What's in your brain?

How do you approach life and its problems? DocBrain thinks there are several ways of approaching problems, and we tend to have our own unique styles. Here are my thoughts on this at this time.

• Practical vs Dreamer. A practical person looks at the data and responds in a way that leads to the most expedient solution. A dreamer looks at the data and thinks about ways that have failed in the past, but might just succeed if...
• Passionate vs logical. A passionate person is fed data and responds emotionally. A logical one responds logically.
• Imaginative vs Unimaginative. The imaginative person looks at the data and thinks "we could" or "what if". This is the leader-type. The unimaginative looks at the data and thinks "must follow the rules/bureaucracy." This is the follower type.
• Suspicious-negative vs trusting-positive. The suspicious person looks at the data and thinks of the dark side, the trusting looks and sees the bright side.
• Time vs timeless. A time driven person shoots from the hip and moves on. A timeless person procrastinates and never seems to be in a rush.

DocBrain finds few people who are completely polar all the time, but most people develop a style for dealing with the challenges of life. Which type do you tend to be?

Bulletproof

What things make you bulletproof in America? Here is DocBrain's short list.

• Muslim: "Islam is a peaceful religion. If I haven't yet blown something up, how dare you question me!"
• African-American: "You question me? What are you, a racist?"
• Liberal: "What an open-minded person a liberal is!"
• Female: "What kind of person picks on a woman?"

What things put targets on you?

• Christian: "So, are you part of the American Taliban?"
• White: "I bet you are a racist, aren't you?"
• Conservative: "So, you believe that the world should be ruled by white Christian men?"
• Male: "Hate strong women, don't you? Want us to stay in the kitchen and bedroom?"

Iraqis gone wild

When children go off to school, they are suddenly free to do what is cool and hip. Like drinking too much, pushing the sexual envelope, and listening to loud music. In prior generations, it also included doing drugs. Mom and Pop might have been control freaks, but now, they can go a little wild.

In Iraq, the control freak was Saddam Hussein. Now, with him gone, the citizens of Iraq, many not much older than college kids, can now go wild. But, they did not dream of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Their dreams were of violence, a Crypts vs Bloods, a Hatfield vs McCoy type of street violence, but taken to the wild extreme. As the Iraqis mature ethically, they will leave this wildness behind. But can we, the Americans who set these repressed kids free, live with what we have done? And was it a good thing?

While some paint the violence as being anti-American, I do not believe that is the main driving force. But, can we become part of the solution?

On an old episode of Star Trek, two rival mob gangs, only quit fighting when Captain Kirk promised that the Federation would be cut in to a piece of the action, and, as the most powerful, would take it badly if things did not go well. Perhaps, in fiction there may be an answer: a quadrilateral federation in charge of Iraq: Kurd, Sunni, Shiite, and American. They each govern their own, and together collect something to pay us. What we do with that is up to how they handle themselves. If they do a good job of self-policing, then we put our "piece of the action" back into infrastructure. If not, we take it in money and oil back to the USA. If they don't like it, tough, because we are the big boys. This type of approach would make them work with each other to keep us from taking our cut. Hey, nothing else seems to be working. If it was good enough for the 25th century, perhaps it is good enough for us.

Religion 2.0

Religion 1.0

• There is only one true religion, and it is mine.
• God views all who practice other religions as infidels, unbelievers, misguided souls, deceivers, or primitives; they will never reach heaven.
• It is my job to either bring them to my religion or to make them subservient to me and my religion or to rid the world of them in God's name. Their very existence prevents humanity from reaching one with God.
• God is watching us, and will aid me in my mission. He will smite those who oppose me and aid my comrades.
• I will be rewarded in the afterlife for whatever I do to advance the cause of my religion.
• Life is temporary; eternal bliss is waiting for me for my good deeds in His name.

Religion 2.0

• God has granted us great gifts denied to lower animals: rational thought, imagination, communication and hands that allow us to act on our thoughts and on nature and to pass knowledge, flawed as it may be, from one generation to the next, allowing continual advancement over the eons.
• Religions are each a way of trying to understand God through the flawed thinking and memories of humans. None is absolute; all have some merit. All are flawed.
• Some overarching measures of goodness exist. These are the qualities that require adoption and worship.
• If we continue to move in the direction of good, we will someday reach the bliss that we deserve.

As an aside to the atheists, consider this: we have no trouble attributing convuluted rationale for our politicians' actions, but seem to have difficulty accepting this in a Creator. Also, we can accept the self-made man, but not the self made God. If you are an atheist, how do you derive any inalienable rights? The only position that makes any sense is deism, practiced by following the traditions that make you feel the most comfortable, but acknowledging that any approach to God that is deist in nature is good.

DocBrain's Beliefs

Here is a summary of DocBrain's beliefs.

1. You are as you are. Genetics dealt you a hand. Chance placed you on the board where you started. Society told you the rules of the game. How you play your hand is up to you. You are not the victim unless you had no choices.
2. You are responsible for your own happiness.
3. Luck is a good thing, but not something to rely on.
4. Mercy is a good thing if given to those who warrant it. Justice is a good thing for those who do not warrant mercy.
5. Never confuse legal with right.
6. Never confuse bureaucracy with right.
7. You are here to enjoy your life, but pleasure is not the ultimate enjoyment. Moving civilization ahead, in any small way that an individual can, is.
8. If you take an advantage over another, you have harmed another.
9. You are your memories and your imagination. Keep both positive and life will be good.
10. Don't criticize people unless you want to be criticized. If you like, be critical of emotions, positions, ideas and actions, but not people.

Religions and Hate

Should religions endorse hating of other people?

If a religion places itself as one of many ways to reach God, not specifically the best choice, then it runs the risk of losing members, power, and status. This prisoner's dilemma leads religions to believe they must each proclaim that they are the best, the one true way to salvation.

Many people truly believe that their religion is the best way to Heaven and God, that theirs is the one true religion endorsed by the almighty. This blind loyalty is either based upon tradition or popularity. No religious leaders in their right mind would try to weaken this loyalty.

With so much pressure on religions to maintain their individual superiority, it is natural for religions to at times descend into negative depictions of the non-believers. Tests of belief and orthodoxy are the main ways religions can use power to keep the sheep in the flock.

While religious beliefs exist outside the real world, religions exist within the real world. The USA has been a center of religious belief and a center of ecumenical acceptance of the personal God and religion concept. Your religion is your own; not up for debate or for action upon by other civilians.

Americans are uncomfortable when the government acts against a religious group (think: Waco and the Branch Davidians), even when that group is doing things that would be wrong in the minds of most people.

DocBrain believes that it is the job of religions to explain why we are here and what we need to do. The question for religious extremists that remains unanswered for me is that, if God is good, and therefore worthy of worship, why would God place people on the earth who seem to be good by any objective measure that you want to apply and yet are believers of a different faith? Why would God want you to hate these people and kill these people? Assuming you are of average moral character, why would God want you to be superior to such a good person just because your religion is "better". How does adhering to a "better" religion make you "better" than a person who is more of a blessing to humanity than you are?

Psychologists have a word: xenophobia. This is the fear of the different. We fear that the different are happier, healthier, better, righter, stronger, smarter, luckier, richer, etc.
There is another word:megalomaniac. This is the desire to control all others, to make all other people see things as you do, to bow down as you would have them.

No matter what religion you believe, there is no irrefutable proof that what you believe came directly from God. The most you can say is that it is something that a man or woman reported that it seemed to them to come from God and that their memory is what it is. As no religion claims that humans are morally and mentally perfect, it is reasonable to assume that whatever you believe, even if it came from God, has been distorted and filtered through the sub-Godly mind of at least one human before you have encountered it. Belief in Godly statements that impugne good people who do not share your belief system is a danger to society, civilization, and to your religion.

Gambling with Patton

George S. Patton once said "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." What is true about war is also true about gambling.

Recently, Pennsylvania legalized gambling, and after contraversy, a site was chosen in Western Pennsylvania for a casino. The most important issue was never brought up: gambling takes discretionary income away from consumers. If your main source of gamblers are locals, you will depress your local economy; if your main source of gamblers are from distant places, you will build your local economy. Simply put, that is how Indian Reservations, Vegas and, to a lesser extent, Atlantic City, keep ahead.

Here is what Pennsylvania should have done: instead of debating this for a decade, it should have been passed 10 years ago, with slots placed in airports in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Had this been done, the Pittsburgh Airport Authority could have charged USAir less and kept a hub in Pittsburgh. The millions of passengers making connections thru PIT would have been marks for the games of chance, generating income from non-Pennsylvanians. Pennsylvania would have had a net positive cash flow. Later, a few machines could have been placed in train and bus terminals and in some hotels, where somewhat easier access would be available for locals, but still the focus would have been visitors.

Instead, we will have more dumb Pennsylvania bastards going broke. On the way over to the Science Center on the North Side to teach their children about science, parents will detour to demonstrate the laws of mathematics and probability by losing their childrens' lunch money to one-armed bullies; others will stop in after drinking a few Ahrns at a Stillers game and will lose their paychecks.

The republicans, morally opposed to sin, have caved in to public pressure for freedom. The democrats, always looking for more money for government coffers and more people dependent upon them, have a win/win. As usual, no one actually is looking out for us.

A Classy Society

Liberals often complain about inequalities in society and believe that government has a duty to equalize people. One method they use is a variable taxation system. Here is what DocBrain thinks a variable taxation system will produce:

• Done properly, there will be five classes of people: the root poor who no matter what is given to them will squander it on addicitions and be penniless; the average Joe with a low but predictable income; the aristocracy (those with massive amounts of money that no taxation system can ever completely deplete and those with fame or glamour to fuel their wealth); the intelligensia (those in universities and think-tanks who will see themselves as superior to the others but have no greater wealth than the average Joes); and the government leaders (who will have power and wealth).
• What will life be like for the average Joe? No car (gasoline taxes will place driving nearly out of reach; public transportation only); public schools to indoctrinate our children to whatever the leaders want (no discretionary income for private schooling and promotion based not so much on academic achievement as on policies that maintain equality at the expense of quality); less moral conflict with government policies, due to smaller and weaker religious organizations (with no money to tithe, the only religious organizations that will survive will be those funded by the government or aristocracy); with no premium on hard work, people will do less and progress will slow. You get the picture.
• What will be missing will be the middle class: the small business owners, the higher achieving employees, the professional class workers. They will be absorbed into the average Joe group. It is generally from the middle class that new ideas and conflict with the status quo arises. With the voice of the middle class silenced, the government will reign supreme.

There is no data supporting the belief that altruism is sustainable. It is not likely that those who rule would remain dedicated to the best interests of the people rather than their own. If one follows the logical outcome of a progressive taxation system, its outcome does not seem to be in our best interest. One need only look back at the explosion of growth our country has experienced in the last 40 years since the progressive income tax has been somewhat tamed. Initially, the swing was to self-interest, but that is not sustainable either. The enlightened self interest (attainable rewards for individual effort enlightened by moral codes and beliefs) is the one way to produce a sustainable society. And that requires a middle class.

Lesson from Iraq

DocBrain has learned one thing from Iraq: Unless a government is willing to be ruthlessly violent, it will not be able to control an armed populace that strongly disagrees with its values or policies. If you don't see how this applies to the USA and the battle over the second amendment, you have not been paying attention. Unless you are a person who defines right and wrong by whatever is currently legal and illegal (a very dangerous belief system), you can not possibly be happy with gun control.

Does God Exist?

DocBrain has been mulling this one over for a while and now has an answer.

The atheist answer is the null hypothesis: if you cannot prove God's existence, then God does not exist. The believer's answer is yes, God exists. The glib answer is that if you believe in God, then God exists.

Here is a rational answer. Nothing really exists as it seems to be. Light, whether particles or waves, carries information to us that reveals the appearance of things as they truly are not. The computer keyboard is not solid, but relatively less void than the air around it, yet it feels solid under my fingers. If we could experience the universe as it really is, it would be indeed a strange place. Instead, we see beauty, taste marvelous things, smell aromas that entice the soul, and hear the echoes of nature and man. None of this is necessary, but it sure can make life more pleasant.

Our minds are housed in a brain which contains billions of cells and trillions of synapses.

At what point does our mind disappear? Our brain assimilates information giving us the knowledge we need to survive in the world. We struggle with our inborn impulses, factual knowledge and learned desires. Many of us try to leave our mark, to try to do something that shows the future that "Kilroy was here".

Losses occur for no reason and in no particular pattern. People known for their good and evil both die. We see no overarching justice or mercy. In an attempt to give our lives meaning, some desperately point to the afterlife where some measure of reward for good behavior and punishment for bad behavior is meted out. Yet, everywhere we see people trying to be another brick in the wall of history, growth, and evolution in the arts and sciences, industry and society, that makes up human existence. This occurs not out of habit or religious zeal, but mainly from a spirit of curiousity, a desire to see what lies ahead and beyond, to take it to the next level. This is what drives us and what ultimately proves the existence of a God. We are aware of our own mortality in a way that is unique among animals. Being able to use words to verbalize it creates the fears and drives that moves us forward and swallows some of us.

We will never know God as God really is. We will use our creativity and industriousness to reach and reach until our waves and particles become one with the universal time and space continuum, reaching forward and backward for the hands that put us here. We are the way that God makes matter and energy one with purpose. Our existences ripple like waves on the surface of time, never totally fading away, but harder and harder to see.

2007

It is a new year. As in all years, it will be a year of changes.

Is it a year for new problems, worries, burdens, challenges, stress, strife, sadness, and woe?

Is it a year of opportunities, growth, achieving, striving, new experiences, and evolution?

That things will change is certain. How you face those changes will determine how you will look at 2007.

DocBrain hopes it will be a good, healthy, happy and prosperous year for you, but if it is not, DocBrain hopes that the changes during this year will be worth the struggle.