First Post

by ktreasure

Blog
It is January 2013 and I am entering a stage of life when many people think it is a time to reflect and perhaps commit to record the things that are important.
This blog is intended to serve no other purpose than to assist me in organising my thoughts and maybe leave some indication to my descendants about who their grandfather, great grandfather etc really was.
And perhaps I may just learn something.
I do not have the greatest memory……….. I forgot what I was going to write next! Oh yes! I find that I read and discover so much insightful, uplifting, inspirational and just plain astounding information and then I just forget it.
No more.
To begin with, I am fairly sure that I am who I am as a result of my genetic programming combined with my cultural conditioning. Steven Pinker wrote about this in his excellent book “The Blank Slate”. I saw it written about Pinker that he had perhaps one of the greatest living minds. After reading “The Blank Slate” and “The Language Instinct” I have to admit that he would certainly be up there.
“The Language Instinct” is definitely the most learned book that I have ever read on any subject. It does hurt the brain to read it but every page somehow manages to give the impression that linguistics could be interesting.
But I digress.
The three most important lessons that I have learned in life are 1- Blaming is bad and 2- Encouragement is good. Those two seem a bit mundane don’t they? Do not be deceived. Those two little bits of advice could change the world. The third one is a lot more complex and I feel is the single most important factor in determining how civilization evolves and will be that most referred to subject in this blog.
More on that later after I say how I reached that conclusion.
Part of my genetic programming has determined that I devote a considerable part of my life investigating the “human condition”, that is, Earth, civilization and my role in it. And to do this it is important to have some knowledge of cosmology, physics, genetics and philosophy.
I really wish that al, these subjects were mandatory in all primary schools.
First of all Cosmology. Everyone, and I really do mean everyone should know where we are in the universe, when it all started and where it is all going.
This is not a blog about cosmology but there are a few basics. Ie. It all began about 13.7 billion years ago. Earth formed about 4.5 billion ya. Our sun is a fairly smallish , nondescript sun which is about half way through its life cycle. It will turn into a hot dwarf in about five billion years but the Earth will have been long gone by then, swallowed up by the expanding Sun.
Just to put things into perspective, light takes about eight and a half minutes to reach us here on Earth travelling at the speed of light (about 300,000kps). There is a sun out there, Canis Majoris, that is so large that it would take light , travelling in a straight line, eight hours to travel from one side to the other.
Cosmology is fascinating and I have found one of the best sources for information on the subject is Paul Davies. He has written a number of books on the subject and they are all easy to read and understand