Adapt Or Die

If there were an owner's manual for life on this planet, that'd be the only phrase needed.

Update: Or come up with a better idea.

A Fractal, My God

It's the craziest thing. I have the strangest feeling, tonight, that I'm a point on the end of a point in an ever-changing Mandelbrot set. Constantly churning, constantly in motion. A slave to its volition and not my own. Times like this, I think Pete is right about free will. (Hey, Pete!)

I almost feel like a channel. Not in the hucksterish sense, but like I'm just a vessel for this energy that's passing through me. Like I'm it's captive, moving at its will. It sounds ludicrous, I know. The deeper I get into a rational/science-based worldview, the less comfortable I feel saying something like that. But that's how I'm experiencing the sensation.

My reason tells me one thing, my experience another.

But I feel aflame. On fire. As if the brutality—the beautiful brutality—of life on this planet is charring me and molding me. Having its way with me.

It's as if science itself is Rumi's "Friend." Mysticism with a different language and better methodology.

Christ, now I'm sounding like the obnoxious woo practitioners that I've been poking fun at for the past couple of years. But it's what I'm authentically experiencing. Fuck, the diametrically opposed shit that lives in my head!

As irritatingly conceited as it must sound, I feel a strong sense of what Whitman meant with: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."

But then, I'm not actually myself anyway. Just this...

Update: So that's what I write like when I'm high.

Does Science Make Belief In God Obsolete?

The third in a series of "big questions" posed by the John Templeton Foundation. It's a fascinating discussion among world-class scientists, theologians, writers, and thinkers. Inexplicably, Chris Hitchens is included on the list. It's a worthwhile read despite this. 

Go check it out.