:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Saturday, November 01, 2003 ::

Occupation: Congressional Unit Analyzes Military Costs in Iraq: "ASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — A new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office suggests that the military costs for the occupation of Iraq could range from $85 billion over four years to $200 billion over 10 years, even if the Pentagon sharply reduces the forces there."

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2003 11:24:00 PM [+] ::
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Twilight of the Idols by Friedrich Nietzsche: "War has always been the great wisdom of all spirits who have become too inward, too profound; even in a wound there is the power to heal. A maxim, the origin of which I withhold from scholarly curiosity, has long been my motto:
Increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus.
['The spirits increase, vigor grows through a wound.']"

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2003 07:19:00 AM [+] ::
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Thus Spake Zarathustra

This book has been plaguing(?) me all quater. Written in fire I truly believe it was meant to destroy those who read it. Survival is the name of the game.

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2003 07:10:00 AM [+] ::
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Case File - Ed Gein: "He enlisted the help of an old friend named Gus. Gus was a weird loner too, and quite definitely odd - he went to the asylum a few years later. Gus was Ed Gein’s trusted buddy, and agreed to assist Ed in opening a grave to secure a corpse for ‘medical experiments’. Gus helped dig the graves."

:: Jim Nichols 11/01/2003 03:18:00 AM [+] ::
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Over the past couple of weeks I have come to recognize the distinction between brilliance and success; one is where do what you must and the other is where you put up with other peoples shit.

:: Jim Nichols 10/31/2003 11:43:00 PM [+] ::
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What Self-Mutilation Are You? - Quizilla: "What Self-Mutilation Are You?"

Writing angry letters to everyone on your "stupider than me" list. Good times....

I'd tell them it was their fault, then walk away. They kinda sucked anyway...

:: Jim Nichols 10/31/2003 06:48:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Jim Nichols 10/31/2003 06:44:00 PM [+] ::
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Social Security Issue Guide: "Social Security is both a retirement and a life insurance program, and not an investment program."

:: Jim Nichols 10/31/2003 06:36:00 PM [+] ::
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Major Issues in Modern Biology seminar series: "Speaker: Jared Diamond
Affiliation: UCLA
Title: Collapses of ancient societies, and their modern implications
Date: Oct 7, 2003 (Tue)
Time: 4:10 p.m.
Location: Med Sci 180
Contact: Sharon Harrison, slharrison@ucdavis.edu
Sponsored by: Major Issues in Modern Biology, Division of Biological Sciences
Video recording: Jared Diamond Video Stream
Note: You will need the free RealOne Player and should have a 256 Kbps or better connection to view the recording. "

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 10:48:00 AM [+] ::
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Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 09:47:00 AM [+] ::
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Does Determinism Imply Absolute Predictability?

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 09:35:00 AM [+] ::
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Godly Audio Files: "Don't Let Them Homosexshurals See Your Winky! "

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 04:27:00 AM [+] ::
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Library Journal | Reed Business Information

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 04:00:00 AM [+] ::
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Wolfowitz, a Planner of War, Sees It Up Close

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 01:03:00 AM [+] ::
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Yahoo! News - Private study estimates Iraqi war dead at 13,000: "Private study estimates Iraqi war dead at 13,000"

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 01:02:00 AM [+] ::
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Yahoo! News - Bush Disavows 'Mission Accomplished' Link: "Bush Disavows 'Mission Accomplished' Link"

Six months after he spoke on an aircraft carrier deck under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," President Bush disavowed any connection with the war message. Later, the White House changed its story and said there was a link.

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 12:59:00 AM [+] ::
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BBC NEWS | UK | Family sues over Iraqi killings: "Family sues over Iraqi killings

A Manchester-based Iraqi family is launching legal action against the Ministry of Defence for the deaths of 10 relatives in the recent war. "

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 12:54:00 AM [+] ::
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Must I Paint You A Picture? The Essential Billy Bragg - Rhino Product Detail

:: Jim Nichols 10/29/2003 12:30:00 AM [+] ::
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The Internet Classics Archive | Letter to Menoeceus by Epicurus: "Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it. "

"Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the person who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer. But in the world, at one time people shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise person does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life. The thought of life is no offense to him, nor is the cessation of life regarded as an evil"

:: Jim Nichols 10/28/2003 01:26:00 AM [+] ::
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The Matrix as Metaphysics: "The Matrix as Metaphysics
David J. Chalmers "

:: Jim Nichols 10/27/2003 11:51:00 PM [+] ::
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Psyche 9(13): 'Is Mental Life Possible Without the Will?' by Bruce Bridgeman: "Is Mental Life Possible Without the Will?
A Review of Daniel M. Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will "

Though we share an irresistible introspection that we possess a will governing our behavior and not controlled by outside forces or previous states, empirical research shows that such a will does not exist. Rather, actions are triggered unconsciously, and a memory-related part of the brain produces a narrative to explain the behavior after the fact.

In an abstract sense, the idea of free will has been untenable for a long time. In Western thought it is bound up with the medieval theological concept of the immortal soul, that part of us that goes to heaven or hell when we die. It is non-physical, escaping the limitations of behavior as well as the inevitability of death and decay. The demise of the soul is bound up with Cartesian dualism, which made it clear that the non-physical and the physical could not interact. A physical entity, after all, must by definition obey the laws of physics, being affected only by other physical influences. Since the soul is non-physical, it could not affect our physical behavior, including our communications of feelings, thoughts and memories

If free will is an illusion, what of all the virtues that it supports? Here the going gets even tougher. The scientific argument for a lack of free will, and the argument is logically overwhelming, is easy to state but hard to accept. A consistent illusion, however, defines reality for us just as surely as reality itself does. The illusion that our eyes provide a detailed, sharp and full-color image of the world, for example, is physiologically unsupported, yet the consistency of the illusion gives us the confidence to operate in a visual world that we barely apprehend. Similarly, the feeling of will helps us to organize our behaviors and to interpret the behaviors of others. In the end, the illusion of will is itself a story we tell ourselves to justify our behaviors and experiences.

:: Jim Nichols 10/27/2003 10:07:00 PM [+] ::
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Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind: "materialism - The view that everything that actually exists is material, or physical. Many philosophers and scientists now use the terms `material' and `physical' interchangeably (for a version of physicalism distinct from materialism, see physicalism). Characterized in this way, as a doctrine about what exists, materialism is an ontological, or a metaphysical, view; it is not just an epistemological view about how we know or just a semantic view about the meaning of terms."

:: Jim Nichols 10/27/2003 08:57:00 PM [+] ::
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