365 Days of Jazz Hands - Day 80

THURSDAY, MARCH 21st, 2013

And just like that, they are gone.

Statistically speaking, it is unlikely to see a ghost.  Some people go their entire life without ever interacting with one.  Some will hear the footsteps, perhaps witness a door mysteriously close or hear disembodied whispers in the dark, but the odds are definitely against seeing a ghost, or two, in broad daylight during a seemingly routine commute to work.

I am definitely not an expert in ghostistics or ghostology, but the odds of seeing a ghost in one lifetime are likely somewhere in the 20-1 range, or if you prefer percentages, off the top of my head, the chance of seeing a ghost is roughly 4.8%.  But that figure is based on the one lifetime having a higher than average opportunity factor.  A higher opportunity factor may include residing in a geographical location that is dark most of the time.  For example, if you live in a region that is in the dark 65-75% of the time and live near a graveyard, your odds go up considerably, due to the fact that there is a 90% chance that at least 70% of all ghosts prefer darkness to light 80% of the time and also frequent graveyards because they likely need to stay close to the physical remains of their body...that last part is not proven fact, I'm guesstimating, but it seems logical.

Imagine if you are in a daylight savings time period, or for you old schoolers between the equinoxes, where the days are long.  Additionally, imagine that you are located relatively distant from the nearest graveyard.  On top of all that, you find yourself in a heavily populated area with cars zooming by.  Now imagine your chances of seeing a ghost.  By my calculations your odds would diminish by 67% on the conservative end, and as much as 85%.  So let's just call it a 76% diminished chance of seeing a ghost in broad day light at a busy intersection nowhere near a graveyard.

Long story short, I was at a distinct disadvantage.  I had considerably less than 4.8% chance to see a ghost yesterday.  In fact, the figure is likely much closer to about 1.5%, or 66-1 odds chance of seeing a ghost.  If I were a betting man, I would have definitely bet against it.  Although the sky was gloomy and the air cool and damp.  That fact alone probably increases the chances slightly to 2% or 50-1 odds, which is slightly more favorable, but the word favorable used relatively speaking.

Today was bright and sunny and even less ghostly than yesterday and I subsequently saw none.  That gives me a 0% chance of seeing a ghost on day 80 since it's 11:59pm...although it is dark, one minute is just not long enough to increase my odds for the entire day.  Even if I multiply my chances by the minuscule chance I could see a ghost in the next minute, zero times anything is still zero.  You just can't argue with math.

The good news is that I did 100% of my Jazz Hands obligation today.  That is 1-1 odds that Jazz Hands were deployed, by me.  Although there is a 0% chance that anyone saw my Jazz Hands deployment.  If you translate to ghost spotting, it's logical to say that there was a 100% chance that a ghost was not spotted, even though there were likely ghosts floating about.

To sum, a ghost was likely doing its ghostly stuff, like haunting and whatnot, even though there were no witnesses, in the same manner that I did my jazz handing stuff sans witnesses.

Today's Jazz Hands had a high probability factor.  Day eighty complete.

  

365 Days of Jazz Hands - Day 79

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20th, 2013

Do you believe in ghosts?

Defying logic, there he was just standing there on the south side of the intersection of Kennedy and Dale Mabry.  The elder Pops, motionless and vacant.  On the north side of the intersection stood the younger Pops, staring off into space.  Both of them buried deep in their own world.  

As I passed by there was no hint of life behind those chestnut eyes of his.  A still life of catharsis as the world whirred by.  There was no sign of intent to interact with the material world, no sign that Pops was even attached to it.  If I was not mistaken, I am pretty sure that I could just barely see through him...both of them.  I did not have an opportunity to offer Pops his care package, but I'm not certain if ghosts have any need for nutrition or desire bite size, cheese filled pretzel snacks.  

Perhaps I will get another opportunity to offer the spirit of Pops his Combos tomorrow, while he haunts me with the details of his death and what the afterlife is all about.  There's an outside chance that I may be able to coax a ghost to deploy Jazz Hands, which would certainly be a first for me.

Today's Jazz Hands were translucent.  Day seventy-nine complete.

Moral Dilemma - Brain Teaser - Bonus Post

BRAIN TEASER

From "Brain in a Vat," in issue number 13 of bOING bOING, a quarterly published in Los Angeles.  The scenario was originally posted anonymously on the Internet.

Consider the following case: A brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley approaching a fork in the track. The brain is hooked up to the trolley in such a way that the brain can determine which course the trolley will take. There are only two options: the right side of the fork or the left side. There is no way to derail or stop the trolley and the brain is aware of this. On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right. If Jones lives he will go on to kill five men for the sake of thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the orphans' bus will be crossing later that night). One of the orphans who will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrant who made good, utilitarian men do bad things, another would have become John Sununu, and a third would have invented the pop-top can.  If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill another railman, Leftie, and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that would have been transplanted into ten patients at the local hospital who will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the brain is aware of this. If the railman on the left side of the track lives, he, too, will kill five men--in fact, the same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, Leftie will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he will inadvertently kill the five men as he rushes the ten hearts to the local hospital for transplantation. A further result of Leftie's act is that the busload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by Leftie is the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley. If the ten hearts and Leftie are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available, but the brain does not know this.

Assume that the brain's choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other brains in vats, and thus the effects of its decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, whereas if the brain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war comes will result. Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain in such a way that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.

Question: Ethically speaking, what should the brain do?

Harper's Magazine, May 1996, pp 26-30.

365 Days of Jazz Hands - Day 78

TUESDAY, MARCH 19th, 2013

How do you know who you are, or more appropriately, what you are?  How do you know that your experiences are not mere perception or simulated reality?  Are you a living, breathing member of the human race, or are you programmed to believe you are?  Is pain and love and experience of virtually any kind all just written code by some master programmer?  That's hard to fathom, I agree wholeheartedly.  If we are merely programmed into existance, why then are we governed by natural, physical laws?  Why don't we float, for example, or fly or why would we die at all?  What's the point?  I suppose the same questions can be asked if you believe in an all-powerful, omnipotent being that created man in his image, having the ability to create anything at all, with no real rules until He creates them for us.  If He can alter physics, or define them any way He deems fit, then why can't we fly?  Why do we die?  Why are we anything at all?  

Believe me when I say this:  The subject I am writing about today is not a religious one.  I have no authority to speak on behalf of centuries of organized religion.  I would gladly have that discussion with you ANY TIME you like, but this is something completely different.  Today's entry may use some very religious ideas to illustrate points, but the concept applies to many facets of our existence.  This entry is more philosophy than it is religion, no matter how closely the two may be intertwined.

Faith in anything, whether it be the existence of God, or god, or gods, or Big Foot, or big foot, or big feet, or your father's love, or Jazz Hands, the royal version or the standard one, should not be based on the suspension of disbelief.  The true test of strong faith is to never be afraid to ask the hard questions.  To test yourself and question everything.  Asking questions should never be confused with defiance.  

Today I will deploy my Jazz Hands as I have done for the past seventy-seven days in a row...you do not have proof of any such deployments, other than the rare first hand account.  All you have is the written testimony you see before you describing my hand jazzings in written form, sometimes vaguely.  You may choose to believe that I jazz my hands every day, or you can choose not to believe.  You may question it all you want.  After all, I question the activity every day, myself.  Even the royal Jazz Hands gets questioned by me from time to time.  That's all part of the game.   

You may be a computer program, you may be a brain in a vat, or you may actually be human.  If I ask you to prove one scenario over the others, would you be able to?  Does it even matter?  If we're experiencing something, or virtually experiencing something, the bottom line is that we may as well embrace our existence regardless of what we are.  It is amazing that we are anything at all, simulated or not.  

Today's Jazz Hands questioned its own existence.  Day seventy-eight complete.  Or is it?

PS:

I will be posting a brain teaser titled "Brain in a Vat" published in Harper's Magazine, as a "non-Jazz Hands bonus post."  If this sort of Matrix/Inception concept is interesting to you, please give it a read.  Let me know your thoughts on what the answer is.  I have my own ideas...

365 Days of Jazz Hands - Day 77

MONDAY, MARCH 18th, 2013

Rule #6:  Nothing random allowed.  No exceptions.  I really mean it this time.

I have only stayed at so many rented cabins in my lifetime.  This relatively small number compared to the frequency they burn down is confounding.

I have frequented a slice of heaven in the upper peninsula of Michigan on many occasions.  Last spring when my family planned a return trip to the mouth of the Two-Hearted River, it burned down in a ferocious fire one month prior to our planned trip.  In the summer of 2011 this same extended family of mine stayed at a beautiful mountaintop lodge in Tennessee, which burned down today.

In this same span of time, a house in Detroit burned to the ground.  This is the same house that members of this extended family grew up in.

Either I am the relative of a pyromaniac that runs around burning places they've spent time in, or there is a very strange, very hot energy associated with the places my extended family visits and/or lives.  

This is not the universe trying to tell us something, I'm sure.  But I'm also sure that the events are not random.  The string of seemingly unrelated yet related incidents raise more questions than it does offer answers.  Maybe we haven't asked the right questions yet.  Maybe that's always the problem.  Maybe there are great questions that never get asked.  

You can't blame my Jazz Hands deployments.  Although they do seem to set the world on fire, metaphorically, in the 'royal' Jazz Hands way, the Two Hearted river fire happened way before my involvement with the hand jazzing ever got underway, therefor I am exonerated.

This family of mine, they must be careful of what they do and where they visit.  Destruction is sure to follow in their wake.  The good news is that destruction is commonly accompanied with creation, which we've covered extensively in these here blogs.  

Today's Jazz Hands are on fire.  Unfortunately, so is Tennessee.  

Day seventy-seven complete.

365 Days of Jazz Hands - Day 76

SUNDAY, MARCH 17th, 2013

2nd Amendment to RULE #5: Never, ever, ever apologize, no exceptions...unless it's in the form of sarcasm.  If forgiveness is requested, a loss of one life will follow unless blood has been drawn from an opponent.  If no blood is drawn from an opponent then that apology had better be snarky.  Or smarmy.  Or oozing with sarcasm.

Oozing blood, or oozing with sarcasm...otherwise no apologies.

Today's Jazz hands are not oozing with blood or sarcastic nor are they sarcastically oozing with blood.  They are, on the other hand, distracted.  That's not an excuse.  That's not an apology.  That's just the way the shamrock shakes.

Today's Jazz Hands were deployed in the presence of corned beef, cabbage and Jameson.  Happy St. Patrick's Day seventy-six complete.

365 Days of Jazz Hands - Day 75

SATURDAY, MARCH 16th, 2013

Pops is dead.

It has been a good long time since seeing Pops, and the only logical explanation is that he is dead.  I have not seen young Pops and I have not seen old Pops, which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that when you die all versions of you vanish, regardless of time travel.  Your echoes running around alternate realities...gone forever.

It took some time to come to terms with this realization, moving through each phase of the grieving process, but I now accept the fact that the intersection of Kennedy and Dale Mabry will now be a home for someone else.  The sun will shine and a new leaf will sprout.

I have have a care package in the car that rides to and from work with me every day.  Combos, popcorn, apple, can of ravioli, fork and a napkin.  For nobody.  

I don't know when it happened, and I can not say for certain how it occurred.  Were my words his ultimate undoing?  Regardless of when or how, I hope that Pops has found a comfortable home on the back of the big duck in the sky, eating his Combos and joyously deploying Jazz Hands with the Snorks.  He has had a long, tough road...he deserves a vigorous Jazz Hands dedication.  

Today's Jazz Hands are in honor of the man they called Pops.  Day seventy-five complete.