If Twitter had an opposite...

Last year a threw a bottle in the ocean with my contact information in it after reading an article where a student in Florida did the same. After two years his bottle ended up washing up on the coast of Ireland. I thought maybe I could get my bottle to go a few miles, but I still haven't heard back yet. That is either a pretty cool thing (it is still on its way), or it is not so cool (it sank). Maybe I'll throw another for safe measure.

Thoughts on the Finiteness of the Universe

Physics is something that really interest me, especially in the areas of astronomy and cosmology. An even deeper interest in studying space is in the things that are hard to see in the conventional sense. Things like black holes, dark energy, dark matter, and the origins of the universe.
Considering the origins of the universe, there are several indications of a beginning from a single point in space about 14 billion years ago. This is normally called the Big Bang. There are several points of evidence which support the Big Bang.
It was predicted in Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Curiously enough, Einstein did not want this to be true at all. He was a man who loved simplicity and elegance. The thought that the Universe was not static and infinite really rubbed him the wrong way. This theory was later backed by Hubble's discovery of galaxies that were flying apart from each other. this pointed to an expanding universe. In addition to this, for lack of better terms and ease of explanation, radiation from the initial explosion was also discovered several years later. The list goes on, but my interest rests on a philosophical argument that I read several years ago for in favor of a beginning to our universe. (I wish I could remember where I heard it. Sorry guys)
The argument, in a nutshell, tells us that the universe could not possibly be infinite because it if were, then today would have never arrived. Imagine an infinite book shelf. The books on the shelf represent moments in time, whether those moments be days, seconds, or millions of years. You need to find the book that represents this present moment. However the only rule that you have to follow is that you have to start at the beginning of the bookshelf and work your way to the book you need. (This action represents how our view of time is linear and how certain events cannot happen after others) So, you pick a starting point, and are about to start your journey to your book, but then you notice one more book behind the one you started at. You correct your course and begin again only to find that there is yet another book behind you. This happens again and again until you realize that you cannot possibly start because there are an infinite amount of books behind you. There is no start. No beginning to the shelf. There is no possible way for you to reach your book; as there would be no possible way to ever arrive at this present moment if the universe were static and had no beginning.
However if the universe was not static, and had a real beginning in time, then we would be able to start at a set time in the past (a set spot at the beginning of the book shelf) and reach the present moment (our book).
With our linear time and its nature to be incremented, it creates an impossibility to ever perceive a universe that is static and has no beginning. If there were no beginning, it would be impossible to arrive at this present moment, since there would be an infinite amount of moments before this one and would be impossible to arrive at the beginning of those moments to start the long trek to right now.
Thanks for reading!
TC

My First Post That Has No Point.

I guess it has a small point; to give you guys a glimpse into where I've been, what I've done.

Have you ever met a total stranger who you just happens to drive their way back into your memory for no apparent reason. "I wonder where they are now?" "Could they remember me also?" The guy's name was Tom.

I walked over to the international terminal of LAX with my bags packed but nowhere to go. Actually I wasn't even arriving also. I was 16 at the time, and had just finished a two week program called the National Youth Leadership Forum at UCLA for highschool kids who thought they might want to become doctors (I ended up not pursuing that profession). I was waiting for another friend to meet me at the airport because we had both been invited to compete in a national amateur surf contest called Surfing America that was scheduled to go off that following week. The wait was nine hours, and I decided to spend my time in the comfort of the international terminal instead of sitting right outside of security without a boarding pass. 

As I walked into the terminal I decided on settling at an empty table upstairs in front of a few restaurants. Thats when I first noticed this dreaded head of blond hair toting around a surfboard. He ordered something to eat and sat at the table beside me. As I tried to figure this guy out I had to ask if he was going to do the same contest (There might have been a slim chance he was). He took to the question and the opportunity for conversation very readily. 

After his first few words I detected a thick Aussie-sounding accent. He turned out to be from New Zealand in a six hour layover on his way to New York. Tom said that he was going to help his dad out in starting a new business for a few months, and that he brought his board along for the ride just in case he wanted to travel down the coast. 

For the next five hours we sat and talked. Mostly about surfing and American stereotypes. I had also bought one of those crossword puzzle books, and can even remember a word that he gave me. PEW as in church pews. Amazing the little details that we end up remembering isn't it?

After he left there was no contact. No emails exchanged. No addresses. Nothing. We just parted ways, and that was it. The contest I came for ended up getting cancelled, but we had fun anyway. Still to this day, some things go off in my mind and send me back to sitting in the international terminal over a plate of chinese with a complete stranger. 

These are the things that make me ask questions. Could there be a reason why we met, if there are reasons behind things like that at all? Does he remember our conversations in a similar way that I remember them? The whole thing sometimes upwells in my memory as a monkey on my back; not as an annoyance (because the monkey is not annoying, it is more an intrigue), but as a problem that I can't seem to solve. Why is the monkey on my back in the first place? Is there a reason for it? 

What are the Toms in your life?

Thanks

Are You Really Educated?

Been a while since I wrote anything. I have not really had anything to talk about until now. Until Graduation season.
It is assumed by way too many people that the point of higher education is, more or less, somewhat of a vocational training. "Engineering degree you say? I wonder what they are going to do with that?" "Law school? You are not thinking about being an attorney are you?" However, if one chooses a path such as this, or any other area of study, I would have to advise the individual not to loose sight of what it really means to be educated.
You see, there is a difference between being educated, and being trained for a job; or as I like to call, indoctrinated. I can go to a four-year school, vastly ignore my basic studies, and still graduate with a degree and a nice job in public relations; but I will only be indoctrinated into the profession if I ignore such.
Lets say that I went to school for elementary school education. I learned how to be a teacher. Great. But is that all that I took away from a four year experience at an educational institution? There has to be so much more. This is the point to the core curriculum (those required classes that everyone loathes because it takes away time from their major). But there is reason for them. "How will these essays for this lame Philosophy class ever help me in the real world?" "Why am I taking another Algebra again?" These classes can teach you more than you think and should not be brushed under the rug. Those philosophy papers are teaching you how to really write persuasively and organize good arguments. The meaningless math is keeping your rational and numerical gears well greased until you find good use for them. The things learned in college are not just to train you for the work place, but the enlighten your mind and have you operate as an efficient, clear-thinking individual.
Now, I am not saying that true education lies in your BIO 101 grade, or memorizing and recalling the dates of the crusades, or in how well you can find a derivative. It is not the information that defines one as educated, but rather what that individual is able to do with the information. That is the trademark of an educated person.
One who, after the four years of study and focus in Physics, can recall the lessons from a history class about Abraham Lincoln's use of the Railroad in the Civil War and apply it to their organizational skills in their new job. Or one who can remember their trig properties and use them in designing a set of shelves for their new home. Or one who can take away from the lectures of their economics course and use them to be a better informed voter. These are the educated; because while they still earned a certain specific degree, they more importantly gained the ability to use seemingly trivial information in their everyday lives for bettering themselves and humanity.
So if you are entering or are in college, do not shrug off things that do not seem important on the surface. There may very well be a good reason for them. If you have already graduated are will not be attending college, do not fret. It is a myth that education has to be achieved formally.
My advice for starters. Read. Find anything you like. It could be a comic book, internet articles, or a magazine for all I care; just read. Reading allows you to see how others argue, inspire, and persuade. Specialize in a certain area after a while and continue from there, wherever the pages lead you. You will be amazed at the thing you pick up and start using. Just as my cousin. He is a mechanic, but a living encyclopedia on historical weapons of war. Now He uses that information to design his own fishing gigs and his own tools for the shop he works in.
Go for it. Take advantage of college. Take advantage of books. Get a real education.
Thanks!
TC

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
-Einstein

What the Da Vinci Code Can Teach Christians

Ok ok. I've gotten the hazing from my friends by the truck load. I already know that I am about five years late to reading the Da Vinci Code, so chill out. In short, I think the book is pretty cool. I love controversy and an intelligent read, so this ended up being right up my alley. The controversy is especially juicy. The entire premise of the book rests on a fact that flies directly in the face of the beliefs of the Church. However, despite its apparent heresies, the book could teach Christians a lot more about their faith than they realize.
Dan Brown, whether he did so on purpose or not, injected the most satisfying thought into his book in the midst of all the chaos. The plot assumes the idea that Jesus was not divine, and instead he was just a regular guy who happened to be very influential on the religious playing field. This was evidenced by the references to the Council of Nicaea, Mary Magdalene's supposed pregnancy, and other gospels that were not included in the New Testament. These things took away Jesus' divinity and made him more human. Here lies the controversy and the outrage from the Church. But the single satisfying thought to the Christian that should have been caught by the reader (that is if the Christian reader was not on tilt at the time) was found in chapter 55.
After the initial meeting with Teabing, Sophie and Langdon engaged Teabing in conversation. Teabing was explaining the real meaning of the Grail to Sophie when he said, "The vast majority of educated Christians know the history of their faith. Jesus was indeed a great and powerful man. Constantine's underhanded political maneuvers don't diminish the majesty of Christ's life. Nobody is saying that Christ was a fraud, or denying that He walked the earth and inspired millions to better lives." This is the brilliant sense of Dan Brown showing. Here, if the Christian paid attention, Dan Brown completely venerated all of the controversy surrounding the Grail story.
I say this because of my own personal theological ideals. I do not believe that any sort of scripture should always be taken completely literally all of the time. There are parables, myths, and stories found in the bible that actually might not be 100% accurate. However, despite how degrading this might seem, the inaccuracy does not take away the transformative power that the stories embody.
We use things like fairy tales to teach our children lesson on life and moral responsibility all of the time. The stories of the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, or any other religious text serves a similar purpose. There is a common campaign against inerrancy in the bible waged by the institutional churches. The perfect version of the bible is supposed to tell us what to do in church, how to act, and what to believe, no matter how farfetched it sounds. However, it is my strong belief that the power of scriptures are not found in the words themselves, but rather in what the words represent.
Instead of wondering how many days it took for the world to flood and dry up again, Christians should instead take the flood story as an account of how God delivers the righteous. Instead of debating about how God stopped Abraham from killing his son Isaac, Christians should admire the faith of the stories. Instead of arguing over how perfect or divine Christ was, Christians should accept the transformative power that lies in what Christ taught and inspired.
There is hardly ever any reason for Christians to get upset at controversy. Allow the controversy to sharpen instead of fighting against it. Who cares if the universe is about 14 billion years old? So what if we evolved from primates? Does that make what Jesus taught any less reputable?

Recommended reads:
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
The Fidelity of Betrayal by Peter Rollins

Command Your Tacit

The following is a really interesting bit on different types of knowledge. It shows what writers, teachers, speaker, and preachers the world over are really trying to communicate. One can print out a sheet of information full of data, charts, numbers, and records; but that is information in the raw. Whether you are reading a novel, a history book, an essay on logical positivism, or listening to a lecture on microbiology; there is a communicator who is trying to pass information onto you through a filter that includes much more than just the data. They are trying to communicate their reason, their vendetta, their experience. This is called Tacit Knowledge. The best speakers and writers are great at manipulating this bit. They make you think, sway your mood, and change your mind.

I have never been moved by someone stating facts (Explicit Knowledge). However if one tells a story with those facts, if one interprets those facts, if one demonstrates their competence and ethos through those facts; then you have an excellent communicator. But it still goes so far beyond that!

This is an interesting look at the type of information that they use to do so. These mind clips were found on floating around on Google+. 

Enjoy,

And command your Tacit.

Tacit Knowledge

Deeply personal experience, aptitudes, perceptions, insights, and know-how that are implied or indicated but not actually expressed - it resides in individuals & teams. http://bit.ly/H0cCOu

Tacit knowledge (as opposed to formal or explicit knowledge) is knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalising it. http://bit.ly/HgZ2YB

Unwritten, unspoken, and hidden vast storehouse of knowledge held by practically every normal human being, based on his or her emotions, experiences, insights, intuition, observations and internalized information. Tacit knowledge is integral to the entirety of a person's consciousness, is acquired largely through association with other people, and requires joint or shared activities to be imparted from on to another. Like the submerged part of an iceberg it constitutes the bulk of what one knows, and forms the underlying framework that makes explicit knowledge possible. Concept of tacit knowledge was introduced by the Hungarian philosopher-chemist Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) in his 1966 book 'The Tacit Dimension.' Also called informal knowledge. http://bit.ly/GVLyli

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Are you Adam? How About You? Wait... Adam?

The Adam of Eden. The same Adam who lives in the Christian Bible, the Islamic Quran, and the Jewish Torah. Who is he? Did he exist? If so, then in what kind of state? I would ask myself these kinds of questions during an undergrad course of mine called, Issues in Science and Religion. In the class, we explored several disciplines in order to come to conclusions about the tough questions that different religions face. One issue that I found particularly fascinating was this idea of the first human. The first intellect. The first biological construct that is homo-sapiens as we see in religious texts. Are the psychological, scientific, and religious concepts of the first man synonymous? Most likely no. There may have very well been several different types of Adam. 

To set the primitive stage; life on earth has been around for billions of years. The steady loss of rain over several million years in the present Great Rift Valley has lead a small primate to develop the ability to walk upright. This ability has become necessary for the animal to survive. It has allowed it to keep a careful watch out for predators while scampering between the thinning trees. This primate is Australopithecus, one of the first human ancestors.

Millions of years later, the descendants of this primate had began to use tools, develop larger brains, and loose their body hair. They became known as homo-erectus. They then separated into several species along the way. Most of these new species died out; but one bottleneck of about 5,000 individuals who barely survived eventually became known as homo-sapiens. 

This is our first type of Adam. However, this is not an individual. The first anatomical, biological adam cannot simply be pinned as a single individual. He would have looked just like his father, and his grand father, and his great great grand father. The incredibly slow rate of change that had to take place in order to determine who the first man was would have left each generation almost certainly indistinguishable from their surrounding generations. Therefore the first man cannot be an individual, but rather the culmination of ages of biological change that brought about a new species. The first type of Adam is homo-sapiens as a species. However, this is not our specific Adam of the Garden of Eden. If the introduction of homo-sapiens is not the Adam of Eden, then what is? It is merely a pool from which our real Adam could possibly be found.
If we recall our bible stories, there was no man in existence until God created them. But what if we turn the tables a little? What if there was man before God created Adam? What if, instead, there was no man capable of being aware of the divine until they reached a certain point in evolution? That point in evolution, that realization of God, might have been the real Adam's creation. Maybe it took a certain level of  psychological maturity before one could be aware of the divine well enough to be the Adam of Eden. There might be evidence for this, but this evidence comes with a catch. 

In the Shanidar Cave in the Zagros Mountains in Northern Iraq There have been ceremonial burial site found that date back from 60,000 to 80,000 years ago. Here we see bodies buried with flowers and precious symbolic tools. The ones who buried these individuals were conscious of something other than the physical. In these arrangements of items around the dead, we see a story of an ancient being who had feelings; someone who took the time to ensure the future wellbeing of an already lifeless person. This could translate into evidence that the individual who buried their loved one could have believed in something more than what we perceive on earth; something supernatural. May that be a spirit or a god or a form of karma, the ceremony of burying someone is normally so much more intimate with the non-physical than the simple comfort of closure. A form of afterlife may have developed in the minds of these individuals.

Did these people have a deep enough awareness of the divine to be Adam? Were they psychologically and intellectually fit enough to perceive a divine force or an afterlife, then pass that ideology along through language and culture? This seems like a possible answer, until we find the wrench in the system. 

These people were in fact not homo-sapiens. They were actually Neanderthal. Our modern view of Adam isn't typically that of a stocky, large browed, extinct species. However, these Neanderthals clearly had their foot in the door when it comes to experiencing the divine.
Whether or not the first ceremonial burials came from the lineage of the Neanderthals or the lineage of homo-sapiens, this still most likely cannot be our Adam of Eden. This is because over the thousands of years that it might have taken man to solidify an awareness of the supernatural, the event of becoming aware for the first time could have happened several times in several different areas. There is even the possibility that an awareness could have began, stopped after a few generations, and then started up again. So what exactly are we going to have to look for in order to find our Adam of Eden?

What we know of Adam is that he was most likely a homo-sapiens. This is because of the evidence in later religious texts of the advancement of things such as agriculture and complex society in the very next generation following Adam of Eden. These are things that could not have manifested over one generation, unless they were taught by a more advances society. Furthermore, homo-sapiens has been the only species to be able to achieve things such as uniform agriculture. However, there is still a chance that an awareness of God could have started from a different species or from an ancestral species, and was learned or developed into the awareness that we know today. Yet it seems clear, by evidence of Adam's more complex socio-cultural lifestyle, that the Adam of Eden most certainly had to be a homo-sapiens. Also, the Adam of Eden was a man, who not only had an rudimentary understanding of God, but also possessed an awareness of morality and an interaction with God. 

There are now two cases that can be made for the story of Adam. On one hand, Adam could have had the foresight and capacity to tell his descendants of his experience with God. This would be the convenient and more interesting case. In this case we can see that there would have really been a single man whose experiences with a divine being would eventually be recorded and read thousands of years later. On the other hand, The story of Adam could have been fabricated in order to shed light on questions of where we came from or man's first interaction with God. In this case, the real Adam, which is the first man to have interacted with God, is more elusive. He may have existed nearly anywhere on the timeline only to be guessed at later on down the road. 

However, in either case, the argument can be made that the formula for the Adam of Eden requires a vessel, in the form of a species, in which there is enough psychological maturity in order to have an awareness of the divine, and an intellectual maturity in order to be able to express and record that experience toward other members of your species. There may have been several species that could have fit this profile; however, it is most certainly true that the Adam of Ede had to be a homo-sapiens due to the complication of his society and culture.

As an illustrated conclusion, Imagine Neanderthal man 40,000 years ago. He sits around a fire with his dwindling tribe, mourning the loss of yet another member of his small family. They have chosen a ceremonial spot to bury their dead tomorrow. It is near a pasture where a field of wild beasts roam. The life blood of these beasts has provided them with many meals and somehow hold an interesting niche in the lives. Yet none of the individuals can quite express their comforting feelings towards these animals. It is as if the herd of beasts that frequent the pasture are watching over them. Providing for them in a supernatural way.

Fast forward to 10,000 years ago. The demise of Neanderthal is long over, and modern humans have began to construct small villages with the emergence of agriculture. There is one village in particular that has a unusual practice. For the past few generations, they have been gathering at night to hear a story. It is a story, an explanation, of an event that happened to one of the elders that has long been deceased. While the ones gathered understand that there might be something else out there than what we can see and hear and feel, this one man in the story was different. This man claimed to have interacted with a spirit, a being, a God. This man in the story has been tested by and conversed with this divine being. This man has had an insight into something far greater than anything else he has experienced. His story will live on for tens of thousands of years after his death. This man is Adam.


Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanidar_Cave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_africanus

Hatch me please!

I need to get out of this shell.
My whole life I have been conditioned to physical and mental excitement; whether it was learning to dive, rock climbing, going to school, road trips, learning a language, or any other sort of thing I could get myself into, I was always on the move. Now, all of the sudden, I am jobless. I am not in school, and I live in a place that is void of any sort of culture and stimulation. My wife encourages me to drive to visit friends when I am feeling down, but that would not be the brightest idea financially, as my friends are at least 3 hours away. I am getting used to this hole in my mind that has been made from our move. (We now live in a very rural place, where my wife has a two year teaching contract, after moving from a medium sized city on the ocean.)
I have started doing things like fixing up old boats, learning to program in Java, and reading a ton.
Tomorrow I think I will build a greenhouse for my banana and pineapple plants.
Suggestions on anything for me to do?
Thanks!

Size Me Up

A little about me would be nice, I suppose. Let me start at a relevant chapter with my graduation from college last May. I graduated from college after nine semesters. I had started off with a major in Physics, but after a few mishaps I eventually turned the tables and graduated with Philosophy and Theology. I also had a minor in Spanish. It took five years for me to graduate because I took off a semester to earn an EMT certificate. (My summers off of school I was an ocean lifeguard, and being an EMT gave me a raise)

Right now, I am waiting for an acceptance letter from law schools, and just trying to find out where I need to be.

That is pretty much where I stand in academia right now. As for my personal life, I just married this smokin' hot girl that I have been dating for over five years. She is awesome, and I have no idea where I would be without her. We have two wild dogs that keep us on our toes, and inject our little family with the perfect touch of chaos.

We love to travel, love good movies, consider the ocean a necessity to mental health, love to surf and sail, enjoy a proper drink, and don't sweat the small things. 

I would love to tell you guys more in this post, but who can write a biography in one sitting? Over time, I expect any followers or anyone reading to get to know me through other posts. With this blog I also want to give the reader insight into who I am and what I do. You want to know what it is like to surf in a professional contest, break a world record, live in a foreign country, do real CPR, produce a film to a sold out crowd? I am sure I will mention some of these things in passing. 

Thanks for reading!

What this blog is for?

Have you ever read something that you wrote years ago? Awkward experience, wasn't it? I picked up something the other day that I wrote as a freshman in college, and was appalled at how terribly I could arrange little words onto paper. I blushed to the fact that I actually used to believed the things that I had written.
Resisting the urge to burn the paper within the following few milliseconds, I tucked it away into its place, and carried on with the idea that, however foul the piece was, it was still important nonetheless. It was important because it told a small history. It was a case study in my own personal anthropology, psychology, theology, ideology, and life philosophy. It was a snapshot into what was happening in my mind.
To me, there is a value in knowing where my thoughts came from, and I intend to continue to keep thorough report. Without college anymore, there is no method in place that has me writing. This blog is a post-college record of my thought. My thought on things that I love, things that peeve me, things that made me laugh, things that happen in my life, and the ideas swimming in my head during the day.
Thanks for your interest in my mind.