English Lyrics to Sigur Ros song

Sigur Ros - Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa

I let myself flow onwards
I swim through my mind back and forth
My soul still sings the song we once wrote
Together
We once had a dream
We had everything
We rode to the end of the world
We rode on searching
We climbed skyscrapers
But they were all destroyed
The peace is gone now
I lack balance, I fall down
Still, I let myself flow onwards
I swim through my mind
But I always come back
To the same place
There is nothing left to say
This is for the best
God will provide a day
For us…
Tomorrow

Movie News

Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream & The Fountain) is set to direct the new installment of Robocop. I am not sure how I feel about this, but I really love this director.

Thoughts?

On the Horizon...

Here are a few things I have to look forward to.

First off, I no longer have a job. I don't have to work (for at least 8 more months, and hopefully for a few more years). I am extremely pleased about this.

Next, Paige's 20th birthday is August 10th. It'll be awesome!

Then, just 6 days after Paige's birthday, we both leave for our double-edged Radiohead vacation. We'll be leaving the 16th of August, staying a night or two in Portland, OR, then 3 or 4 nights in Seattle, WA (the last of which will be after we both see Radiohead for the first time ever!), then we'll drive down the coast to visit the Redwood Forests; from there we'll stay a night in somewhere close to the Redwoods--probably Crescent City, CA--then from there we are driving and staying a night in San Francisco, CA, then it is on to Los Angeles, CA for the second Radiohead show! We will stay in LA for two nights--as the plan currently tells us--and then drive home just in time to have a day off before school starts. Which brings me to the next thing I have to look forward to...

The Fall Semester of school. New major, University status (big deal, right?) and the best of all... Paige's first semester of college!

Corb, I wish you could drive out to Washington with us and see Radiohead, but I understand the reason(s) why you cannot. Any luck with a job?

College Changes

A couple of changes have taken place this month at my school and for myself.

First off, Utah Valley State College became Utah Valley University. I'm not sure if this will affect my collegiate career in any way, but regardless, I am happy about the transformation.

Secondly, I have switched my major for the last time ever. And I've never been more excited about school.

The degree I am pursuing is a BA in Integrated Studies with emphases in Philosophy and Psychology.

Now, I realize on the surface this seems rather pointless. What will a degree in Integrated Studies get me, right? I mean, isn't it just a Bachelors degree in General academics with two minors pretty much? No. It's so much more.

At first, I thought that very thing. I thought, why would somebody pursue a major that is really just two minors? Here is the answer: Experience and Grad School preparation.

In this program I will take integrated studies courses, 21 psychology credits and 24 philosophy credits (a major in philosophy only contains 37 philosophy credits). The difference in this program? Research! The student of integrated studies is required to do a one year research project in their senior year. This includes independent research that is guided by a faculty committee - chosen by the student. This senior thesis can be anything from making a documentary film, to making an album, to writing an argumentive paper, to designing a magazine.

My senior thesis will be a research paper that will be 60-70 pages in length. This paper will integrate the two disciplines I am studying (philosophy and psychology) and will pay special attention to the anatomical and physiological processes of the brain and how free will plays into this equation. My definitive thesis is yet to be decided (I must take Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics, Physiological Psychology, and Cognitive Science courses first), but will most likely deal an attempt to find empirical and quantitative evidence for free will or determinism within the physical aspects of the mind, and how, if such a metaphysical process exists, how the possibility hinges on the physical processes of the brain.

This research will be exciting and will help me prepare for graduate school like nothing else could. The faculty committee will consist of three professors (who will rip my apart for the next three years of my life). These three professors will be David Yells of the Psychology department - he is also the Dean of the School of Humanities; Christine Weigel of the Philosophy department - she is also the Department Chair of the Philosophy department; and either Scott Abbott (PhD in German Literature from Princeton and Chair of the IS program) or Mark Jeffreys (PhD in English from Emory and another PhD in Anthropology from the UofU).

Needless to reiterate, I have never been more excited about my academic setting. Wish me luck.

Radiohead's Revolutionary Video

In Radiohead's new video for "House of Cards", no cameras or lights were used. Instead, 3D plotting technologies collected information about the shapes and relative distances of objects. The video was created entirely with visualizations of that data.

The Dark Knight

This is not a movie review, this is all I am saying.

GO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT IN THEATRES!

It won't disappoint. I, like many people, bought into all the media hype - especially after the death of Ledger (though I was looking forward to the film beforehand, as were many) - and I had higher expectations than I should have; especially for an action film that is also a comic book film, since I am not a fan of either. However, it exceeded my expectations and then some!

This is not the average action movie where the villain talks for an hour and then doesn't end up doing much of anything. This movie is as realistic of a comic book movie you can get.

Last points:

Heath Ledger did an amazing job. It's too bad he won't be able to receive the acclaim he deserves.
Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Aaron Eckhart (etc.) were all great as well. It held my interest the entire time.

GO SEE IT! You shouldn't regret it.

PS: It does have some semi-shocking imagery for a PG-13, but nothing that would constitute an R rating really (though they could have pushed for an R). But it's all just makeup folks!

Did you know...

Did you know that the drug company Bayer first marketed heroin as a non-addictive cough syrup? They only relinquished the sale of this "cough syrup" when they discovered aspirin - which was much more effective and less harmful to the patients.

You see, businessmen aren't ALWAYS at the bottom of the list.

DO YOU REALIZE?

Do you realize...

That the brain forms at 250,000 neurons per minute while you are in the womb, and continues to form until you are five years old (most of it completed by the time you are two)?

Most people fill the first couple of years with Teletubbies. This is actually the best time to introduce languages (other than your own) to the child. The brain is born with a blank slate and begins making neural connections from birth. By the age of five, many of the connections are made - and permanent - and by the age of twenty your brain slowly begins to disintegrate (your learning ability disintegrating along with it). A two year old's brain is literally making language connections every minute, and if you don't feed that brain with good food and information, it will lose the chance forever.

Think about it.

LIFE IS A CONTRADICTION!

There is no proof for what you believe, and if there is, the person who is better at speech will steal it away from you. LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL! This must never be considered a cliché phrase; because it is the only truth we have left on this Earth. We are walking contradictions. We pass by endless other entities with hopes that one day we will find some other thing that contradicts itself in the same sense we do.
I feel like screaming into the streets, “DO YOU FEEL LIKE I DO?” But I’m not certain if anybody would leave his or her television set to reply—even if the answer was a resounding “no”. The answer seems to sing “no” to my mind very often, because nobody seems to feel anything anymore. Nobody seems to FEEL. Our society has moved into the realm of artificiality. We have artificial nature—streams don’t run like that, trees don’t grow like that. We have artificial reality—TV. We have artificial intelligence—almost. And now, we have artificial emotions. Who do you care about? Who cares about you? Do you love somebody? Is humankind worth fighting for? Is life? Or can we just turn off the television?
We are becoming more and more like Plato’s cave-dwellers, presented in the famous allegory. And you know what?

IT PISSES ME OFF!

Life is too important to waste. Television is NOT real. Your school is NOT real. Your pricey handbag, your religion, your frets and worries, your goals, your aspirations, your sense of humanity, your EVERYTHING!!! These things are NOT real… unless you choose them to be as such. This is what free will means. This is what life is. It’s a choice. Unfortunately, the majority of us now choose artificial life.

Go swimming. Have sex. Eat ice cream with your siblings. Pet your cat. This isn’t The Sims unless you choose it to be.

This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.


I would never pray for humanity, because I am no longer a religious person. But if you are, then you should. And if you are not, you should hope. And whether you are religious or not, you should all get off your asses and do something. Even if you can't stop what's coming, you can try to. And more importantly, you can embrace a non-artificial life until you no longer have it.


THIS IS MY GIRLFRIEND


THIS IS MY THREE LEGGED CAT


THIS IS HER SISTER


THIS IS TWO BROTHERS


THIS IS INSPIRATIONAL (albeit artificial)


THIS IS THE SETTING SUN


THIS IS A GIRL TAKING A PICTURE OF A CLOUD BUNNY


THIS IS MY CONNECTION TO NATURE


WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LIVE FOR?

CURRENT INTERESTS:

The Mind/Brain
Philosophy of Mind/Cognitive Science
Metaphysics (mostly Free Will and Personal Identity)
Evolutionary Biology
Memetics
Religion/Bible Studies
Language
Evolutionary Psychology
Buddhism
Rhetorical Theory
Edgar Allan Poe
Feminist Movements
The August Vacation
U.S. Government Corruption
and of course... PAIGE!

We Need a Brain THEORY!

Two Days before D.C.

Corbrett moved to Washington DC on July 4th (2008, in case this blog lasts a long time)... this picture was taken (by Paige) two days previous to that - outside of Sensuous Sandwich.





It's actually not a bad picture. As usual, I'm talking out of my ass and Corb is ignoring the hot air.

Our Sexual Determination

Some quick facts about species and their sexual nature.

In humans (and many other species, including dolphins--who don't have a sense of smell--mice, etc.) we have pairs of nerves lined from front to back along each side of our brain. They label these as Nerve 1, Nerve 2, Nerve 3, and so on (1 being at front to 12 at the back). The closer the nerves are to the front of the brain, the more important they are to the entity. Nerve 1 is the front nerve (or was thought to be), which controls the sense of smell. Recently researchers have discovered a new nerve, even more toward the front--and thus, more important--than Nerve 1; they named it Nerve 0. This nerve is believed to control sexual attraction. Here are some interesting facts about Nerve Zero.


• Nerve 0 is suspected to be a sexual attraction sensing nerve
• Whales and dolphins have it, but do not have a sense of smell, which scientists thought Nerve 0 was directly related to. Indicating that it doesn’t aid in the sense of smelling.
• Nerve 0 is the very front nerve in the brain; even closer to the front of the brain than Nerve 1, which provides the sense of smell. (both nerves connect to the nasal passage)
• Female hamsters, when given the scent of a male’s urine after mating with a different male, could not get pregnant as a result. The pregnancy was literally aborted. If given the scent of the same male, it had no effect.
• Human brains contain 6 of the same pheromone receptors present in mice, which send sexual attraction signals through the nose.
• When severing Nerve 0 in hamsters to see if they could still find a hidden cookie as well as other hamsters that hadn’t had the Nerve severed, they could find it just as quickly; however, they failed to mate.
• On the way to the brain, some fibers in Nerve 0 took unexpected side trips and sent branches to the retinas of the eyes. Nerve 1 doesn’t take this route; this shows a difference between the two. When scientists stimulated only Nerve 0 on goldfish by sending a mild shock which didn’t stimulate Nerve 1, the male goldfish responded instantly by releasing sperm.
• Nerve 0 connects the nose to parts of the brain controlling sexual reproduction.

For details on this, read the April 2007 issue of Scientific American Mind Magazine

My Favorite "Brain Teaser"

This is usually referenced as an illusion, which, I suppose it is... but I like the term brain teaser because that tends to be more accurate.

In this picture, both squares with the letters A and B on them are identical in color, but the context of the colors surrounding them make one appear to be lighter/darker than the other... so it is illusory indeed, by way of teasing the brain into seeing something that it is not.

I hope you enjoy it. (CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE IF FULL SIZE)