Category: Pseudo-philosophy

The Sound of Thoughts

I decided to start from first principle and thought about thoughts today. Now, if thoughts are initially non-existent, before the thinker starts to think and then, suddenly they crowd the brain in activity, it means they can be generated and they can be turned off.

If thoughts are generated, it means they require specific instructions to exist, particular conduits to pass through et cetera. Which means, blocking those conduits can limit thoughts, same as designing new conduits can change the flow of thoughts.

If thoughts elicit a response, in electrical activity which has previously been detected by scientists, but which we can reason by the consideration of how they are generated: by signals of neurons and snapping synapses, then they can be measured as any electrical activity.

If it can be measured, it can be read and interpreted.

Thoughts are generated by the thinker and understood by the thinker, intimating a particular method of generation, conduction and interpretation. If methods exist internally, they can be replicated externally. Artificial methods of interpreting thoughts can be designed.

Now, is it possible to read minds? Is it possible to hear the sound of thoughts?

We begin with generation and conduction. Structural design of a typical brain; generator, conductor and interpreter of thoughts, is uniform in any regard. However, some brains record a higher level of thought generation and interpretation than others, indicating a higher level of conduction. Meaning that conversely, some brains exist with structural elements which are unused, pathways available for conduction but due to limited generation, cannot be utilised to proper interpretation too.

Those brains should be able to serve as conduits for external electrical activity. Should be able to read other minds.

Patching the measured signals of an existing, normally functioning brain activity into another brain, limited in activity should allow conduction and eventual interpretation by the less utilised brain. Should. Since the structures exist.

This can also be actualised by taking a full functioning brain of an individual in a complete drug induced dreamless sleep. The limited brain activity of a full functioning brain, should allow for conduction and interpretation of external activity.

It is possible to hear the sound of thoughts.

Disclaimer

  • I don’t have a jar of harvested brains in my
  • This is completely theoretical.

God bless Nigeria.

So, who’s the rant king now?

 

So, I held a pen last night and didn’t stop scribbling till I slept off. NB: This was after the lamp I was using had died. If this piece ends abruptly, it is because I cannot read most of what is at the end and I am afraid I cannot get back into the same zone as I was last night to complete in one breath. If this piece does not end abruptly however, then I confess, you are most loyal of all readers and probably more brilliant than I.

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“How far have you fallen? How far have you fallen,” the wingless bird muttered to the wizened tortoise squatted above him. “It’s easy sitting there pretending to be sagacious when you haven’t felt any pain. Not the pain of loss or incompetence”

The tortoise stared back, her lined face expressionless in the gathering gloom of the forest dusk. Then she turned away and ambled out of the grove and through copse of trees for the rocky cliffs beyond. The bird stared, wet eyes glazing over as they strained to focus through a haze of pain. As the mist came down upon his eyes, washing on both sides in the same hue as the spreading blood around its form, he saw at the end of his tunneled vision, a hunched back figure striding to the cliff’s edge to plunge over to the rocky bottom.

Continue reading “So, who’s the rant king now?”

The Account of Saul

Now, it will be very easy, and completely understandable if anyone read this and thought me probably anti-Semitic, but that is not my intention. The story of Saul has pained me in the past, and upon reading it today, I was reminded of the trials an ordinary man was put through. I would chronicle them, and you may make your inferences.

The Account of Saul

It began simply.
Miz’ath the tanner, sat upon a rock looking over the mountains. His eyes were black, the lids thin and papery from too many days staring at the sun. He was a goodly man, strong and caring towards his family. It was his fortune and misfortune that he sat on that stone that day. For there he was, humming a song under his breath, a blade of grass between his lips when he saw a strange thing. Approaching him with speed, a cloud of dust and the sound of beating hooves. Philistines! Miz’ath feared, for though he was a man of Zuph and a believer in the LORD, it was many years the Philistines had held Israel bondage, and he was quite vulnerable, he knew, to a very sharp blade.
He sprang to his feet, ready to run the fastest sprint of his forty-odd years at the first sign of a gleaming blade. That was when he saw the really strange thing. Twenty asses, their backs branded with a Benjaminite symbol, stampeded past him, their hooves drumming a rumbling tattoo. The eyes of the asses were wide and crazed, and they ran like the very devils were after them. Around him they went, and sprinted back the way they came. No one was whipping them. No one was chasing them. The asses ran of their own accord. An impossible thing. No one believed Miz’ath. Not till this day.

*****

But the asses of Kish the Banjaminite were missing that day, and he sent his son Saul, a very tall and well appointed man, to go fetch them. Saul journeyed after the asses to Zuph where he met Samuel, a man of GOD and seer since childhood, and inquired of him where the asses could be. But the asses were back in the land of Kish, by some strange miracle returned, and Samuel, hearkening of Jehovah, blessed Saul and anointed him Captain over all the people.
But people are not so easily convinced, and neither was Saul.

*****

As a man, Saul had never had any illusions. He was of the tribe of Benjamin, the minority of the people of Isra-el, and he was content with a few servants and the asses and oxen of his father. In time, perhaps he would have gone into Ahinoam his wife, once more, and she would have borne him another son as a protector to Merab and Michal, his daughters. So when Samuel spoke to him, he believed little, and spoke to none in his family all that the seer had said.

But the LORD is powerful and praised be his name!

Samuel called the children of Isra-el, from all the tribes in the land, and a lot was cast: The great election by the Spirit of the King of Isra-el. The tribe of Benjamin, against all odds was chosen in this lot. And another lot was cast within the tribe. And within it, the family of Matri was taken. Again, the people wondered. And by the Spirit, a man was chosen of the family of Matri, the son of Kish, who was the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the man Saul. The word was confirmed, Saul King. And yet the man was absent, hiding in the stuff. But Samuel found him, and behold when he stood, he was a good head and shoulders taller than all who stood there. And the people cried, “GOD save the King!”
But many doubted and disbelieved and despised him. And so it was for a while.

But calamity creates the strangest bedfellows, and it is true even in old Israel.

Of the Ammonites, there was a brash and bearded man, whose club was daily stained red and whose countenance was the etching of warding plates. His name was Nahash and he camped against the people of Jabesh-gilead of Israel and threatened to put out their right eyes. When Saul was told of this, he was in the field mowing. A pleasant day, and a warm sun. In anger, he took up the oxen and slew them. Tearing the meat into pieces, he sent to all the villages and the towns, great and small, from coast to coast of Israel.

“Behold these oxen pieces, if you don’t come out to support me and Samuel, I swear, your house shall be as these oxen”

It was a good message. A scary message. And the people came out. Three hundred thousand Isra-el, and thirty thousand fierce men of Judah. The battle was won easily and the people crowned Saul, king.

This was only the beginning of his trouble.

*****

You know when you’re destined for great things, but you don’t want them. All he wanted was a simple life, and kinghood was thrust upon him. Prophesied kinghood, all events orchestrated by Power beyond him. He couldn’t help it, Saul, he couldn’t. A man, the first King of Israel, and he was destined to fail.

*****

It was maybe three years later, when the Philistines gathered themselves thirty thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen and enough people as the sand on a beach. A great multitude they were, and they came to wage war against Isra-el. Now, they, the Philistines, were greatly angered because Jonathan, son of Saul, had with a thousand men, slain an entire Philistine garrison at Geba, an act of war.
Samuel instructed Saul and told him, gather the Hebrews and wait for me, seven days. But the people were scared, and some fled the country. Some waited in Gilgal with Saul, their souls faint and their hearts trembling and when on the seventh day, Samuel had still not come, the Philistines were closer than before and the people began to panic again. Many scattered. So Saul made a sacrifice. And as soon as he did so, Samuel appeared and in anger cursed him and his kingdom.
Saul was shocked. The circumstances had called for it. The people were fleeing, Samuel the seer was nowhere in sight, there was nothing left to do, so he had sacrificed while he waited for Samuel. It was the goodly thing. But Samuel was angry and left Saul. All the people left, and with Saul and Jonathan remained only six hundred men.
Of this six hundred, there wasn’t a single weapon of war between them, save the swords of Jonathan and Saul. For in the whole of Israel, the Philistines had ensured not a smith was found, lest the Hebrews make for themselves spears and swords. But Jonathan was a brilliant man, skilled in counter-insurgency and the darkest of the clandestine arts.
First he wore a hood for a while, then substituted himself with a likeness, purportedly with Ahiah, great-grandson of Eli, who was priest of Shiloh before Samuel’s birth, and snuck into the Philistine barracks with none but his amour bearer. And he said:

“Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised, it may be that the LORD will work for us, for there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few.”

And alone, Jonathan and his amour bearer stood before an entire garrison, two men standing before three thousand. And in the first slaughter, they killed twenty. And so the Philistines feared and ran, each falling upon his brother in their haste to flee. And the bravery of Jonathan and his faith in GOD was evident that day.

But few remember it.

That same day, with victory within their grasp as they saw what Jonathan had done, Saul ordered that the people fast, and not eat a bite until they had vanquished their enemies. But Jonathan was not present and he did not know. So, while they chased after the Philistines, he saw honey on the ground and he took and ate. And his eyes were enlightened, and he was stronger while the people grew faint with hunger. But because he had eaten, after Saul had said, cursed be the man who eats before all their enemies had been destroyed, Jonathan had to die. He who had wrought the great salvation for Israel was to die because he tasted a little honey, in ignorance.
It was a sad day for Israel, and the people were hungry.
Saul made an offering to GOD, to ask for guidance, but GOD answered him not. And he wondered, what was the sin? [for then, he did not know of Jonathan’s transgression, because the people told him not] So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonathan. And so Saul asked what he did, and after being told, condemned his son to die. But the people refused and swore not to let a hair on Jonathan’s head be harmed, and so Jonathan was saved by good luck.
And in this case, Saul had obeyed first. Not long after, when they warred with the Amalekites, he sacrificed first and Samuel cursed his kingdom again. All that was detestable, all that was vile, Saul destroyed of the Amalekites, and all that was good; of the fattest cattle and oxen, he sacrificed to the LORD, taking none for himself or the people of Isra-el, for he sought only to appease the LORD. But that was not the commandment, and despite his intentions, GOD repented he made Saul king. For GOD has greater delight in obedience than in sacrifice. And though Saul begged and knelt before Samuel, and pled his case before the eyes of the elders of Israel, Samuel turned from him and the LORD heard him not.

And thus, the First kingdom of the Hebrews ended. And a Bethlehemite was chosen and raised to be king, even under Saul’s roof, though not of his house. A young man, David, prone to easy sin, but contrite in heart, a good man, and a man after GOD’s own heart.

1 Samuel 9 – 1 Samuel 15.

WRITER’S NOTE:
This is something each of us could have read ourselves, I simply painted this to give an all round picture of the man and the situation. But the letter killeth, so you could read this from the Bible on your own. The important thing, the question that bothers me; was it fair? Did he deserve it? If you read past chapter 15 of the book of Samuel, you see a story of man who slowly fell obsession, reduced to epileptic fits and rages. A man who believed strongly in his GOD-given [bestowed more like, bequeathed even] right to rule, and was driven mad as a result. A man who was subverted by his own subjects, usurped, and upon his divine throne, replaced by a shepherd boy. His name, all but forgotten in the annals of history, remembered only as the villain in the David stories and in pictures as the one who threw the spear. If it were that he had sought the position, had wanted to be a king, it would be different. But he didn’t, it was forced upon him, a burden he was destined to buckle under.

Disclaimer:
• Again, I did not seek to defame the Testaments. I merely read and wonder in sadness.
• I am a Christian. And I love GOD.

Follow on Twitter @janus_aneni

GOD bless Nigeria.

The Anointed King

The Anointed King

Will we ever teleport?

I’ve been reading “Profiles of the future”, one of my father’s old books, by Arthur C. Clarke, a book described as “an enquiry into the limits of the possible”, and as you can guess, it’s given me quite a few ideas. Well, I am sharing these ideas with you, and asking you to think with me. I haven’t written something like this in ages, and I’ll appreciate if you read through and comment your thoughts.

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First off, an overview. Mankind has always struggled with many issues, all of which can be summarized as ‘Survival’, and underlying this is the important factor, not just to survive, but to ensure better comfort, to perform better than its peers in an easier manner. History has shown leaps and bounds, all as a result of competition, most prevalent in wartime, when man has surpassed even his own expectations and gone on to achieve feats described merely as godlike in perhaps a century or decade previous.

Breakthroughs in Science and Engineering, including genetics, surgery, flight, nuclear power, hydroelectricity and space travel, were mere dreams of the people before. And one of the most prevalent dreams, so to speak, of man, has always been speed. From the earliest lumbering man, to that which trots about our streets at 5mph, man has sought to move faster, to reach his destination quicker in every decade. Transportation by oxen, one of the earliest forms, was occasioned by the necessity of man to have an easier and faster way to move heavy burdens from point A to B. Easier than carrying it on his back at a slower pace. Man since then has proceeded through the horse and camel, chariots and carriages, to motorized transport which I would use to include trains, land vehicles and airplanes. All of these motorized transport systems have in addition been modified regularly to increase in speed and in comfort. The trains are faster, speed trains operating on nuclear power that cut you across countries and continents in mere hours, unlike the coal, steam or even electrical systems of old. Land vehicles constantly beat records set only a year earlier, and now it’s only commonplace to have cars that go from 0-100mph in 6seconds. And our planes, especially those used in warfare, are capable of speeds Arthur Clarke himself would only have imagined. Sir Arthur Clarke died in 2008, a very old, still brilliant and quite pleased fellow.

And now the crux of the matter; while we increase our speed almost daily, as our desire to conquer space and time throbs ever so incessantly, we ensure that as we circumvent the world in shorter time than Frederick Magellan did back in the old days, we do it in far greater style and comfort and without the threat of scurvy. Man would always reach further and aim to go faster, up until we are not satisfied with anything else other than instantaneous transport. Teleportation if you will. Let me explain.

In science, the normal kind, not the one we see in Tron Legacy or Star Wars, we have nine bands of foreseeable speed with a speed limit of 10n for the nth band. Hence, band 1 has a range of 100-101mph, and band 8, 107-108mph and so on. Band 9 holds the speed of light (given as 670,615,000mph or 6.7 x 108mph). So far, to the most of my knowledge, Man has been able to achieve up to band 6: A speed utilized mainly for the splitting of the atom and creation of antimatter. If we eventually travel at the speed of light, which also goes as 186,000milespersecond, man would be able to traverse the Earth in a fraction of a second. A notion, akin as any to teleportation.

I used to argue, that if teleportation can be achieved, it would only be restricted to inanimate objects. “It is impossible to teleport any sentient being. The body may be transferred, but never the thoughts, or memories or intelligence, and definitely not the soul,” was my fierce cry. This is how I imagined teleportation would resemble:

You know how a telephone works? The same principle. There will be two teleportation chambers. In both chambers would be a storage pool of some sort, containing the necessary organic and inorganic materials and constituent components that make up an object (any object), and a relay system (radio, wire, satellite) that connects both chambers. In the first chamber, the object to be teleported would be scanned thoroughly, with coding made identifying for the placement of each individual atom of that object. After scanning, that object would be broken down and it’s constituents added to the pool of material in that chamber. Then, signals would be sent through the relay system to the other chamber, where information is relayed of the placement of each atom of the object, and it would then be reconstructed. In this manner, a chair, textbook, a motor vehicle may be relayed in the exact same manner as the original. This however is not transport. As you well know, when having a telephone conversation, it is not your voice the person hears on the other end of the line. Your voice is broken down at the source, but a replica of that voice is recreated at the other end of the line and played back into the person’s ears. The voice is never transported, merely relayed.

In my own theory of teleportation, a notion Arthur Clarke disproved before I was even born, intelligence is impossible to analyze and is hence not relayed. Also, in my inability to assume or imagine a speed fast enough to carry any object across a great distance in an instant, without causing any harm or injury to said object, I could not understand teleportation.

This therefore is my new theory. Completely independent of Sir Clarke’s assumptions and prey to your own criticisms:

The major constraints in travel at great speeds are pressure and gravity. Nevertheless, gravity is merely a force that pulls objects towards each other, with the larger object exerting the greater amount of force. At a certain speed, an object can be said to move fast enough to exert a sort of negative gravity. Thus with speed alone, we may break through one of the factors opposing us. However, we still need to battle pressure and the force of inertia. Laws which cannot be broken by anything here on Earth. However, I have a thought for that too. Vacuum, that nothingness which exists space, and negates such forces as pressure and inertia can be utilized. If man can find a way to build a capsule, of powerful material able to travel at the speed of light, and within that capsule create a vacuum, Man and indeed any sort of object can travel within at any speed without harm to its person.

Delving into the biblical and novel branches of physics, we examine the Mobius strip and what has been called folds within the universe, and suddenly we understand those terms used St John and other  apostles and prophets when they speak of being suddenly transported to a peak or a place far away from that which they were in a second before, having just taken a step. Some scientists theorize that there are pockets in the universe where different planets are so aligned that with a step in the right direction and at the right time, one may move from one point to another a million miles away. Imagine your bed-sheet, flat and spread out over your bed as the vista of space. Then imagine how your bed-sheet looks when it’s rumpled, how suddenly a spot maybe a hand-span away previously, now lies a mere millimeter away when pushed together. If man were able to artificially create this pockets, by stepping out of your room, you could punch a hole in space and be through the warp and in your office or class, just before the lecturer steps in the door. Creating a minor black-hole so to speak, but with a reserved magnitude and a precise direction.

A Möbius strip made with a piece of paper and tape. If an ant were to crawl along the length of this strip, it would return to its starting point having traversed the entire length of the strip (on both sides of the original paper) without ever crossing an edge.
A Möbius strip made with a piece of paper and tape. If an ant were to crawl along the length of this strip, it would return to its starting point having traversed the entire length of the strip (on both sides of the original paper) without ever crossing an edge.

That’s my theory anyway, I would love to hear yours.

Disclaimer

  • I am a Microbiologist, not a Physicist, and I don’t claim omniscience or complete veracity of my theories. However, I’m still a student of Science and an avid study of such matters.

Please leave your comments and thoughts.

GOD Bless Nigeria.

Faith.

Faith takes its toll.

Faith takes its toll. Leaving behind everything and believing entirely something you know not to be true, but hope it will. In the sincere desire that, when you hope enough (enough being a completely unknown and very relative term), what it is you hope for would be granted. With the knowledge again, that even if one’s hope were to be granted, chances were highest that the hope granted would not come at the time wanted, but sometime in the unknown future, at precisely the moment, when it is needed. A moment that as far as you know, is completely obscure.

Faith takes its toll.

Pulling you about in anguish and anxiety, as you wait and hope, yet wrenching your heart into despair even as you struggle to keep up a happy countenance. We believe, we hope, we have faith, even though rationality goes against it.
Faith takes its toll.

Sometimes, in an effort at faith, we sometimes doubt. And that doubt, that singular slip of faithlessness robs us of the hope which we have hitherto desired. Other times, though few and in between, despite our doubt, the extent to which we hope and the need for us to be shown the fool, the desires which we hoped for are actually delivered.
Total faith, total submissiveness, total belief in the fulfilment of our desires always goes rewarded. Total belief, total submissiveness, total faith in something that cannot be seen or beheld rationally, is impossible by human standards.
Only through belief in a Supreme power can we truly have that sort of faith. It’s simple, the one true act of faith in this rational world is the belief in the presence of a Power that reigns in the Universe. A power that we cannot see.
But it goes beyond that.

The vegetation, Nature, the forces of life and physics all determine that there must be a source, an origin, a Creator. Agreeing that there is, is simply rational, though at a stretch. However, giving this Creator, this Force, a name, assuming it as a Being, accepting it as a GOD, that part takes Faith. A lot of faith. And those who can do that, are the true believers. Not exactly in the sense of Christianity, but believers in the sense that, they believe in the existence of something which quite naturally does not exist. And then worship that thing.

The power to believe, to have Faith, comes from this source. Rationally it can be assumed that, the belief in this Being, creates in an individual, the ability to ‘believe’ irrationally. And so, from that point on, all sorts of stuff can be assumed and believed by that individual, all sorts of irrational stuff. However, still moving irrationally, it can also be said that the source, bestows power upon the individual, granting them the strength to believe. The faith to believe if you will. And then, what is believed next is that, the Source Being, grants the wishes which are believed, the hopes that have been held in faith.
Here in is the basis of religion.

This entire discourse is dependant simply on irrational logic for a very simple reason; Faith as a verb or noun, as a notion, is irrational. So arguing it based on sound logic is impossible. Simply because it is impossible to discuss the veracity of something, if that thing is assumed not to even exist. The very concept is flawed in essential logic, so the only approach to discussing such a matter, is through the half-finished premises and discordant clauses common with illogic and fallacy. However, when considering Faith from those angles, it is easy to say that such a thing exists.

In the same way as which we would easily agree that Red blood cells constitute a vital composition of the blood, based on what we’ve been told by our teachers over time. Now one could say, these results have been proven scientifically and logically so, basically, they hold water as vital arguments. However, I would ask such a one, if he has actually beheld such, or has based his knowledge on hearsay. If hearsay, then, that is as simple an act of faith as any. Provable faith you may say, but at the same time, spiritual faith may also be proven, but illogically, because it would have to entail an endorsement of spirituality, a concept which as far as we know it, remains flawed, and probably untrue.

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The un-edited product of rambling thoughts and a full battery. Errors, illogical premises, etc..all are blamed on this Writer.
@janus_aneni

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