The Surprising Life of Radio

To end this trilogy of blogs/columns (Death of Postal Service, Death of Email and this one) I would like to surprise you with what is actually ALIVE and GROWING.

Radio.

Radio is alive and growing.

You and I would have thought that with the advent of digital music, iPods, MP3’s, internet streaming, Pandora, and automobile jacks for digital media that Radio would be dying a quick death. Not so much.

TV is actually evolving and extending its “Long Tail” to the point where it is not becoming recognizable. Try to imagine yourself an advertiser on TV. 20 years ago you pick the few popular shows or the many not-so-popular and you advertised with them because the price was set on their popularity. Now you have what is called the “Long Tail” based on the bell curve becoming more and more shallow and the “tails” of it extending out. You now have THOUSANDS of channels and options to advertise on with prices so variable it will make your head spin. TV isn’t dying it is just evolving.

Radio on the other hand is basically the same as it was when you listened 40 years ago. The sound may be better, the songs may be different, but it is essentially the same. Even the attack of ad-less radio like XM and Sirius have been repelled and are dying a slow death. But Radio, according to the latest statistics (2011) are adding 12 million listeners a MONTH! Digital and social media seem to ENHANCE radio and not detract from it. MP3 players have replaced CDs, which replaced Cassettes, which replaced 8-tracks, which replaced vinyl but they DID NOT replace radio.

Talk radio is growing at 12% a year.

Country music stations are growing at 8% a year.

Pop/Contemporary stations are growing at 4% a year

Urban/Rap stations are growing at 3% a year.

Even oldies stations are growing at 3% a year while all the “oldies” are getting older.

So with all the chatting and twittering I have been doing about the death of the Postal Service and Email and many other things in our lives it is also good to know that some things DON’T change. Some things stay the same, stay reliable, stay comfortable and even nostalgic. Radio brings me back to my younger years while driving a tractor on the farm, getting a tan, while listening to WLS in Chicago. Radio brings me the traffic reports I need, brings me the weather I need, and brings me the news that I want WHILE I am doing something else.

It will be a long time before our vehicles eliminate radio. It may look prettier and more digitally enhanced but it will still be radio. Long live the oldies!

Sucks to Grow Old?

Three years ago, while playing softball, I was running to first base and heard and FELT a crunching in my foot. Ouch … another sprain, last game for a while until it heals. Didn’t heal and I ended up having surgery to remove pieces of the bones I broke and to remove the feeling of walking barefoot on stones that I had for months. JUST FROM RUNNING TO FIRST BASE! Boy it sucks to grow old. I remember running ALL DAY at school playing ball, at home to escape my brothers, by myself just for the fun of it. Running and running some more, never having to worry about a broken bone.

Well I signed up for a softball team for the first time since that injury and we had our first game last night. After losing 65 pounds and triking 50-60 miles a week I was feeling pretty indestructible. Just had to get the swing back and work on the throwing arm a bit. My first at bat was a mighty swing and I popped it up to the first baseman but at the end of the swing was a silent pop and a lightning bolt of pain in my elbow. Hyper-extension. I grinned and bore it for the next few innings playing with just one arm but too many balls were getting hit to me and I had to concede to the handicap. Asked Coach to take me out of the game and probably out of the season. Man it sucks to grow old.

I had ice on it last night and heat on it now as I type. Luckily on my left arm I can still do most of the things I could before, just with more pain.

Pain has a way of making you aware of things around you: how good it was NOT being in pain; how I take my left arm for granted; how old I am getting; how I need to exercise more; etc.

In life we find that the more extreme the pain, and the closer to death we come; the more seriously we take life. NOT that there aren’t fun things when you are terminal but there aren’t PETTY things when you are terminal. Cancer patients will tell you how sweeter life can be when your recognize, because of the cancer, how special it is. Every moment with a loved one is precious. Every flower, sunrise, unseen-before sight, is now brighter and more colorful.

How great would it be to live life like that all the time? How great would it be to NOT take life for granted? How great would it be to drop all the pettiness and prejudices of life? How great would it be to live like you are dying?

I thought I was indestructible again and was AGAIN proven wrong. Now I appreciate health and life more because of it. I would encourage you to be smarter than me … appreciate it BEFORE the pain comes. Appreciate it NOW because you know, it really doesn’t have to suck to grow old.

The Star

After a few years of meeting his potential the rising Star seemed to be flickering a bit. He did amazing things and crowds followed him everywhere just to hear him sing. Those close to him reveled in the popularity and jostled for the position of his right hand man.

But then something changed. The Star started hanging out with the wrong people and his image began to be tainted. The rumors were bad enough but now people began to SEE him hanging out with prostitutes and, even worse, the Bernie Madoffs of the day. Not only was he hanging out with those people who stole others money but he was accepting invitations to their home for dinner and sing for THEM!

The media of the day were having a great time documenting his fall from grace. The people still listened to him because he had a GREAT voice, one like no other. But the leaders began to manipulate the people by spreading rumors and innuendo. The Star made it easy for them by socializing with the wrong people and not even caring that they were the wrong people. The Star even called the RIGHT people the wrong people. What was he thinking?

It all came to a climax when the Star showed up at an event he was not invited to. In fact, he was WARNED to stay away or there would be “dire” circumstances. When the Star arrived, the crowds cheered him for his audacity but instead of singing, he caused such an upheaval the crowds ran away from the repercussions. Now the authorities had an opportunity to arrest him or worse.

Knowing this, and that his time was short, the Star had a last meal with his closest followers. The couldn’t understand his songs any more. They just wanted to go back to the popular times. Maybe he could to a come-back tour or something. After the meal, in the middle of the night he was arrested, tried and convicted in a VERY short time. The authorities felt they just HAD to make it a quick break. All his “close” friends ran away, fearing the same authorities.

He was executed. In retrospect many wondered how it happened so fast. From the greatest rising Star to a death sentence. But it must just have been one of those cases that kind of slip through the cracks of justice, propelled by … who-knows-what.

Now, many years later we know that it was the Star-wannabees that pushed the execution. The competition from the Star was too much and he had to be eliminated. His competition tried to bury his songs and punish others for playing them. But they never counted on the resurrection of the Star. Not just his music, but the Star himself. The ULTIMATE comeback tour lasted for 40 days and then he was gone. But his music, oh, his music continues to play in our hearts and minds even today.

I have his Easter album bursting from my buds today. Can you hear it? Does it move you still?

Are you telling the TRUTH?

I am fascinated by the TV show “Lie to me” because I like the thought that you can read a person’s mind based on their facial expressions and on their body language. There are actual “Deception Detection” experts that work for the police and banks and even looking at the honesty of new CEO’s. These experts are usually former trained CIA officers using their skills in the public sector.

One of these experts share some of the tricks of the trade:

1. Fidgeting. Aside from true sociopaths, people aren’t natural liars and saying one thing while thinking something else can actually cause physical discomfort. Something we know as “squirming.”

2. Weasel Words. “expected to” or “probably” or “basically” or “should be” are WEASEL words. These kind of qualifiers crop up when someone is trying to obscure doubts or worries. Or hedge their lie with a smidgeon of deny-ability.

3. Detour Phrases. Think “as I said before …” Liars try to circumvent a direct answer by referencing past answers to different questions. The hope is to fold a potential second lie onto the previous one to stay consistent when really they have not answered the question.

4. Complaints. Grips like “How long am I going to be here?” are often used to derail a particular line of questioning.

5. Selective Memory. Phrases like “to the best of my knowledge” or “from what I remember” are evasive maneuvers designed to get away from telling the truth or having a bald-faced lie.

6. Ask for details. They are harder to lie consistently about and make up on the spot.

One of the most important things you must do to “catch” a liar is to establish a “baseline” of normal expressions and motions. In other words, you have to get to know the person in various situations and emotional states. That is why it is much easier to tell lies from people you know than from those you don’t. You know when a loved one is lying because you know what they are like when they are not.

I believe we pick up these indications all the time. We call them gut feelings or intuition or whatever but most of the time we don’t trust them. It is VERY difficult to say to a loved one “You’re lying” when BOTH of you know they are. It is easier to say to a friend “That’s BS” in a joking and non-threatening way. But most of us pass it off as a simple misunderstanding or smile and nod, allowing the liar to keep on lying even though we know it’s not true.

Lying doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We create the environment for lying. When we are silent we build up the walls for that environment by encouraging the liar to keep on lying. That is why your insurance premium is so high. I caused an accident a few years ago and admitted it. The policeman was so shocked that he asked me 3 times to repeat it and then asked me to write it down. Friends told me that I was stupid to admit it and left myself liable to lawsuits. I may have spit into the wind but I also took down one little brick in our lying environment.

Es Es Percepe

Is there really an external world? Is there really a world outside of our experience? When you see an apple, you picture it in your mind (as you are right now); what happens when you close your eyes and think of something else? Does the apple disappear? Does the world disappear when you close your eyes? If everyone in the world closed their eyes and emptied their minds at the same time would the universe disappear? When we group our regularly occurring experiences we give them names. “Apple” is our word for a consistent collection of sweet, red, crunchy sensations of a certain size, texture, and smell. But that is all an apple is. Or is it? According to George Berkeley (1685-1753) that is all an apple is. To suppose that it is something more, something OUT THERE, is to go beyond the evidence of experience. Worse, it is to think the absurd thought that sweetness can exist untasted and red can exist unseen. To believe that something exists in the realm OUTSIDE the senses is to build a shaky scaffolding to stand on. Yet it might surprise you to know that George was a devout Christian. He actually used this “idealism” as evidence and proof for God. Berkeley argues that God perceives and therefore sustains the whole of the universe whether we happen to be looking at it or not. For Berkeley the continued existence of everything is proof not only of God’s existence but also his benevolence. If God blinked, not only would our world go out of existence but so would we. The Latin “es es percepe” means “to be is to be perceived”. What would we be without others experiencing us? What would we be without our own senses? What would we be without God perceiving us? With us being unable to trust our own senses reality and truth, then, is how God perceives it. The truth corresponds to reality as GOD perceives it: NOT OUR PERCEPTION. Our very existence depends on GOD perceiving us: NOT OUR PERCEPTION of HIM! I think ancient scripture writers understood this when they gave us the priestly benediction: “May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make his FACE SHINE ON YOU and be gracious to you; may the Lord TURN HIS FACE TOWARD YOU and give you peace.” May the Lord PERCEIVE you too.

Quantum Faith

There is a weird, yet incredibly powerful faith in something called “quanta”. The faith was first developed by a German physicist called Max Planck, who proposed that energy comes in tiny lumps called “quanta”. The faith was extended by Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Paul Dirac, and Werner Heisenberg; all priests of the faith in the 1920s.

It is because of the faith of quantum mechanics that we have most of our modern technology. This faith in quanta brought forth semiconductors and lasers which, in turn, brought forth all modern computers, MP3 players, cell phones, and many lifesaving medical treatments and scanners.

One of the priests: Niels Bohr commented on the faith, “If you are not astonished by quantum mechanics, they you haven’t understood it!”

Despite the tremendous success of the faith quantum mechanics remains shrouded in mystery because no one really knows how or why it works. It make certain predictions about the unseen world that go completely against our common sense. For instance, it explains how an atom can exist in more than one place at the same time until we check to see what it is up to and then it magically appears based on our looking for it. So it is everywhere until we seek it and then it appears in that particular place as if we called it there. This faith also says that an electron can spin both clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time until we try to measure it. So it is everything in every way until we seek to limit it.

I am anticipating the ACLU will soon ban the study of Quantum mechanics in all Schools.

Universe

There is a lot going on in the Middle East as I am writing this. There is a deposed leader in Egypt. There is death and rioting in Libya and in many other countries as the people try to rise up against their despotic leaders. The United States seems to be caught in the middle of supporting then not supporting then supporting again alternately the leadership, the people, then different people, then…

It is a mess and people are dying.

Will something better than before come from the ruins? History shows that eventually the right side wins but often after brutal and blood years. But history also tells us that the oppressed, when they come to power, soon become the oppressors. Then we have the mess again.

We feel the same thing in our country on a smaller, less deadly scale in the battles for control of state houses and political maneuvering. Our representative government is crazy, messy, prone to abuse, and sometimes hurtful BUT it is the best thing out there right now. Our nations motto is E Pluribus Unum which means “Out of many: ONE” We need to understand that we are MANY different people, different backgrounds, different colors, different skills, different advantages, and just plain DIFFERENT. But it is that difference that can make us whole and complete. The Bible calls us the Body. A metaphor that could be used nationally too. Some of us our hands, some feet, some muscle, some eyes, and some brains but we all NEED each other to make the whole body work. Can the eye say to the foot, “I don’t need you!”

Ancient philosophers looked up to the skies and saw a reflection of themselves twinkling back at them. Thy saw the diversity of the sun, moon and stars but they also saw how they moved in a particular order and harmony. They saw different colors and even some special stars like the North Star, but all in one. They decided to call what they saw “Unity” within “Diversity” or the shortened word: universe.

There is a sense, a standard out there that people need to see. We see it in the universe and we put it on our coins now we just need to live it.

Exclusivity and Truth

Today a key word in politics and social justice is “inclusive”. We need to include individuals who have ideas different than ours because, after all, ALL ideas are valid if someone holds to them. I can say to you that I love fish and I know that fish is good for me. You can hate fish but still tolerate my statement because it is an opinion based on my personal preference. As long as the statements revolve around personal preference we can “tolerate” each other and “include” each other in our own little society.

But what happens when my “true” statement is necessarily stepping on your personal toes? What happens when my statements, true for me, are stated to be true for you too? Statements like “Jesus is Lord” will step on the toes of those who say “Allah is Lord”. If I precede my statement with “I believe …” then no one would/should have a problem with it. I can say I believe Jesus is Lord and you can say you believe this tangerine is Lord and we would both be okay with it. Or would we?

The very definition of Pagan belief is “MANY gods” and was practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans. They were okay with you worshipping whatever god you wanted to only make sure that you don’t have a problem with me serving my gods. Worship was a matter of DOING something for your god like offering a sacrifice at the temple of your god and calling it a day. You have your “religious activity” done for the day/week etc. Jewish religion changed that a little but didn’t force the pagan hand. They lived together and Jews had no problem with pagans as long as they left the Jews alone. Each can serve their own god, perform their religious rites, and go on their way.

Then came this crazy Christian religion. This religion said that there was only ONE God to be worshipped and to worship other Gods was wrong/evil/sinful and should be stopped. This crazy religion said that you needed to do more than just go to your temple and sacrifice, you had to actually BELIEVE in this God and BELIEVING was what got you to heaven. Pagans really didn’t have to believe anything they did, they just had to do it. This crazy new religion sought to convert others to their religion, to make them give up their gods and worship the “one true God” exclusively. How crazy is that?!

You will notice in Pagan religions, including Judaism that there is no such thing as heresy. The reason there is no heresy is that there is no orthodoxy. Orthodoxy means true or right belief and heresy means wrong belief. How can a Pagan religion have a wrong belief when you don’t have to believe, just perform a rite? How can a Pagan religion have orthodoxy when EVERYTHING is included and right and okay?

To me, this is PROOF of the truth of Christianity. Christianity MUST be true because it is the only religion that is EXCLUSIVE. Christianity must be true because it is intolerant of other gods and other religions, you cannot combine Christianity with any other religions and stay TRUE to Christianity. To say you are a Christian Buddhist is not only a stupid thing to say but it is also a WRONG thing to say. It is the equivalent of saying “I am a human tomato”. You cannot have truth without exclusivity and intolerance. I am sorry but someone has to be wrong, we can’t all be right.

The Facts

“Just the facts, ma’am” said Jack Friday in Dragnet. We are obsessed with the facts. The facts will tell us the truth right? Maybe not so much.

We have all seen the experiment or heard of the accident with 4 witnesses and all of them told what happened. They told the facts and all the facts were in conflict with each other. The more witnesses you had, the more problems you had identifying the facts and consequently, the truth.

Maya Angelou is fond of saying that “sometimes the facts obscure the truth.” And the truth is that sometimes truth is what we WANT to remember and not what actually happened. I want to remember a GREAT childhood but my brother or my sister might remember it differently. I want to remember how this guy really ripped me off when in fact I was just stupid at the time. We taint facts for political reasons. We taint facts for personal reasons. We taint facts to avoid responsibility. We taint facts to bend the truth to our advantage. And we simply don’t remember what we should remember to get all the facts straight. I have a son with a near photographic memory for facts and figures but he forgets to come to a family dinner. We remember what we want to remember and it only marginally has anything to do with the facts.

But that is okay. As long as we understand that our facts are messed up and prejudiced by our view of them we can get along. This is the truth AS I SEE IT and not this is the truth NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY! As Maya said, sometimes the facts get in the way of the truth. I can find out a lot about a person if I get them talking about politics. Before too long I can tell you if they are Republican or Democrat, both sides seeing the same “facts” but coming to totally different conclusions. I can tell a lot about your job by asking simple work questions. I don’t want to know the “facts” of your job. I want to know if you are happy there, if you are doing what you want to do, or if you have big or small dreams. The facts often get in the way of the truth.

I am okay with that ambiguity. But I am okay with it because I understand that we all tell the “facts” according to our own worldview, our own particular bent of looking at the world. Your filter can then go through my filter and we can have a GREAT discussion on issues that are important. But if one of the parties doesn’t believe they have a bent of the facts but has a corner on the facts; there is a problem.

What about you? How do you “see” the facts?

A Trip Down the Rabbit Hole with Me

I am kind of weird. In many ways, but the one that comes to mind is that I spend a lot of time thinking about certain ethical and moral issues and that tends to send me down some pretty weird, deep and amazing rabbit holes. My current gristle is the good dog/bad dog within us. We each have a good dog and a bad dog within us; which wins? Call it an angel and a demon if you like, which one wins? We struggle with this daily in every decision we make so it seems important.

The first answer is: the one you say “sick’em to”. In other words if you tell the good dog to “go after” the bad dog, it will and it will chase him away. Or vice-versa. The second answer to that question is: the one you feed will win. If you feed your good dog by doing good things the bad dog will wither away over time. Both of these answers take an act of will on your part. YOU have to say “sick’em”; YOU have to feed the good dog. YOU have to make a decision.

On a deeper level JRR Tolkien dealt with the same issues with my favorite character in the “Lord of the Rings” series: Gollum. In the movie, Peter Jackson even displayed the good and bad dog in Gollum as he talked to himself and his reflection in the water. But Gollum was also a reflection of Frodo, the hero. Throughout the story Frodo’s battle with the good and bad inside him comes more and more out into the open. The One Ring brought to the surface that battle for all who were near it.

On a deeper still level Hemingway fought his own demons in the “Old Man and the Sea” story. The fish represented that battle, the Old Man represented that life long struggle, and the fish carcass represented a hollow victory where no one was there to see it. We fight our greatest battles in secret, when no one is looking.

Still deeper we go down the rabbit hole and we find Don Quixote de la Mancha. His battles were thought of by EVERYONE as imaginary. He tilted at windmills as though they were dragons, he fought barbers for golden helmets, and he fought for and showed honor to his lady who was little more than a prostitute and wanted nothing to do with him. Many of our battles are thought of as simply in our minds but they are VERY real to us.

And down we go even further and we find Solomon. The wisest king who ever lived yet he was also the most foolish. The man who spoke of how to love and honor yet had a thousand women to go to bed with. The man who asked for wisdom only to find it meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Solomon sought the “profound deep” of understanding (Ecc. 7:24) and could not find it. He went on to say that he searched for that GOODNESS and EVILNESS, Wisdom and Folly in people and found both but also found no difference between them. Did you follow that? Or have we gone too far down the rabbit hole?

Solomon’s conclusion to the matter was simple: “Eat and drink with gladness … enjoy life with those you love… do what you do with all your might.” (Ecc. 9:7-10) and to make it your duty to “Fear God and keep his commandments.” (Ecc. 12:13)
I like Don Quixote’s conclusion as well: “Dare greatly, love deeply, win with grace, and lose with magnificence!”

Egypt #4: New Age Loons

We ran into the loons in Egypt. Not the birds that walked among the reeds of the Nile but the kind that have something wrong in their head. Our first experience was while we were waiting in line to get tickets for the Great Pyramid of Giza. These tickets would allow us entry INSIDE the pyramid and only a few hundred in the morning and another few hundred in the afternoon were allowed. While we were waiting to be among that few hundred we were told by our guide that a group, primarily Americans, paid over $15,000 to open the pyramid early so that just 10 of them to get into the pyramid by themselves for an hour to “meditate”. They believed in the power of the pyramid and believed they would gain special “knowledge” or “blessing” from that meditation. The pyramid was cool to be in but certainly didn’t give me any special powers when I was there. But maybe there were too many of us and I didn’t meditate right.

Our second encounter with the loons of Egypt was in Abydos. Abydos is the holy site of ancient Egypt. After the epic battle between Osiris and Set led to the dismemberment of Osiris he was again reassembled in Abydos and later buried there after reviving enough to have a child with his wife Isis. Osiris was worshipped for thousands of years as the god who ushered you into the afterlife and so his burial place was important. You can find the oldest temple, rivaling that of the great pyramids in Abydos. Within one of the temples at Abydos you will find sculptures up high in the supports of the roof with unusual Egyptian characters. One looks a LOT like a helicopter, one like a submarine and another like a blimp. How did the ancients know these items? How did they sculpt them into their stone 4000 years ago? Many of these New Age Loons will tell you it was because of aliens or at least a “special” knowledge grasped by the ancients and so we found many lugging their “prayer” rugs around Abydos so they could meditate and pray in this sacred alien place.

Now I love ancient Egypt and am developing relationships with some modern Egyptians as well but I don’t worship the ancients or the aliens who may have influenced them. I look at the monoliths and I see nothing more than human ingenuity. Enough people and enough time and you can move a mountain or build a mountain. The work done by the ancients was hard work but it wasn’t hard-to-understand work. We are amazed simply because we build buildings in a matter of a few years where they would plan for decades. We are amazed because they would coordinate tens of thousands of people to work together and we have trouble with more than three trying to get together. We are amazed because they maintained a culture for five thousand years and we are worrying about whether we will last through our third century.

Don’t worship men who worshipped gods that were poor substitutes for the true God. Don’t meditate on wonders of human ingenuity when you have the same image of God within yourself. Don’t stand amazed at the past; do appreciate it, do learn from it, and most of all DO follow the truth into the future.

Where do Ethics come From? Part 3

Aristotle's thought ethics came from choosing to do GOOD rather than choosing to do BAD.
Rousseau thought ethics needed to be forced on you by an absolute authority or leviathan.
Hobbes thought ethics were determined by the majority and so we need a government to force that majority belief upon us to have a GOOD society.

Kant had a slightly different take on the nature of ethics. He didn't really care if we were born bad or born good. He though that all we need to do in order to be ethical would be to impose the "golden rule" on every decision we make. Think BEFORE you choose: "would I want this done to me if I were on the other end of this?" If I borrow money from you with NO intent of ever giving it back, would I want that done to me? If I sneak into your home and steal your 64 inch flat screen TV would I want someone to do that to me?

Kant believed that if EVERYBODY thought this way BEFORE they acted then society would be an ethical one. This sounds very rational and efficient but is practically impossible. We are selfish animals and so that battle must be won first. When we win over our selfishness then we get into the rationalization problems inherent in the system. What if I steal from you to feed my family? What if I steal from you because you have so much more than I do? What if I steal from you to give to those who don't have any? Once we get past the selfishness issue and the rationalizing issue then we are left with the ability to make this simple choice of the golden rule.

I believe that Jesus, who espoused the golden rule, had an even better one that people keep forgetting. Call it the platinum rule: "Love God and Love your neighbor." If every decision you made you would not only ask yourself: "would I want this done to me?" ask Kant says; but would also ask "Does this show my love for God or my love for my neighbor?" then you would be an ethical person if you can answer yes to those questions on every decision.

Kant was right but didn't go far enough, Jesus takes us the rest of the way.

Where do Ethics come From? Part 1

Aristotle's first run for being good is that there are no rules. Being good is about developing your character, so that you are disposed to do the best thing in each situation. It is NOT about internalizing some moral manual. Human being are creatures of habit and just as a good musician becomes so by practicing, so, by doing virtuous things, we become virtuous people.

But then the question becomes, "What is virtue?" According to Aristotle it is living according to our natures as rational animals. A good dog does doggy things well. A good human does good human things. We can be guided towards the right action by NOT thinking of good and bad as opposite ends of a spectrum but we must think of good as lying on a "mean" or middle of the two BAD extremes. For instance, courage lied between the excess of rashness and the deficiency of cowardice; generosity between meanness and profligacy; kindness between the excess of ignoring others and the deficiency of indulgence.

Aristotle's ethics are about more than being good - they are about living right. So doing the right thing is not about following rules, but striking the correct balance according to the circumstances.

This seems to make sense and in a society where people actually have the urge to BE virtuous or good, it would work. Unfortunately we live in a society where people no longer believe in virtue or goodness. So we lock up our kids after school instead of letting them play in the streets, we take the keys out of our cars in our driveways and lock our houses at night.
The thinking is circular and so illogical. We know what the right thing to do is because we see it in the good people, we know they are good people because they do good things, they do good things because ... they are good people. Um, wait?

Now Aristotle was attempting to describe a perfect world but as long as selfishness, greed, and evil is present there will not be a perfect world. But that doesn't mean you should not be virtuous or good. What it means is that you must work VERY HARD at being good in a bad world. It also means that we need some OUTSIDE standard that will determine whether what we do is good or not because we cannot rely on the good we see in others.

Now, where did we put that 10 commandments again? Oh, yea, here it is!

Fun Philosophy 2: The Ghost in the Machine

The 20th century philosopher Gilbert Ryle said that philosophers who think of the mind as a kind of thing that causes the body to move are making a bad mistake. He called the view of the mind "the ghost in the machine". He would walk around Oxford and would say, "I see all these buildings but where is Oxford?" The mistake is in thinking that Oxford is in the sum of its buildings, but it is more than that. Ryle claimed that those who think of the mind as a thing in addition to the body are missing the point that the body and its activities comprises the mind. In other words your mind is NOT just your brain. You mind is made up of all the actions, activities and decisions of your WHOLE BODY. When we say someone has an inquisitive mind we cannot pull that brain out of the person and find the inquisitive part and analyze it. What we are saying is that all the actions of that person, the questions and movements indicate that they are inquisitive. That person behaves in inquisitive ways. The mind is not a ghost in the machine it is a way of describing the machines activities.

Modern science has been throwing wrenches at this ghost in the machine. Brain scans have revealed actual places where inquisitiveness comes from, where joy shows up as firing neurons, and where anger can be removed or lessened. So the question for us fun philosophers is which is it?

Are you the sum of your parts? You raise your hand due to a decision made by firing neurons in your head which tell you that if you do you will be rewarded because other neurons tell you that it happened in the past that way.

Of are you something separate from your actions, activities, and decisions. As if you could stand outside your body and direct it and have everything still work?

Is your mind in your brain or is it something outside your physical body? If you were cloned would your clone have a "mind"?

If you take the Bible seriously you would have the answer to this question. God created us special and put his "image" within us. God's Image is the Ghost in the Machine. We stand outside our physical bodies as spiritual beings. Every time you make a decision it and use your "mind" you are proving that God exists. And those who don't know that are simply out of their mind.

Fun Philosophy 1: The Demon, Determinism, and Free Will

Pierre Simon Laplace supposed that everything is composes of atoms and that the motions of atoms are governed by the laws that Isaac Newton discovered in the 17th century. Laplace imagined a super intelligent and mathematically gifted demon, who knows the positions and velocities of all particles in the universe at a particular time, along with all the laws of nature. He claimed that this demon could compute the positions and velocities of all particles at every other time. The demon then could PREDICTE where you body would be and how it would be moving next year from your history and the history of time. Basically he was saying that Newton's laws were deterministic or you could predict the future based on his laws.

Interesting, but what does that mean, really? What it means is that you future is already determined. "I knew you were going to say that!" you would say. If the motions of every atom in your body have been determined when God set everything in motion way back when; then you have no control over your movements, they have been predetermined. Laplace then stated that ether Newton's deterministic laws are false or Free Will is an illusion.

Many philosophers have battled with this paradox of free will vs. determinism and many have made good attempts at resolving it in some form of free will within the confines of determinism but the conflict is still there. Today philosopher/physicists believe that Newton's laws are probabilities and not absolutes. In other words, these laws work MOST of the time the rest of the time Quantum laws take effect. But it would be wrong to say that Quantum mechanics is not deterministic simply because we haven't figured it out yet.

I said all that to say this: Does free will exist? If not, can we have things like justice and morals? Is everything pre-determined for us? If not, what do we do with the laws we keep discovering? This paradox of free will vs. determinism is a VERY biblical battle as well and it has split churches.

The problem with a seemingly irresolvable conflict or paradox is that we tend to throw our hands up in despair and give up. I mean, if all the smart people can't figure it out, how can we? But remember: the growth doesn't happen in reaching the answer, the growth happens in the struggle to get there. Let's struggle together.

I NEVER tell the Truth

Another paradox or isn't it?

The ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea spent most of his time on the paradoxes of time and motion. For example it can be logically argued that Achilles (the fastest man EVER) could never catch up to a tortoise if he gave the tortoise a head start. This is because in order for Achilles to overtake the tortoise he MUST reach where the tortoise is/was, but by that time the tortoise has moved on. So then he must reach where the tortoise has moved on to but by then, of course, the tortoise has moved on again, and so on and so on, as infinitum.

Also Zeno logically proved that any arrow shot from a bow cannot possibly move. Since at any moment of time, the arrow had to completely occupy a certain space. Like a photograph, at any given moment, the arrow is where it is and not somewhere else. Hence, it is stationary. If time is nothing more than a series of moments, and if the arrow is stationary at every particular moment, then it NEVER MOVES!
Yet we know that arrows do move and the fastest man can overtake a tortoise, so what is flawed? Our view of reality or the logic of the paradox?

Zeno's paradoxes had the ancient world running hard just to stay still. But what these questions/paradoxes do is allow us to get to the right questions. Knowledge is NOT having the answers as much as it is having the right questions. What is time? Is time made up of a series of ever smaller chunks called moments or is it something else? Einstein called time the fourth dimension in his theories. The universe was NOT just made up of length, width, and height; it was also made up of time. With Uncle Albert time was NOT an infinite series of moments, time was fluid and could be flexed, shortened and lengthened.

This introduced a whole NEW batch of paradoxes: can I arrive BEFORE I leave? Can I go back in time and kill one of my ancestors? What would happen if I meet myself?
Just when we think we got this world figured out; God throws us another curve. The world is flat; nope it round. The planets revolve around the earth; nope we revolve around the sun. Things fall faster if they are heavier; nope gravity works the same on heavy and light. Newtonian physics explains the universe; nope not quite, what about relativity and the speed of light. Newton and Einstein figured it out; nope quantum physics is needed to explain certain phenomena. Quantum physics is than answer; nope ... whatever is next is just around the corner with its own paradoxes to explain.

God is not a cruel pet owner teasing his cat with a string that he will never catch. God is enjoying the sense of discovery in his world like a home designer hearing you go "oooohhh, ahhhhh" at every corner that has something new and neat.

"When I look at your heavens, the works of your hands; what is man that you are mindful of him?"

This sentence is False

Wait, what? Did you catch the paradox? If the sentence is false then it must be true, but if it is true then it must be false so if it is false it must be true ... .

Paradox was a plaything of Greek philosophers. Epimenides wrote down the first documented one around the sixth century BC. He, who was from Crete, stated "All Cretans are liars." Their logic attempted to unravel the paradox and succeeded with many of them by simply defining their terms and coming up with the difference between language of instruction and the language of reality (vs. Absurdity). Other Greeks decided they could just live with a few contradictions.

Bertrand Russell asked "In a village, the barber shaves everyone who does not shave himself/herself, but no one else. Who shaves the barber?"

Even normal life fills us with paradoxes: "Don't go near the water until you have learned to swim." or "Nobody goes to that restaurant; it's too crowded" or "If you get this message, call me, and if you don't then don't worry about it" of "Raise your hand if you are not here."
Scripture is also FULL of these seeming paradoxes. You must die in order to live. You must give in order to get. If you are comfortable you should be uncomfortable. And many others. Opposition to God and scripture make fun of these and even create their own paradoxes: "If God is almighty and creator of everything can he create a stone too heavy for him to lift?" and "If God is good he cannot be almighty because there is bad in the world, if God is almighty then he cannot be good since he allows bad in the world."

These paradoxes are easy to unravel but there are paradoxes in the world that seem to question life's order and spiritual meaning. There are simply questions that we CANNOT answer. Maybe because there is no answers or resolutions. Quantum and Newtonian physics or light as a wave or a particle or chaos theory. Or simply the question of how and why we love? Maybe it is the conflict, the paradox, the journey that is important and not the resolution. Or not.

Which one of you said, "The truth is rarely pure and never simple."? Whoever is was, you're a liar... or ... telling the truth.