Experiment

Historical Narrative Interpretation

The idea that the scriptures should be understood as stories and conversations arising within particular circumstances in world history. As such, they should not be interpreted as if we were reading a theological text, an encyclopedia, a set of moral rules, or a philosophical work. Instead, we should seek to understand the story as they saw themselves within it, and try to tease out where the arc of that story leaves us today.

Particularly expressed by Andrew Perriman.

2012 week-by-week changes

Read the setup here. These are my [changes for 2012].

Week 1: Drink no soda.
If anything, this experiment had a negative impact on my life. But I discovered that I really didn't need or miss it.

Week 2: A world without coffee.
Argggghhh!

How to contact me

I care about my interactions with people more than almost anything else. But I'm not very good at keeping up with all kinds of different communications technologies coming at me at the same time. As a result, there are some practices you need to know about.

For one, if you're calling, and I don't recognize the number, I'm not going to answer. If I don't know why you're calling, I'm probably not going to answer either. Too many people have consumed multiple hours of my time in phone conversation, when I just couldn't afford it.

Notepad

Today I decided to experiment with writing and sharing my thoughts as they came to me, using this post as a sort of notepad of constant updates. Here's what resulted.

A lot of people say that you know you're successful when you attract haters. This is kind of like a new-fangled version of "my art will be renowned after I die". It might be, or you might just suck.

What I want in my backpack (list)

So here's what I want in my backpack.

The beginning of thought: Writing like a wiki?

In exploring the edges of my ability to write and explain myself cohesively, I've sometimes sketched out thoughts without full explanation or analysis or defense. And I've been surprised to see those go farther than I would have thought possible. My recent article on Christianity against Religion is a good example.

The beginning of thought

This is an ever-changing launching point for various ideas I'm working on.

The universe bends towards order and complexity. Far from being opposed to the laws of thermodynamics (entropy), this move is actually fueled by entropy. So everything in the universe is always moving in the direction of greater information content, greater order, greater complexity, greater cooperation. Entropy only dictates despair if the information content of the universe is finite. Otherwise, it dictates hope.

Reading List

Here are the books that I consider foundational for me. Not because I agree with all of them, but because they are all part of me.

The Physics of Immortality
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
The Gifts of The Jews
The Powers That Be (Walter Wink)
The Riverworld Series (Farmer)
The Foundation Trilogy
Dune (Frank Herbert)
His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman)

Belief Inventory

I have stumbled onto some unusual beliefs in my life, and thought it'd be interesting to try to catalog what they are.

Protocols: Milk Crates

I'm starting to publicly document the techniques I use for going about things, not because my ways are the best, or I am some kind of authority, but because improvement comes when previously unacknowledged things get shown and shared, and improved upon.

Reasons to use milk crates

To be clear, I use ones I picked up at Walmart and various other places, so I really don't know what "real" milk-crates are like. But here's why they're the best option for long-term storage:

Experiments