I’m a free thinker… although most of the time I shut up, and so far there has not been much “soapboxing” on this blog

I am an atheist but I still believe a few things (in no particular order, what I could think of just now)
* the wonder for life and the universe
* the value and dignity of people, at all ages and in all cultures
* the value of education, knowledge and skills, and that we need to try to excel and we need to try to help others develop and excel in what makes them feel fulfilled
* the value of imagination and creativity, and what it does for the human spirit and society
* the value of craft and skill, and a belief that they are undervalued in our day and age
* the value of originality and diversity, non comformism and challenging received ideas
* a belief that people can organise and take care of themselves if just given the space and opportunity (although that can take time)
* a strong rejection of the idea that injustice and inequality are a normal thing and that it would cost societe too dearly to do anything about it

One thing that strikes me over and over is how it takes so little to allow people to interact and empower themselves… and so little to treat them like numbers and shut them off. I believe that at some level people are able to empower themselves, organise themselves, but that a lot of things in modern life combine to try to keep up distracted, dizzy, upset about non-news that hide the real issues, manipulated and disenfranchised.
Now I dont mean there’s a conspiracy, I think it just happened over time… but this state of affairs does benefit a lot of people.

So yes, I get really annoyed at all these things in the world that try to prevent us from thinking for ourselves, feed us belief and opinion and trying to prevent us from questioning and applying critical thought… As a result I’m a bit of a debater and I like playing devil’s advocate, because no opinion is ever 100% right, and forcing people to clarify their thinking and justify their ideas is always good… I especially like challenging common platitudes, and received opinions, the kind of things people say without ever thinking about it, the thoughts we were “fed” to think.

And I get really wound up when I see all the things in the world today which seem to be dedicated to suppressing people’s curiosity and their ability to learn and question, create and think for themselves… all the messages out there dumbing people down, especially children and young people, telling us the world is too complicated for peons like us, leave it to the technocrats, culture is too high for normal people, leave it to the specialist… Well I am a technocrat and you know what, rocket science is not *that* complicated…

We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.

John Wheeler died yesterday - I nearly got tears in my eyes reading this tribute: http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/04/13/goodbye/

I’m sadder than I can quite understand about this. Partly because of the tribute, and partly probably because of the part of me that still hasn’t grieved the loss of my dream of science. What it describes here is the inspiration, wonder and excitement of research is the reason I went into physics in the first place.

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Something I have had long discussions about, with several close friends who tend to be on the other side of the argument. Seems the topic is warm again!

are new mathematical truths discovered or invented? http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/31392/title/Still_debating_with_Plato

If anyone cares I’m squarely on the invented side of the argument.

I don’t buy the concept of absolute ideas that are somehow in a different sphere - and I dont buy the challenge which says that it is proven wrong by the fact that so many different people and cultures come up with the same concepts.

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It was part of my “new year” resolution that I would use what I have - by that I meant

- read books I already own that I havent read, or reread books I havent read in a while, instead of buying new stuff
- play games I own that I never finished or barely started, instead of buying new games
- watch DVDs I own, and catch good films on TV, instead of buying more

I have done pretty well on the book front, not buying many this year (all right, I think I did buy about 30, but almost all used and many reference books), doing a lot of swapping, and reading quite a few books.
I have also done ok on the games, revisiting games like “Might and Magic 6”, “Evil Islands”, Galactic Civilisations, Disciples 2, and keeping playing WoW and Guild Wars.

It’s all about enjoying what one has, and reducing the amount of wasted stuff in my life.

But I can do better, so here’s a challenge I am setting myself:

Each week I will do the following
1) read a book I have owned for more than 1 year. I will alternate fiction (easier) and non fiction. I will blog about it here.
2) play an old game I havent played in 1 year, or ever, and blog my impressions
3) watch one of my old DVDs and blog about it
4) spend some time on one of the million web2.0/community sites that I registered for and never did anything, blog about it, and decide whether to dump it or not

I will also do a similar pledge about discovering new things, but that is another post and another challenge