Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Where Are All the Aliens?


I came across this webpage about the Fermi Paradox, which is the question why we still have no contact with beings from other planets, although statistically speaking there should be loads of them. Here is the article about the Fermi Paradox on Wikipedia.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Where are all the aliens?

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Chapter One, Two, Three...

Right now, I'm working on a new novel. For fun, and to trigger me, I post every chapter of it on my website, one after the other as they are completed (well, their first draft, anyway). Here is Chapter One:

 If you read it, please give me suggestions on any editing it might need.

I will not tell you what the novel is about. It's much better that you find out gradually, and probably more fun for you. At this point, I'ver reached Chapter Nine, and that's where things really start to unfold... ;)

English is not my native tongue, so it's not easy to write a book in this language - especially not a novel, where every nuance is so important. But the challenge is irresistible. Better to fail utterly than never to try.

I will tell you this much:
Actually, this story started as a screenplay, years ago. I completed it and it might be swimming around somewhere in Hollywood, if it hasn't sunk to the bottom of oblivion.

Anyway, I decided to make it a novel, but I want to keep as much as possible of the kind of straightforward storytelling of a screenplay. You may notice this in the style of the text and in the perspective of how the story is told.

I also found that I need to change the plot quite a lot from the screenplay version. There are some loose ends, to say the least. I'm in the process of that and expect to have several serious complications to sort out on the way. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Mind over Matter

Sometimes science comes up with stuff that's weirder than religion. It seems we can influence our DNA in order to teach our offspring what we have learned, as if we're able to reprogram our genes by will-power. Like magic.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Mind over Matter 

 

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Pornography Reduces Sex Crime

British Prime Minister David Cameron wants to block Internet pornography and make it less accessible, especially to minors. But research shows that if he succeeds, sex crimes are likely to increase – especially those involving minors as victims or offenders.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Pornography Reduces Sex Crime


Monday, July 8, 2013

War Is Not About Aggression

I saw a TV documentary about the origin of war: is it inherent in our species or did it come with civilization? There's no consensus within the sciences, so I allow myself to speculate.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

War Is Not About Aggression


Thursday, June 20, 2013

No Rule Can Substitute Compassion

I happened to come across a few episodes of The World's Strictest Parents, a TV show where troublemaker teens are “shown the way.” The message is as conservative and moralistic as can be expected, narrowmindedly blaming the teenagers for just about everything. Still, upon closer inspection, it can't be brushed off all that easily.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

No Rule Can Substitute Compassion

Monday, March 18, 2013

The Uncertainty of It All


We all know about accepting what we can't change, change what we can, and recognize the difference. Well, sometimes that's easier said than done. At times, I fall into the mental trap of trepidation at the thought of just how helpless we humans are against the forces of this universe.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

The Uncertainty of It All


Friday, February 22, 2013

We're All Victims of the Bully


Bullying is a very serious social problem, a matter of life and death since some victims are pushed to suicide and many others are damaged for life. Still, the solution is very far away – probably because bullying is rooted within our instincts, which our conscious minds have trouble reaching.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

We're All Victims of the Bully


Friday, January 11, 2013

Profit Is a Lousy Ideal


No doubt, capitalism has brought a lot of good to the world – at least to parts of it. But it's at a cost. The strife for profit is an effective engine for the progress of material gains, but it's a lousy ideal.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Profit Is a Lousy Ideal


Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Age-old Dilemmas Also Plague the Future


Looper is a film playing with the idea of time travel – but doing so with a dramatic nerve that leaves the intellectual paradox far behind. I wonder if that sci-fi ingredient is needed at all in the plot, except for the special effects. The story by director Rian Johnson is so classical, it needs no future.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Age-old Dilemmas Also Plague the Future


Monday, November 19, 2012

The Rage of Puberty


The film Chronicle, by director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis, is a high school supernatural thriller turning into tragedy. Underneath the spectacular surface, it's all about the torment and rage of male puberty.

The essay has been moved to my personal website:

The Rage of Puberty


Thursday, November 1, 2012

Patterns of Creation Myths

I made a new website, devoted to creation myths, their stories, structures, and patterns of thought. There is much to discover about the human mind in what kinds of ideas about the world beginning have been imagined way back in the dawn of civilization. We haven't changed that much since, nor has the essence of our perception of the world.

To begin with, the material on my new website, creationmyths.org, is mostly stuff I earlier had on my stenudd.com website. But there it was hidden beneath layer of layer of other stuff. So, I thought I'd better make a new domain explicitly for my writing on creation myths.

And it got me adding a new text, about Rig Veda 10:129, an Indian hymn contemplating in a drastic way what might have been before the world was created. It's an old favorite of mine among cosmological writings of the past.

I've studied creation myths for years and years, mainly but not only within the history of ideas, where I'm still supposed to complete a dissertation on the subject. I don't know about that, but surely there will be a book of some kind, eventually. In the meantime, I will keep adding to my new website. Please have a look at it:

Monday, October 1, 2012

Tokyo Photos

I was in Tokyo for a couple of weeks, mainly for meetings. But I got some time for strolling in the city with my camera. Here are some of those photos. Click the images to see them enlarged.

A band playing by the Shinjuku station.

A vocal group performing in Shinjuku.

A street view from Shinjuku.

Another street view from Shinjuku.

Shinjuku buildings.

Kind of a crossing on a Tokyo street.

A demonstration in Tokyo, don't ask me about what.

At the little fish market in Tokyo.

The slight difference between generations.

A Shinjuku house in front of my hotel window.

A rainy view from Yoyogi Olympic Center.

A Tokyo shop.

The Tokyo subway.

A Tokyo subway station.

Uniformed group on a Shinjuku street.

Tokyo view from Yoyogi Olympic center.
You find more Tokyo photos on my website: Tokyo train ride photos

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

God Is Retreating


It's getting increasingly difficult to be religious – not that it stops lots of people from persisting – as the progress of science forces God to retreat step by step. In  the world and how we learn it works, God is becoming redundant.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

God Is Retreating


Saturday, August 18, 2012

Driven by Pleasure


In an episode of Through the Wormhole dealing with evil and psychopathy, a neuroscientist explained how normal people and psychopaths drive their cars. He did so while driving his car. It struck me: Oh, what if he's a psychopath? It turned out he is.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Driven by Pleasure


Tuesday, August 14, 2012

That Damned Why


Continuing to watch episodes of Through the Wormhole, I sense a pattern. The science described mainly speculates about the how, rarely about the why. That might be increasingly insufficient as we get closer to the inner workings of the universe.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

That Damned Why


Monday, August 13, 2012

Time Is But a Measure of Change


I saw another episode of the thought provoking TV-series Through the Wormhole, and here I go again: this time about time. I doubt that it exists as an entity of its own. It's just a convention we choose in order to note and measure change. That's all there is: change.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Time Is But a Measure of Change


Sunday, August 12, 2012

We See the Aliens When They Cease to Be Alien


SETI is a worldwide science project searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. They listen for radio signals, but that's jumping to conclusions. Radio communication is a recent thing on earth, applied for no more than a hundred years or so. Who says we'll even stick to it ourselves, much longer?


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

We See the Aliens When They Cease to Be Alien


To Be Aware of Being


I'm watching episodes of Through the Wormhole, reminding me of the cosmological speculations that have been a kind of background radiation in my brain since I was a tiny kid. I'm sure we all have them. This time, the subject is life and its origin.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

To Be Aware of Being


Saturday, August 11, 2012

Mama, Just Killed a Man


Writing at some depth about the Queen anthem Bohemian Rhapsody would take a book, so here I will have to settle for just touching at the subject. A few thoughts on the lyrics. They're just as impressive as the music.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Mama, Just Killed a Man