Tag Archives: Francis H.C. Crick

Trapped in porcine orbs of vision….

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Ffolkes,
Herein is set forth the last will and testament of Ned Russell Moore…. Not really, but it is, perhaps, fitting to begin today’s Pearl with that opening line. I am now, as of some hours ago this morning, sixty-two (62) years old, or young, take your pick. The opening line is actually there as a reminder, that I have yet to take care of that little chore, i.e., making a will. Being a non-materialist for virtually all my life (I decided at age 12 I had no interest in getting rich…. seriously, that’s when it happened, because I remember making a conscious decision about it, as it kind of determined the path I would take, academically….), I won’t have a lot to leave, but, there are personal items to bequeath to my children, such as my father’s bronze star, and my books, and hopefully, before I check out, I’ll have saved some of the money I’ll make between now and the fateful day….. which, I hope, is still another 30 or 40 years away. With today’s medical knowledge, that is a distinct possibility, provided my own physical condition doesn’t get any worse than it already is….

It’s funny, in a way…. all my life I’ve never made enough to save a lot of money…. and have been successful at that, having thus far saved none, in fact,  other than the money that went into my retirement and SS accounts, and that was taken out before I saw it, so I’m not sure it really counts as savings. I have always believed that “if you wish a life full of trouble, fill your house with treasures,” so the accumulation of gelt never attracted me very much. I do like to make enough to be comfortable, with an occasional foray into luxury, but the acquisition of a lot of property just never appealed to me. I guess that makes me a bit different than most Americans, who seem to enjoy the piling up of stuff they’ll never be able to use in the next life, or often, even in this one….. makes no sense to me….

“The supreme irony of life is hardly anyone ever gets out of it alive.” — Robert Heinlein

Aha! Eureka! He said, happily…. sorry, silliness seems so appropriate today, somehow…. Any who, while searching for pearls, I found one that explains my whole problem, and gives me a solution, all at once. Gotta love that real wisdom when it rears its ugly if welcome head, right? It’s like this….

“The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.” — Mark Twain

See? Perfect…. This is why it has all gone the way it has, and shows clearly the way to fix whatever may be wrong with it. Of course, that’s assuming there is something wrong with it, “it” being all the stuff I write. Of late, I’ve been less than totally thrilled with the quality, of the material,  of the discussion…. it all seems redundant, or repetitive, which, is, obviously, proof of that part of the assumption, if nothing else. Maybe I need some new subjects to discuss…. I’ll have to think about that…. I had thought that discussing Life, Society, Philosophy, and so forth would pretty much cover the bases, but I’m thinking I need something more down to earth, or lighter in nature, perhaps…. Ah me, the choices are endless, thank goodness…

As you can see, the introspection part of the birthday program has already begun, even though I spent some time at it already. I should probably save some of it for the pearls, rather than using up a bunch of good thoughts in this intro, but, hey, this only happens once a year, thankfully, so I don’t mind splurging a bit. It’ll all come out in the wash, so to speak….. I have yet to find any good material about which to expound, but, since I’ve been very productive already today (you didn’t even notice that I slipped out to go to the grocery store, did you?…. Hah!….), I can afford a bit of slack…. better up my meds though, I can feel the stiffness building…. no worries…. Shall we Pearl?…..
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T’is now almost 1030, and it has already been a very busy little day for me…. For reasons which I’ll not go into now, I got up early to go to the grocery store, and was back here by 0845, sweaty but unbowed, and still with time to work on a Pearl…. I’ve been dutifully doing that since then, and fell pretty accomplished, all in all, having written some decent prose, percolated a bit of poetry, and researched, formatted, and put together a very nice Art Deco pearl…. so, we are going for an old school pearl here…. they are less time consuming all in all, and require less pure cogitation on my part, since there is distinctly less original material to include…. Any who, all excuses and rationalizations aside, here is a pearl to think about, as it directs your mind hither and thither through the realms of madness and reality…. all at once, hopefully, because Life tastes better in Big Bites!….

“One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false.  If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.” — Francis H.C. Crick

“Too many people have decided that perfection is boring, preferring a mess that supports their habits instead of a quest that challenges them, but what they forget is that while perfection may be boring the quest for it never is for it reveals the human and the divine inside of us.” — Callan Williams

“I live in my own place have never copied nobody even half, and at any master who lacks the grace to laugh at himself — I laugh.”
— inscribed over the door to Friedrich Nietzsche’s house

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.” — H.H. the Dalai Lama

“All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.” — Federico Fellini
(So THAT’S what I’m doing here!….. Writing the autobiography of an oyster…. hmmm….)

“{I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.” — Garrison Keillor
(Now I know why this show was so popular with middle America….)

Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. — Things We Can Learn From Dogs

Well, there’s an eclectic group of pearls, eh, what? I’m not sure just what my subconscious mind was shooting for, but, I have to assume it knows and we’ll let it slide this time…. maybe next time, it will make it a bit more obvious, eh?…… I think it all works, anyway, even if I’m unsure of its precise purpose and meaning…. I guess that makes it a good metaphor for life…..
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The poem I’m gestating is stalled today…. couldn’t get it even a line further on toward completion. Oh well, you, and I, will just have to settle for whatever I come up with via Google when I get to the internet this morning…. let’s see, whom shall we persecute, er, sorry, peruse, today?….. Ah, here is one that appeals to that introspection of which I have spoken…. Enjoy!

A Dialogue Of Self And Soul

i{My Soul} I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
‘Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul
i{My Self}. The consecrates blade upon my knees
Is Sato’s ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady’s dress and round
The wooden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn
i{My Soul.} Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematical of love and war?
Think of ancestral night that can,
If but imagination scorn the earth
And intellect is wandering
To this and that and t’other thing,
Deliver from the crime of death and birth.
i{My self.} Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it
Five hundred years ago, about it lie
Flowers from I know not what embroidery —
Heart’s purple — and all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier’s right
A charter to commit the crime once more.
i{My Soul.} Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
i{Is} from the i{Ought,} or i{knower} from the i{Known — }
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue’s a stone.
i{My Self.} A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure that toil of growing up;
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
The unfinished man and his pain
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;
The finished man among his enemies? —
How in the name of Heaven can he escape
That defiling and disfigured shape
The mirror of malicious eyes
Casts upon his eyes until at last
He thinks that shape must be his shape?
And what’s the good of an escape
If honour find him in the wintry blast?
I am content to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man’s ditch,
A blind man battering blind men;
Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
The folly that man does
Or must suffer, if he woos
A proud woman not kindred of his soul.
I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.

William Butler Yeats
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_____oOOo_=^..^=_oOOo_____ — The cats ARE watching… — Smart Bee

No deep concept here…. I just thought this was cute, as well as creative. I miss my cat, Tony, who lived with Noah and I for several years…. He thought Noah was his big brother, and followed him around everywhere. When Noah got old, and it got hard for him to get up the stairs where we lived, Tony would walk behind Noah, batting at his butt with his paws to encourage and help him get him up the steps. His favorite place to sleep was cuddled up to Noah, too. Once, when Noah was feeling a bit stiff, and feeling his age, Tony walked up to him, sniffed gently at his ear, then gave him a couple of head bumps, then a couple licks on the muzzle, before settling in next to him, where he lay next to him and purred for hours…. He really loved ol’ Noah, Tony did….

I’m going to go for what I call an Art Deco pearl here…. below are some quotes about cats, and some very fine pictures that show the many sides of Cat…..

“The only mystery about the cat is why it ever decided to become a domestic animal.” — Compton MacKenzie, “Cats’ Company”

“A man who carries a cat by the tail is learning a valuable lesson. He’ll never be dim, or doubtful. Chances are he won’t carry the cat that way again, but, I say, if he wants to, let him!” — Mark Twain
In ancient Egypt, cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this. — Smart Bee
    And, how can we not love an animal who starts out life like this?…..
    I believe these pictures were all found on Facebook…. including this perfect picture to bid thee adieu!….
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“Hi there!  This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person reading this note, that I can’t think up any more famous quotes, jokes,  nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home.” — Smart Bee

Ack! Nooooooo! It can’t be true…. Smart Bee is just messing with me, I know it…. and I am so confident of that, I will trust that it will be there just chock full of new, funny stuff the next time I open it up…. And, if not, well, I’ll tear out my hair then, what little is left…. It has been a very interesting path this morning, getting to this point. Now that I’ve completed this Pearl, I must go out and deal with the real world, so as to get it posted today…. and take care of online business while I’m at it…. I’m having a very productive birthday, so here is wishing you all the same kind of positive energy today, and every day….. Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

—

Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Dozer

Kowabunga!

Dramatic scenes of pomp and circumstance….

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Ffolkes,
I’ve been sitting here, staring at the screen, waiting for inspiration; it seems to have taken a wrong turn somewhere, and no random ideas are floating around in my own head that would be worth writing about. Thus I have turned to the old trick of just putting down thought processes and ideas that are at the forefront of my consciousness. Sometimes, in the middle of this type of elocution, an idea will strike, and suggest a direction to take. Other times, like so far today, my mind becomes a vast, empty plain, with a hint of shiny sparkle way off in the distance. That sparkle is my inspiration. I can see now that the vast, empty plain is all around me, and inspiration is not going to come any closer this morning. Such a pity…I had high hopes when I rolled out of bed; hopes for a brilliant opening statement, that would set a high mark for the rest of the pearl to match. But, it is not to be, and such is Life. I suppose unpredictability is normal, so there isn’t much I can say about it other than….. let’s  boogie…
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“The axioms of reason are non-demonstrable assumptions. Why should faith not be granted the same privilege? The denial of the truths of faith is, in the last analysis, no less a faith than faith itself, for it rests on personal assumptions which are apart from scientific necessity. In other words, as the truth of reason carries its own evidence, so also with faith. To the mind to whom the axioms of reason are not self-evident, they cannot be proven. So also in the case of faith: for the mind that is not enlightened by faith, the evidence of faith is ridiculous. But for the man whose eyes have been enlightened by the Spirit, faith has its proper evidence, though different from that of reason.” — Paul K. Jewett, Emil Brunner’s Concept of Revelation

I swear, this is the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever seen in one pile. Yet it can serve as a lesson, in how logic can be perverted to support the most ridiculous concepts. The author makes several assumptions that are just not true, starting with the first sentence, and, reasoning from that point comes eventually to rest on a conclusion that has no demonstrable place in Reality. He maintains that the assumptions of reason cannot be proved; this is a false assumption.


Reason does not adopt any assumption until evidence has been gathered in sufficient quantity to demonstrate proof; only then will reason use that assumption as fact, which may then be used to reason further. Faith is based entirely on assumptions that have no demonstrable evidence of proof; as such, they must forever remain assumptions, and may never be used to reason any further, for any conclusions based on false assumptions can only be false.


This is an immutable law of reality; there is no possible argument, as it is demonstrated time and time again, as people who can’t understand or deal with reality in its natural state continually come up with nonsensical reasons to disregard reality in favor of faith. The results are predictably unfortunate, both for those who rely on such faulty reasoning, and for the rest of us who must suffer their proselytizing……

“If we really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.” — Krishnamurti

“One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false.  If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.” — Francis H.C. Crick
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“The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in  no other way.’ — Mark Twain

I love this quotation. Mr. Clemens must have edited it to some degree as his career progressed, because I have also seen it quoted this way:

“The man who carries a cat by the tail leans a valuable lesson; he will never be dim, or doubtful. Chances are he won’t carry the cat that way again. But, if he wants to,  I say, let him!”

I think its much more powerful in the latter format; much funnier too. Since I haven’t really researched the etymology of the quote, I can’t say whether it is all Twain’s, or if some editor had him change it, or even whether it is truly his work. In my opinion, none of that really matters; it’s just too good as it is to fuss around trying to over-analyze. Just think about it (using the second incarnation from above) and enjoy……
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“Never commit yourself to a cheese without having first examined it.” — T. S. Eliot

Now, that’s something you don’t hear every day…… but then, T. S. made a habit of saying things no one had ever heard before. One of the surest ways to recognize genius is rooted in that very idea; genius makes a habit of exploring unknown territories of the mind. The paths of reasoning that they follow, which may be intuitive as well as rational, are generally paths of which the rest of us are not even aware. Or, if they follow a well-known path, they find that it goes much further than had been previously known.


All of us have a touch of this within us; I’m sure everyone has moments of lucidity and revelation that approach this kind of mental acuity. We just don’t live there, whereas the genius spends his entire waking life seeing things that others cannot. It can be a bit disheartening to the rest of us, when we see how simple and clear are the things that they come up with, but we always get over it, and benefit from their progressive thinking. Now, if we could only figure out how to get everyone else into the same boat, we might be able to figure out how to keep from killing ourselves off…..
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Beware of that person who is slow to anger. For when it is long in coming,  it stays longer and is warmer and dies not so easily. Abused patience is a  very strong fuel for a fire not easily put out by any known means.

I like this, probably because it reflects pretty well how I feel every day as I read the latest shenanigans of our beloved ruling class. They don’t seem to be aware of this truism, or they would be more careful, because I doubt that I’m the only person in society who feels this way. The pervading sense of entitlement so entrenched in modern society is blinding those in charge to the effects of what they are doing on the people over whom they hold sway.

The natives are getting more restless as time goes by, and eventually that pot is going to blow the lid off and spill all over the cooks. Being an impatient sort, I hope it happens fairly soon; I’m tired of clenching my jaw so hard. Perhaps this is why I am writing so much; I’m trying to stoke the fire…. and getting more pissed each day….. the beloved ruling class is going to have a hell of a time putting this fire out…..
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How dieth the wise man? As the fool.

Here is one that I think we all tend to forget, or possibly deny. It’s a hard thing to accept that death is not like life; we are accustomed to at least some degree of favoritism according to our own particular sense of entitlement. It must be a very disturbing thing for those who are very devout in their religion to consider that even the most miserable sinner, and the most repugnant pagan, have the same consideration given them by death as it does to themselves. Death comes to all, the wise, the fool, and the believer….. the ultimate democrat….


This may be, now that I think of it, the major reason for creating the concept of Heaven and Hell; the clergy needed some method to control and manipulate their followers. Giving them reasons to justify their sense of entitlement works very well; it sets up a dichotomy of purpose very powerfully, so that the believers all know that even when they die, they will receive favorable treatment from St. Peter. To me it is a particularly sad existence, to believe that one is better or worse than anyone else, when so much of reality proves it to be a false belief….. only the weak of spirit need that kind of crutch…….
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It was a hard-fought battle, but I managed to stuff the genie back in the bottle, at least temporarily. It shouldn’t give me any more trouble until tomorrow morning. I’m a little scared of going back over today’s missive to proof and edit; what I find, in the state of mind I’m in, could get thrown out entirely, necessitating a fresh start. Oh well, may as well get started….. meanwhile, y’all take care out there…..

—
Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes
I just sits.

gigoid

Kowabunga!