Blog Status

While the types of posts that I've been making on this blog haven't changed that much, other than adding more videos and music recently, I've sort of wandered away from literature, because I'm tired of it. For example, if I were to read a novel now, I don't have the slightest idea which one I might pick. I still enjoy biographies, especially about intellectuals and writers as far back as the 18th century, but only if they are substantive and well-written. To a large extent, actual people are more interesting to me than fictional people, probably because fictional characters are trapped in the imaginations of writers, and, therefore, whether you like it or not, they have a tendency to be one-dimensional. A real person can be as complex as the entire universe, and, if he or she is interesting at all, the amount of information available to a biographer may be enormous. What I've found from reading several biographies is that even if the author arbitrarily selects aspects of the subject that don't interest me much, I still have a chance to ponder previously unknown information. When some of the prejudices of a biographer find their way into their books, you may have the option of reading someone else's biography of the same person to get a second opinion. Even in cases where that option isn't available, I still tend to find real people more interesting than fictional people.

If biographies are my substitute for fiction, I am at somewhat of a dead end when it comes to science writing. My favorite area in science for many years has been evolution. After the structure of DNA was discovered, genes became the focal point. But genes are only part of the process, so the outlook is still murky. I like the idea that genes generally guide the evolution of a species, but usually aren't completely rigid. If they were, they might cause extinctions whenever there were minor environmental changes. The newer field of epigenetics explains how rapid physical changes can occur in a species without changing its genome. However, I have been questioning the whole idea of species, because, within a species, there may be many latent potentialities, and when you combine latent potentialities with variable or changing environments, there may be physically different organisms which belong to the same species. This means that there could be a species in one part of the world that is physically different from the same species in a different part of the world. When you add to this the general complexity of biological processes, the concept of a species comes to resemble an artificial construct, as in "science for dummies."

I should also note that we are living in an anti-scientific, dogmatic era, which often causes scientists to water-down or distort their findings. Scientists now have to survive not only in authoritarian regimes, where the leaders are scientifically illiterate and are often indifferent to scientific knowledge, but in academic environments, where dogmatic views on equality may pressure them to suppress all information that suggests that people are not identical and do in fact have different characteristics. Autocrats can purge scientists who disagree with them, and academic departments can remove scientists who recognize human differences. While I increasingly believe that "species" may not be a meaningful concept, I also question politically correct dogma that distorts the meaning of equality. As I've said before, "equality" really just means that people have equal rights under the law, not that they are identical in nature. I am supportive of what I think the prevailing view among scientists is: that "species" are closely related organisms, but within a species there may be a wide range of actual or potential characteristics. This is a prerequisite for human existence: over time, the process permits characteristics that were once neutral or slightly unfavorable to replace existing characteristics that are no longer suitable due to environmental changes. If you look at this in psychological and philosophical terms, people tend to invent various categories that don't necessarily conform to reality, and then, on top of that, they occasionally place things in the wrong category. I think that, in the natural world, most organisms exist on a continuum, which, actually, is a less-trendy word for "spectrum."

My current strategy is to continue to seek various scientific books in a rather haphazard fashion and hope that every once in a while there will be one that I like. I also plan to continue on my "Diary" posts. I may be writing more about AI, because we are already in the AI revolution. I notice it every day now when I do Google AI searches. Besides being extraordinarily time-saving, Google AI allows me to make complex inquiries that were not possible a couple of years ago. I now consider Wikipedia, Redditt and Quora obsolete. For general information, I still read 3 Quarks Daily and watch Backreaction videos occasionally, but I think that the information-gathering process is moving more to AI now. What I find at the moment is that Google AI is not technically intelligent yet, but it probably will be within a few years. I think that this sort of technology is already becoming revolutionary. 

The pageview count here keeps rising for no apparent reason, and was at 120,000 last month. I currently think that most of this may be search engine bots and AI crawlers. I probably am also increasing in human readers, but that count may still be relatively low. Fortunately, this is not intended to be a money-making enterprise, but other intellectually-oriented sites may be running into trouble soon. The internet has been dumbing down for years now, because that makes it more attractive to the masses.

Since I don't think that many people actually read this blog, you don't have to feel obligated to comment, but feel free to do so if you have something to say.