Genetically, We're Different than Things that have a Genetic Code that Differs from Ours

I realize that the title of this post will most likely have no relevancy to the actual content.  This isn't just because I'm confusing.  It's because of statistics.  There are so many things that blog posts could be about and so many different titles that there could be, that the chances of randomly finding two that match, let alone two that are already the same post, seems nearly impossible... or is it?

One of the laws of thermodynamics state that the entropy of a system tends to increase over time... the fuck is entropy?!  Well, I'll tell you... but first, let's go to weather with Sylvia Plath.  Over to you Sylvia.

"It's getting hot and stuffy.  Feels like an oven!  And also I should mention something depressing or about sex, 'cause... that's how I do."

Thanks Sylvia.  Entropy... It's hard to briefly explain what it is.  It's like disorder, but it's not disorder, so if someone tells you that it is tell them it's not, because it's not.  It's also kind of like gambling... you look confused again, but chill out!  It's like gambling in respect to what entropy means or does.

Imagine a chess board... no, not that kind.  Think of a Lord of the Rings themed chess board.  It's way more epic that way.  OK, imagine this chess board set up and ready to play.  It's highly ordered, no?  This would be a low entropy state.  It'd be very easy to instantly recognized if something changed to upset the order of this setup.  Now, play chess (if you don't know how to play, then just move the pieces around.)  As the chess board becomes more disordered the entropy is increasing.  It would be more and more difficult to tell if things are changing or staying the same.

There are nearly countless ways a chess board could be set up, but most of them look similar to each other.  The similarity you'd see is simply disorder.  It seems random.  The more disordered something appears to be, the higher the  entropy state is.  The reason entropy increases over time is that there are so many more high entropy configurations a system can have than low states.  This is where the gambling comes in.  If you were to take the chess board and put it in a box, then take that box and shake it (assuming all the pieces would stay upright) what are the chances it would end up in a low entropy state?  Probably about the same as you winning the lottery. (Meaning you're more likely to get hit by lightning)  It's likely going to look random, disorganized, and not discernible from other boards that went through the same treatment. 
Making more sense?  Well get ready to have your mind hole blown! 

Life itself is super complicated.  I'm not talking about the box of chocolate kind of life.  I'm talking about genes, cells, organs, and all that crazy stuffs.  It's SUPER complicated!  It's also getting more and more complicated as time goes on. 
With each passing generation, new mutations arise, most of which don't help or hurt, or cause the living thing to... not be able to live.  And yet, we see a net decreasing of entropy over time in living things... how is this possible?  The sun.
The laws of entropy deal with closed systems, but earth isn't a closed system.  We are constantly receiving energy from the sun.  Plants turn it into food, things turn plants into food, then we turn them into food.  We can then use this energy to choose which mates to... mate with. *Cue sexy time music* Because of this choice, we are effectively choosing the "direction" the pieces on the chess board will go in the next generation.  After doing this millions of times, the system appears to be organized.  Evolution. It's pretty awesome and stuff.  Anything that utilizes sex and heat from the sun to create order has to be pretty cool.

In conclusion, we can see that the reason one sees titles and posts matching so often is because we get to choose them.  (Sorry that ruins some of the magic for the blog readers, but yeah... we totes choose whatever title we want.)

That's all for now.  Join us next time for more adventures.

Thanks for reading and have the best day ever!

A brief history of me...

Holy cows. As it would turn out, revealing the truth of tickling causes a space-time fluctuation, in which time cannot manifest itself in the same chronological patterns. I posted the conclusion to the previous post and left the computer, quite astonished to find myself 30 some odd years in the future.

Excited as anyone could be, I ran back to my room to grab some things to go out and explore the new world! As I got there, everything seemed to be back in 2010...

I went to my computer and saw that the post was still in the edit screen, and hadn't yet been posted. So, I posted it again. I walked out the door again and everything became very strange. There were knights fighting super advanced alien looking space men! I didn't even know where I was at that point. I turned around and my room was gone!

Up was down, down was somehow sideways; I didn't have a clue where to go. I did my best to exactly back track my steps. This became increasingly difficult when I had to reach behind me (which was in front of me,) to grab the door knob (which I was standing on,) to open the door (Which WAS me.) But I did it. I got back to my room.

I saw my computer and saw the same thing again... the editing screen, before it was posted.

I started to take the hint. This time I left without posting it, but too my dismay, my world was still anything but casual. Things seems less hectic at first. Beyond the shimmering goop falling up the vibrant electric explosions that seemed to be happening in every possible location, things seemed reasonably calm. But as I got further away from my room, things stopped being things, not everything was going in the same direction in time, it seemed nothing more then a mass of colors, sounds, tastes, textures, smells, and a few other senses that don't have names.

I was caught in time. In a place like this there isn't even a concept for direction, for before, or after, or even things happening at all. For what seemed like eons, I muscled through trenches of directionless momentums pushing against anything I choose to do. Though in literal time it must have been moments, in a place with no (or rather, VERY little) time, to the casual observer of a higher rate time, it seems like a literal eternity.

I got back.

At this point, I'm not fooling around. I instantly deleted the text and closed the browser. It's been one week since I did that. Time has not completely fallen back into perfect alignment, which is why I'm so late on posting.

Anyway, back to you Sheryll!

Thank you. When we return, can a small baby rabbit really have the strength to pick up a burning half-ton car to save it's own mother?

I'VE DISCOVERED WHAT TICKLING IS!!!!!

Why would you laugh when you are tickled? Seriously. Why would someone make a sound that means you are seriously enjoying yourself when someone is putting you through terrible agony?... I'll tell you why... BUT FIRST, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR!!!!!:

Breaking news! Laughing is not an instinctual tick. It is, in fact, a learned trait. Meaning, you don't know how to laugh when you are born. You pick it up as you grow up by copying other beings as they do it in situations you are in. More on that tonight. And now with the weather with Al Gore. "IT'S GETTIN' HOT!". Thank you Al Gore. Now, back to your programing.

WHAAAAAAT? Laughing is a learned trait? This makes it even more strange that we laugh when we are going through the intense and horrible pain of TICKLING... Well, I have a theory... call me crazy, but it just makes sense... go ahead... do it... call me crazy... Cause when you do, I'm going to BLOW (blow echoes....)... YOUR (your echoes...)... MIND (mind echoes...)... ! (! echoes...)... BUT FIRST, A WORD FROM LAO TZU!!!!!!!!

"Can't find the damn tao."

Thank you Lao Tzu. So, where am I going with this whole tickling thing? Well, I'll reveal that tomorrow... *wink*

analog vs. digital

Numbers... ugh... Now, I'm actually a mathematician, but the way people use numbers to try and explain what is REALLY going on frustrates me. As analogy of this situation, I will describe to you the difference between vinyl records and super high quality blu-ray digital sound. Vinyl records are old, man... out dated... they don't even use computers at all. There are no 0's and 1's to decode and transform into some great tune or beat. They actually work with magnets. Records have, literally inscribed on the surface of it, the sound wave in physical form. The needle works sort of like a microphone and just amplifies the sound that's there as the record turns. Digital music (ALL digital music, despite the quality) works sort of like movie frames. Each instant has a new "frame" of sound followed by a TINY break (too small of a break to ever hear it) then proceeds with the next instance of sound. These sound chunks are analyzed by putting 0's and 1's in a specific order. In other words, there will be a specified line between where the wave length ends and there is no longer sound. Going through the length of the song, this really isn't a very big deal. The difference comes from within the sound. Each sound has a wavelength, and each wavelength is continuous. This means that it isn't square, but rather curved. There isn't ever actually a line between where it ends and where the next begins. This is how a vinyl record works. It takes the actual shape of the wave and engraves it on the vinyl.

I challenge anyone who reads this to find access to a good surround sound system and play a song on vinyl at the same time as you play the same song with the highest quality digital speed that you can. Flip back and forth between the two. You'll never listen to digital music the same way again. You'll miss the continuous, smooth, clear sound you can only get from an analog source. That's not even taking into account the high ends and the low ends that get cut out with digital mixing. Seriously. Try it. After you do, sit down and think about what discreet numbers mean. What putting a fixed interval between values does to any system. Ask yourself if this is how reality works. Once you understand this, you'll realize that the universe is far stranger then you could have possibly imagined.

Propagating the Illusions

Everything is exactly what you think it is, depending, of course, on what you think you think it is...

Oh, tautology. The art of saying something that is necessarily true. Universally unconditioned truth. It is always valid. It can be used as a rhetorical device or as a logical threshold. For example: "Bob is sitting or he is not sitting" or "If I walk to the top of the hill, then I'll be at the top of the hill." This has to be true. It plays into binary logic. Binary logic is essentially that something is either true or false. Sort of how a computer works. The 0's and 1's in the binary language code indicate true and false, success and failure, yes and no. It's how numbers work. It's even how tautology works. (haha! Get it?!? Tautology is true because what is being said in a tautological way is true... Oh, using something to define itself within itself and using itself to do so is fun! :D )

So where am I going with this? Well, lets discuss some philosophy for a moment:

A man has the opportunity to ask God (whom we will assume is ALL powerful) to do anything as long as it won't affect the man himself. The man asks God to create a rock so enormous that He can't lift it. Being God, of course He was able to. Then the man asked Him to lift it. Being God, of course he could... but how did he do it? It was too big for him to lift, right? Well, presuming how God would do things would be very bold of you, indeed. We could speculate, however. AND WE SHALL! Suppose God then simply made himself stronger! That way He did, in fact, make a rock too big for Him to lift, then He did lift it.

Perhaps we should raise the stakes. The man asks God to create an immovable object. That is, an object that CANNOT be moved. Being God, of course he can. Then you ask him to move it. Being God, he would really have no problem moving it. But then wouldn't that make it something other then an immovable object? If He moves it, then it would be a movable object.

This creates a strange paradox, which is quite familiar to many people. It is the paradox of all power. The paradox of infinity.

We can try and get very technical. Let's say that God creates a deeper reference point then space. He attaches this object to this, then moves space. After this, He could delete the deeper reference point, thus putting the object into a new location. Oh.. wait... putting something into a new location is sort of the definition of moving it. This would mean that mean that He moved it, thus making it something other then an immovable object. God created this immovable object, so it must be truly an immovable object.

We can look at it from a relativistic standpoint. Through the laws of special relativity discovered by Einstein, we can look at the placement of said object is simply relative to other things. Through space-time we could map where it is as a proportional distance between itself and other objects. So I guess that God could simply add space around the object to "move" it, and you would never have changed it's location.

So... did we do it? Did we move an immovable object? Well... obviously not... if we had, then the object wouldn't have been immovable. You CAN'T move something that can't be moved. It's simply a fact. If there is a way to move it, then it wouldn't be immovable, because you could move it... So how would God move it? Simple. He would move it without moving it. This may seem like it's a rhetorical run around, but it's true. The only way to move something that cannot be moved is to move it without moving it. "BUT YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!" Some would say. Well, REALLY, it's impossible to have an immovable object in the universe we currently live in (as far as we understand it through science, philosophy, and common sense.) If you are going to assume the possibility of something impossible, then why not the next impossibility? The strange fact of the matter, is that binary logic takes upon many assumptions of it's own that don't truly make sense.

Reality is a fickle fickle mistress. It makes much less sense then we give it due credit. The only thing we can ever really know is that everything is exactly what we think it is. But, we might not completely know what we think. So I guess everything is what we think it is, depending, of course, on what we think it is... unless what we think is wrong... so I guess everything is exactly what we think it is, depending, of course, on what we think we think it is...

How it Started

I suppose I should introduce myself. However, I'm not going to. This isn't because I don't want people to know who I am, but rather because I think it will destroy some of the mystery. I can't give away the ending before it's even started.

It has started... NOW! Ok, I still can't REALLY introduce myself. Giving away the ending just as it's started would just be bad story telling.

"What is it all about?" you might ask. It's all about discovery, love, hope, death, but mostly Coca Cola and pot. The exciting life of such a person as I can scarcely be handled without a little aid from some kind of inebriation.

Let's more appropriately start with a story. This one time my girlfriend and I found a rock. Now, one may say that there are rocks EVERYWHERE, and they may just have a pretty good point. However, this was no ordinary rock... This was a ROCK. Given, we may have been on a slightly heavy dose of mushrooms in Las Vegas, walking along a path of near infinite splendor, lights, and falling trees. This is when we met this rock. We both literally stopped when we saw this rock. There was no doubt in either of our minds that it was, indeed, a rock. It was such a rock, in fact, that we both had definitive proof in our minds as to the absolute existence of rocks. Perhaps we saw the rock god. Who knows? The tricky part about this whole thing was that I was unaware of my deniability for such objects. I had no idea that I had never really seen what I would absolutely call 'a rock'. You can take my word for it, though. They do in fact exist. We saw one outside of the Luxor Hotel. I wish we would've got a name...