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The articles on this site and the linked material are all original, some published elsewhere as articles, notes & questions.
The articles on this site and the linked material are all original, some published elsewhere as articles, notes & questions.
(I really like good questions, especially when they are better than the answers.)
(I really like good questions, especially when they are better than the answers.)
There's a lot of stuff here, feel free to browse.
There's a lot of stuff here, feel free to browse.
The unifying theme is that I am drawn to understand - via intellect and experiences - the underlying level of all phenomena.
The unifying theme is that I am drawn to understand - via intellect and experiences - the underlying level of all phenomena.
Some pages on this site:
Some pages on this site:
Introductory Physics: lectures; guide to lectures.
General Relativity: lectures; guide to lectures; calculations
Family: My grandfathers; my father
Mind is fundamental, matter is derivative: the fundamental unbridgable gap between me and those philosophers whom I call "Mindless materialists".
Some general thoughts
Some general thoughts
Believing contradictory things is allowed by the laws of physics: This explains a lot of human behavior. Also: there may well be good logical reasons for our brains to have developed in such a way that we are able to think illogically.
One can feel a paralyzing fear and at the same time know that that which is feared is unreal. The awareness of the unreality of the actual danger can perhaps enable one to not dispel but ignore the fear, in a way which overcomes the paralysis and enables action.
When one is in the state described as "experiencing infinity", the brain-state is likely a very finite one (so one is not in fact experiencing infinity but rather one is experiencing the state described as 'experiencing infinity').
One can guarantee success only by redefining it, for example as: "successfully motivating oneself to do the maximum possible" (ie one is successful at executing one's responsibility of doing the most that one can).
Deeper meanings of common sayings:
Deeper meanings of common sayings:
"You don't know what you've got until it's gone":
"You don't know what you've got until it's gone":
An 8 yr old boy at the park with his mother; after a few hours there she says 'ok, we have to go'. He says ' I wan't to stay'. She says 'ok, you can stay, I'll go home, have nice time'. He says happily 'ok, bye Mom!'. He means it fully. She hasn't gone 7 feet before he flings himself at her. Why? Because the great self-confidence he had when he told his mother she could go without him derived from her presence there with him. And he did not at all know that. That's what it means, there's no way we can know what we have until it is gone. So when you are very sure you don't need someone in your life, you feel your life is fine you don't need them in it, try to figure out whether perhaps you feel so positively about your life only because that person is in it.
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The grass is greener on the other side:
The grass is greener on the other side:
It is in fact true. When we see grass form a distance, we see the broad side of the blade, and they form a solid phalanx when viewed this way, so everywhere looks green.
Except where you stand, since you see that particular location - and only that one - from above, from which vantage point you see all the brown ground between the blades.
So what does this mean as a moral aphorism?
For example: That when you see your own situation, you can see all the brown spots in it, that no-one else knows of. Perhaps you see only the green in other people's lives, but if you only knew... and know that others are seeing your brown life and thinking it to be greener - much greener than you consider it!
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A stitch in time saves nine:
A stitch in time saves nine:
it is our nature to ignore problems when they are small, but these tend to grow; why do we ignore it? Because it is work to fix, and we push it off or think it is fine as is.
But if we now can focus on the amount of effort or trouble it will be later, then that will weigh on our minds so much that we will summon up the determination to take care of it now.
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Regrets:
"I shoulda"
"I shoulda"
If you regret having taken life-path A instead of B, since you messed up A and it didn’t come out nearly as good as you thought, then don’t regret not having taken path B since probably you would have messed that path up as well – and since path A was preferable to B at the time, a messed-up A is probably better than a messed-up B!
For example: If (insert your situation A here) didn’t workout as planned, don’t say oh I could have (insert the alternate here. situaiotn B), rather compare your unhappy (situation A) now to what likely would have been an unhappy (situation B) now.
here's a cute illustration of this old saw
Converse or implication:
One cannot know what one will feel until encountering the actual situation, eg one may think one would fight bravely against a lion, wereas our nature may be to freeze at the sight of one ready to attack, paralyzed by fear rather than galvanized.
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Think of the room as a field, and the backs of these chairs as blades of grass:
what you'd see from the front-view would be a solid wall of black (ie green)........
Physics addition: Of course as with the ‘Copernican principle’ in cosmology, things look the same, a uniform distribution, from all vantage points, but locally the distribution is not so uniform. Indeed the grass is always greener on the other side.
If grass were distributed in three dimensions around our location, even if it was placed edgewise, all pointing at us, if there was enough grass one would also see only green.
If grass were distributed in three dimensions around our location, even if it was placed edgewise, all pointing at us, if there was enough grass one would also see only green.
To state the obvious explicitly:
To state the obvious explicitly:
'sayings' - especially of this type -are not just observations but rather are meant as suggestions of a mental technique.
'sayings' - especially of this type -are not just observations but rather are meant as suggestions of a mental technique.
In this case, how to overcome in the moment the natural tendency to ignore things when they are still small.
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What I've learned:
I shouldn't count my chickens until they hatch…. and have chickens of their own.
Basically, it's not enough for me to have my cake, and eat it too…... I also want to lose weight in the process. But in this universe this is not an available option: the choice we are given is only to decide which important aspect of life we are willing to forgo.
People always point to some opportunity that made somewhat wealthy and say:
1. "If only I had done THAT ten years ago". But there are potential opportunities NOW that in ten years will elicit the same response. The trick is to find them NOW.
2. "I was thinking of doing that". Yes, so were many people, but one person DID it. or did it successfully. If you were able to see all the people who though of doing it, and all the people who tried but failed, you'd realize your thinking of doing it is not as special as you think.
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Logically I should want to maximize the special moments of my life, programmatically - but I don't
Strange that I resent that the way to my happiness seems to lie ingiving to others - I would have preferred that is be achieved by giving to ME!
If none of the above made sense to you, please pardon me - I'm always a bit slow for the first few days after getting up...
"Der Bavusteh Onov”
Famous for his humility.
Was a child progeny.
Already by middle age he
was widely recognized as having
great potential.
A giver of advice (ba’al eitzos),
known for his genius for(ge’oinus in) impractical solutions to unimportant problems.
Bequeaths to us his dictums:
“I’m a lot more handsome than I look”;
“Maybe I am not optimistic today, but surely I will be tomorrow”;
“Just because it didn’t happen, doesn’t mean it isn’t true”;
“My basic assumption is that all my assumptions are false”.
For childrens' story suggestions based on these, see: https://sites.google.com/a/nyu.edu/avi-rabinowitz/why-the-grass-is-really-greener-on-the-other-side
This site replaces the older nyu website https://files.nyu.edu/air1/public/index.htm
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