against the law haven’t actually given any thought to it. It’s called fundamentalism. It’s stupid.

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The Divinely Inspired Word of the Hobgoblin Tuesday, April 18th, 2006

There are two Jehovah’s Witnesses at our door arguing with my fundamentalist Christian father. Secular-religious arguments are infuriating enough, but this sort of thing isn’t even a genuine argument. Both parties just quote memorised passages from their own Bibles, just throwing their own superstitions at each other as if they’re actually saying anything.

One: I believe in fairies.
Two: I don’t - and I believe in hobgoblins.
One: Well I believe in fairies, but not hobgoblins.

Obviously, neither will get anywhere with the other, because they’re both totally ignoring reality and just quoting silly nonsense. It always ends with both groups walking away from each other, calling:

“I’ll pray for you!”
“Well I’ll pray for you!”
“Well, I’ll pray for you!”

Idiocy.

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A memory never ends Saturday, April 8th, 2006

“The very nature of existence is purpose.”
- Somebody

Today I got up before 9.30 and went to play squash with my friend Thom, who, these days, is usually at university, and will be spending his final year from September studying in Canada. Afterwards, I went for a walk and took some photographs. I’d intended to buy from a charity shop a toy I’d seen that reminded me of somebody, but it had already gone. After lunch, I took a shower, then checked my e-mails and edited my photos, then I dried the dishes, and made the family some tea, and threw together some pancake mix so that I can have America-style pancakes for breakfast tomorrow. It didn’t take long, and it wasn’t very messy. Then I sat down in the sunshine through my picture-window to read a book.

All of which is decidedly uninteresting to the independent voyeur, I’m sure, but to me this is what life is all about. This is why life is. I’ve had fun and kept fit and entertained one or two people and been useful, and I feel fulfilled. I’m always baffled by the people who suggest that this life is pointless if there isn’t another to follow (no, don’t worry, no anti-religious rants today). Something isn’t fruitless simply because it ends. That game that you played last week; that cigarette that you smoked; that symphony that you listened to; that walk that you took… in actuality, nothing ever really ends until it is forgotten. Which is why the notion that, if nothing follows, my life will be classified totally redundant is so totally erroneous. If nobody else remembers, I will.

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Spring is here Saturday, April 1st, 2006

I went for a walk today in just jeans and a t-shirt. It made me happy.

Somebody or somepeoples have scurried around Felixstowe with something like a sledgehammer, or very thick boots, knocking down the low walls at the front of people’s gardens. I must have seen between ten and twenty of them; one corner by my road is just one destroyed wall after another after another. Somebody or somepeoples have gone to a lot of effort to do this. Why?

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