zenarrow.com Blog

Philosophical Jabber

There is a recent article on Alternet with the long-winded title, “Why Near-Death Experiences Are a Flimsy Justification for the Idea That We Have Immortal Souls”

The URL is below, if you’d like to read the original.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/147763/why_near-death_experiences_are_a_flimsy_justification_for_the_idea_that_we_have_immortal_souls_/

I started reading the comments. I rarely reply to comments, as good writing is time-intensive. One of the comments aroused me to the point of making this reply:

>Well here’s the thing… religion is about faith.

I disagree. Some religions, some of the time are about faith. “You have to have faith!” Faith is needed only when the actual experience is lost. Christianity started as an ecstatic group theogamy. It was a path – like many others, to bring a person to the experience of God/Tao/Gaea/Higher Power/Force. We hunger for this contact – that’s why the posts here are so heated!

The authentic religious experience – the perception (internal and intangible) of a larger reality is the manna, the well-spring, that fulfills and nourishes us. But it is not scientifically provable. It is a personal perception. For an exquisite explanation of this read R.D. Laing’s wonderful book “The Politics of Experience.”

Another great book is “The Tao of Physics” by (IIRC) Frihold Capra. It shows the convergence of ’science’ and ‘religion’ occurring in the realm of quantum physics. Reality is. It just is. If you understand it, that’s good for you, because your understanding will permit you to work with reality, rather then trying to oppose it. If you don’t understand it, reality still is – and it can bite your a$$!

There is a Zen saying that the intellect is a wonderful servant, and a terrible master. So too, the scientific method. It is a only a tool, to be picked up when appropriate, used, and then put down.

There are shovels and there are paintbrushes. Both are tools. I would not attempt to dig a hole with a paint brush, nor paint a picture with a shovel.

I am both a Taoist and a technologist. I believe in the validity of of the scientific method, and I believe in the validity of my own personal (unprovable) experiences. I would never attempt to persuade you by argument of a larger reality. Instead, I would try and help you have the experience of a larger reality yourself (if you wanted to try). When that occurs, there is no need for argument, and little need for words…

Ecstasy is from the Greek – ‘ex statis’ – out of the body. If such a state cannot exist, why do words for it exist in every language that I know of?

Political Rant – Boycott BP!

Here’s a link to what the BP oil spill is really costing. It’s from CBS, so I’d say it errs as being too conservative…

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/30/national/main6447428.shtml?tag=featuredPostArea

Do all of you want to do something really effective? A LOT more effective then
signing petitions, or calling you Congresscritter! BOYCOTT BP! And also BOYCOTT BP AFFILIATED COMPANIES!

Your vote and mine don’t mean s**t in terms of real power. Few actions that we can take do…

But money – that’s what these sociopathic corporatists pay attention to. Money! That’s all they look at – how much money can we make (steal)? When we hit them in the wallet, that’s when they will start to pay attention…

So don’t buy BP gas for your car. Find out where your heating oil comes from, and if it’s BP, just switch to another oil company.

A boycott is a legal, free, nonviolent method of making our voices heard – in the only way that counts – economically!

What a concept, using the (somewhat) free choice of a capitalist market, to punish those companies who abuse the market, and their customers on a global basis. And this oil spill WILL have global consequences. Drastic and tragic ones…

Anyone want to join me in starting a website called www.boycottbp.com? Oops better check on that asap! (grin) Darn, too late!

And PS – please pass this blog post on to as many people as you can. Let it go viral…

UPDATE – courtesy of reader Sharloch at Alternet, here’s a way to find out what companies are BP affiliates.

“Most BP subsidiaries can be recognised by the BP or Amoco name although others include The Standard Oil Co. Inc and more obscure examples such as Grangemouth Polypropylene Ltd. Wholly owned UK subsidiaries are suffixed by the letters Ltd (Limited Liability Company) and most US subsidiaries by the letters Inc. (Incorporated). A full list of subsidiaries can be found in Who owns Whom (vol.1 – UK & Ireland) available in the UK at most major libraries.”

Political Rant – Coffee Party Survey

I am a member of the Coffee Party – “Wake up and stand up!” Recently a poll was emailed to CP members, asking a yes/no vote on these two issues:

Should the Coffee Party focus on the role of Money in Politics?
Should the Coffee Party focus on reforming Wall Street to be more accountable to Main Street?

Of course both of these are important, even critical issues. But I wrote the following as a comment on the above:

Both of these issues are important, because as long as the moneyed interests/Big Biz control both the Republicans and Democrats, we will never get meaningful legislation to do much of anything.

However, ALL other issues pale when compared with global warming, aka catastrophic climate change! We have about a 10 year window to reverse the current trends. After that, we face the very real possibility of making the Earth uninhabitable, not only for humans, but for almost all living creatures.

GW is so big an issue, so abstract, that it’s hard to get people focused on what can be done. But local actions can make a tremendous difference. Recent studies have shown that a significant reduction in GW can be made by simply painting all the roofs in the world WHITE! The white paint reflects the Sun’s heat back up, just as polar ice does. Save the world (or help) with a coat of paint…

Here in NYC, there are many miles of flat roofs – just as there are in every major US city. What if all those (white) roofs had a roof garden, a solar cell array, and a vertical windmill? Imagine the change in air quality from miles of vegetation – go up on your roof, and pick some veggies for a salad. Reduce the demand for oil based electrical power by having each building generate part of its needed electricity.

Tax breaks for white roofs/roof gardens/PV arrays/windmills could create millions of new jobs that can NEVER be outsourced, as they must be done locally. The work is relatively simple, millions of people could be removed from the unemployment lines by giving them basic training. Using a paint brush is not rocket science. Erecting pre-fab windmills can be done easily, and how much expertise is needed to carpenter up soil beds for plants?

The reason these things are not being done more widely, is that there is no focus on them as a political agenda – and where there is, it is opposed by the entrenched money-blocs. But these could be key issues if they are approached correctly. Save the world, save the failing US economy, and while doing so, save/create a job for yourself, all at the same time.

If the Coffee Party made these relatively simple tasks a national priority, it might have an exponential effect. They are all non-partisan, logical, effective, and have an immediate positive effect, wherever they are implemented. They would also contribute greatly to the clout and credibility of the Coffee Party.

I urge everyone who gets this email to not only join the Coffee Party (it’s free), but also to advocate that these actions be taken, on a national, (and global), basis. You can start by forwarding this email to all your socially concerned friends.

Change never comes from the top down. It grows like a tree, from the roots up. We are the roots…

Thanks,

John Hechtman

http://www.zenarrow.com

“Computer help in NYC”
service 212-459-4323

Techy Tip – Vista vs. Win7?

Far too many people are currently suffering with that misbegotten excuse for an operating system known as Vista.  Up until recently, your only option was to endure the pain, or ‘downgrade’ to WinXP.

With the release of Win7, and good reports coming in about its performance, end users (EUs) now have a new option.  Yes, Win7 really is better than Vista (hey, that’s not hard).  There are however, still several things to consider:

1 – You absolutely MUST back up EVERYTHING you value from your computer before doing either an upgrade or a ‘clean install’ !

2 – Upgrades are never as stable or robust as a ‘clean install’ – which means to wipe your hard drive squeaky clean, and install Win7, followed by drivers, productivity software, and your data.  Tedious, but worthwhile…

3 – No matter what Micro$oft says, you’ll likely need more RAM – with 3 GB being tossed around as a happy balance between price and power.  Problem is, not all computers will accept that amount of memory.   The official M$ figure is 1 GB of RAM – which is only true if you like using a cyber-snail…  Some reports are now coming in of adequate performance using only 2 GB of RAM – but more is always better.

4 – I did mention drivers, right?  Be sure you can get valid Win7 drivers for all your peripherals before you try to upgrade.   Sound, video, Ethernet, printers, cameras, etc.

Bottom line?  If you have a computer running Vista, and you can pump the RAM up to 3 GB, go for Win7.  If you can only install 2 GB or less, revert to WinXP.  Be patient, organized, and attentive when doing your upgrade or install.  Make notes as you go along – it pays off big time!

My new blog…

Hi all – I’ve decided to start a blog for many of the usual reasons.  To improve my website’s search rank, to offer techy tips, to vent at the political madness that is occurring globally, to display some of my own writing, and to encourage contact and feedback from old friends and new.

Oops, there’s one more reason I started the blog – so people could ask me questions!  If you’ve got any reasonable question, technical, political, anything, I’ll try and answer it in as timely a manner as I can.  All bets are off when I get busy…

I hope that this collection of tips, tricks, rants, and art will be interesting and educational for all who visit.  Enjoy!