Irrational Exuberance About Reeves Re James

 Austin Reeves has been scoring a lot in the absence of Luka Doncic and Lebron James due to injuries. Reeves has show the ability to be a competent point guard against some teams. It is notable though that some have decided that Lebron james is now obsolete, and of course that is entirely incorrect.

 James is over 40 with 21 years in the league, yet he still plays at a very high level for two-three quarters of the game. Using James as an opener and closer to extend his quality time is important. He is the best power forward on the team and can give the team a decisive edge in the 4th quarter if rested.

The Lakers have had a tendency to give up large leads in the first quarter compelling them to play catch up. Perhaps resting james in the first and third quarters is a better tactic while letting him bring a different structure to the lakers in the second and fourth.

The Lakers expect a lot of things from the rookie Adou Thiero who is recovering from surgery from an injury last college season. He can be a very aggressive power forward who needs time to improve his three point shooting. Jake Laravia can be a versatile and competent wing defender and forward as well with adequate defense skills. Jarred Vanderbilt is another forward with great defense and rebounding skill yet without much offensive prowess. Rui Hachimura is another forward with middle of the meter all-round skills. None have the power of Lebron James who can even help at center in a pinch.

LA is getting solid center position work this year. They have three centers led by Deandre Ayton who are skillful and improving. The options the Lakers have for mixing quality line-ups this year are better than last. If James is rested and Doncic healthy while the rest of the team stays on track their prospects for reaching and going far in the playoffs are good. It is worth remembering in the Austin Reeves exuberance of the moment that Reeves is not the best defensive guard in the N.B.A., and neither is Luka Doncic. The Lakers will require some interesting rotations and line-up changes that match well against select opponents. Over-playing the declining cardio of Lebron James before the 4th quarter will reduce his value at helping close out games with a win for the Lakers.

Plainly the Lakers have strong guards. It is reasonable to compare Luka Doncic and Austin Reeves to Jerry West and Gale Goodrich. If Lebron James is like an aging Elgin Baylor, and Laravia isn't yet a 3/4 John Havlicek destined to have 8 championship rings, he is yet a good prospect for a future starter too- perhaps with Adou Thiero. Definitely missing is the Wilt Chamberlain power. Yet Ayton has shown good shooting, rebounding and competence this season.  The Lakers seem to have the potential for being a smarter, faster championship contender perhaps able to match up with strength where needed and speed and bench depth such as the championship OKC team has.

Lakers Losing in Solidarity with K Harris

The Lakers lost in a humiliating 40 point fashion to the Heat. Coach Redick confirmed. Probably the Lakers and LeBron lose in solidarity with Californian Kamala Harris.

After Jan 20,2025 they might get over it. Still they need a flashy point guard in trade for a few players and a second round pick.

Lakers Should Draft a Big with Pick Seventeen

 The Lakers haven't had a reliable big center since Dwight Howard left. Anthony Davis is a power forward- maybe the best in the game, yet he is forced to play center far too often. That reduces his ability to take outside shots and rebound too, and rebounding is as important as scoring. Team shooting averages are usually less than 50%, so second shots with a rebound can make the effect shooting average 75% if half of the second shots go in. They need someone with a good attitude, athleticism, speed and endurance.

If the Lakers draft a solid young center with strong shooting and rebounding skill he can liberate Davis to play his preferred position all the time. There are ten large centers in the 2024 college draft and not every team will pick a center who is drafting before the Lakers. There should be one available, and he could restore the balance the Lakers had during their last championship year. It is apparently possible that recently retired Rajon Rondo may be the new Lakers coach.

With two bigs in the game (Davis and the new center), and Lebron James, a forward and another guard the Lakers stay with anyone. They also have reliever Jackson Hayes, Jarred Vanderbilt, Taurean Prince, Cam Reddish, Max Christie and Austin Reeves. That team is good enough.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/draft/prospect-rankings/centers/

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/draft/prospect-rankings/

Seahawks to Trade Smith and Draft Penix Jr?

 At age 34 Geno Smith isn’t the Seahawks QB of the future. They have the 16th draft choice in the first round of the 2024 NFL draft to select Michael Penix Jr for that.

Geno Smith could be traded to Minnesota or the Jets for a second round draft choice. Each team needs QB insurance; Smith is a good though not great QB and might take either team to the playoffs if their old Achilles repaired starters hobble to the sidelines

The Jets without Smith could be pathetic if Rogers is gone; a great defense is a terrible thing to waste.

  The Seahawks could resign and start Drew Lock for a year to see if he is a next level quarterback now. They could sign Jameis Winston for insurance while training Penix for a year. It is a shame to have the best receiving trio in football underutilized.  Winston has a rifle and it would be fun to see if three great receivers would cut his interceptions in half. Five-hundred yards passing in a game isn’t boring to watch.

Some Kind of Being Has Always Existed

Energy always exists, or something does. As Parmenides said being exists and nothing is impossible. Virtual energy from a vacuum is energy from a field. A singularity is something. Some phase of something always has existed. Science doesn't understand all about fields. They speculate a gravitational field emerged first followed by the strong force then the electroweak breaking up into the Higgs, electromagnetism and the weak force, yet certainty about that isn't plain. Virtual particles appear and disappear yet they are from some kind of field- maybe fluctuations of the Higgs as some kind of leftover. Imagine that the Higgs covers the entire region of space-time in a very thin way yet enough to entangle massless particles and give them the appearance of mass because they acquire a third dimension rather than the usual 2 dimensions of massless particles. The Higgs field must have energy or potential energy as a field that yields virtual energy. There could be micro-dimensional slipping of energy occurring too. Even God exists (or if for the atheists and agnostics out there) and is 'something' always existing capable of issuing stuff. Some people want to believe in nothing as a kind of moral reverence reassuring their faithlessness . Parmenides was right; being is the sole possibility

Trump or DeSantis; Does Either have Virtue/Arete?

 I'm enjoying taking a second course in ancient philosophy. It's a great review since the days when I read the Socratic dialogues and other ancient works passed long ago. Within the course the concept of virtue appeared; what did Socrates mean when he investigated virtue, or rather what did others mean when using the term.

The Greek term for virtue was arete. Classical virtue is somewhat vague to moderns. Apparently in the Meno politicians like Pericles and Thermistocles were held to have virtue. I would think that Winston Churchill 'had it', as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Virtue was bravery and great, effective leadership that benefits the nation rather than just the politicians and his family members.

Modern ideas of virtue or classical virtue were about good character, wisdom, patience, stamina, sound judgment, benefiting the state, moderation in use of materials- rather Stoic characteristics to a certain extent. And one must include self-sacrifice or personal risk to benefit others. Numerous example exist such as a young woman in Portland that risked electrocution to save a baby in danger of being electrocuted where three attempts and deaths had already been made.

DeSantis may have elements of both types of virtue, whereas Donald Trump has more of the be-like-Pericles kind of virtue. Modest demeanor-not being a braggart is a classical virtue and Donald Trump tends to fail at modesty and excel at international relations rather than waging unjust and superfluous wars. It is a virtue to seek after peace when reasonable prospects for it exist instead of running willy-nilly into wars in pursuit of glory and profit at the cost of other's lives.

Original Sin Expressed/Contained Via Entropy Converting Order to Disorder

 Original sin is expressed as entropy converting order to disorder. Something of a bit of humor in that; ha ha hanahar!-הנהר. Human nature is embedded in thermodynamic fields that may be the containment for original sin. Converting order to disorder-energy to mass and the most disordered state of mass, expresses the nature of original sin. Humans require energy input and have drives for that, reproduction and sometimes power to increase the ability to input energy. Capitalism is a great converter of energy from a high state of order in nature to a low state of energy and eventually disorganized waste. Ecological economics would be more efficient and sustaining social stability and creativity with 8 billion souls on earth yet thermodynamic drives converting energy to mass make most people insecure, avaricious and in quest of expansion in the case of billionaires and eventually trillionaires. People want a lot more than they need and use the extra income to convert nature into disorder with thermodynamic entropy.

Will Africa be the Pot of Gold for Illegal Migrants Seeking the American Dream?

It just an idea suggested by the recent actions of the U.K. to relocate illegal migrants to the U.K. to Africa. The United States has a backlog of more than three million souls claiming political asylum in the United States and the federal government has turned them loose in a catch and release policy. There are millions more migrants here illegally that haven’t claimed political asylum. Since the government cannot deal with the problem with competence perhaps it could consider relocating detainees to some safe neutral nation until their court date arrives in a few years.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/uk-will-ignore-international-law-deport-illegal-immigrants-sunak

Plainly the special asylum seeking quasi-legal-illegal category is challenging for Democrats to address with a measure of intellect and competence. Rather than make them temporary legal guest workers and hand a victory to hundreds of thousands or millions of bogus claims it might be better to relocate them to some nation that could use the income of sheltering a few million should in refugee camps with good security and facilities.

It is useful to have order in a nation and not undermine the efforts of legal residents to improve the quality f their lives by dumping millions of workers and resource users that had not the consent of the people of the United States through their elected representatives to arrive here. In the United States the economy is stratifying between the 1% and everyone else. Though a reasonable standard of living is common there are many that don’t own a home these days. Wealth is concentrating. Presently the distribution of wealth is beginning to resemble that of a caste system. Flooding the nation with badly educated foreign workers with dubious legal status is a way to break down traditional America and the Middle class so it is more like that of India or Mexico. Perhaps Wal-mart shifted its door entrances to the left from the traditional right in order to help condition American shoppers to political ineffectiveness and prole status as if they were living in an updated Orwellian society. Could Namibia or South Sudan be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for illegal aliens pursuing the American dream?

It is important that every human being on Earth has opportunity for a good life. That can only occur with order since the wild is no longer capable of providing a bountiful larder for eight billion people. The world political economy need change one an ecologically sustainable format, and civil stability need be the rule rather than exception.

A foreign diplomat was quoted recently in reply to a question asking him about the future of the United States. He said; “The U.S.A. is a fat buffalo trying to get a nap while a lot of hungry wolves are approaching.” Plainly he was trying to elicit military support for the European/N.A.T.O. was on Russia in Ukraine in the effort to exploit the west’s military advantage over Russia to benefit Western Europe. Europeans would like to seem like the victims of Russian aggression and expect the United States to be the military bully to provide advanced weapons to allow Ukraine to defrappe Russia’s efforts to recover some of the historically Russian land lost in the Bill Clinton era when Russia was basically helpless.

Yet the United States is largely divided between those seeking to make America a part of a global caste system ruled by the 1% with the masses being peons, serfs or communard proles living in a kind of open air prison/lunatic asylum happy with dope and slopped with jobs that allow payments on new cars and homes they don’t own until a new economic shock makes them lose everything they own to the 1% holding mortgages, and those that prefer a little civil order that isn’t ephemeral and disappears like morning dew.

https://youtu.be/-c6qmsL_Qto?feature=shared

On the Notion that Plato Influenced Christianity

 There were several philosophers before Socrates and Plato that wrote about the Logos and God. People like Thales, Heraclitus and Parmenides, Anaximander and Anaxemenes all presented fascinating ideas concerning being, change, nature, God and substance. Some Christians were influenced by Plato, yet one knows that people like the disciple Mark were unsophisticated in philosophy and that the Q document, or Quelle/source mostly just relates the life the Jesus Christ and His work as God in saving mankind, or at least those with faith, from the inevitable destination of eternal hell. Parmenides presents a paradigm almost as a precursor of Sartre, a loquacious Sartre unafraid explain a logic for his ontology, of being and the necessity of being and impossibility of nothingness. In that paradigm Jesus Christ being God himself, as one of the Trinity, delivers the faithful to a good place in being while the lost find their way to hell- a bad place. Interestingly physicists have speculated that below absolute zero the temperature may be infinitely hot. Some later theologians like Augustine were influenced by Plato, or properly Plotinus, for he was a Plotinian before becoming converted to Christianity.

The gospel is simply narratives by disciples and the Apostle/Doctor Luke from personal and first hand sources. The letters of Paul are by an author who was a Rabbi in training and a student of Gamaliel or Schlemeil and steeped in the torah yet not so much a reader of Plato or Peripatetic philosophers which he could have read as readily as those of the Academy if he were so disposed.

Nothing Cannot Exist- Parmenides

 It is something of a classification or categorical error when one says something like 'the Loch ness monster does not exist'. It does exist as a thought, yet not outside of thought or language. Whatever one says creates something at least as an idea including the Loch Ness monster. The question is how it exists or in what form- perhaps no more than as an idea.

The fallacy of equivocation concerning Parmenides' formulation of the impossibility of change is a valid objection. It should be noted though that if change has always existed then nothing changes because change is a constant. Observational physics seems to support the idea of constant change in a thermodynamic field. Being always exists, non-being doesn't and change is constant so nothing changes. God always exists, at least a seed of the Universe always exists, pre-determined in His thought and continues if emerged as a singularity and expansion.

Language is rarely the material that exists in-the-world. Instead, language refers or points to things/referent objects of the world of mass. Even fictional referent objects exist as fictional referent objects at least...that is what so much of television is about. Does Jason Bourne exist or not? Well there is no real Jason Bourne or Loch Ness Monster in the real world, yet those referent objects exist in language, in books and in thought. In that sense they do exist. One may say that there is no Loch Ness monster materially existing in Loch Ness except as a thought about Nessie swimming in Loch Ness rather than the 'real world'. Thus is the stickiness of language and linguistic philosophy in trying to exceed it's own limits in language. It cannot directly be the material objects it refers to for the time being. Maybe quantum computing and AI will change the reality of that to a limited degree.

Parmenides, Heraclitus and the Milesians saw nature as God or providing the substance for nature in various ways. Less than pantheistic, it was a useful way to understand being while eschewing non-being and atheism. They tended to believe in being as the sole possibility and non-being as impossible; the argument tended to be about how change occurs. Yet if change has existed from eternity then nature could be said not to change because the nature is change. All forms are embedded within precursor forms actualizing in time. Jesus directs those of faith to the right relationship with God and being while the lost discover a hot way to hell. Below absolute zero physicist speculate the temperature is infinitely high- another mystery for most of the faithless.

Christians believe in the eternity of soul- possibly in one direction starting with birth. Once a soul exists it will exist forever, even after physical death. The destination for the saved is different from the lost. Jesus is captain of the soul through eternity- God, rather than the satanic forces of chaos, evil and faithlessness. So if mankind brings a war to fruition that wipes out most of mankind that is a product of the original sin that affects all mankind. I would guess that it was corrected by the thermodynamic fields in which humans are embedded that drives to to input energy as food to exist. Thermodynamic drives in human nature are the cause of conflict as much as anything. People have insecurity in matter and want more than they require for staying alive, being productive and happy and generally don't have a clue about how to change to sustainable environmental economics. Christians have different eschatological hermenutics. I am a post-tribulationist and partial preterist with the belief that this is the age of the increase of the kingdom of God within the hearts of the elect rather than the edge of some kind of neo-theological apocalypse based on bad pre-tribulationism. Plainly human economics, political leadership and ignorant attacks on the faith communities are driving the world to a good chance for a bad end.

Belechick more likely to move to San Diego than Las Vegas

  The Raiders and Chargers each have uncertainty about who their head coach will be next season. WIth Bill Belichick probably being available next season the question arises about his destination for 2024. SInce the Raiders have been playing fairly well after their recent coaching change to interim coach Antonio Pierce, it seems more likely the Chargers will be the team to try out the Belichick system after their recent 63 to 7 loss to the Raiders.

 The patriots are in a rebuild after the championship years and haven't yet fallen to the bottom to draft a quarterback with the first pick. The Chargers are a team that may be more ready-to-wear like the Chiefs and Seahawks were before hiring a new coach and winning championships. I vote for Belchick to San Diego; his disciplined style would be interesting in a town that John Unitas said had a long-haired, dope smoking football team.