Being Human

In response to:How did Giordano Bruno die?

2013-05-31T10:22:49+02:00

I didnt know that they called a crater in honour of Giordano Bruno, I read about this scientist on this site - http://www.fampeople.com/cat-giordano-bruno

In response to:"To read is to fly" or the very best bits from A.C. Grayling

2013-05-23T15:07:17+02:00

Peter Gray puts it succinctly when he says - faith is the basis of all religions. Faith is believing without evidence. Believing without evidence is make belief. Make belief is play.
Thus we can understand religion as a form of play. To play and to think that it is real, is to be deluded ( from the Latin de ( from ) and Ludere ( to play ) The God Delusion means literally The God from Play. The playmate is an imaginary friend.

In response to:Why do I want to celebrate the birthday of a man like Christopher Hitchens?

2013-05-09T12:58:41+02:00

Thanks for your thoroughly considered and insightful response, that tells all about its author, but nothing about the subject matter.....

In response to:Why do I want to celebrate the birthday of a man like Christopher Hitchens?

2013-05-09T03:31:05+02:00

Pure and unadulterated nonsense!

In response to:Is freedom of choice an illusion?

2013-05-04T05:08:52+02:00

Rather than "yes or no," the answer is "mu": http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2012/01/mu-to-free-will.html

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-05-03T17:23:21+02:00

I will pray for you! Just kidding.

Reading your blogs and Facebook entries has been part of my daily routine for about four years. Specifically, your posts were a catalyst for me to learning more about Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius.

Thank you for helping to enrich my life in the past and for years to come. I plan on continuing to read old posts in the future for however long this site remains.

Regards from Canada

In response to:Do we still need metaphysics?

2013-05-02T01:33:56+02:00

That's a rather narrow (Anglo-American-analytic) understanding of metaphysics you have there.

In response to:Do we still need metaphysics?

2013-05-01T23:04:15+02:00

It depends, what you mean with metaphysics!

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-04-26T20:14:35+02:00

Greetings, Jaakko - I only just discovered your blog through Philippe van Nedervelde's Facebook timeline, where he recently shared your article comparing Jesus of Nazareth and Marcus Aurelius. I have been aware of Aurelius for years, and recently purchased Frank McLynn's "Marcus Aurelius: Warrior, Philosopher, Emperor." I share your admiration for classical philosophy and dismay at the most unfortunate and pervasive Christian contamination of such for the past two millennia.

In light of your impending death, I invite you to consider cryonics. The Alcor Life Extension Foundation is the most advanced provider, with a minimum expense of $80,000. However, the Cryonics Institute, in Clinton Township, Michigan, charges much less - $28,000 for human cryopreservation, and KrioRus, outside Moscow, charges $10,000. A life insurance policy can be used to fund suspension, and indeed, most cryonicists use life insurance to fund their policies.

I met a young woman, Kim Suozzi, at the fortieth anniversary conference of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, in October of 2012. She entered cryostasis in January of 2013, after deanimating (dying) of glioblastoma multiforme at 23. She was an irreligious neuroscience student who took the view that while the chance of revival from cryosuspension may be slim, she had nothing to lose. She joins approximately 230 other cryonauts, going back to professor of psychology James Bedford (1893-1967), suspended in liquid nitrogen and time, awaiting resuscitation through sophisticated nanotechnology, supercomputational cryptography, and biomedical engineering of perhaps the 22nd century.

There is no guarantee of success, but computational neuroscientist Sebastian Seung of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is not involved in cryonics, believes the procedure confers a slim but nonzero possibility of revival. Patients can wait as long as necessary - even a thousand years or more - for the necessary resuscitation technologies to be developed.

Like Philippe - who is involved with Dmitry Itskov's Global Future 2045 Initiative for cybernetic radical life extension - I am a transhumanist, and anticipate an extropian future of superabundance, space travel, and freedom from bodily limitations. While organizations and projects such as 2045, Dr. Aubrey de Grey's Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, Dr. Henry Markram's Blue Brain Project, the Human Connectome Project, Dr. Kenneth Hayworth's Brain Preservation Foundation (on the advisory board of which serves Dr. Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society), Dr. Randal Koene's carboncopies, the Gerontology Research Group cofounded by Drs. L. Stephen Coles and Steven M. Kaye, Dr. Anders Sandberg of Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, Dr. Greg Fahy of 21st Century Medicine, Aschwin and Chana de Wolf of Advanced Neural Biosciences, and many others pursue various methods of retarding aging and preserving life, cryonics is the only option currently available to those whose clinical deaths are imminent.

Cryonicists distinguish between clinical, legal death and information-theoretic death. Observing that the definition of death continues to evolve as medical science advances (you may be aware of the ongoing, pioneering work of Dr. Sam Parnia), cryonicists believe discarding people after legal death is irresponsible, as far-future medical advances may be able to reverse the damage caused by the cryopreservation process, but will never (short of purely speculative "quantum archaeology") be able to reverse the complete destruction inflicted by burial or cremation.

Cryonics is oft-derided as an irrational procedure for narcissists unable to accept their mortality. We chose to view it as simply conservative medicine - why not take one last longshot before going quietly into oblivion? Cryonics attracts those with a deep appreciation for the scientific spirit of comprehension and mastery over natural processes, and a "very ardent desire" to see the future of humanity, as we leave the cradle of the Earth and ascend the Kardashev scale into the stars...

Some links:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8691489/Robert-Ettinger-the-father-of-cryonics-is-gone-for-now.html
http://www.alcor.org/blog/?p=2504 (Alcor founder Fred Chamberlain)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ettinger (founder of cryonics)
http://www.transtime.com/cryintro/cryfather.htm (Benjamin Franklin's vision)
http://youtu.be/vy7YbqUxcvk (Alcor on Spanish television)
http://youtu.be/bb07pKsCOjI (a short animation of the cryopreservation process)
http://youtu.be/I4rI4XxBxO4 (Dr. Max More speaking on cryonics)

In response to:Could everyone have a philosophy and even a religion of their own?

2013-04-26T13:15:55+02:00

I agree. I was raised a Christian and then rejected organized religion when I turned 30, becoming a militant atheist. Recently I have studied Taoism and more recently Epicurus. I consider myself a follower of both.

I think many non-church going christians do this also, choosing to pick a handful of biblical morals to live by, and I am cool with that. I prefer that than dogmatic blind following of organized religion.

In response to:Was Jesus really a greater thinker than Marcus Aurelius?

2013-04-26T09:25:54+02:00

Did you know that stocism is the philosophy closest to Buddhism? I myself am a Buddhist too, and I find Marcus Aurelius to be of good help for my journey.

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-04-24T02:53:23+02:00

Jaakko,
I am so happy that I had the opportunity (through Luc) to learn about you and your blog. I have thoroughly enjoyed the quotes that you've posted on the Karl Popper page and I have also greatly enjoyed perusing your articles. There is nothing more beautiful in this world than an honest thought and there is no better testament to Humanity than to have questioned and searched, wondered and asked, thought and shared. People are afraid of sharing their thoughts and ideas and I believe that is one of the greatest evils to befall us. No sharing, no communication, no honesty in speech and no honesty in self reflection. Thank you for *not* being like that. Thank you, thank you, thank you .... and wishing you peace.

In response to:Can philosophy replace religions as a source of moral guidance?

2013-04-22T23:24:09+02:00

"During the past couple hundreds of years, the Christian European state churches have been wise enough to bow away always when new information has been discovered. However, at first also the western churches did all of their power in a try to stop the tidal rise of science and the rise of real, accurate information with it."

....first also the western churches did all of their power in a try to stop the tidal rise of science and the rise of real, accurate information with it.

This is not true!

Christianity had an important impact on every step of the road to modern science. Let me now summarise exactly what they were:

The preservation of literacy in the Dark Ages

Because it is a literary religion based on sacred texts and informed by the writings of the early church fathers, Christianity was exclusively responsible for the preservation of literacy and learning after the fall of the Western Empire. This meant not only that the Latin classics were preserved but also that their were sufficient men of learning to take Greek thought forward when it was rediscovered.

The doctrine of the lawfulness of of nature

As they believed in a law abiding creator God, even before the rediscovery of Greek thought, twelfth century Christians felt they could investigate the natural world for secondary causes rather than put everything down to fate (like the ancients) or the will of Allah (like Moslems). Although we see a respect for the powers of reason by Arab scholars they did not seem to make the step of looking for universal laws of nature.

The need to examine the real world rather than rely on pure reason

Christians insisted that God could have created the world any way he like and so Aristotle's insistence that the world was the way it was because it had to be was successfully challenged. This meant that his ideas started to be tested and abandoned if they did not measure up.

The belief that science was a sacred duty

This is not so much covered in this essay, but features again and again in scientific writing. The early modern scientists were inspired by their faith to make their discoveries and saw studying the creation of God as a form of worship. This led to a respect for nature and the attempt to find simple, economical solutions to problems. Hence Copernicus felt he could propose a heliocentric model for no better reason that it seemed more elegant.

Not all these factors were unique to Christianity but they all came together in Western Europe to give the world its only case of scientific take off which has since seen its ideas spread to the rest of the world. An learned examination of why other civilisations failed to make the leap forward can be found here.

http://bede.org.uk/sciencehistory.htm#conclusion

Albert Einstein: ”The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field. The work of James Clerk Maxwell changed the world forever.”

Max Planck: ”He achieved greatness unequalled.”

Richard Feynman: ”From a long view of the history of mankind — seen from, say, ten thousand ...years from now — there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics.”

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell

In response to:Could everyone have a philosophy and even a religion of their own?

2013-04-21T23:04:36+02:00

Jesse, you are naturally entitled to your opinion, but I am entitled to say that it is a quite narrow and limited opinion. Take the trashes on your way out, please....

In response to:Could everyone have a philosophy and even a religion of their own?

2013-04-21T19:08:21+02:00

Everything said on this website is ridiculous and I hear about it because I "liked" rationality on facebook. Epicureanism is a pretty limited mindset that is too inflexible to be anything close to a functional philosophy for an intelligent open-minded person. I don't understand the worship of the Greeks by some people. Philosophies are too inflexible and are a cop out of thinking through each situation by itself to come to the best solution. If you don't want to think then enjoy the "secular sermons".

In response to:Why not all atheists are nice?

2013-04-20T08:46:00+02:00

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/boston-bombings-lead-multiple-muslim-revenge-attacks/64392/#.UXIHuH0Knj0.facebook

This article shows what spreading hate and insults leads to... We are all human beings, for a short time on this planet, let us help each other and try to learn from each other. I do not see how spreadng hate and insulting other people could lead to a better world.

In response to:Did the Soviet Communists copy the operating manuals of the Catholic Church?

2013-04-19T23:47:54+02:00

"It has been suggested many times by many authors that Bolsheviks did, in fact, copy many important things and features straight from the organizational structure and operating manuals of the Catholic church."

Could you please tell me which authors and which books are you referring to?
I'm really interested in this topic but somehow I barely found anything worth reading online.

In response to:Why not all atheists are nice?

2013-04-19T20:32:12+02:00

Nice to see the video, Jaakko...

In response to:Why not all atheists are nice?

2013-04-19T20:17:41+02:00

Immanuel Kant was a genius. He believed in god. This proves that it is not necessary for people to believe in god ánd be stupid. People who believe in god are more often than not the victim of indoctrination. It is morally wrong to insult them for this or to discriminate against them. The "racism" (which should probably not be called racism, because it is not based on race, but on religion) against muslim people in my country and the neigbouring countries is comparable to what happened with the jews before WWII. Calling people "goatfuckers" is NOT good publicity for atheïsm. I also have a hard time to believe that some people don't know that Islamophobia really exists...

In response to:Why not all atheists are nice?

2013-04-19T20:00:47+02:00

I agree with you....however to measure ones correctness by the current standard and then act officious is hilarious. Men are fools, to me the bible is a large book of creation myths more correctly saved and conserved by a Hebraic tradition. As always everything is stupid when taken out of context....for instance ive never seen a smart mathematician be dumb as hell and survive on the gusto of his calculations, nor have I ever seen a man reading endless books...like myself...grow a crop..so lets not jump to conclusions, for conclusions are for those who have something to conclude.

In response to:Why not all atheists are nice?

2013-04-19T19:43:40+02:00

This article is kind of ridiculous. I was never religious either. Yes it is unfriendly to call theists stupid but that doesn't mean they aren't stupid. Ignorant and uninformed imply they just never heard the opposing arguments. Stupid is just the just cold hard truth because these people can't decipher between logic and nonsense. They may have parts of them that aren't stupid such as mathematics but they are still stupid in a certain domain which entails stupid as quite fitting. It's not socially productive to constantly tell them they are but it doesn't mean it's not truth in the definition of the word. It is certainly easier for us to pretend they are just like us if we had a religious upbringing but if you talk to them you can always find other areas of that demonstrate the same type of poor critical thinking. The word stupid means: Lacking intelligence or common sense.

In response to:Why not all atheists are nice?

2013-04-19T18:37:38+02:00

Who are we as humans to determine the laws of rationality, by mere observation of senses and to declare ourselves deserved of some type of frivolous and ridiculous freedom. I have watched the world take place and it is both the lack of and the existence of religion working in conjunction, and not simply a movement by various facades. people are people and they will act like people, indignation is a response, I as a really dumb or rather stupid believer in Grace understand this to be true, I however remained to be convinced that atheism like many ism's can do a thing for the republic of man or the mind of man,other than perpetuate itself and temporarily give the same illusion of freedom which religion provides. For instance if one is against proselytization why is it that I hear more and more atheist especially the ones with nothing to say running there mouths as if they had found an unhatched dragon egg, when in reality Dali and so many others have said many of these things post internet and now they are being reiterated to a more ridiculous and gullible generation of humans to which I find myself shamed to belong. I have a stance I am not amorphous , however I do not hate people for what they believe, nor will I ever base a mans intelligence on what he believes. Like alice says she believes at least three impossible things before breakfast .....why not......the believing in the history given us through generations is a form of faith is it not???

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-04-18T02:10:39+02:00

Sad to see you go, but happy that you go with dignity and grace.
Anyway, you only had a lend of it, the time comes when you have to give it back, time to pour your few drops back into the ocean of the eternal.
You will shine on for some time in our thoughts and memories -until we too return.
Thanks for al the great articles; as a small return I give you this: (smile enclosed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-04-18T00:31:18+02:00

Hello Jaakko, finding this blog was one of the best things to happen to me during 2011.
All this time it's been a wonderful source of inspiration and insight, and it makes me sad to think we won't be able to enjoy another 10 years of greatness.

It's been a great pleasure reading it. And I'll be happy to share its contents in the future.

In response to:"The wonderful joy of just being alive" or some thoughts on human life

2013-04-17T18:04:16+02:00

I don't know & you don't either who,how,when and where we are at all ? as if it seems that we are in the middle of some where while we are in actuality in the middle of nowhere.

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-04-17T11:22:09+02:00

I'm so sorry, and I really feel deeply sad, about hearing you leave ...! Really!

I was enjoying everything you ever wrote, you ever said or do.

First I heard of Christopher Hitchens (DEC 2011) "leaving" this world but still remaining in our secular, humanist, minds and "souls" (I hope you noticed my quotes).
After that was Paul Kurtz (OCT 2012) - that american skeptic, secular humanist, the founder of CSICOP (the actual CSI - Committee for Skeptical Inquiry), Prometheus Books and the philosopher and writer of Humanist Manifesto.

And now ... now ... another of my hero.

Jaakko Wallenius - which I enjoyed so much reading with a lot of fun, enthusiasm.. all of his posts (blogs, facebook.. and others)

Nice meeting you! And you will be remembered! :)
Take care! :) ;)

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-04-17T00:51:54+02:00

What can I say but thanks to you Ronja. I do not know how much I time left, as my doctor would not want give me any kind of estimate. A extremely sad fact is that the my creative powers are almost gone already and it is extremely rarely that I have strength to write anything longer.
However, I am proud of the 434 little outbursts of thought that I have published in this blog and I really, badly want them to be preserved in such a way that they will not end up in vault, but are easily accessible to anyone. And again, thanks for your extremely kind words, Ronja.

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-04-16T22:01:32+02:00

Time well spent Jaakko, time well spent. I would have to say you have done more than try. Although I have never met you in person I consider you a great friend. Thank You for your voice. I'll happily give it breath when yours has ceased.

"That which dies does not drop out of the world. Here it remains; and here too, therefore, it changes and is resolved into its several particles; that is, into the elements which go to form the universe and yourself."

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-04-16T21:12:44+02:00

Jaska, I have not commented on your posts often even on Facebook, and it is quite likely that I have never commented here before. It is kinda difficult to comment when one agrees so much all the time. Despite of that relative lack of feedback, you have touched my life in many positive ways and every time I have seen a post by you on FB since the news of your cancer, I have been happy and relieved: Jaska is still around.

I hope that your time left will be as painless and enjoyable as possible. I will enjoy the remainder of our shared cyberspace and miss you with fond memories when you are dead. If at all possible, I hope that this blog will stay up for us to read and new readers to find. Every new atheist needs their "Sam Harris", and you have been a part of mine.

In response to:Is it finally time to say goodbye?

2013-04-16T19:57:04+02:00

Hi Jaakko,

Have little to add, but think you made the most of your time in the sun. Pointless & meaningless it may be, but this life is preferable to the religious alternative of mindless servitude.

Fare thee well, Bruce