Inbalance

On one side of the globe there are so many in need of so much, while on the other side of the globe educated persons get depressed because there is no sense to their lives. What do we learn from that?

Biotristesse

There is something wrong with organic (food) shops. They are just not funny. Neither the people, nor the lay-out. Rather than meeting a happy folk eating healthy food, I see a bunch of grumpy and frustrated people, aged 35+, cruising though austere food rows. There is something like a silent accusation in the air. I wonder why.

3-Dimensional Language

Language is a tedious thing. I've always these wonderfully meaningful 3D picture of things (objects, issues, facts) and their links (causal, temporal, spatial) in my mind. It's all clear and reassuringly contained. But to communicate this 'sensogram', I need to squeeze it into the one-dimensional tube that is our language. Too much reduction, so much frustration, and a lot of misunderstanding. We really need a 3D communication system!

Parallel Evolution

Inspecting the beautiful palaeolithic cave art of the Chauvet Cave, scientists are shaken in their believes: How come that these drawing are as -or even more- skilful than paintings from civilisations that flourished 10-15,000 years later? Is something must be wrong with the dating of the paintings!

Inspecting the increasingly complete fossil record, it is now established for many developments that the view of a linear evolution needs to be supplanted by an iterative evolution of "developmental homoplasies and convergent ecological specialisations". Evolution is characterised by consecutive waves of radiation of species (many of which dead-end groups) into the same ecological niches - and not by an orderly step-by-step advancement.

Are humans part of nature, after all?

The French Disconnection

The French are convinced to live in the most beautiful country, the have the best food, and the most beautiful women; they work less than other nations, but have more holidays, and spent an awful amount of time on their favourite hobby: extramarital seduction and sex. Yet, despite all this, they use three times more antidepressants than any other nation. What do we learn from that?

Mirror-me

Every day we inspect ourself in a mirror, see our mirror image in shop windows, car mirrors etc., and we identify ourself with what we see. However, what we see corresponds to the mirror image of ourself, and since left and right halves of a human face are never the same, we have a different perception of ourself than what everyone else sees. On a global scale, are there effects of this?

Our own Holocene mass extinction

Our brain, which is too big for our body, excessively exalts emotions. Simultaneously, it creates self-awareness, and self awareness ultimately leads to a hedonotropic behaviour, where pleasure seeking -i.e. the satisfaction of emotion- becomes the central motivation for action, not success. Is that why humanoid intelligence has never been developed before us - because it is a catch 22 unsustainable condition for an organism? After only about 200,000 years of existence, Homo sapiens has caused a mass extinction event that, if it continues at its current pace, is predicted to wipe out half of all species within the next century. Is that how the short story of Homo sapiens, error of evolution, is to end?

Egocentricity

What if China's authoritarian capitalism provides a much better economical system than Western liberal capitalism? Is a people more powerful if it acts as one organism, disregarding individual misery? Is a society where individual happiness primes over global success sustainable? And if not, will it be supplanted by better working models in the future? European leaders have lost the mean of directing their people through unconditional patriotism and religion. And Europe loses possibilities to export productive misery. Do we need to fool all the people all the time?

Shop 'n pub

While waiting for over 30 min in front of the changing cabinets of H&M's female section, holding one of my wife's potential thongs (yellow), I was wondering why large cloth shops don't symbiose with pubs. Using a special display over the bar, one could enjoy a beer and the company of other mistreated males, while supporting one's partner's shopping. "Here's your lager, sir, and let me just remind you that your wife requests your comments - she's on monitor five now, wearing the same shirt in S, rather then XS."

Ballerina Camouflage

Just remembered how I felt like John Wayne, like a true cowboy, when I had to wear that gun on my belt for that 24h of duty at the military base entry gate during my military service, back in '89. I hated the military service, and I hated feeling like a cowboy because of that gun, but it's the crown that makes the king.
Human minds go both ways, and I just wondered what would happen if all armed forces had to wear, say, pink ballerina dresses, or full-body picachu gowns. How much violence would this take away from armed conflicts?

Lost man

I wish Feynman would have been a Molecular Biophysicist.

Holy Week

Sorry, must be my holy week... but here's another one: Was just wondering who of the persons on which major religions are based would be least depressed seeing what mankind has made out of - and justified with - their original teachings. Jesus? Mohammed? Siddhārtha? My personal guess would be the latter.

To ben or not to ben

Oh and by the way (see previous posting), I just wonder how Jesus would feel like now, seeing that he, called Jeshua ben Josef (=Jeshua, son of Josef) will be remembered as Jesus, son of God. On top, he was born in year 1, meaning that he was one year younger as the Calendar that was created after him.

Jeshua not ben Josef

For people to believe that Jesus was God's son - rather than Josef's - there must have not been a significant resemblance between them. Thus, if we manage to find out how Jesus looked like, we would be able to say how Josef did not look like. I'm not sure if this insight would present a significant advance of science...

The Dark Ages

Medieval times are a synonym for warfare and torture. However this epoch is full of examples of multicultural, multi-ethnic communities living peacefully together, tolerating each other's religions. Today, wars and torture remain, whereas multicultural centers are hard to find. Where are the dark ages?

Multi-Me

I tried to imagine what a world would be like where every single human being has exactly my character. A painful exercise.

Mona Lisa Unnoticed

Been at the Louvre. The Mona Lisa is the most photographed but least watched of all famous paintings. When finally in front of that most enigmatic painting, most visitors turn their back to the lady, and smile for the camera. Others only visualise her through the little screen of their digital camera, and obstinently try to get a picture of her. Once that's done they don't bother looking at her, and bugger off, satisfied.

The Farts of Freedom

In our overcrowded yet sophisticated society, it would be good to have a special type of toilet music that allows to cover elegantly our unpolite cabinet sonorities. Needs a solid analysis, to determine a histogram of frequencies humans produce on the loo, to be matched with exisiting pieces of music, so to allow a maximum cover with minimum dezibels. I guess some brass-music dominated Wagnerish orchestra music, tribal drum-based chants, or thus spoke zarathustra orgue music could be suitable. Constipation is a modern problem that should not be understimated!

Farts of God

Saw a film about Kamikaze. A sad sad film. Kamikaze means "Wind of Gods". In reality, these young soldiers were rather "Farts of the vain Emperor", an arrogant and mad man, who just wouldn't want to admit that he had lost the war. They were useless farts of the Emperor, who abused of their loyalty, and they knew it when they boarded their old planes for their last flight.

Summernight Mares

Why do mosquitoes wait until you wake up, before they go buzzing about your ears, to wreck your nerves and your sleep, and then sting you - even though some of them might end up smashed against the wall? That's anti-Darwin! Mosquitoes should have evolved to bite you when you sleep, and fly silently to avoid alarming you. Yet they don't. I actually have noticed that when you use earplugs, then you don't get bitten any more! Which means mosquitoes are sadistic little creatures in a mission from hell. But aren't we all?