Second Post (deeper thoughts)

This picture caught my eye the other day because it reflects how I have been thinking about my life for the past few weeks. I've been having a lot of trouble choosing a 2nd year program, and I feel if I choose "wrongly", I will be in the same position as this game of tetris. This gets me thinking. Is there any one "right" path? Since our lives are so obviously controlled by chance and forces outside of our domain (think about how one small change in your past could've completely transformed who you are today), is one choice really any better than another? Humans are absolutely terrible at predicting the future for anything more than a few seconds ahead. The neurological processes associated with simulating the future also lead to very interesting cognitive biases as our psychological heuristics are set up for speed rather than accuracy. An example is the "Appeal to Probability" logical fallacy where people have this blurry idea that if something can happen, it probably will (not really knowing what "probably" even means). I mention this because I have a firm belief that anyone with an elementary understanding of math should not be playing the lottery (pet peeve). Back to the future (and our inadequacy of predicting it), since no one can know the ultimate effect of any of their actions (is there such a thing as an ultimate effect?), morality can only exist within certain specified periods or time. This seems like a bit of a flaw since our society is built upon the notion of free will and people being held responsible for their actions which is difficult to imagine without a concept of ultimate morality thrown in the mix.

Anyways, I ramble, I guess what it all comes down to is whether we control our lives or something else does. From a biological point of view, every system we see (systems of organisms/species/ecosystems) are governed by their own self-organizing rules. We can easily see patterns of behavior in all animals, which really throws the concept of "random" out the window. What confuses me is why people try to treat themselves as if they are separate from nature. *Mini-rant: the whole global warming fiasco, which is now coming down to corporations "going green" and making some extra cash, people trying to save endangered species, and the disillusioned cries of morons saying "we're destroying the planet" all piss me off. While I do have a lot to say on the topic, there is no way I can say it better than George Carlin. *Rant over

So if we take our observations about nature and apply them to ourselves, which is only logical considering we came from nature, we would see (as we have already) that we are nothing more than a more complex self-organizing/replicating system. The question here is are we really part of nature? In "The Matrix", Agent Smith tells Morpheus that humans are a virus. That they don't fit with the planet like the other animals, but rather mimic the behavior of our tiny single-celled friends. In the end, it doesn't really matter (which makes me wonder why I wrote that lol), whether we originated on this planet or elsewhere, the Big Question still stands. I say question, because I believe that all big philosophical debates really boil down to this one mystery. Free Will vs. Determinism.

My rather long-winded point is, I have no idea what I want/need/have/am meant to do. So for now, I'm just trying to go with the flow. Okay, since I'm not sure how to finish this post or where I was headed to begin with, I'll end with a quote from Bill Hicks:

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the Weather."
-Bill Hicks

Sorry for the rather heavy topic today, and my slightly irrational writing, this is what happens when I start writing as soon as I get out of bed.
-Murday

PS. This is kinda cool
Oldest Stash of Marijuana Ever