Friday, January 1, 2010

Interesting, Huh?



1. John 3:16 gets all the fame but consider a few of its 'interesting' cousins like -

John 3:14
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life

Luke 22:7
The Last Supper

2. Metro Station is an American pop band, formed in Los Angeles, California.
In late 2006, the band signed a recording contract with Columbia/Red Ink.
They are best known for their Top 10 Billboard hit single "Shake It" from their self-titled debut album.
Their co-frontman Trace Cyrus is the older half-brother of Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus and Mason Musso is the older brother of Mitchel Musso from Hannah Montana.
Those two met on the sets of Hannah Montana after their respective mums introduced them to each other.
One music group to look out for in the years to come.

3.Pearls Before Swine is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis, formerly a lawyer in San Francisco, California.
It is Pastis' fifth attempt to syndicate a comic strip, the first four including Rat, The Infirm, and Bradbury Road.
It chronicles the daily lives of four anthropomorphic animals, Pig, Rat, Zebra, and Goat. Although created in 1997, it was not published until 2000, when United Feature Syndicate ran it on its website.
In one word, it is awesome. If you don't believe me, see above. Or below




4. I saw Donnie Darko yesterday(or was it the day before that?). Honestly I can't remember.
That movie falls into the category of movies that you either love or you hate. There is no in-between. This brings me to the following topic -

An ontological paradox is a paradox of time travel that questions the existence and creation of information and objects that travel in time. It is very closely related to the predestination paradox and usually occurs at the same time.
In simpler terms, an object is brought back in time, and it becomes the object that was initially brought back in time in the first place.

That means D.D. goes through the wormhole at the end, emerges in the present at ETA 28:06:42:12 to replace his old self. This time instead of walking off into the night he stays home, in bed. So, that the airplane propeller falls on his bedroom and kills him thus preventing any of the intial 94 minutes of the film from happening and also preventing the end of the world.
So, does that mean I never really saw the movie.

Note: If he had walked off, we could just watch the 94 mins. in an infinite loop till apocalypse!

A few examples of ontological paradoxes -
  • A man who does not know who his grandfather is goes back in time to find out who his grandfather was. He goes to the bar where his grandmother says she met him, where he meets a woman. After several drinks, he goes to her room and has unprotected sexual intercourse with her. When he wakes up he discovers it is his grandmother he was with, becoming his own grandfather.
  • In the climax of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry and Hermione travel back in time to prevent the execution of a Hippogriff, which they witnessed only by hearing the chop of an axe (and to save their friend Sirius). They hide the Hippogriff, and the executioner, furious at the disappearance, swings his axe at the fence, creating the sound they heard previously. Harry is also eager to discover the identity of the mysterious stranger he saw earlier standing across the lake, casting a spell that saved his life. Then he realizes he was the one who did it. He is able to cast the somewhat difficult spell, mainly because he knows he can do it, having seen his future self do it.
  • In the episode "Out of Time" of Heroes, Hiro Nakamura spreads the stories of 'Takezo Kensei' in the past, only to learn them as a young boy and eventually go back in time to spread them again in the first place.

5. Confucius says so much, these days that people forget or don't know Zhuangzi.

In general, Zhuangzi's philosophy is skeptical, arguing that life is limited and the amount of things to know is unlimited. To use the limited to pursue the unlimited, he said, was foolish. Our language and cognition in general presuppose a dao to which each of us is committed by our separate past—our paths. Consequently, we should be aware that our most carefully considered conclusions might seem misguided had we experienced a different past.

Zhuangzi's thought can also be considered a precursor of relativism in systems of value. His relativism even leads him to doubt the basis of pragmatic arguments (that a course of action preserves our lives) since this presupposes that life is good and death bad.

In the fourth section of "The Great Happiness" (chapter 18), Zhuangzi expresses pity to a skull he sees lying at the side of the road. Zhuangzi laments that the skull is now dead, but the skull retorts, "How do you know it's bad to be dead?"

The point i am trying to make is you can easily win arguments of the type "How Do You Know That-"

Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling along the dam of the Hao Waterfall when Zhuangzi said, "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"

Huizi said, "You're not a fish — how do you know what fish enjoy?"
Zhuangzi said, "You're not me, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"
Huizi said, "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know. On the other hand, you're certainly not a fish — so that still proves you don't know what fish enjoy!"
Zhuangzi said, "Let's go back to your original question, please.

You asked me how I know what fish enjoy — so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao."

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