Thought of the Day

As you could probably tell, this blog hasn’t lived up to its name. Unfortunately, I can’t bring myself to type just any old thing and respect myself later. As a result, I’ve been spending at least an hour or two on the lengthier posts here and there’s no way I can guarantee that I’ll be able to set aside that much time for posting every single day.

My next plan of attack is to create as many posts as possible when I do have time and schedule them for daily publishing. I’ll also try to break up my longer thoughts into serial posts.

Let’s see how this works out.

Math and words, numbers and language, these have always been things of beauty to me. I remember discovering patterns in numerical sequences as a young child and I can’t remember a time when I could not read. I’ve always thought that my above average memory had a lot to do with this, but, due to some recent research I’ve done online, it seems I might have it the wrong way ’round.

Some researchers believe we might all have a bit of synaesthesia ( a trait in which ‘two or more senses are automatically and involuntarily coupled‘). This may be why some of us experience emotional responses, are struck with wonder and awe, when we are exposed to the complexities and intricacies of the universe, even though they are merely the results of matter and energy responding to the fundamental constants that rule our universe, devoid of any meaning or purpose of their own; our minds have joined the sensation of recognition and discovery with the biochemical responses of  joy and excitement.

I have an excellent memory, but it is by no means eidetic. (If you think you may have a photographic memory, look at the left panel of the image below with your left eye while covering the right side and then look at the right panel with your right eye while covering the left half. Can you remember both images and see the pattern in the dots that emerges when the two are superimposed?) Although I rarely studied, I did well in all of my classes in school. I’ve always been an introvert, so I reasoned that I retained the subject matter because I was actually paying more attention in class than most, if not all, of the other students and I had a natural advantage due to my memory.

After reading about Alexander Aitken, however, I’m beginning to think it was because I enjoyed learning. I thought about and considered each subject, finding relationships and similarities with other subjects and topics, helping my brain form more synaptic pathways to the location where the information is stored, and even possibly storing it in more locations!

(Here’s another article about Alexander Aitken.)

Here’s an interesting PLoS article about sexually antagonistic genes.

Now, you’re probably thinking of the preying mantis or the black widow, but this is a battle of the sexes on a genetic level. If conditions are reproductively optimal for the male Drosophila melanogaster, the female suffers and vice versa.

Philosophical Transactions A

I’ve just begun reading some of the articles in the 350th anniversary edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A and am reminded that the field of science was originally indistinguishable from philosophy in that most observers attempted to answer questions about the world through deductions derived from simple observations and, by today’s standards, crude experiments. I also find it amusing that those who hold science in high regard (myself included) will use such subjective terms to describe their relationship to it; they are passionate about their field of study and find beauty in its reflections in the world. In a way, I guess we are all philosophers at heart who have just found as much (if not more) joy in discovering how things work as opposed to why.

I occasionally come across organizations that I would have a hard time imagining on my own, like the well-known international organization for ornamental fish growers, the OFI. Think about it. There is an international organization for fish growers. I’m sorry, not all fish growers are allowed, only ornamental fish growers. They even have a code of ethics.

Maybe if I were more interested in koi, I’d see nothing surreal about this group of business owners and hobbyists, but I think I’ll stick with the International Aphid Genomics Consortium.

Thankfully, Edd’s Tavern is running again with minimal downtime. Fortunately, backing up everything has become a habit (but I’m still trying to eradicate the memories of the incident that drove that lesson home).

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