Q.C.Humor #14: A Friend Looks at His 'Seer’s Cat-a-Log

OR






Our Catnapper

Underbelly slurps juice from
Our empty crab can, lickety-split

Leisurely indulges in a paw n’ chops rinse
Then his forward paw,
Stretches to the feline limit--

Floodlighted by morning shine--
Contorts to nap my socked foot;

Lazing man-napper.

And me, his waiter and footman


--Daniel Wilcox


Cataclysmic—when other neighborhood cats come near your god’s food bowl
--

Catalyst--when your cat orders you to perform a list of actions, "without itself undergoing any permanent change"

Catastrophe—the result of leaving your cat alone in the house all day
--

Hunts Ketchup or catsup--what you try to do when your cat goes where he’s not supposed to and knocks Heinz off the pantry shelf
--

Catapults--watch out for cat a pulls.

Caterwaul—a cat’s wail when he runs into your house wall, escaping from the neighbor's pit bull
--

Catawampus—when your cat makes short work of the newly hung colorful bulbs and lights on your Christmas tree
or the new tissue paper on the roll in the bathroom
--

Catechist--your cat as teacher of how you must behave and serve him
--

cathexis--"defined as the investment of mental or emotional energy in" your cat
--

What is a series of cats in a row waiting to receive their due?

Feline.
--


The Cat’s Scientist

Scratch, scratch, scratch;
C’m’on,
Open the cubical.

I patter past his carbon-based legs,
Rushing, meowing all the way to my feeder
Already full, waiting to be lapped and crunched.

But I’m the droided prince of cats so I
Reverse, nose and chin his cyrexed shins,
Meow into his lowered hand;
Impatiently prowl around his space boots
Until he stumbles and almost falls.

Finally he sapiens up,
Grabs the half-empty receptacle
From the immaculate shelf,

Shakes it noisily in my puss’d face,
Then pretends to dump more pastel fare
Into my tempting container;

Smirking, I swiftly gobble it up
As if it was the last bowl on Mars.

What did he mumble about Pavlov?

Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in Abandoned Towers Magazine
-




And from Steven Wright,
“… a dog thinks he's a human…a cat wouldn't stoop that low."
--

Cat-apillar

‘Herd’ of cats who—“

No way!
--
In a cat dictionary, what is 12 in number?”

‘Dozen’ cats napping
--





Clammy Chops

I scooped in one huge mouthful of savory chowder
Swimming with succulent salmon on a reconnoiter

Wild from Alaska—my taste buds buzzed into singing,
But the stupid phone in the kitchen rang, yanking.

I dropped my creamy spoon and rushed through the open door--
Wrong number! Frustrated, I slammed down the white ringer,

Tended to nagging errands clanging for attention;

But then heard a loud slurp...slurping 'round the den corner.

Oh, no! I rushed back into the aromatic room of the computer
And there crouched Fizzy, our calico, her cream-rootbeer

Mugged head raised pleased, above the scent-wafted white saucer,
Just ‘fin-ished’--her pink tongue wiping those smiling choppers.


--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. at vox poetica


In the Light-hearted Life of Best Pet Friends,

Daniel Wilcox

again, the empty-bucket G- word!

Guest Post from Hemant Metha on the Dawkins Atheism-Theism Scale
and my extended reflections about the scale, and the G- question:

https://youtu.be/VMIe7eInGBU

Thanks to Richard Dawkins for creating this scale, and to Hemant Metha for doing a lucid video on it. In The God Delusion, Dawkins wrote, "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other."

Here’s the Dawkins Scale, again:
--
Richard Dawkins’ Belief Scale Scoring Rubric

1. Strong Theist: I do not question the existence of God, I KNOW he exists.
100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: "I do not believe, I know."
-
2. De-facto Theist: Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. "I don't know for certain, but I strongly believe
in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."
-
3. Weak Theist: Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."
-
4. Pure Agnostic: Exactly 50%. "God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable."

-
5. Weak Atheist: Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. "I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."
-
6. De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable
and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.
[Dawkins states that he is a 6, though in another interview, he said, a 6.9.]
-
7. Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God. I know there is no God, with the same conviction
as Carl Jung knows there is one"
--

If it's a matter of creeds, such as creedal Christianity (Augustian-Calvinism), orthodox Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, I suppose I am about a 6, strongly against such concepts of God.

But, generally, I am an intellectually convinced theist, about a 2.3 (about 74%) if the definition of "God" is the first one of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
god "1 capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality..."

I am a liberal Friend with UU-leanings.

Like so many of these tests/scales (Dawkins is the best though), the scale is affected by one's assumptions and presuppositions.

For instance, on a different website an atheist declares that Thomas Jefferson is a 4.2 even though many passages in Jefferson's works, including the Declaration of Independence opening, show his score is probably about 2.

When it comes to the particular gods of organized religion such as creedal Christianity, Jefferson was definitely on the atheistic side of the Belief Scale.

Take a look at another method of viewing atheism, theism, etc. There are many variations on the whole essential topic:

We are living in a universe about 27 billion light-years across, and about 13 billion years old and, according to cosmologists, the cosmos will last more billions of years. And there is also the possibility of a multiverse.

What is "ultimate reality":

#1 All reality came about by cosmic chance. Seemingly the view of the French biologist Jacques Monod in Chance and Necessity, a powerful book I read a few years back, and the view of the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould.

My take on this as an average person with a keen interest in science: I think this view is possible. I guess given cosmic time even the "laws" of nature, math, reason, life, ethics, consciousness could all blip into existence.

#2 All reality came about by a cosmic determinism of meaningless matter and energy which is eternal. Everything is lock step. There are no choices, not for what I supposedly ruminate on having for lunch or whether or not to commit murder or what to choose for my career.

Based on our studying this at university, and for many years since, and many times trying to imagine my "I" as an illusion who is only 'done to' by the cosmos, I think this is one of the least likely views of reality. But the view is very popular these days--sort of an atheistic version of Calvinism.

#3 All reality came about somehow by a temporary, finite, imperfect, even distorted, expression of the perfect eternal Ideal Forms of Platonism.
I've been influenced by Platonism.

#4 All reality came about by emergent possibilities in a quantum singularity vacuum or some unknown ultimate reality. But where did the quantum singularity vacuum come from? Here goes "turtles all the way down."

This view seems to posit an eternal physical reality with no "super" reality 'transcending' it.

Like in #1 humankind is a "fluke," an "accident," a "lucky" break.

#5 All reality came about by an impersonal ultimate reality of cosmic beauty. Scientists such as Albert Einstein stated this was his view, that he thought the impersonal god of Spinoza was true. But this seems similar to a combination of #3 and #4.

Unlike #2 and #4, the emergent-possibility cosmos isn't meaningless and purposeless, but filled with meaning.

Interesting, but I doubt it.

#6 All reality is coming about by the everlasting but limited cosmic reality that is becoming. This is the view of thinkers such as philosopher and mathematician Alfred Lord Whitehead, philosopher Charles Hartshorne, etc.

This cosmic but limited God, this limited ultimate reality, who is far beyond human understanding works toward changing matter and energy and conscious life such as homo sapiens into increasing patterns and forms of beauty, meaning, and purpose. This is also the view of some Reform Jews.

But where is the evidence for this?

Process thinkers explain that consciousness, reason, ethics, mathematics, natural law, creativity, aesthetics, life itself, etc. are the evidence.

This view is appealing, but most of the technical philosophical explanations are BEYOND me. I'm a relatively average literature teacher (who got born with a "why" in his throat;-)

#7 All reality came about as just one of an infinite number of universes of an infinite multi-verse, the view of some modern cosmologists. What is the ultimate of the multi-verse is unknown or maybe the multiverse itself is ultimate.

Intriguing, but seems too speculative for me. However, I'm not as skeptical as Martin Gardner, one of the co-founders of the modern skeptical movement who wrote a scathing dismissal of this view.

#8 All reality came about by the impersonal Brahma God of Hinduism and some modern New Age leaders such as Ken Wilber with his Integral Theory, and Deepak Chopra, etc. .

The impersonal God Brahma is conducting a cosmic dance in which it forgets its self and dreams into billions of separated forms including in one minor edge of the universes, thinking humans.

But all is illusion. And all events both good and evil are produced by Brahman. That is why Ken Wilber and other such leaders claim that Brahman caused 9//11, causes all murders, all rapes, etc.

Given that I am a human rights worker from way back, for about 55 years, obviously this isn't my cup of philosophical tea. Also, I still vividly remember as a Gandhi devotee being shocked when a Hindu priest in L.A. tried to persuade me to go to Vietnam to kill (when I was drafted), saying insects are killed all the time in reality.:-(

#9 All reality came about by unknowable factors. Everything beyond and before the Big Bang is such a complete unfathomable mystery that it will probably not ever be solved by finite humans at least not for a very long time.

Allegedly the view of the Mysterians such as skeptic Martin Gardner, physicist Roger Penrose, etc.

#10 All reality continually comes about by infinite impersonal reality which never had a beginning. No creator god exists. Some forms of Buddhism (though other forms are theistic).
--
At this point in my life, I lean toward some view of #3 and #6, though I am open to #1 as a real possibility.

Here's the main reason why I am a theist: Mathematics, natural law (as in the law of gravity and the theory of relativity, etc.) life, consciousness, reason, creativity, ethics, human rights, compassion, and aesthetics--ALL
are very meaningful and purposeful.

I don't think that existence/reality is "meaningless" and "purposeless," or that ethics are "subjective preferences," or "cultural constructs," or (to quote Dawkins on altruism) a "misfiring" of evolution.

But, maybe we finite humans don't have enough knowledge to even decide this question.

We choose one of many diametrically opposed mountain climbs.

And that makes all the difference, for good or bad, false or true, life or death.


In the Light,

Daniel

Review of God and the Reach of Reason

God and the Reach of Reason by atheist philosopher Erik J. Wielenberg

Lucidly written explanations of rational theism versus rational atheism.

A book-length, intriguing comparison and contrast of 3 thinkers' views:

#1 What one theist (Oxford professor and writer, C.S. Lewis)
has in common philosophically
--strange as it may seem--
with two very famous atheists
(the Scottish atheist philosopher, David Hume)
and the British skeptic and atheist Bertrand Russell).

#2 How all three disagree on vital points concerning the nature of reality.

This is a very good thinkers' book, written in balanced, measured, lucid, and well-explained prose, explicating difficult philosophical issues and controversies in a user-friendly way.

Wielenberg is respectful toward those with whom he strongly disagrees, which is a wonderful change from the usual, given the tendency of so many leaders to demonstrate intolerance, discourtesy, and even personal attacks. Consider all of the hateful, demeaning political and religious slander and verbal abuse of the recent past by many American leaders.

Only a few times does the philosophical book become obscurely
technical, dry, and boring.

One of the most insightful volumes I read in the last year.

I was also impressed because, unlike most nontheists, Erik J. Wielenberg thinks objective ethics exist, are real. He--contrary to the vast majority of atheists--is a strong moral realist. He is professor of philosophy at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.

From his website:
"[A]ll the teaching must still be done by concrete human individuals. The State has to use the men who exist. Nay, as long as we remain a democracy, it is men who give the State its powers. And over these men, until all freedom is extinguished, the free winds of opinion blow." - C.S. Lewis

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Amazing Reality of Genetic Life

The amazing, incredible reality of genetic life...

If I got to live, again, and was born with scientific ability, it would be difficult
for me to choose between the fields of astrophysics/astronomy
versus genetics/biology!

Genetics is a fascinating field of endeavor which has greatly altered how thinkers view Life and reality.

Consider this measured reflection from a science website:

"One of the surprises that came out of the Human Genome Project was how few genes (protein coding stretches of DNA) humans
have — around 23,000,
not that different compared to the fruit fly with 14,000,
and quite a bit less than rice, with 51,000."

Wow!
So we human beings, homo sapiens, are situated between
a fruit fly
and a grain of rice!
We have more genes than a fruit fly, but less than a grain of rice!

Sounds hilariously bizarre, like some sort of slapstick movie comedy.

What sense does all of this make?

Read on:
"Traditionally the metaphor for genes was something more akin
to a blueprint, — the “standard dogma” of Francis Crick: each gene codes for
one mRNA which codes for one protein — but now we realize that many are better viewed as switches or volume knobs.

Moreover, one gene can have multiple effects. Complexity arises not so much from
the genes themselves as from the connections between them.

These network properties are currently an enormously rich topic of research. For example, the way the network is connected can dramatically affect the interplay between robustness to mutation and evolvability (the ability of a system to generate heritable phenotypic novelty).

The same gene often turns out to be used throughout the animal kingdom:
you can take the pax-6 gene that controls eye development from a human and put
it into the part of a fly that controls wings formation and the fly will make a (malformed) eye on its wing.

The same gene that controls the formation of human arms also controls the formation
of wings on birds, fins on fish, and legs on centipedes!

Modifying the way these genes are “wired together” can lead to massive changes
in an organism.

The burgeoning new field of evodevo (evolutionary developmental biology) studies how evolution exploits these “toolbox genes”
to help generate the endless forms most beautiful we see around us.

Much remains to be understood, but adjectives
like remarkable, elegant, and awe-inspiring are apt.
Clay or Lego blocks?

In a fascinating book proposing a “theory of facilitated variation” biologists Marc Kirschner and John Gehrard point out that while
the Modern Synthesis implicitly used the metaphor of clay -- evolution could produce variation in almost any direction,
but in very tiny steps--
modern biology would be better served by the metaphor of Lego blocks:
reusable connectable units are more constrained in what they can do, but you can generate useful new variation in much larger steps.

Selfish genes, or control on many levels? The field of systems biology is challenging
the reductionist bottom-up primacy that has dominated biological explanation over the last few decades.

In a beautiful book, The Music of Life: Biology beyond the Genome (OUP 2006),
Denis Noble, a remarkable polymath and one of the fathers of systems biology, takes the gene-centric view of his Oxford colleague Richard Dawkins to task.

He asserts that we must look beyond the “selfish gene."

A better metaphor for understanding life is music, “a symphonic interplay between genes, cells, organs, body, and environment."
from the BioLogos Website

And this:
On the reality of evolution--
"One way to view the dogmatic nature of neo-darwinism as it is often presented in public is to see it as a reaction to the dogmatism of the creationists. The ‘uncertain’ (in the sense of lacking reason) faith in creationism is replaced by the ‘certainties’ of science.

But there is a conflation here of very different degrees of certainty in science. There can’t be much doubt about the fact that life on earth has evolved.

There is much less certainty about the mechanisms. Unlike Darwinism (Darwin knew nothing of mechanisms, genes were not known), neo-darwinism proposes the exclusion of many mechanisms that have in fact now been found to occur in nature.

Adopting the ‘certainty’ of evolution to clothe the ‘uncertainty’ of particular theories about mechanisms has been the cause of many problems in public debate on evolution.

It is perfectly possible to defend the virtual certainty that life has evolved while debating in the usual argumentative scientific way the uncertainties surrounding the question of mechanisms.

The truth is that amongst the many mechanisms now known we know very little about which were prevalent in evolution. The answer is likely to be that different mechanisms were dominant at different stages.

Evolution itself evolves."

from http://www.musicoflife.website/Answers-dogmatism.html

By biologist and evolutionist Denis Noble
from Wikipedia: "Denis Noble is a British biologist who held the Burdon Sanderson Chair of Cardiovascular Physiology at the University of Oxford from 1984 to 2004... He is one of the pioneers of Systems Biology and developed the first viable mathematical model of the working heart in 1960."

How amazing, incredible, and wonderful is Life and Reality!

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Words All Humans Need to Hear in the Current World Crises

Wise Words from a psychologist for all Americans, indeed, all humans world wide,
in the current crises:

“Do what you can, with what you have, with where you are RIGHT NOW.”

“I am the decisive element in [my life]. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes my weather!

As a [human being], I possess a tremendous power to make [my life, and indirectly, other people’s lives] miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and [each other person] humanized or de-humanized.

Never deny or ignore [others’] feelings.

Only behavior is treated as unacceptable, not the [person].

Depersonalize negative interactions by mentioning only the problem.

Attach rules to things...

Dependence breeds hostility.

[Others] need to learn to [be free to] choose, but within the safety of limits.

Limit criticism to a specific event—don't say ‘never,’ ‘always,’ as in: ‘You never listen,’ ‘You always'..."

Refrain from using words that you would not want [others] to repeat.

Ignore irrelevant behavior.

Truth for its own sake can be a deadly weapon in...relations. Truth without compassion can destroy love.

Some...try too hard to prove exactly how, where and why they have been right. This approach will bring bitterness and disappointment.

When attitudes are hostile, facts are unconvincing."

Adapted from Haim Ginott, psychologist, psychotherapist, and educator,
Today’s Education, November-December 1973
--



Such important insights!


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

LIVE BRANCH REACH

Live Branch Reach


Writhing twists of growing
Corded effort stretched
Out westward

From the knotted
Leaning
Shadow dark trunk,
Bright sunlight
On the contorted
Slow-year braided flow,

Tribulating
Over
Dry boulders,
Stone-strewn
On the sand-creeked streambed;

Stretched wooden waves
Driftwood wrenched,
Intertwined effort
Convoluting,
Live branch reach

Tributaries
Flowing west with
New green growth
Behind and above
The under shadows
On the barred river sand,
Living driftwood river

--Daniel Wilcox

First published in
Western Friend Magazine,
also in Willows Wept Review
and selah river poetry collection

If I Could Live Again, What Would I Do, What Would I Skip?

DO

#1 I would, again, major in Creative Writing at university, moving to the glorious California coast (from frigid Nebraska), attending Long Beach State. That was one of the best decisions I made my first time around the sun on the 3rd planet from Sol.

#2 Would sign up, again, as a conscientious objector against the U.S. immoral, unethical Vietnam War
where the U.S. government first supported France’s attempt to take over by war the country of Vietnam, again, after WW ll.

Then beginning in the 1950’s and 1960’s--even though Vietnam hadn’t attacked the U.S.—the U.S. started and fought a long unjust war
where our military and political leaders dropped more bombs on the little country and Laos and Cambodia, than all of bombs used in WW ll!

So many innocent civilians were slaughtered, at least hundreds of thousands.
There are still 80 million U.S. unexploded bombs buried in Laos!

Every year these U.S. bombs still kill or wound 50 people, 40% of them children.

This time I would spend even more time witnessing against the lethal violence, oppression, nationalism, and misguided idealism of the U.S.

#3 I would, again, spend the summer of 1966 volunteering on the Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana, working with teens and children.

(See picture) Me and other mission volunteers (4 girls:-), and missionaries during the Vietnam War, working for the Mennonite Board of Missions in Busby and Lame Deer, Montana on the Cheyenne Indian Reservation in the summer of 1966.

This was before my being drafted and, as a conscientious objector, sent to work in a mental hospital for disturbed teens and children in Trevose, Pennsylvania.

#4 Would, again, become a liberal Friend (with UU leanings) emphasizing the seeking of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful via communal meditation, reason, inclusivism, justice, human rights, compassion, and peacemaking.

#5 Would, again, join Amnesty International and work for human rights, writing many letters to other governments around the world, appealing for the release of "Prisoners of Conscience," especially ones unjustly arrested, incarcerated, and oppressed by Islamic governments such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

#6 And move to Palestine/Israel to work on a kibbutz for at least 7 months as I did back then, though this time, I would stay longer, maybe a couple of years. (An image of AI, and a picture of myself at the Dome of the Rock and the Wailing Wall)

SKIP

#1 Skip the Christian religion, and thus not have to do verbal battle, again, for 55 years with most Christian leaders who claim that God has foreordained every evil event, every natural disaster, every horrific plague, and foreordained billions of humans to eternal damnation for his own “glory” and “good pleasure”.:-(

And that all infants at conception are “stained” with sin, “sinful,” “in essence evil,” etc.

Not have to drag my wife (and kids) through many years of church doctrinal conflict, Christian delusionary claims.

If only at that central crisis point of my life, on the fall day at Long Beach State, when I was at a 50%-50% decision between leaving Christianity or not, I would have left.

Because of all its failings, pro-war actions, doctrinal incredulities, persecutions, anti-science claims, etc.—if only I had skipped doctrinal Christianity, then my life (and that of my family) would have been so much better and happier.

But I fell into the abyss of life-long struggles with organized religion because at that crisis day, because I realized that Atheism was even worse than religion, so I pulled back into the Christian religion. But that was an either/or fallacy.

There were alternatives to the either/or of Christianity (and other horrific religions such as Islam, Hinduism, etc.)
versus Atheism.

This time around, I would make a wiser choice.

#2 Skip dropping out of university (at Long Beach State) in January 1967, which led to me not getting my B.A. in Creative Writing until the spring of 1973.

This time, I would stay in college, get my degree Creative Writing in 1969, along with my teaching credential, and get a good job, instead of working for a number of years in minimum wage jobs.

Because of that bad choice, I didn't start my career until 1982!

TO BE CONTINUED—

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox