Brain≠Mind 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

If you literally are your brain, like some say, what hope would there be for a girl born with only half of a brain? A brain surgeon in the video below told her parents that there was little hope for her. But twenty years later, she is a vibrant young woman, functioning normally.

The neurosurgeon was at that time a materialist, like so many. It's not that he made a conscious choice, but rather that worldview dominates in our culture and you just pick it up from school and media. Over his professional experience of doing 7,000 surgeries, he changed his mind.

He believes we have souls or immaterial minds, and that they use the brain. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, mapping of the brain shows that the brain does control movement, sensory perception, emotion, and memory. But no part of the brain has been shown to control abstract thought (like doing math or understanding history) or your free will.

Brain≠Mind

If someone denies the existence of God and everything supernatural, if he claims nothing exists but the natural world or universe, he or she is an atheist or materialist. Of course, that person must also believe that human beings have no immaterial soul.

One believer in this worldview is the well-known astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He ably articulates the materialist opinion against a soul: "What I do know is, everything you are derives from electro-chemical synapses running in your brain." He also gives evidence for that view.

So, you're just your material, physical brain (image) which is located in your skull. He thinks that is everything you are including thoughts, feelings, decisions, etc.

Christians hold a different view, taken from the Bible. God Almighty created human beings with a likeness to himself, whose immaterial soul or spirit will live beyond the life of their physical, material bodies. 

Here's a good question: is there scientific evidence for the Chistian view? Yes.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Gen Z & church

Polling in America has told us for decades that the number of people claiming no religious affiliation (the "nones") is rising. But that's leveled off. Bible sales are increasing and Christian entertainment has grown.

Generation Z (born 1997-2012) is a significant part of this trend. They generally seem to be curious about Christianity and are looking for hope.

 

It's especially interesting that young men lead the trend. Gen Z men go to church more than Gen Z women. 

Similarly, the Bible Society in partnership with a research team in Britain says:

"We found that the Church is in a period of rapid growth, driven by young adults and in particular young men . . . [Y]oung adults are more spiritually engaged than any other living generation, with Bible reading and belief in God on the rise."

from USA Today

Hopeful AI 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So this author says AI will soon be smarter than us humans. That is still debated among the experts--but if true, then he's right that we will certainly have to lean on and develop the best parts of our human nature. 

Smartness has never been the only good thing about humans. It's good to know information and understand it, but as people created in the image of God, there's more.

• Having true friends and being one, having genuine relationships with other people, will never really be replaced by AI (though it can be faked).
• Creative thinking will never be replaced by AI, creative in the sense of creating new organizations, businesses, families, ideas (though some white-collar jobs will be replaced).
• Taking responsibility to build your own character virtues will never be replaced. Your experience of life will still be directly affected by your honesty, generosity, discipline, compassion, etc.

Materialists who believe nothing exists but physical reality may have to re-think their assumptions. Transcendent qualities like love and honor arise from outside the material world. 

These things arise from the immaterial spirit of a person (see Friday's post).

 

from The Free Press

Hopeful AI 1

So many experts in technology sound alarm bells about the danger of artificial intelligence (AI) to the future of humanity. Without a doubt, there are dangerous possibilities.

Other opinions, though, are out there. Naturally, CEO's of companies leading the way in AI are optimistic and enthusiastic. That would include Sam Altman and Larry Ellison. 

Altman's OpenAI has a vision for a beneficial role of AI in our future. They see AI elevating all humanity, functioning for our benefit. An AI user and an AI developer say, "This technology can usher in an age of flourishing the likes of which we have never seen."

 

But they also tell us to prepare for some disorientation as well, because "AI will change what it is to be human." They are certain that AI will exceed human intelligence by 2030 . . a mere five years away. So that means: we won't have intelligence supremacy anymore.

What should we do to prepare? More of what we are best at doing. We have value way beyond mere intelligence (see tomorrow's post).

 from The Free Press

(My image is Grok-generated)

(cont'd tomorrow)

EU immigration

Immigration (or shall we say invasion) is a monster-sized issue for Europe. Vast numbers have been allowed to overwhelm native populations in Germany, the UK, Ireland, and more. Mainstream political parties like AfD (labeled "far right") tap into very serious concerns.

Only days before the US vice president's address, Munich suffered another attack by an immigrant. The man, who was to have been deported back in 2020, sped up his car and drove into a crowd, injuring at least 30 people. It happened "just after a series of deadly attacks in Germany, all allegedly involving immigrants."

Though the chancellor says the man must be punished and deported, whether that will really happen remains to be seen.

You probably remember immigrant rape gang stories from the UK. Prime Minister Starmer seemed not to care. But maybe he feels a certain political pressure from the "far right" to start limiting the invasion:

Europe≠USA 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Vice President J. D. Vance's  address to the Munich Security Conference about "our shared values" is worth taking a closer look.

It starts out with a foundational principle of democracy. Including himself among the audience members who have a position in government, he says "Now it's time for all of us (who have been fortunate enough to be given political power by our respective peoples) to use it wisely to improve their lives."

America's Declaration of Independence states the principle: government gets its just (fair and right) powers from the consent of the citizens who are governed. 

Then VP Vance tells them that Americans are shocked when they hear that the Romanian election was "annulled," that Germany was also threatened with the same thing if things don't go "correctly." He reminds them that tyrannical forces in Europe once "censored dissidents, closed churches, cancelled elections" . . and they were not the good guys.

Europe≠USA 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It has been our impression that the people of Europe, like we Americans, believe in democracy. That includes the principles of free speech, free and fair elections, the people themselves voting for representatives who will support their wishes. 

But do they really share our values? Our vice president spoke in Munich two months ago on that very question. There's evidence that they don't. 

An election was just held in Germany. During the political campaign leading up to it, one of the parties, Alternative for Germany (AfD), was "shut out of governing coalitions" and "denied committee chairmanships in the national parliament in Berlin that its numbers would otherwise entitle it to." Media "kept AfD officials off the airwaves."

"While other political leaders, including far leftists, are regularly quoted in the press and interviewed, AfD are rarely heard or seen on broadcasts or given space in publications." Why? Because, according to leftist power-holders, they are "far right." 

But the tide may be turning. AfD won more seats in the government a week ago. AfD is not an extremist group, though it's convenient for the establishment to call them names.

from City Journal

(cont'd tomorrow)

Europe≠USA 1

"Extremist," "far right,"--terms meant to scare the public--are used by the left both in the USA and in Europe. 

In France, the second biggest political party (RN) and its leader Marine Le Pen are labeled "far right" in every headline listed on the first page of a google search I did. But can that be accurate when so many citizens vote for it?

In Germany, the first or second biggest political party (AfD) has been labeled an "extremist" organization. The federal parliament may ban it from future elections. But it represents nearly half of the German voters (photo).

 

Changing the meaning of words is one way to manipulate the perceptions of the public. Legacy media still has some credibility with some people, and the left uses it to scare and confuse.

You may have heard the terms "literal nazi" and "far right" used by the left in our presidential campaign last year, but they didn't entirely work. The right American political party won that election and became the current administration.

from "Killing Democracy to Save It"

(cont'd tomorrow)

Starship V3

How can we make it better? That's a central question which SpaceX addresses to its Raptor engines, but it doesn't stop there. Innovation keeps coming with regard to the "ship" spacecraft which is the top half of the integrated "Starship." 

Version 2 is currently being used for test flights, but V3 is coming (see this video from one of the many avid SpaceX watchers to learn the details) and it's full of upgrades. 

It's bigger, to accommodate both more fuel capacity and bigger payload. Elon's X post shows Starship 3 in comparison to Falcon 1, the first rocket they produced (still in use). 

Vast improvement was made in the relative cost to put payload into orbit: 400x better. (Click on the image to see the small print.)

NPR & PBS 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Public radio/TV must be non-partisan to qualify for government funds. So the question is, are we sure that the Corp. for Public Broadcasting (NPR & PBS) is biased in favor of the left? The NPR head testified before Congress on this question (photo).

 

You may remember that a veteran of NPR (25 years) became a whistleblower, even though he leaned left himself. In his article for The Free Press, he details several major stories in which NPR intentionally took the side of the progressive left without giving the opposing views any consideration.

Research shows that far more interviews and guests are from the left. In a four-month period, the non-left political party was referred to as "far right" or "hard right" extremists. No such terms were applied to the progressive left.

As one journalist used to say, "There's no such thing as neutrality in journalism. There's only transparency." 

NPR & PBS should transparently admit they are not neutral. They can continue their progressive leftist slant, but should give up demanding that taxpayers foot the bill.

 from "NPR and PBS Dug Their Own Graves"

NPR & PBS

News reporting and broadcasting should be "fair and balanced" in America, and that's what we look for. But of course there are journalists who think their own opinions are right and refuse to give coverage to other views. 

It's allowed in America, where we have protected free speech. But the other half of Americans, who see things differently, certainly should not be forced to pay for the broadcasting of opinions they believe to be wrong. That wouldn't be fair.

Those other Americans have been in this position for decades. Complaints that government-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (NPR and PBS) is biased go back to the 1960's. But moves to cut public funding were always de-railed by appealing to kids' programing like Big Bird and Mr. Rogers.

Times change. Under the current president, government funding -- provided by taxpayers -- may really end. CPB is shocked. They are suing.

(cont'd tomorrow)

25 in 2025

SpaceX started testing the integrated Starship (the ship mounted on the giant booster) two years ago, April of 2023. Test flight #8 took place two months ago, so that's eight test flights in two years.

Things are going to get a lot busier. SpaceX asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for permission to launch 25 test flights this year, and FAA just issued its approval.

Starbase, the SpaceX launch site, will soon officially be a city: Starbase, TX.

DOGE discovers 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post) 

Embedded and hidden corruption discovered by the DOGE team continues from yesterday's video of their staff meeting.

At the "U.S. Institute of Peace" they found a contract (for unknown services) with an ex-Taliban for $130k, and found loaded firearms as well. 

 

Their chief accountant had deleted over a terabyte of accounting records, financial data which the team was able to recover. Since hiding or destroying records is illegal, this coverup was referred to the DOJ and FBI.

The agency had received $55 million/year from congress. Any unspent funds were swept into a private bank account having no congressional oversight, which funded events and private jets.

Asked whether DOGE would be ongoing, Elon answered: "If we drop the ball, fraud and waste will come roaring back." But by ending contracts and fraudulent practices now, it will be harder to get it going again in the future.

DOGE discovers

DOGE leader Elon Musk gets some staff together once a week at 10 p.m. They each answer the question, "what did you get done this week?" A media guy got to sit in on one of these meetings and discovered more absurdities that our taxes have been paying for:

• Investigation found that a $4 billion covid fund was used to rent stadiums for parties, with no explanation. Correction: now any drawdown must be identified as to purpose and receipts must be uploaded.
• Alpaca farming in Peru
• Marketing of peas in Guatamala
• GAO also found that only 10-15% of the money for these causes was actually getting to the stated destination. 
• So it's possible that "no one got a sex change in Guatemala" (a worthless expense discovered months ago)
• Grants may go to a cause that sounds good theoretically, like "save the baby pandas," but no evidence is forthcoming that any panda was actually saved. 

New media 4

Follow up to post, post, post

Legacy ("old") media has lost the trust of many Americans, demonstrated by declining subscribers and declining influence. Some are trying to face that fact, to "right the ship," and to regain trust. Surging in the gap is "new media," including podcasts and X and independent videos/reports. 

For example, there were hundreds of authentic videos (like yesterday's) published on X of real conditions last fall after Hurricane Helene created chaos in western North Carolina.  They challenged some misleading legacy media reports in newspapers and on TV.

We learned not to trust "old" media's version of reality. Now there's an alternative that seems more trustworthy. As Konstantin Kisin says, "what could go wrong?"

Hopefully, new media will prove more reliable. But it will still be produced by flawed human beings, like the "old."

Mountain home 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Bat Cave NC and Chimney Rock NC, where Amish volunteers from Pennsylvania are working, are in Hickory Nut Gorge. The flooded river scoured out landscape and buildings resulting from  Hurricane Helene last fall. 

One young man says (yesterday's video), "It fills my heart with joy watching people get their life back again." 

Someone commented: "Absolutely incredible. While career politicians hold press conferences and fundraisers, the Amish are out here swinging hammers, rebuilding a town brick by brick, no spotlight, no selfies, just service. God bless the Amish, the backbone of real America, showing us what it means to love thy neighbor."

Drone footage clearly shows the scar:

Mountain home

Hurricane Helene is long gone from the headlines, but flood victims in North Carolina are still struggling to return to their homes and the normal life they lived before Helene.

From their own home hundreds of miles away, two thousand Amish volunteered to come and work to restore homes and businesses:

Raptor explained

(cont'd from yesterday's post) 

While currently using version #2 of the Raptor engine on Starship tests, the third is in testing phase, and SpaceX is already working on version #4. Innovation does not stop.

If you're interested in the engineering, go here for the strategies they use in the design of Raptor 3. Here's Elon Musk himself explaining Raptor design elements:

Innovation doesn't stop, and neither does testing. As Elon puts it, "Oh we blew a lot of engines up." To keep up that pace, he says "A high production rate cures many ills. If you have a high production rate, you can have a lot of iterations. You can try lots of different things." You can risk failing because you have a lot more engines in the pipeline.

Five years ago, Jim Bridenstine of NASA put his finger on this distinctive of SpaceX: "SpaceX has something NASA has been lacking, a willingness to fail." They fly, test, fail, fix -- over and over again.

It's still that way at SpaceX.

Raptor engine

Dozens and even hundreds of improvements are made as a result of every Starship test flight.

The Raptor engine has evolved from its first design to a simpler one.

Much of the "fiddly bits" on Raptor 1 have been "deleted, combined, simplified on Raptor 2: a gigantic difference in complexity." 

It's simplified, and yet it's more powerful. The first version produced 185 tons of thrust, the simplified version 2 produces 230 tons of thrust. 

When the next test flight (#9) of Starship launches, it will reuse the same booster and 29 of the same Raptor 2 engines used in test flight #7. It will be the first time for booster and engine reuse in a Starship flight.

Raptor 3, a new design, is still in the testing process.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Harvard battle 4

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

So, in effect, Harvard's argument is that they have a right to taxpayer money (in the billions of dollars) while they pursue any policies they choose, i.e. do whatever they want. They're shocked, shocked, that the American people might want to withdraw their money from racial discrimination and . . antisemitism.

Yes, the university's president admits it. He tells NBC in this video: "At Harvard, we have a real problem with antisemitism . . . There's no doubt about the severity of this problem."

He says they have no choice but to defend themselves against government "overreach" and they're going to use their "first amendment rights." 

Amazing hutzpah! They claim the American right of free speech for themselves - while that freedom is suppressed on their campus.

Harvard battle 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Dated April 11, 2025, a particular letter was sent to Harvard from the government. It says that the U.S. has invested in that university because of its value to the country, but that investment is no longer justified since they haven't lived up to intellectual and civil rights conditions. 

A sum of $2.2 billion in federal government grants was withdrawn as a penalty for defying the government's letter.

 

 

Still defiant, the university (photo) filed a suit against the government for freezing those funds, claiming that important research programs will suffer. (With a mammoth endowment fund of $53 billion, the largest of any education institution in the world, some are wondering just how big a hardship losing $2 billion can be.)

Responding to the suit, a White House spokesman said: “The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enriches their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families, is coming to an end. Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege.”

(cont'd tomorrow)

Harvard battle 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Ivy League presidents received letters from the current administration warning them of the consequences of their violation of the Civil Rights Act and other policies. Federal funding could be withdrawn.

Responses have varied. The president of Columbia University agreed to change policies, and then she "stepped down" from her position. Princeton's president (photo) defied the letter's demands, and seems to argue that he is defending civil rights with his discriminatory policies.

Does he not understand the argument? "[R]acial discrimination is wrong whether it targets whites, Asians, Jews, blacks or Hispanics. Any institution that continues to discriminate based on race is ineligible for federal support." Princeton received $455 million from the federal government last year. 

Harvard receives billions from the federal government. All those billions are at stake, and they're suing the administration.

from City Journal

(cont'd tomorrow)

Harvard battle 1

Is it right to choose people for college admission or jobs or home purchase or promotion based on their race? It's not even legal in the United States to do that, and hasn't been since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

But prestigious Harvard University was convicted of doing that very thing in 2023, and they're not the only one. Somehow our whole university system got way off track:

"Shielded by a virtuous public image, elite universities have institutionalized discrimination against disfavored racial groups, implemented DEI policies based on racial rewards and penalties, hired and promoted faculty according to skin color rather than merit, and overseen racially segregated student programs, dormitories, and graduation ceremonies."

Now Americans through the recently elected president's administration are trying to bring universities back to American values. It's a fight. Harvard University is front and center.

from City Journal 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Eucatastrophe

from Tolkien Gateway

If your only experience with author J. R. R. Tolkien is to watch the movie versions of his masterpiece Lord of the Rings, you may not know that he invented this word: "eucatastrophe."

An Oxford professor and scholar in the mid-20th century, he wrote "high fantasy" fiction that is always counted among the most popular books of the whole century.

He was a genuine Christian living in the skeptical Oxford culture, who influenced the young atheist C. S. Lewis. Tolkien believed that the Christian narrative is true and it gave his work a hopeful, positive nature. Here's what he says about the resurrection of Jesus Christ that we celebrated yesterday on Easter:

"I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy . . it is a sudden glimpse of Truth . . this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. . . The Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible . . Christian joy . . comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love."

Outrageous

This is Easter weekend. A re-post from 2014:

Easter is a national holiday in America. Even "nones" (identifying with no religion) can celebrate Easter as the return of spring, life returning to the landscape (if you have winter at your location). 

Hey, me too - I love the green coming back to nature. But this Christian holiday is actually the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As this author says: it's a stunning, outrageous claim.

He looked ordinary, used only his culture's technology (2000 years ago), and gathered around himself a relatively small band of followers. The apostle Peter explained why they followed him: "You have the words of eternal life."

Everything he did went to benefit other people. What mythical god ever lived a selfless life or went to his grave to redeem human beings? "[T]here’s nothing in any myth that comes close to the self-sacrificial love Jesus displayed when He went to the Cross."

from Stream

Out of atheism

Avi Snyder was an angry man in his younger days. He didn't believe that God exists, and he hated what followed from that fact: his belief that everything is meaningless and there's no point to life at all. 

He screamed at the ceiling, "How dare you do this to me??" The thought came back, "So you're angry. Who are you angry at? I thought you were an atheist."

There's more to his story, but all this is in the first 4 minutes.

However God meets you in your own life, your spirit is re-born when you respond to Jesus. Be thrilled with the life change [this man had].

Mass burial

It's physically dangerous to be Christian in parts of the world. Nigeria is one of those places where disaster keeps happening. At least 60 were killed two days ago. 

A local pastor says, "‘Many of these attacks result in mass burials [photo]. The sight of numerous corpses and the frequent need to conduct mass burials is something no minister wishes to experience, yet it has become our reality. Daily kidnappings, molestation and rape of Christian women, particularly in rural villages across north-central Nigeria . . [are] disturbingly common.’

Another leader, eyewitness of another recent attack, adds: "What we are experiencing in Bokkos is so devastating . .

"They burned down the church, they burned down houses. They killed pastors, they killed people, they killed even women and children. I saw the corpses and I shed tears."

 from Barnabas Aid

Crash test

Organized demonstrations against Tesla are designed to put pressure on Elon Musk to back off on cleaning up the federal spending mess. Protests have been part of American life for a very long time and they're considered legitimate free speech.

Keying, protests and firebombing take their toll on their target, as they're intended to do. Though still the world's biggest maker of EV's, deliveries of cars dropped in the first quarter (Q1 2025) by 13% compared to last year's first quarter.

Model Y was the most popular passenger car in the world in 2024. It's safety rating is outstanding. It was "near-perfect" in crash tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Hopefully, not everyone interested in EV's will be intimidated by the "Tesla Takedown."

Teslas tend to do well in crash tests. Here's a Model X from six years ago, not rolling over as many SUV's tend to do:

 from Electrek

DOGE backlash 1

Americans were strongly in favor of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year, of course. We don't want to pay for fraud, waste and abuse of this country's financial resources. It's been going on for decades and it's tough to rein in.

Now surveys seem to indicate more people disapprove. What happened? In addition to single "keying" events of random Teslas, there have been fire-bombings and protests (photo) of Tesla facilities. It's a way to sour public opinion and reduce Tesla's value, thereby inflicting pain on Elon Musk.

These events weren't spontaneous outbursts of outraged citizens. A few may have been inspired just by press reports ramping up fear, but there's also sophisticated organization. 

The nationwide protests were all posted and scheduled by Action Network. They originally identified The Disruption Project as the host or co-sponsor, which was founded by an experienced left-wing activist.

from City Journal