Total eclipse

I looked up at the full moon and remembered that tonight is the total eclipse of the moon starting at 7:43 eastern time for those of us in the viewing range, which is parts of North America.  I realized how much we take science for granted in what was such a terrifying event is now just something which occurs with such mathematical predictability, thanks to what we learned from Newton.  For those of you which are not familiar or interested in what happens during a total lunar eclipse, the full moon passes through the shadow of the earth for a period of time, turns red then re-emerges into a full moon.  The moon is such a dominant aspect of the night sky, that I can only imagine how horrifying it was when it turned red with no apparent regularity.  It must have felt as those those observing this routine celestial event that the heavens were completely out of their control.  Can you imagine how much of our "modern" lives we do not understand and chalk up to the mystical?  Fast forward time to February 5008, when someone else is writing on how naive those living in 2008 thought it was to actually believe there was an afterlife, or that the earth does not expand and retract in regular cycles?  I am not in any way saying that the earth expands and retracts, but I can only imagine what "truths" we hold which are almost completely ridiculous to future versions of ourselves.  

Note to future Tom, please do not judge me for believing that I exist in only the current version of myself.  

Link to lunar eclipse details - click here

Limits of knowledge...

How can we tell what is "true" when we are limited by our human concepts of what is "real"?  When I read 'Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godelz' by Rebecca Goldstein it radically reshaped how I approach truth.  When I was younger, I came to settle on the fact that math was the only universal truth, other than what is "true" to you individually. This was radically changed when I started to learn more about what Kurt Godel was offering in his "incompleteness theory".  He basically started with being obsessed by proving that there are limits to how we approach math and how it can cannot be proven within its confines.  His theorem was so advanced, it was considered brilliant by his good friend and walking partner Einstein.  How would you know your limitations when you are confined to our very small understanding of the universe through our "human view"?  That is to say, how can one tell their view is biased when it is formulated by a series of things you learned throughout your life.  Your view is formed by your experiences, understanding and perception of reality.  How can you come up with a truly unique point of view or idea, when it is always based on how humans perceive the universe, or our very small planet, or country, or spoon fed ideology.  Therefore our version of truth will always be interpreted through the lens of the human experience.  It would almost be impossible to describe a concept which does not exist on our planet.  Even the concept of a black hole is described by very human examples of what we know.  Einstein was so unique, or perceived to be unique because he brought together several advanced concepts of his time together in a very unique way to create his 2 great theories of general and special theories of relativity.  He always said "I stand on the shoulders of giants", because his ideas where out there in the world of science, but not brought together the way he did by integrating time as a dimension.  I would argue, that his theory was not entirely unique and limited by our understanding of mathematics and logic.  Godel eventually died because he starved himself to death because he believed he was being poisoned.  This is a topic I will cover in other entries, which is how do you know you are crazy if you are locked in your own mind?  Or how do you know what an evolved human looks like if it is completely outside of our understanding of what is reality?  In the movie '2001 Space odyssey' the character "moon watcher" was evolving into a modern human, but no one around him understood what was happening to him.  The monolith seemed to be a large black rectangle to us, but could be something far greater to the evolved human.   

Amazing link to a Richard Dawkins lecture... click here

Loyalty...to friends, teachers, etc.

I totally forgot that my best friend Jay and I decided to visit another Taekwondo studio while we still were studying under our current instructor.  I guess, the way I rationalized it was that I knew our "Sabumnim" or teacher, was and will always be our teacher.  It was more like a vacation get away to visit another school then to come back home to our Sabumnim.  That was where we learned to better appreciate the spinning round house kick and fake leg spin kicks.  Our instructor was a Hapkido instructor first, then a Taekwondo instructor second.  Until recently, did I realize how amazing his Hapkido was.  He was the highest ranking american having trained by the late great grandmaster Choi Young Sool.  When ever I see Hapkido, it does not quite look authentic as we trained in it.

I feel totally terrible that we took a short vacation from our instructor of 10 years.  He dedicated his entire like to martial arts and was very well known in all of the circles.  I hope he realizes how much we appreciated him as an instructor and in many cases as a mentor.

In martial arts loyalty to your instructor is a big deal, as the student teacher relationship is sacred.  I guess I did find loyalty in martial arts as it introduced me to my best friend of almost 20 years.  We were like Fight Quest as we would attend 4-5 classes a week, plus endless time practicing our "Taeguek" forms to perfection.  I think I will know them to the day I die, and I  owe that to the strong friendship I had for most of my years training martial arts.

Fight Quest

I started watching a Discovery Channel show called 'FIGHT QUEST' which is about these two guys, Jimmy and Doug, who travel around the world learning different styles of martial arts.  I started to DVR the show when I started to see all of the styles they covered.  I really liked the ones on Hapkido and Gracie Jujitsu.  I really liked the Hapkido episode as I trained in Taekwondo and Hapkido since I was 14.  I am surprised that they do not get their a$$ kicked more than they do.  The studios they visit seem to take it easy on them when it comes to the final fight.  I do have to say they seem to train them really hard.  

welcome to my first blog, ever, it is more of an introduction than a blog.  But nevertheless, I want to give you an indication of the topics you may or may not see on my blog.  I love to think about social networking, philosophy, cosmology, and random things like human idiosyncratic behavior.  I have an unhealthy passion for discussing religion, and the issues of free will and duality.  It is unhealthy because the topic seems to weave itself into almost any good conversation I have.

I invite you to read, and participate on my blog.