My Thoughts On The Grand Design - Part 1

So I'm reading The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. From what I've read and heard about it, this book may be offensive to a lot of people. For instance, on page 5 (the first page of the book with text on it), the authors declare that "...philosophy is dead." Science, they say, has taken on the role in this century that philosophy has played in the past, giving us a perspective on what we are, who we are, and where we've come from, along with where we're headed. And that's probably the least controversial of their statements, if the press is to be believed.

Countdown starts tomorrow!

Good afternoon, my fellow monkeys. The countdown to my wedding (10, 9, 8,...etc.) starts tomorrow! I'm excited, and I'm not nervous at all.

I've been getting back into quantum mechanics, and doing so has shown me just how poor my math skills have gotten since I've been out of college. Let's face it, they were never that good to begin with, but I'm thinking that I'll need to work my way through parts of my old Calculus book before I can really tackle QM the way I did a few years ago. I'll be better for it, though, and if I ever do decide to get back into Physics, I'll be able to without much trouble.

I need to start writing programs to put together a portfolio of work I've done so that one day I can use them as examples of my programming talents. In the same way that an art student would provide a portfolio to any potential employers, computer programmers are more hireable when they do the same with their programs.

So that's where I'm at today. Getting back to work after slacking through a term at Troy. Luckily, I'll have a summer coming up to write programs, exercise, and work on my math skills. And I'll take a cruise too, if there's time.

Dance Monkeys Dance

Dance Monkeys Dance

There are billions of galaxies in the observable universe, and each of them contains hundreds of billions of stars:

In one of these galaxies
Orbiting one of these stars
Lies a little blue planet
And this planet is run by a bunch of monkeys

Now these monkeys don't think of themselves as monkeys
They don't even think of themselves as animals
In fact, they love to list all the things that they think
separate them from the animals:
Opposable thumbs
Self-awareness
They use words like Homo Erectus and Australopithecus

You say Toe-mate-o, I say Toe-motto
They're animals all right
They're monkeys
Monkeys with high-speed digital fiber-optic technology
But monkeys nevertheless

I mean, they're clever
You've got to give them that
The Pyramids, skyscrapers, phantom jets,
the Great Wall of China
That's all pretty impressive
For a bunch of monkeys

Monkeys whose brains have evolved
to such an unmanageable size
that it's now pretty much impossible
for them stay happy for any length of time

In fact, they're the only animals that think
they're supposed to be happy
All of the other animals can just be

But it's not that simple for the monkeys

You see, the monkeys are cursed with consciousness
And so the monkeys are afraid
So the monkeys worry
The monkeys worry about everything
but mostly about what all the other monkeys think
Because the monkeys desperately want to fit in
with the other monkeys

Which is pretty hard to do
because a lot of the monkeys hate each other
This is really what separates them from the other animals
These monkeys hate
They hate monkeys that are different
Monkeys from different places
Monkeys who are a different color

You see, the monkeys feel alone
All six billion of them

Some of the monkeys pay another monkey
to listen to their problems

The monkeys want answers
and the monkeys know they're going to die
So the monkeys make up gods
and then they worship them
Then the monkeys start to argue
over whose made-up god is better
Then the monkeys get really pissed off
and this is usually when the monkeys decide
that it's a good time to start killing each other

So the monkeys wage war
The monkeys make hydrogen bombs
The monkeys have got their entire planet
wired up to explode

The monkeys just can't help it

Some of the monkeys play to a sold out crowd of other monkeys

The monkeys make trophies
and then they give them to each other
Like it means something

Some of the monkeys think they've all figured out
Some of the monkeys read Nietzsche
The monkeys argue about Nietzsche
without given any consideration to the fact that Nietzsche
was just another monkey

The monkeys make plans
The monkeys fall in love
The monkeys have sex
and then they make more monkeys

The monkeys make music
and then the monkeys dance
Dance, monkeys, dance

The monkeys make a hell of a lot of noise

The monkeys have so much potential
if they would only apply themselves

The monkeys shave the hair off of their bodies
in blatant denial of their true monkey nature

The monkeys build giant monkey hives that they call "cities"

The monkeys draw a lot of imaginary lines in the dirt

The monkeys are running out of the oil
which is what fuels their precarious civilization

The monkeys are polluting and raping their planet
like there's no tomorrow

The monkeys like to pretend that everything is just fine

Some of the monkeys actually believe that the entire universe
was created for their benefit

As you can see . . . these are some messed up monkeys

These monkeys are at once the ugliest
and the most beautiful creatures on the planet

And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys
They want to be something else
But they're not.