News Update Potpourri

Things that happened to me today:

Lab rotations for the intro to statistics class began. I am currently training a group of seven undergrads to essentially do my job for me. Good stuff.

Went to the Doctor's office to get a refill on my meds. While in the waiting room, I had a profound nosebleed that didn't stop for ten minutes. The nurses brought me some gauze, so I realized that I couldn't get away without explaining the fact that I had a particular bleeding disorder called VonWillebrand's, As the result of a past surgery to remove two cysts from my sinus cavities (as some of you will remember), I had quite a bleeding episode in which we discovered said disease. After filling my script, the Doctor took a look at it and discovered that the septum was quite raw. So, he cauterized the raw areas using silver nitrate. Some of the silver nitrate spilled out of my nose, giving me a nice little booger tattoo that I have spent the rest of the day exfoliating. Hopefully, this little procedure will put an end to the bleeding problems... or not. I currently have a little bit of a blood and fluid mixture (not full-on blood) trickling out of that pesky right nostril. Hopefully, it's just the drainage from the chemical burn.

I am officially proposing my Master's Thesis this Friday in a meeting called the T1 Proposal. This is the first step in completing the Thesis itself, where my committee reviews what I plan to do, gives me suggestions and corrections, and then tells me to go out, run the experiment, and bring back the data in the form of a full and complete Master's Thesis. The T1 Proposal is a pretty big deal, and my advisor is very confident that I will do quite well on it. Seeing as we already have one full experiment complete, we hope that things will work out so I can defend my Thesis by the end of the semester... but we'll see. I've spent the last year and a half working on this, and I'm very excited to see how many good things have come out of it.

The wedding marches ever closer as we continue to bend over backwards to try and get it all set up. To be honest, I am so freaking sick of flying back to the midwest. After "Suckmass 2006", traveling anywhere just doesn't appeal to me. Funds are running thin, as are days off and my patience for airlines (that means YOU, United!). I'm content to sit through this semester as a home body, happily working on my thesis with the occasional trip to Seattle.

Oh, and I just picked up an Xbox 360. I'm now back on Xbox live if any of you want to hook up for a few rounds of Gears of War or Lost Planet. My gamertag is RaoulTD. It was nice to be able to talk to my sister long distance over the voice chat feature. It was also nice to see that I could download any number of TV shows and movies directly on to the console's hard drive. Xbox live has freaking blew my mind. Game systems have come a LONG way.

If the mind were a house...

The human mind is a complex network of basic beliefs, perceptions, misperceptions, emotions, true wants, perceived wants, fears, needs, and desires. It cannot be mapped on to any one network of neurons, nor can it be understood or interpreted correctly simply by the network doctrine (the belief that networks of neural activity are critical for the understanding and interpretation of human thought and its relationship with the brain). From what we can understand, we collect information from our environment and compile it into perceptions. It's like building a house. We take from our daily experiences, sift through the ones we believe are true and reliable, and put them up as studs, layer them on as sheet rock, use them to decorate our homes and create comforting patterns that we turn into our beliefs, prejudices, ideals, and so on.

What do I mean by all of this? When we shut out the thoughts and ideas of our friends, neighbors, televisions, websites, music CD's, pastors, ministers, priests, books, even our own ill-formed ideas, the "house" that is our belief system, formed and assembled by our minds in a sequence of cognitive processes including but not limited to top-down processing, stereotype formation, and executive functions, we are left with one basic binary question that we all must answer before we can move on with our lives: Is any of this true?

When we ask that question, whether or not we realize it, we are really looking around our "house" and seeing all the places where the roof is unfinished, where the furniture is only half-formed, where there are massive holes missing from the walls, and where all the decor does not match. We know that with a simple thought, we can knock it all down. Some of us are afraid to, because, quite simply, we don't want to be without a house. And others among us happily knock it down and set about rebuilding it in a way that will make more sense and will provide better shelter - a better understanding of the world around us.

Nietzsche completely knocked down his house, leaving him with nothing: He saw the ruin and walked away. Descartes was left standing in the ruin alone, realized that he was standing there seeing the ruin, and decided that because he was seeing the ruin, he must exist and could therefore set about building a better house. Aristotle carefully dismantled the house piece by piece, wrote extensively about each piece, and laid them each out on the lawn while drawing out a diagram of how they all fit together. He never set about rebuilding the house. Plato just looked at the house and thought about how this particular house differed from what he thought the ideal Form of a house ought to be. Leibniz though the house was made of monads, Kant pondered whether or not it could be made into a law for all rational beings to build a house in such a manner, Russell and Wittgenstein broke the house down to a collection of facts about a house and stated that the house itself more or less did not exist, and the eastern philosophers as a collective whole shrugged their shoulders and either said, "It's a house, so what?" or they said, "What house?" Or they said both at the same time.

But it is Hume who, perhaps, produced the most surprising answer: When we have torn the house of our mind apart and are left with nothing but a single screaming neuron, it is there that we can begin to have faith. (Surprising, seeing as Hume was more or less an atheist.) Augustine more or less illustrated this as he underwent a systematic dissection and restructuring of his house, even to the point of tearing up his old foundation and laying down a better one.

For Hume and Augustine, the house was not really so much the important part of the equation. It is what they saw when they were standing in the wreckage of the house that mattered. For Hume, it was something mysterious and wonderful that he never quite attached to God. For Augustine, he lifted his eyes from the ruin and saw the Lord standing before him. The same was true for C.S. Lewis, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Francis Schaeffer, J. M. Boice, King David, St. Paul, St. John, and St. Peter.

Especially Peter.

The destruction of his house was particularly sharp. Three times the rooster crowed. On the third, the Lord looked through the ruins and stared straight at him. It ruined him (wonderfully so) forever.

We change our minds frequently. Sometimes about small things. Sometimes about very large things. For some of us, it is very difficult to trust our own craftsmanship, especially after an extensive remodeling. We know how lousy we are with a hammer and nail, so to speak, and have learned the hard way that our shoddy work cannot always be trusted. This leaves we skeptics with a great predicament.

And in that predicament, the advice of Hume becomes a Godsend, as he points us (unintentionally) back to the truth of Proverbs 3:5. "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding...."

"Skepticism is the foundation of true religious belief." In doubt, faith takes root. In weakness, true strength is born. In defeat, we find victory. In death, we find life. "My Grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness."

Today, as I survey the wreckage of my own house, I am grateful for the Holy Spirit who guides us in to all truth.

2006 Album of the Year

For the last few years, I have quietly been awarding one album the illustrious title of "Album of the Year", primarily for my own amusement. To be eligible for the award, an album has to have been released within the given calendar year and, quite simply, I have to like them more than any other album that was released that year. I evaluate them on their coherence and goodness as a complete and whole album - records that have one or two good songs do not make the cut. Furthermore, records that have a lot of good songs on them but just don't flow well also do not make the cut. The album does not necessarily have to do something original or inventive - all it has to do is catch my ear and keep me coming back to it over and over again.

This year, I'm happy to announce the 2006 recipient of The Fighting Temeraire's Album of the Year Award:

Break out the Battle Tapes by Wired All Wrong

Wired All Wrong, composed of former members of the bands sElf and God Lives Underwater, produced a dark, sarcastic and ornate pop rock record that is both unafraid of the pop rock sound yet keeps it from becoming trite and shallow at the same time with complicated instrumentation and catchy rhythms. Don't be put off by the fact that this may be pop music (with strong industrial influences) - this is absolutely brilliant music, and promises much reward to the listener. But why rant on. You can check them out for yourself and listen to song samples at their myspace page.

And, just for the record, here are the past recipients of the Album of the Year award, beginning with the first year I started doing this...

2004 Album of the Year: The Funeral of God by Zao
2005 Album of the Year: Vhiessu by Thrice

Check them out. They're worth a listen.

Back home in Pullman... sans luggage

This has been the worst flying season ever. First, my flight out of Pullman was cancelled due to the Denver snow-storm debacle, and I had to fly home on Christmas eve. Then, my uncle lost his luggage on a one-leg flight. As in, there were no connecting flights, and they still didn't quite load his stuff on to the plane. Next, my brother's flight in to Dallas was delayed due to tornadoes in the area. Oh, and they also lost his luggage. Finally, on my way home, they lose mine.

Wow.

And we aren't done yet, either.

Bugzie still has to fly home from a wedding in a day or two, and JumpingJayhawk is flying home tomorrow. Seriously, I think the freakin' gremlins are out to get us or something.

Anyway, I'm home, I'm tired, and I'm cranky. I have ordered pizza and will spend the rest of the next 12 to 17 hours eating, sleeping, and watching Dead Like Me season 2 (19.99 at best buy right now!).

My next post will be to announce my album of the year award. I'll explain all that when I get around to it.

Until then, think of trombones on fire.