Rick's Blog

The only things that control language are facts and evidence-based reasoning. 2+2=5 isn't a "freedom of speech" issue. It is wrong, and math based on it creates engines that explode. The reason language becomes narrow is because we don't tolerate ideas that cannot be justified. The earth is not flat. Germs, not demons, cause disease. Gender is a spectrum, not binary. All three statements are supported by overwhelming evidence in their fields. If you feel disrespected by science because it does not tolerate falsehoods and fantasies, that's a YOU problem.H

When one can reflect on the incalculable number of atomic occurrences, particles, compounds, self-replicating molecules, mitochondria, through the entire path of evolutionary development, it took to get here The gas clouds, the prior supernovas it took to create the higher elements, the Goldilocks zone, multiple mass extinctions, opposable thumbs, language And time, an unfathomable amount of time, in a functionally infinite universe To be this sentient being, to be the 'I' behind my eyes, to be the part of all that universe through which it analyses itself And to do so via the being that you are, the part of the universe that reflects not only upon its grandeur as a whole but also upon its own emergent quality Consciousness To be and to reflect on the self as the observant within that universe When one can just barely understand that, one can find all peace and beauty in reality, in life Because you are unique, in the truest definition of the word unique The c...

"100% of all climate change models have been wrong" Yes, in the same way that 100% of the directions of every airplane is wrong and does not lead exactly toward the proper destination. Flight is a constant adjustment and readjustment to a perfect, hypothetical flight plan from origin to destination which is to say that the actual flight plan is, by definition, a model . The actual flight plan based on that model is always wrong - due to wind, wind speed, weather patterns, the rotation of the earth, etc - which is why constant adjustment is required to reach the destination. Clearly, the general direction of the model is correct, evidenced by the fact that airplanes operated by professional pilots almost never mistakenly land at an improper destination. Likewise, no climate change model is going to be 100% accurate in its predictions, but clearly as every chart of any meaningful data shows, global atmospheric and oceanic temperatures are rising, the rise is caused by an unn...

This explains the current political wars of ideology. The non-engaged majority is simply being drowned out by the engaged minority with a bigger megaphone. This is a sign of the virus adapting to the evolutionary pressures of the modern consciousness environment. Yell louder. Dig your heels in firmer. Utilize fear over rationality. Because fear is what the virus is. That is the adapter that the phage engages to pass its code into a cell, just like fear of the unknown is the key to opening the door that unlocks consciousness to accepting the virus into its set of rules that are the basis for judging reality. This fear is the cause for the adherence to the ideologies of "going back to the safer times and ways of the past" and reluctance to adapt to change going forward. That reluctance to accept reality is what leads to rejection of reason and science, rejection of alternative genders, rejection of women having consent of their own bodies, and to embracing the illogical of the ...

It is a common practice for atheists to try and attach ID to some form of religion in hopes that their argument against religion will somehow apply to ID by association... This is done out of desperation, and yours is one of the most determined attempts I have ever seen to do that... It will not ever work... ever! Nice try though... I see that you believe that ID is not a religion. You clearly have not studied the issue objectively, because ID has been shown, even in a court of law, to be a form of religious ideology, not limited to fundamentalist Christianity. to sum up: 1) You are claiming to invoke a diety or supernatural intelligence - which is, as of today, completely undetectable by any means of measurement ever invented - deliberately manipulating the universe down to the quantum level to bring about desired changes, and 2) You think that the invocation of said intelligence is the more rational decision than assuming a natural cause for any changes. That's b...

Begin again. These might be the two most important words in my life, in the history of my life. Each moment of life is a new beginning, a chance to act, to be, to live. Realizing that moment is an experience of beauty for me, and my meditation practice helps me stay there in that present moment. Through my practice, I have come to a deeper understanding of why I hold that phrase and that concept so dearly. I hate myself. On some deep, fundamental, lizard-brain level, my brain, for whatever reason, is simply wired to make the most perfectly irrational conclusion it is possible to make as a sentient being: hatred of the self. I don't know why, I don't particularly care why. It just is. This self-hatred has played out in so many ways in my life: from not caring about school work to starting smoking to my devout religious days to suicidal thoughts. It spoke to tell me that I couldn't handle the schoolwork if I tried which made me not even start and then criticised me afte...

The things we fret over - our desires and aversions of the past, present and future - in our minds are not real. This is the simplest and most profound truth. But it is the depth to which they are not real that resonates with me the most. In all of the mind-numbingly vastness of space and reality, through everything we understand of the fabric of space-time and everything material and theoretical that exists within it, where physically is the future? If we could draw a map of the entire universe, could you point to a place on that map to locate the past? No. Why not? Because it doesn't exist. Time is nothing more than the measure of change in reality, and "when" is reality? Now. And now, and now. It is never "then". Nothing in the observable universe - no galaxies, no stars, no black holes, no physical entity that we have ever discovered - ever reflects anything more than what it is at the time of observation. Even the oddity of the double-slit experiment which ...