2012 Yukon Quest Dog Mushing Race Starts in Fairbanks

The 2012 Yukon Quest dog sledding race got started in Fairbanks Alaska today with mushers headed a thousand miles to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory of Canada. This best, toughest dog sled race could be the forerunner of a super dog sledding Marathon one day from Whitehorse through Fairbanks and on across the Bering Strait to Russia and Moscow-well, at least I may not be the only one to have imagined that future race.

http://www.adn.com/2012/02/04/2300111/yukon-quest-begins-in-fairbanks.html

An Odd Super Bowl 46

When New York's legislature gave in to President Obama's arm-twisting personal visit to N.Y.C. to bring a decisive influence to the legislature's decision to make single sex marriage legal in New York State to join Massachusetts as the two power states of single sex marriage on the East coast it might have began an inevitable political correct (to the administration) progression toward what seems like the inaugural Butch Bowl to determine which state will be on top.

NFL football seems to have scripted finishes to championship games since the last one-sided victory by the Cowboys over Buffalo so long ago in order to get better ratings. Political correctness too seems to have put the Patriots in the Superbowl so often following 9-11 that the idea of the Buccaneers winning seemed absurd. It is easier to envision Bin Laden as a Buccaneer than a Patriot. The Jets too are nearly o.k. for a non-traumatic appearance in the Superbowl, yet the rush job on the zero population growth single sex non-reproductive marriage agenda is a bit of a stretch.

Well, it isn't the players perhaps but the management that drives the corporate agenda including football marketing. Football is free enterprise and a good example of how if capitalism is left to function without government supervision the winner of the Butch Bowl will solve global warming and make the alternative remedy of claiming its a hoax unnecessary.

Maybe a new kind of sport derived from football could take off with five teams playing on a two level steeplechase-emulating course with ten end zones, curves and a maze in the middle. Some things should change yet some things should be left behind.

Why Beauty Isn't Synonymous With Morality

Morality describes the good, the bad and the ugly equally well. The beautiful is just that, while aesthetics are an abstract contemplation of form, structure, relationships, values and so forth.

Skinnerians might expand _________' definition to include 'objects that organisms desire' as of moral value. If water for instance is a good or benefits thirsty conscious creature does it not also benefit amoeba? Morality cannot be reduced to meaning 'things that benefit organisms by satisfying their desires or organic needs' without making conscious thought unnecessary. Perhaps the contribution of consciousness to morality would then be in construction of a trophic order to get people to the waterhole without stampeding, war or crime.

Morality is what people culturally actually do socially-that is what values they have. Those values may change over time during pagan eras with infanticide, in the present era of abortion and so forth.

One cannot easily equivocate beauty with the morally good. If a beautiful woman steals a great work of art-a painting-then the theft is good if the painting belonged to wicked people that pollute the environment, yet if an ugly, even a hideous pejorative runt steals the painting then it is evil? Plato associated the beautiful with health-fair enough. There are poisonous plants and flowers of course, in mushroom picking usually the colorful glistening ones are dangerous. There are probably very many beautiful, lethal aircraft armed with wonderfully sophisticated weapons of mass destruction.

The laws of God such as 'thou shalt not steal' are beautiful in that they personify through the presence of divinity, perfection. In that case if one accepts the parameters then beauty and morality coincide. Like the areas of a Venn diagram however it is not necessary that all elements appear morally good and beautiful at the same time or in the same area.
One may move to Montana after being lost at sea for 80 days and move to a desert after being lost in the snow for 8 days. The sight of one element may be beautiful one time and ugly another.

In Answer to the Question; 'Can Definitions Be Wrong?'

With ontological relativism as the phenomenal norm of language, definitions can be defined as whatever they are given values as. Definitions are comparable to algebraic literals that await content.

The formal, logical mapping of given language values would be a metaset. Logic would need to be correct instead of incorrect for effectiveness.

Definitions can be locations within a constructed space-time matrix with temporal values. The ontology of any given matrix would comprise a linguistic Universe for-itself.

A user would want to discover the meaning of definition and of right and wrong values within a given ontology if concerned with transactionally meaningful communication.

On Jeremiah 23

Reading 1 Kings 19:16 "16And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room."

The determination of God to influence history is remarkably presented in Jeremiah 23 and here in 1 Kings 19-16. In subsequent verses Jehu eliminates Ahab's heirs accomplishing the purposes of God. The prophet Elisha following Elijah brought the swift sword of the word of God to restore social history toward a strait course consistent with the plan of God.

That is why when later reading the prophet Jeremiah's interactions with God, the categorical disappointment of God with the people of the era- his chosen people- and their leaders seems like an expression of certainty on how to restore society to an order consistent with his purpose. He saves the remnant sent to captivity in Babylon for seventy years and wastes the rest.

Evidently the period of Babylonian captivity brought the Jews back to a closer relationship unto God and away from all the non-sense of decadence, cruelty and worship of false gods.

Here is the passage from Jeremiah. Chapter 24 is just as remarkable.

(KJV)

Jeremiah 23
" 1Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.

2Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD.

3And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.

4And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the LORD.

5Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

6In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

7Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

8But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.

9Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the LORD, and because of the words of his holiness.

10For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right.

11For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD.

12Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the LORD.

13And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.

14I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness; they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

15Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.

16Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD.

17They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.

18For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it?

19Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.

20The anger of the LORD shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly.

21I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.

22But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.

23Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off?

24Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.

25I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

26How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart;

27Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.

28The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD.

29Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

30Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words every one from his neighbour.

31Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that use their tongues, and say, He saith.

32Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD.

33And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the LORD.

34And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of the LORD, I will even punish that man and his house.

35Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the LORD answered? and, What hath the LORD spoken?

36And the burden of the LORD shall ye mention no more: for every man's word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of hosts our God.

37Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What hath the LORD answered thee? and, What hath the LORD spoken?

38But since ye say, The burden of the LORD; therefore thus saith the LORD; Because ye say this word, The burden of the LORD, and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the LORD;

39Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence:

40And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten."

On 'Salt: A World History' by Mark Kurlansky

I had the good luck to read 'Salt: A World History' by John Kurlansky recently and shook out plenty of historical facts of sustainable interest. There were actually far too many, interesting points in Mark Kurlansky's 2002 Penguin Publishing book to summarize here with any semblance of a taste of the diverse and historically important subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt:_A_World_History

One learns a diverse array of interesting American facts of course such as the strategic importance during the American civil war of destroying confederate salt production without which preserving food was difficult in the era before refrigeration. The Erie canal was built preponderantly for the purpose of making delivery of Onadega salt available cheaply to New York City.

In 17th century France prisoners that died before trial were sometimes preserved in salt and brought to trial and public display that they might not escape justice. Prisoners sentenced to death following execution were on occasion likewise salted and presented for public ridicule. Salt has amazing preservative properties. Many salt mine workers and their costumes have been discovered remarkably well preserved from times as early as the 5th century B.C.

http://www.pilgrimhall.org/winslowjohnrecords.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Meese

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_ketchup

The first patent granted in America was given for a fellow named John Winslow about 1622 in Massachusetts for salt production techniques. Politics was not the bane of independent intellectual creativity of course, but instead on occasion supported the development of enterprise to produce salt even during the revolutionary war with cash incentives-the X prize bounties of the day.

Of most contemporary interest-more so than the 1200 feet below the surface of Detroit network of more than 50 miles of road built in a Morton Salt mine-was the curious history of perhaps the first or second American chronicler of tomato ketchup manufacture in America James Meese published the recipe in 1812. Is it possible that President Ronald Reagan's Chief of Staff Edwin Meese influenced the Presidential declaration that 'ketchup is a vegetable'?

Salt for thousands of years was a primary food preservative. Today most people have forgotten about salt cod, making sauerkraut or soy sauce. Kurlansky's excellent book 'Salt: A World History' provides a useful historical brief on that important element of human culture in enjoyable prose.

On the Non-Determinative Realm Prior to the Quantum/Solid-State-Determinative Realm

Its a context issue. The topical features of mass and energy perceived by physicists were long said to behave as waves and particle. The Chinese puzzle box of smaller particles and wave events were revealed in particle accelerators with additional energy input in the form of particles to decohere and seem as quarks or whatever-leptons, muons etc. Higher energy levels were required to reveal particle-wave forms bound up with the most strength or energy.

Decoherence-suppression of interference in quantum observations-can be included in 'the quantum realm' of which definition and location I will now identity with this universe's mass and energy at the quantum level. That is these are comparatively determiinistic contextually whereas the alternative primary non-deterministic realm before quantum determnation and solid states is not.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-decoherence/

The experiment I cited above actually observed quantum features in solid-state matter for the first time. The other theory I cited by a fellow working in Singapore was a blog post at Scientific American that postulated that the solid state mass in this universe at the smallest level would be comparable to a number to an uncertain power of entanglements by those particle-waves of uncertain character in a non-determined condition from what I refer to as the quantum realm for-itself. Because of some initial anisotropy there may be a cascade of quantum determination this universe state that in some way becomes entangled probabilities to allow energy to appear like standing waves epiphenomenalized as mass.

Staying in a tent in Alaska recently I experienced a heavy snowfall that let snow piled up on tall trees transition suddenly to fall with a thud making a loud noise with the capability of flattening the tent. Not only wind could make a line of trees drop loads of snow, but so it seems could a radio. That suggested to me that the Word spoken in the beginning from a quantum realm could have started a cascade of change in selecting the entanglement of quantum probabilities that would appear later as mass, light and the expansion of space-time in this Universe (1). That is a little off topic though.

In this universe there may be no real particles or waves-only energy that at the smallest level is obviously mysterious. Quarks and all those elementary particles are energy bound into patterns of behavior in quantum levels. Only so much energy may fit in valence shells forming atomic patterns.

The factors that may quarks and elementary energy units have select quantum values and differentiate at the basic universe entry level is unknown. There are myriad possibilities to consider. Some that I have thought about a little. Instead of the quantum realm I will call the energy patterns of this quantum universe inclusive of its appearance of uncertainty the determined universe and the other realm where energy does not appear in a particular quantum existence as the non-determined realm.

The idea of a non-determined realm of energy is paradoxic in numerous respects. That context would have not only a symmetric character without differentiation or spacing, it might have a neither finite nor infinite quantitative endowment of energy or space-time. That isn’t a very helpful concept even for myself. The probabilities of equal values regarding the relationships of energy within its perfected field would be 100% until change and cancellation of balance generated a field of entangled anisoptropic probabilities that might appear as something like a Higgs Field and the inflation. Interestingly enough the virtual particles that appear and disappear from space-time would not necessarily be artifacts from a subtler level of spatial dimensions of an inflationary era. They might be new energy intrusions from that non-determined realm.

I would guess that a good reason for the existence of extra spatial dimensions would be that those smaller dimensions might provide the quantum energy levels possible for space-time in this Universe. Too much energy in various atomic shells for particle-waves could not remain in those dimensions. The idea that radiation could be a process of trans-dimensional energy redistribution may be silly yet it’s a little interesting.

That idea too is off topic in comparison to the discovery of the characteristics of a non-determinative realm of energy primary to the solid-state mass-energy of this Universe (1).

Zero-Point Energy and the Uncertain Expanse of a Quantum Universe? (metaphysics)

Scientists have for the first time observed zero-point energy in a solid object in a solid object. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle means that solid mass observed at the quantum level will vague out into position or speed yet not both characteristics observed simultaneously. In fact the quantum world is quite unknown as a for-itself or in-itself.

What are the boundaries and characteristics of the quantum universe? Some theorists hypothesize that the solid-state appearance of mass in this universe is a result of concatenated probability entanglements of that waveform phenomenality priori to the space-time ordinal nature of the mass of this Universe (1).

It is that quantum realm where mass does not exist, and where quantum waves that are described from here as energy exist as possibilities of being in every place and perhaps time and speed. If quantum energy has the same time-at light speed or faster before becoming entangled different energy values might occur when they were entangled to appear as mass-yet the most basic particles might have the same quantum values perhaps as strings or membranes.

It is a metaphysical curiosity to me about what that quantum realm before or outside this Universe in which this Universe has phenomenalized is comprised, and of what its spatial and temporal character could be.

http://www.newscientist.com/articl...-rss&nsref=online-news

On the Question-Does an Intelligent Super-Organism Exist on Earth?

Pierre Telhard De Chardin wrote of a layered life approach and of a noosphere. The cosmogenesis approach is interesting. Telhard was a World War One French Army officer who got so drunk on Armistice Day that he couldn't get the key into the lock on his door. He was also a priest and theologian. It is impressive that he could view stomachs hanging in trees and later write such interesting and optimistic philosophy.

http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_2.html

James Lovelock and the Gaia hypothesis argued that the world ecosphere behaves like an intelligent organism. The complex feedback mechanisms of which there are a zillion act together. One can consider Elton's research on the way bare post-glacial era northern island became populated with vegetation and other, larger life as guano from seabirds and seabirds themselves as food and in other capacities helped to reinforce an increase population of life forms. If bees were taken out of the life equation on Earth that would present quite a few problems.

Regarding the web of life as an integral whole is a fundamental parameter of contemporary ecospheric research I would guess. Several books have been published on ecosystems integrity from the requirement that large predators exist to the harm done to the American southwest by the removal of mammoths of the elephant family whose footprints allowed seed to grow.
Human beings are too a part of the ecosphere as are their intellect such as exists outside the beltway. Some of the intellects are daft regarding the ecosphere and do their best to exterminate much of it en mass instead of conserving it while they advance science and technology to the purpose of knowledge and human well being. The ecosphere isn't just an aesthetic luxury.

Inevitably the political trail returns to the oval of NASCAR and high-octane automobile pollution-that may not change soon.

Lovelock wrote in 'The Final Warning' that the human population may drop to about 200 million in the future as a result of global warming and other issues. At that point the global temperature may stabilize. Lovelock conjectures that if humanity continues its usual greenhouse gassing at that point Gaia will simply remove the remnant of humanity.

Life may act on Earth as a giant organism. G.W.F. Hegel believed that life on Earth is a process of God realizing awareness of Himself in history that fits rather well with the Gaia criteria.

There are additional ways to consider an ecosphere in larger, intelligent organisms in discrete or monistic guise. Ant colonies sometimes seem to act as intelligent collectives-one must consider the Borg obviously as a future mode of ultra-right-wing or left wing consumerism.
Of even more concern to some is the potential that some of those giant fungi discovered now and then to be the largest organisms in the world have as much intelligence as federal budget planners. Then there are whales and ravens-seemingly happy creatures of moderate intelligence in tune with the temporal times even as they decline.
The entire quantum universe could be a super-intelligence, quantum computer or God running this Universe as a sub-routine.

Defining 'Spirit'

One might want to define truth in other than a context of Platonic realism. A disquotation theory or some other might be helpful.

Given a particular verbal lexicon of meanings, if one does not assent to the meanings a priori it is unlikely that one would understand the concepts or meanings. Pontius Pilate asked rhetorically of Jesus Christ 'what is truth?'.

If I read a contemporary cosmology theory or language and substituted my own values for the terms or expressions I would not understand what the theoretical physicist intended. Notably some expect understanding of 'truth' to be brought to them to overcome their skepticism. Perhaps one must be drawn by the Spirit unto a relationship with God or actively work to learn philosophical ideas instead of receiving insight as a bonus for signing up with 4g wireless service two years.

It is also helpful to define 'spirit'. One might say that it is simply the life experience of a human being regarded as a data set by God. In theory a morally conscious human being aware of the truth values of Jesus Christ might behave differently socially than one that regards 'spirit' as meaningless and human experience as entirely phenomenal. Those that are spiritually dead in the sense of being unsaved or unenlightened regarding the spiritual life can miss the boat and slip into the river Styx like a slithering creature in devolution down the slippery slope to oblivion and even judgment.

Well, if spirit is simply human experience perceived or unperceived as spirit that state of affairs might describe (so far as humanly possible) the Spirit of God (I would think) to be Divine experience-the uncreated Being in omniscience without cause.