Random Thought #70

Awhile back, I wrote about fishes and why they have gills and how they work. My sister-in-law and her family has a small aquarium in their apartment and it never dawned on me before, but I wondered why aquariums constantly have bubbles blowing in their tank. Now after reading about gills ,I understand that in aquariums, there is no exposure to open air or a large amount of water, so oxygen has to be pumped into the water so that the fish can breathe. Ever wonder why little orange goldfish that they give away to people at the carnival die so soon? Most likely...asphyxiation.

Random Thought #69

Ask anyone to define revelation and you'll likely get a variety of answers, and that's good because revelation comes a number of different ways to different people and its a very personal thing so I thought I would offer my definition and how it happens to me. Whenever a thought connects to a bunch of other thoughts in a quick stream and they all make sense to me and they all relate to philosophical concepts that I've been taught all my life, and it is good or seems good to me, then I consider that to be truth and revelation from my Heavenly Father. It makes me feel good and gets me excited.

Random Thought #68

I was just thinking how girls and boys develop differently at a long age and just set off a barrage of thoughts. I think its fairly well established that girls develop faster than boys at a younger age. They mature faster, learn more earlier, and are in general more developed. Boys of course catch up and in some cases surpass their female counterparts at a later age. (Keep in mind I'm talking in general terms) I found a lot of similarities to this pattern in various philosophies. Its the concept of slow and steady versus wait and sprint; little picture vs big picture; yin/yang; complimentary forces; even career paths and natural roles. Let's use the tortoise and the hare to illustrate the first scenario. (a little backwards though) Let's pretend that the hare rests before sprinting ahead. In that case, the female is the tortoise. Slow and steady and consistent so they take the lead in development while the hare (male) rests and takes it easy. The hare then sprints ahead using all of his energy to make up the lost ground (huge sprint) and surpasses the tortoise and realizing he is so much further ahead, takes another rest. In the meantime, the tortoise passes the hare again and the hare has to sprint using all his energy to get ahead again. Females typically are even-keeled, consistent, strong and steady. Males are impulsive and lazy so they wax and wane. Which do you think is more suitable to raising children? That's where roles come into play. This plays out in ancient communities too. You have the nomads you roam and conquer and never settle down (male) and then you have the agrarian agriculturists (female) who are conquered and provide the sustenance to the conquering parties. The two cannot live without each other. They are complimentary to each other. The agriculturists provide the sustenance and structure while the conquerers provide the leadership and drive. That brings me to another point. This society is always comparing to determine a winner in the short-term. Instead they should be collaborating for the betterment of all in the long-term. Since we're dealing with males/females, let's do a simple comparison to see why 1+1=3 is plausible. Let's compare amount of hormones. We know that females have a small amount of testosterone and males have a small amount of estrogen in them, but obviously each has a dominant hormone. So, let's say that males have 1.8 of testosterone and 1.2 of estrogen and females have 1.8 of estrogen and 1.2 of testosterone. If comparing them directly to see who is the winner of testosterone, the male obviously wins, but if we compare to see who has more estrogen, the female clearly wins, but if we measure them together (collaborate), we find that they together have a hormone level of 3 no matter which one you measure. All are equal and greater than if we simply compare instead of collaborate. Ok, so maybe my math is all weird but it made sense to me in my head and I think you get the concept of collaborate instead of compete or compare. This illustrates the yin/yang principle and why opposites are necessary and complimentary. This explains the family as the natural unit of the eternities. What's funny is that all of these examples are philosophical principles that we are familiar with....which leads to my next thought

Random Thought #67

My dear sweet mother just bought me a couple more books for Christmas (Thanks Mom) and one of them is about what happened between the end of the Hebrew Old Testament and the beginning of the Greek New Testament. I've only read the first chapter because I couldn't resist but also because I need to finish the other book I'm reading first. I already learned something new. When the Israelites split into two kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom founded their new capital in Samaria while the Southern Kingdom remained in Jerusalem. We, of course, know that the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC and took many away captive, but some returned. The Southern Kingdom was then conquered later by the Babylonians in 587 BC and trashed Jerusalem including destroying the temple. When the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem by Cyrus (Persian king who conquered the Babylonians) 50 years later, they were told after settling down a bit to re-build the temple both by Cyrus and by the Lord through his prophet Haggai. The Israelites from the Northern Kingdom asked if they could help as they remembered the importance of the temple of Solomon before the kingdoms were split. The Jews from the Southern Kingdom refused to let them help as they did not see them as being pure anymore. Many of them had intermarried with the Assyrians during their time of captivity and intermarrying with Gentiles was strictly forbidden under the Law of Moses. This irritated the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom and they have hated each other ever since. Remember how I mentioned that when the kingdoms split apart, the capital of the Northern Kingdom was Samaria? Well guess what they called themselves? Yup, Samaritans. Recall the story of the good samaritan? It says that a Jew was beaten and left for dead and nobody (not even of his own kind) would help, but a samaritan who hated the Jews and vice versa came to help. Does this background story help with the significance of that story? The basics of these stories and parables still mean something to us today and we can learn lessons from them, but they were not written at the time for us. They were written for the saints of the time. To get the full meaning of what these stories and parables are trying to tell us, we need to understand these people and this history and their language and mannerisms. There is a whole chapter on Samaritans in chapter 14 so I'll have to wait a little longer to get more details on these people but I'm excited. Doesn't this just make you want to read and learn and study?!!?!? LOVE IT LOVE IT!!

Random Thought #66

In my latest book, I just read a chapter about rhetoric. Its amazing how many people are fooled into believing in something and therefore think they are gaining knowledge just because they hear what they want to hear. I've even fallen into that trap before. Sometimes the truth hurts and we need to hear it and be open to it to truly gain pure knowledge and truth and grow. I also think its significant that we gain a testimony of the gospel (pure truth and knowledge) not by the convincing arguments of mankind, but by the Holy Ghost. What's even more special is that we can know for ourselves, we don't have to rely on someone like the Prophet to tell us what is true and what isn't. The gift of personal revelation is a glorious gift. As a side note, rhetoric is defined as the use of speech effectively. Hugh Nibley defines it a little more relevantly in that its use is to persuade or convince. Those who are experienced in using rhetoric were known mainly as orators (now they're called salesmen and marketers). That kind of makes me think, if rhetoric is used to persuade or convince, then what is the purpose of a rhetorical question? Are we supposed to convince ourselves of something? Hmm

Random Thought #65

I watched a video last night that was about time-lapse photography, specifically of nature. The video that this guy created was amazing but so was the message. I highly recommend it.

Random Thought #64

I got an email from Deseret Book today advertising Elder Bednar's new book entitled "Increase in Learning". Its a different kind of book that is a little more interactive and comes with supplemental materials, but when I click on the link to look at this book, at the bottom was a link to a service called "Seek" from Deseret Book. I checked it out and found all sorts of cool information. There were a number of videos that involved young adults asking Elder Bednar questions from his book. I love every single one of his answers and I've been waiting for awhile to see if/when an apostle would step up and speak frankly about seriously searching and studying the gospel.

This video describes what I have felt for quite awhile now and is the reason behind my own studies. I've never been able to put it into words exactly, but its just a feeling that you get. It gets you all excited and you don't want to do anything else but learn. Its an amazing feeling.

I liked this video because Elder Bednar somewhat speaks out against the simple sunday school answers that we are so prone to give. Its not that the answers are wrong or inappropriate, its simply that we can recite stuff until we are blue in the face, but rarely do we understand what we are saying and even more rarely do we live it. We draw near to the Lord with our lips, but our hearts are far from Him.

I'm excited for this book and I hope everyone reads it and that it awakens in them a desire to feast upon the words of Christ, desire to learn and gain intelligence, and become more like our Father in Heaven.

Random Thought #63

I finished reading a book about the Golden ratio last week. Very fascinating book. It is designated by the greek letter ϕ. It is a cousin to the very familiar letter π. It is represented as c = π * 2r where c is the circumference of a circle and r is the radius. I wonder how pi actually got its name. Whenever you cut a pizza (also known as a pie in some areas) or a cake or a pie, you are literally making a radial (defining a radius) cut. Fascinating huh? After all, there aren't too many greek letters that also have the same name as a pastry and since the greeks were the ones who were big into math and such, it only makes since. Interesting. BTW...I'm eventually going to teach myself greek and hebrew (I hope) so I can better understand the scriptures.

Random Thought #62

I think I've told most people but I found my passion. I thoroughly enjoy biochemistry. It excites me. I can get thoroughly engrossed in it and it challenges me. I'd love to go back to school and take some courses on it but I'm not entirely sure what I'd do with a degree in it if I were to go that route. I think that's kind of a good thing though. I think that shows that I enjoy it just for the sake of learning it. I just want to learn and be excited by knowledge and the learning process. So much of today's norms expect you to go to school, but mainly for the express purpose of obtaining employment and climbing some sort of ladder to proclaim your success. I just like to learn for the sake of learning and the joy it brings me.

Random Thought #61

I was listening to the Saturday's Warrior soundtrack on my way home from work when they mentioned line upon line and precept upon precept. I'm not sure why it struck a chord with me this time as I have heard that phrase multiple times but this time it actually meant something to me. I just finished reading a book on The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio and I learned so much about mathematics, music, art, and nature that I hadn't known before but I understood it and got value from it because of two things. 1) I was prepared. I had read many other books and articles that referenced different aspects and concepts in this book so I had a little bit of background knowledge and if I didn't know something, I paused to read up on it. 2) I was open to the possibility that there were others who had something to teach me and was willing to be taught. The more we humble ourselves and become teachable, the easier it is to learn new things. We also have to learn the basics before we can move on to more complicated topics. I had to understand what the golden ratio was, its various forms and relation to Fibonacci numbers, platonic solids, phyllotaxis, etc before I was ready to understand the concepts of fractal geometry or theories of false vacuums creating multiple self-similar universes. Line upon line; precept upon precept. The Lord is ready to teach us, but he is waiting for us to be prepared, teachable, and ready to put forth the effort

Random Thought #60

As I was driving back from work today, I noticed a Hummer H3T next to me. I don't know why but I thought about how blatantly obvious the name of the vehicle was. It was a Hummer, 3rd generation model and was modeled like a truck. Their other two models were also obviously named. The H2 and the H1 or original Humvee. The humvee even got its name from an acronym HMMWV (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle). Why are things so simply named? As I mentioned in a previous post, philosophy is divided up into its parts; philo = love and sophos = wisdom. Sophos is also the root of the Sophoi or 7 wise sages of the Greeks during the 6th century BC and the sophists who later perverted the term by selling wisdom through paid courses, thus setting the stage for paid education. I just read in the comics this last week that Philadelphia gets its nickname of "the city of brotherly love" because Philadelphia is translated in greek as literally philo = love and adelphos = brother. Surnames are like this too. For quite awhile, people only had one name but due to population increases, surnames were given and usually related to patronymic or matronymic system (johnson is literally john's son), a profession, a residence, or some other attribute that would define them more specifically. What's most interesting is not the logical naming of items, places, people, etc but more the evolution of language. I bet that if we knew and understood the adamic language or perhaps had insight into the complexity around the tower of babel event, we would better understand the naming conventions that arose and developed over time. Can you imagine poor Adam having to try and name everything? That would be an interesting event to behold. One last thought on context and language; if we study and understand the language and cultural norms of the piece we're reading, it makes a world of difference. How many of you actually knew Philadelphia's nickname was actually a literal translation in greek? I didn't. It would be interesting to know who named it that and why. Now that I bring this up, I can't help but think about Lehi and his posterity camping at various locations in the wilderness and in the promised land and them naming various places for certain reasons. Cool stuff. Can anyone tell me what Lehi means? Its rather intersting and there is a place named Lehi due to an event that occurred there. You'll find that story in Judges. Happy Searching!

Random Thought #59

So I was reading from the Book of Mormon to our girls the other night and was reading from 1 Nephi chapter 3, v 1-3. It talks about how Lehi had his dream that his sons should return back to Jerusalem to get the Brass Plates from Laban. I was trying to get the girls to repeat back to me what was happening in those few verses. I brought up the Brass Plates and one of them said "Daddy, we have plates here and we made food for you so you can eat on the plates". I didn't think she was paying attention and was going off on some tangent so I corrected her and went over the summary of those 3 verses again and she just looked at me like I was some sort of moron and repeated her statement, as if I hadn't heard her the first time. We obviously weren't connecting so I went on to tell them why they wanted to get the plates. It was because of the genealogy of their ancestors that it contained. Since they didn't know what genealogy was, I tried to explain it as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. As soon as I said that, they again replied with "we don't like ants daddy...we don't have any ants". I, of course, missed what they were saying completely and felt like I was never going to get through to them. Finally my brilliant wife told me that they were listening to me but did not understand the context in which I was using these words. They heard a word they recognized and related to me their experience with that word as they understood it. Needless to say, I felt a little stupid. That got me thinking. Do our Sunday School discussions of the scriptures and our own personal study sometimes miss the point due to the lack of contextual understanding of the scriptures? Do we look at the language nuances that played a role in writing the various books? Do we understand the religious and political events that took place during those times? Do we understand the cultural norms, traditions, history, and perspective of the people? If not, are we perhaps missing the full story the scriptures have to teach us? I think so. Perhaps we need to do a little more than simply read the scriptures 30 min a day or read a book from cover to cover. Perhaps we need to feast upon the words of Christ and try to understand them at the deepest possible contextually-rich level.

Random Thought #58

I went to a little forum last week on Wednesday that involved world-famous genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter and the VP of ExxonMobil's Research unit, Emil Jacobs at Rice University. They were talking about their joint effort to genetically tweak algae to create recyclable biofuels on a mass scale. Anyways, it was a public event but by the "cocktail party" food items they had available, you would have thought the leaders of nations were there. I had no idea what most of the stuff there was, but I was a little hungry so I had a couple of tiny sandwiches. This raised numerous questions for me.

1) Why do snobbish events always have food that nobody has ever heard of?
2) Why does that food not taste very good?
3) Why do they serve it in such little portions?
4) Why is it so expensive?
5) Why do people pay for it AND eat it?

Think about it....when was the last time you went to some eclectic or upscale restaurant? Did you not ask your at least 1 if not all of those questions? I don't get it. If anybody has a clue, please feel free to comment? Personally I'd rather pay 1/5th as much for food that I recognize and that I know tastes better.

Random Thought #57

So I went home teaching yesterday and the most interesting thing happened. This latest issue of the Ensign was all about the Book of Mormon and many of the conference talks were about the Book of Mormon. I was in a rush to go to eat dinner and then get to my appointment that I forgot to bring the Ensign. My companion brought a copy of the magazine but I didn't feel impressed to use it. Instead I brought my scriptures (dunno why...I never do). When it came time for the lesson, I just opened up the scriptures and thought immediately to turn to the Book of Mormon title page. As I read from the title page, a number of thoughts hit me and was basically the point of my message to that family. I will illustrate them below as well as provide a link so that you can read it for yourselves.

Link

1. The Book of Mormon was written not only to the Jew and Gentile, but also to the Lamanites, who were a remnant of the House of Israel. We have to remember that the Nephites and possibly also the Lamanites were descendant of Jews. Lehi and his family were Jews and followed the Law of Moses all the way up until the time that Christ appeared to the people in Bountiful.

2. Although the Book of Mormon was largely written by Jews, it was to be translated by God by way of the Gentile; not translated by a Gentile.

3. The record in Ether is meant to show the remnant of the House of Israel what the Lord has done and will do for his covenant people and to remind them of that covenant.

4. The biggest piece and purpose of the Book of Mormon is to convince both Jew and Gentile (I would say Gentile and Jew since the last are now first, but symantics aside) that Jesus is the Christ. There is only two times that Christ appeared to the people on this earth to basically fulfill the Law of Moses and introduce the Law of the Gospel. Jerusalem during his mortal ministry (New Testament) and after his resurrection (Book of Mormon). Since the Bible has been translated by man and many interpolations have been introduced, there is only one true and pure source for how this was done and it reinforces what happened in Jerusalem. How are you going to convince the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. He couldn't even convince them. When you show them that he appeared to other people who were living the same Law of Moses that they did and hear about how they felt the nail imprints in his hands and feet and how he descended from heaven in glory vs riding into the city on a donkey, the connections will be made and the Jews will realize they made a big mistake. I would venture to say that some of the best missionary work will happen when Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and other areas over there open their doors to missionary work.

It is truly a remarkable book and the keystone of our religion.

Random Thought #56

I just watched a cool TED.com video about the math behind not only biological lifeforms, but also cities and corporations. I think its well known that we are growing in population and urbanization at an exponential rate. The common question is how will we survive? Many answer the question with the statement that we have always innovated whenever it was crucial. Many of the graphs here show a hockey stick which indicates incredible growth, but the problem with that incredible growth is that its not sustainable forever, so we have to innovate before we collapse and start a new hockey stick. I'm sure many of you have noticed before but life is getting more and more hectic. There is just too much to take in and we often dismiss the important things in life in order to keep up. In contrast, I've noticed that the Lord's way is a cycle, its "one eternal round". It just keeps happening over and over again. You see it in biology, in death/birth, decay(entropy)/creation(organization), all of the early classic cultures talk about this (especially Egyptian), cycles of the sun, moon, stars, recycling of materials, nature. Its everywhere manifest in God's creations and his plan. This is sustainable and thus eternity becomes possible. For the physicist, its best represented by the fact that matter is neither created or destroyed, it just is. Given that fact, the creation account specifying that the earth was formed by the "organizing" of matter concurs with this fact and when the earth is transformed and receives its paradisaical glory, matter is transformed. It is not destroyed or blown to bits. The same thing goes for us. The interesting question is what kind of matter are our spirits made up of? I don't think we've figured that one out yet. Anyways, the whole point of this is that God's way is eternal, cyclical, cooperative, communal, and perfect. Mankind has a long way to go to figure that out and we're going in the wrong direction.

Link to the Ted.com video if you're curious.

Random Thought #55

Ever wonder how it is that we are so comfortable flying in an airplane with such adverse conditions all around us? I have occasionally and I finally found out how they do it. Quite fascinating and creative if you ask me.

Check it out for yourselves and next time you fly, be grateful for all the ingenious minds that made your comfort possible

http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2011/04/12/how-airplane-cabin-pressurization-works-keeping-you-comfortable-in-the-death-zone-at-33000-feet/

Random Thought #54

I heard this in one of my podcasts and I thought it was interesting. He starts off in a neat fashion and adds a bit of humor, but towards the end I think he gets a little far-fetched and doesn't substantiate his claims very well. Having knowledge of the creation and a spiritual perspective I think gives us a little better understanding as to the way things are and how others have had to interpret them due to their lack of this knowledge. Worth the view.

Marcus Chown - 10 Bonkers things about the universe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5x8t-4ewGo&noredirect=1

Random Thought #53

Is it just me or are we getting less and less personable as time goes on? My previous post is a great example of that? We don't even know how to say 'hello' in passing anymore. Speaking of this team welcome lunch we had on wednesday, I would think that if you were welcoming somebody into the group and were going to celebrate it with a lunch, a common theme or discussion might center around that individual. Find out about their likes/dislikes are, what they do for a hobby, where they live, something about their family, etc. None of that. They hardly talked to me. It wasn't like there were a lot of people either. There were 4 of us. They talked about their families, stuff going on in their life and things going on at work. At the end, the supervisor said, welcome to the team and that was about it. They asked me where I'd like to go so I gave them a suggestion and about 30 min later, I was asked if a different place was ok. I agreed and the next day I received an invite to go to a 3rd place completely different, which was where we ate. I guess I shouldn't complain too much right? I got a free lunch and they didn't even ask me to pick up the check. My farewell lunch is tomorrow for my old group so we'll see what happens. HA!

Random Thought #52

What do you do when you and someone else are walking towards each other at a distance and you both know that you'll eventually cross each other's paths? Do you loom at them or keep your head down and pretend you didn't notice them until it was too late? If you do look at them, how early? How many times do you look at them before they pass, pretending not to see them? Do you say hi, keep to yourself, wait until they say hi, or simply nod your head? Why is this always so awkward and why does it feel awkward every time? I don't know the answers to these questions but I sure ask them a lot. Anybody have any good answers? It happens to me almost every day. My team went out for lunch on wednesday for my welcome lunch. Upon returning to the office 3 of us went different directions. Sure enough, right after we turned our respective corners, 2 of us were caught in the eternal stare of awkwardness and as I continued, I met the 3rd one on the way to the bathroom. Too much awkwardness for 1 day. Think I'm going to stay in my office a little more until I figure this one out

Random Thought #51

I just read today that philosophy literally means "the love of wisdom". I never really thought about it too much but it translates quite well. Philo means love and sophos means wisdom. Guess those philosophers aren't quite so useless after all. Maybe they are perceived this way because they think abstractly or in theoretical terms versus offering tangible evidence, which is what determines success these days, but I think their pursuit of goods of first intent is far nobler than the common pursuit today of goods of second or third intent. Power to the philosophers!!

Random Thought #50

Truth and Knowledge are simply the product of discovering the unconscious by conscious effort. I'm sure some really smart guy or gal already said that or something similar to it, but if not, I call dibs. I've found that this has been the overriding theme in my studies. Most of the things that I've learned are not really that complicated or intricate. Granted, the people that wrote about them write in outlandishly complex jargon, but the concepts themselves are quite basic and elementary and many of the amazing things around us we do subconsciously. Take breathing for example (not to mention the entire human body). We don't even think about breathing. We just do it. What about any of our 5 main senses? We do all those automatically too and we don't even realize how much we're dependent on them until they are taken away from us. None of these things are overly complex to do (smell, see, hear, breathe, etc.) yet the complexity of what those systems are doing without you actually thinking about doing them is astounding. To get back to my first statement and how I defined truth and knowledge and to return to the example of breathing, if breathing is so simple, why can't we do it anywhere? Why not under water? Why not in space? To fully understand the truth about breathing and have knowledge about how it works, we must get outside of our cozy little subconscious world and consciously look for answers. I think it helps give insight into God's perspective. Let's look at fish. They can breathe under water but we can't. Why? As you start studying how fish breathe under water, you start understanding more and more how similar they are to us, just with a few tweaks to make it work for them. #1) There is oxygen in water (whew, at least we breathe the same stuff, which means their bodies and its organs must need oxygen just like ours). Its not the O in H2O, but rather oxygen mixed in amongst the water molecules. The amount of oxygen that exists in water compared to air is much smaller. In air, its like 20%. In water, its like 1%. In order to accommodate that, fish had to either push a lot more air and subsequently water over their gills or not require as much. In order to use less, 2) they are cold-blooded, instead of warm-blooded like us so their blood doesn't need as much oxygen. They are able to close their mouth so that they don't swallow the water but rather the de-oxygenated water flows out the gills. They also have the ability (at least in salt-water fish) so filter out the salt in case they do drink too much. The basic concept is the same. Oxygen is gathered and then seeps through a tiny cell membrane into nearby blood vessels waiting for their oxygen load to carry it to the organs. These differences, however, provide for the beauty and variety around us. While we're on the subject of breathing, why do we need a mouth and a nose? Besides the fact that taste and smell are different senses, it would be a bit difficult to breathe while eating. These types of things are just the tip of the iceberg, but I firmly believe that the more we learn and understand, especially about things that we're not familiar with, the better perspective and overall understanding of pure truth we'll have. I know someone famous once said, (think it was Einstien) if you can't explain it to both a child and the foremost expert in that field, you don't fully understand it. Given that statement, how many of us truly understand and know (or have knowledge of) the principles and covenants of the gospel. Have we thoroughly studied them out to be able to explain the same concept to a Nursery aged child as well as an apostle? I'd venture to say we still have a lot of learning to do, and not just of the scriptures, but things that are outside of our comfort zone as well. Those of us who have been in the church since we were born are so used to Sunday School answers, we've effectively handicapped ourselves as it pertains to gospel knowledge. We must consciously study that which our unconscious souls already know. One last note before I let this one rest. Malcolm Gladwell (a great speaker and author), wrote a book called "Blink" which explains the difference between our conscious and unconscious understanding and learning and I think its useful to reference it as it pertains to my comments here. Here is a link to his website and this book in particular.

Blink

Random Thought #49

This is such a great video. I had to share it. The response from the crowd proves that deep down inside each of us, there is a loving, caring, child of God who loves his brothers and sisters and would like to help when others are down.

http://www.wimp.com/greatchallenges

Random Thought #48

So I think you guys deserve a reason for why I haven't been posting much here lately. I've been tied up with a lot of reading. I just finished Nibley's book called Abraham in Egypt and have recently started reading President Monson's biography. I've also been exploring a number of other topics. Here's a little preview of my "to read list"

Biomimicry by Janine Benyus
The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio
QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) by Richard Feynman
Islands of Genius (forget the author but it's about savants)
Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku
the rest of the CWHN series (collected works of hugh nibley)
All seven volumes of the official History of the Church compiled by B.H. Roberts
All content from BYU's Maxwell Institute
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
The classics from "classics.mit.edu"

just to name a few. I've also become interested lately in a number of other topics such as astronomy, proteomics, biomimetics, wireless data transfer over the spectrum of visible light versus radio waves (just saw a cool demonstration on that today) and my ultimate goal of writing a book about reconciling religion, science, and archaeology. I'm sure more stuff will pop up as I read but this is a good start don't you think?

Oh, I'd also like to learn/teach myself how to play the banjo. It seems like a lot of fun

Random Thought #47

What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you become it? I wonder what the percentage of people is that actually did what they wanted to do when they grew up. I know I didn't. When we were young, we likely didn't have any clue about the adult world or how things work in this world, but that's what made us pure and free. Many of us probably didn't really know what we wanted to be or what we wanted to do, but I can almost assure you that nobody growing up said "I want to spend 30-40 years of my life working at a desk job", "I want to be an account manager", or "I want to appease political correctness". We were dreamers and adventurous. Its funny how we never really know what we want to do or who we want to become until it seems like its too late. For most of us, we spend nearly 50% of our lives doing something we hate and all of that time is spent away from our families. Why? To pay the bills and to satisfy our appetite for the worldly. Its a shame that most of the things people really want to do or really enjoy either entail a massive amount of debt/time due to schooling or don't pay nearly good enough to live as a middle-class American. I want to hear from you. What was/is your dream? Assume money isn't a factor and being lazy at home isn't an option. What are you passionate about?

Randpm Thought #46

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there


http://youtu.be/DOKuSQIJlog

Random Thought #45

So a friend of mine at work today showed me a cool app from the Android Marketplace that allows you to scan all of food products' bar codes and it would keep track of everything you had in your pantry/fridge, etc. and it would warn you about expiration dates of that food. It had recipes and would suggest things based on what food you had, tell you when you needed to buy more, tell you what stores had it and where they were located, coupons available through those stores, upcoming ads, etc. Pretty cool app. Anyways, that got me thinking about how bar codes work. I always wondered how to interpret them. Well now I know and its quite fascinating. How UPC Bar Codes Work: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/upc.htm. How Bar Code Scanners Work: http://www.carolinabarcode.com/how-barcode-scanners-work-a-69.html. I'll let you read the articles yourself, but the cool thing about the bar code system is how they were designed to account for every possible situation that might cause a uniform system to break. Think about it, if you just used the numbers which the bar codes represent, it wouldn't work upside down, sideways, or any other position. The genius behind bar codes is existent in several forms.

1. It looks the same no matter where you scan it. You can scan it at the top, bottom, in the middle. It looks the same throughout.

2. It uses binary to convey its message (black and white; 1 and 0)

3. It has a variable checksum digit based on a standard algorithm (uniformity with flexibility). This allows it to be scalable, although it may need to be reformed if there are too many products using UPC bar codes

4. It has a start and end position telling the program when to start reading and when to stop.

5. It uses the reflective properties of the white spaces and the absorption properties of the black spaces to covey its message. Very old school and very effective.

Its just amazing what a mundane and yet commonplace technology has behind it. I hope you enjoy the articles and learn something from them. I certainly did.

Random Thought #44

I read a funny joke/pun today that has to do with chemical engineering and physics so I just had to share it, even though most of you will be totally nerded out by it.

Two hydrogen atoms met. One says "I've lost my electron". The other says "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm positive"

LOL....love it!

Random Thought #43

I just recently stayed at my sister's house and she had a candle burning on her table. I, of course being the nerd that I am, was fascinated with the candle and began to be confused as I couldn't figure out how the candle actually worked. Logically, the string should just burn down to a stub and the flame should go out at the base of the candle. The wax itself is not flammable and if you burn a piece of string by itself, it will char and shrivel up into ash. So, since a candle is nothing but wax and a piece of string, how do candles work? Well, I looked it up and I'm happy to tell ya.

The wick is absorbent and absorbs the melted wax into itself. The heat from the flame turns this liquid wax into wax vapor and that is what actually burns. When you blow a candle out, you see the white smoke left over. This is condensed visible wax vapor. If you were to touch a lit match to the white smoke, it would travel back down and light the candle again. So why doesn't the wick burn? Well, the liquid wax that it absorbs helps cool it and protect it. If you've ever boiled water in a paper cup over a campfire, it works the same way. I have to correct myself. Paraffin wax is combustible but only at much higher temperatures so it just melts from the hear of the flame. So that's how a candle works. Pretty cool huh? Wonder who thought of that.

Random Thought #42

Wow!!! Its been quite awhile since I last posted anything on my blog. Many of you have asked if I was still doing my blog and I'm grateful because that means somebody is still checking it. For those of you who have been looking forward to my randomness, I'm sorry. I've been kinda busy. We had a new son recently along with family visits and my grandpa passing away so I haven't had much free time to write down my thoughts. I have been thinking though and I thought I would share a little interesting nugget of information I found out today. When talking about doctoral degrees from a university, MD means Medical Doctorate, JD means Judicial Doctorate, but does anyone know what the Ph in a PhD stands for? Well, today I found out it stands for Philosophy. That's right. Doctorate of Philosophy. Interesting huh!! How did I stumble across this little bit of information? Well, I've recently had an epiphany as to what I want to be when I grow up. I'd like to be a university professor or chemical engineering or physics or something like that. Just learn and teach. Getting kinda fed up with the 8-5 routine. So I'm looking at going back to school. Since my current degree is in IT, I need to start from scratch, but this time do it with 3 kids, wife, house, and full time employment. No problem right? Well, at least I can get the company to pay for it, now its just a matter of finding the time. Oh Dear!!

Random Thought #41

I had a hard time coming up with an ID and a proper name for this blog. Usually most blogs have a theme or subject to them. I've seen blogs about certain technologies, couponing, a particular topic, all sorts of stuff. I wanted to find something that would best describe what goes on in my brain. I ended up with Random Mormon luckily enough. The best part about this title is that it allows me to jump from topic to topic and not actually have a theme. That's how my brain works. It never stays on a topic long enough to fully express everything there is about a topic before it jumps on to something else. The random factor is my theme. It kind of reminds me of some old adages such as "The only constant is change" or "the more things change, the more they stay the same".  I guess my adage would be, "my brain can be so unpredictable; if you don't like the way I think, stick around 5 minutes and my thought will probably change" :)

Random Thought #40

Remember when its Christmas morning or the day of your birthday, especially when you were young? Remember how your parents always reminded you to call those people who sent you gifts and thank them? I think that was a great start, but its kind missing the point. If you think about it, why are you calling them? When you were a kid, it was because your parents told you to. When you're an adult, why do you do it? When do you do it? Do you call them before or after your open the present? If its after, then why are you thanking them? What do you say? Thanks for the "such and such". We are thanking them for a particular material gift we've received. Wouldn't it be so much better if we called and thanked them for thinking of you on your special day or during Christmas? They would probably be a bit surprised too when they ask you, "so what do you think of the gift I got you? Do you like it?" when they hear your response that you don't even know what it is yet. I think this could help with ungratefulness too. If you call someone to thank them for thinking of you, it doesn't really matter what you get. Just a thought.

Random Thought #39

In this same article I've been referencing, there was a note about some of the text in the creation story. One of the things that caught one of Joseph Smith's contemporaries off-guard (can't remember his name) was when Elohim cursed Lucifer and said "on thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life". If Lucifer had appeared as a serpent, wouldn't he already be on his belly? Well if we take things literally as post #37 suggests, that would seem to say that snakes didn't get around on their bellies before that time. Well that just seems ludicrous. Are we possibly suggesting that snakes had legs? Actually, yes I am. As I'm going through this latest of my Hugh Nibley books, there are several vignettes that illustrate serpents as walking around on legs. I was curious so I googled it and found that archaeologists have now found a fossil of a snake down in Argentina that not only had legs, but a hip bone as well. Some things are hard to believe simply because we have had a set doctrine/life/set of experiences to draw from, which don't include these somewhat unbelievable things in them. If we hadn't been told the story of how the Lord lit the stones for the Jaredites in the Book of Mormon, would we have believed such an event occurred? Remember, the scriptures are quite literal, and when applying a bit of logic, its amazing what can be revealed. We just need an open mind, a desire for truth, and the knowledge of how to properly attain that knowledge. God himself said that whosoever asketh, shall receive. Start feasting on the scriptures and ask some of those questions you've been afraid to ask before.

Random Thought #38

Do we sometimes fall into the trap of sustaining our leaders so well, that we believe them to be infallible? Every word they speak is prophetic and revealed to them? If we challenge them, that we are somehow not worthy of the temple because we aren't sustaining our leaders? In my last post, I mentioned that Joseph Smith and Brigham  Young disagreed on the topic of how father Adam came to be. As I read the footnotes of the article in which this was mentioned, it says that just because Brigham Young was President of the Church and prophet at that time doesn't mean that everything he said was prophetic and revealed. He was a fallible human just like any of us are and is entitled to his own opinions. The scriptures clearly teach us that if we are to understand truth, we must do so by the spirit. The Holy Ghost will make manifest all things unto us which are true. If President Young were simply expressing an opinion and not necessarily teaching by way of the Holy Ghost, then its very possible that something he says is incorrect. It is always healthy to question, not for the sake of questioning, but to find truth. If something is taught by the spirit and understood by that same spirit, then both are edified and uplifted. Like any truth we seek, the Lord has told us that we must study it out in our minds and come up with our own answer and then ask God if it is right. The Brother of Jared is a great example. He asked the Lord, how are we supposed to breathe in our ships? There aren't any holes. He thought about this for a long time and then finally asked the Lord, at which point the Lord told him to make stopper plugs. Then he came to another issue. What should they do for light? The Lord said, good question, what do you think you should do? You can't use windows and you can't have fire. Guess you got a bit of a kanundrum on your hands. So the brother of Jared thought about it and came up with an idea to make 16 stones and propose the idea of the Lord touching them to light them. Talk about some faith. The Lord must have thought it was a good idea, and supplied the light. The point is that we need to think about anything that is said, analyze it, pray about it and ask for the Holy Ghost to confirm our initial thoughts, and the truth will be manifested unto us via personal revelation. We shouldn't just take every single word from the general authorities' mouths as doctrine. We are here to choose, not be blind followers.

Random Thought #37

The more I read, the more I see that the scriptures are very literal accounts. Every LDS scholar I read refers to things in the scriptures as being extremely literal. Even in Christ's parables, he uses examples that made sense literally to the people of the time. They seem a little more allegorical to us since we didn't live during that time and in those circumstances, but everything that is written is very literal. I think many saints don't take the scriptures near as literally as they should. One great example that I recently read about was the creation account. We have 3 accounts of the creation story (Genesis, Moses, and Abraham). All three stick to the basic theme that Adam was created from the dust of the earth and that Eve was created from one of Adam's ribs. Many may not believe that Adam was actually organized literally from the ground. It goes against our natural understanding. Everyone has a physical mother and father right? Adam and Eve had to have had a physical mother and father....but who? The scriptures say that he was created by the Gods out of the dust of the earth. Period. Joseph Smith stuck to this notion on many occasions, last of which was the King Follett discourse. This even puzzled Brigham Young as he made the statement that he personally believed that Adam and Eve were the offspring of someone from another planet and they were transplanted here and allowed to procreate in order to start things off on this planet. This was while he was the President of the Church. Imagine that!! How could Joseph Smith and Brigham Young see one issue so differently? Check my next thought.

Random Thought #36

So I found a new book online that is exactly what I've been looking for (at least so far). Its a compilation of articles from various religious scholars that pertain to various subjects, the first of which is astronomy. The very first article talked about how we have to think in terms of what is written and the time and context it was written. This was in reference to the sections in the Book of Abraham that have to deal with the cosmos. Back then, the prevailing thought about the cosmos was very geocentric (Earth is the center of the universe), which makes sense because everything astronomers saw was in relation to where they were, on the earth. This obviously differs from today's modern heliocentric model (Sun is the center; at least of this solar system). Many try to reconcile the two and can't, thus saying that science and religion can't be reconciled. I've always believed that the works of God must be explained by concepts we are capable of understanding. After reading this article and re-reading Moses' and Abraham's encounters with God and seeing the entire universe, I better understand that we can understand God's workings, just not all of them right now, but in due time. One example would be that statement that God's creations are not numbered unto men, but they are known unto him. To take that into perspective, we typically top out our number system in the trillions. Its hard to imagine the next step up. Well, in the cosmos, there are roughly 1 billion stars in our solar system. Our solar system is part of a local group of about 8 or so solar systems. (8 billion stars). This is part of an even bigger group called a supercluster which is made up of 1000s of local groups. (minimum 8 trillion stars). Within the range of our deepest searching telescope (15 billion light years), there are approximately 1 billion superclusters. (Anyone know how much 8 trillion x 1 billion is?) and this is not even a start to the number of his creations. By the way, in case anyone is wondering how far our telescopes can see, 1 light year is equal to approximately 6 trillion miles. So we can see approxiately 6 trillion x 15 billion miles away from us.

Another article I read today gave an astronomical account of the earth's creation. Based on our best estimates today, God started working on this solar systems about 4.7 billion years ago. Considering the numbers above, that doesn't seem too long :) God is amazing isn't he?

Random Thought #35

I read an article today about the early church and how the churches of today are nothing like the church was back then. It was mentioning about the apostles and how they were not really concerned too much about missionary work because they knew the apostasy was coming and soon. They were more just out there sounding a warning voice and sharing the gospel but it was more of a "we know you're not going to listen anyways, but its our duty to tell you the truth". In this instance, they were witnesses. This article was written by Hugh Nibley and he made a statement that makes sense but many in the church misunderstand this title. Apostles are called as special witnesses of Christ. They always have been since the time of Christ. In that instance, they personally knew Christ and testified of him but the point Nibley makes, and I tend to agree with him, is that they were witnesses to the fact that they shared the gospel with others and whether those individuals decided to accept the gospel or not, they did their job and gave them the opportunity. Everyone will have the opportunity to hear the gospel and choose to accept or reject it. That's only fair. Its our job to give them that opportunity and when the great day of judgement comes, each of us will stand before God and be judged.

This of a trial nowadays, there is a judge (Heavenly Father), a Defendant (us), an advocate/lawyer (Christ) and witnesses. Everyone we come in contact with will be a witness at our trial/judgement, even the earth and animals and plants. I know that sounds weird, but they all have spirits too and will all be resurrected. I read about the animals testifying before God at our trial so be nice to them :) The point though is that the Apostles has a charge to share the gospel and be ambassadors for Christ here on the earth. They stand as special witnesses and rest assured, every one of them will be there at our trial. Many believe that special witnesses means that they have seen Christ and therefore can bear personal testimony of his divinity and resurrection. I don't know if that's true or not, but this other definition of being a special witness definitely makes sense.

Random Thought #34

I've been holding this thought for a long time because I haven't really been able to find a good way of fully expressing what's in my head and I probably won't do it justice here but I have to clear out some space in my head so I need to write this down.

I've been thinking how we are naturally drawn to equality in all things and yet we fail in this area when it matters most. Let me try to explain *deep breath*. The first thing that came to my mind that made me think of this is a dream I had where I had won a $50 gas card for submitting the winning safety suggestion. We actually have that at work (funny how reality feeds our dreams...but that's another topic for another time). The very first thought that came to my mind was "Oh good, $25 for each car" See?, equality!! The odd part is that my cars have different size tanks, gas prices fluctuate, etc. There are a number of things that could be considered as far as inequality, but the first thing that came to my head was equally splitting it between the cars.

Interesting. As I thought about this more and more, I began to think of symmetry. Many of us understand symmetry as two sides of an item when split in two as being exactly the same. I used to think this too until I saw a lecture from Prof. Richard Feynman who explains in physics what the law of symmetry really means. Its expressed in the law of the conservation of symmetry. See...things can be symmetrical across more than just an item, they can be symmetrical across time, space, and a number of other mediums. I won't get into more detail as I'm not a physicist, but essentially Prof. Feyman's point was that symmetry can better be defined as taking something that is initially symmetrical and then altering the medium (time, space, whatever) and the item is still symmetrical. The symmetry is conserved. Its really a much more interesting topic. Check it out on the internet.

Anyways, as I saw more and more examples of equal portions for all (I forget many of them now...I've had this thought in my head for over a month now), I began to apply the gospel to it. God is no respecter of persons. We are all equal in his sight. There is no hierarchy. This is a major theme in the temple. We all dress the same, we are all equal. The law of conservations keeps things that way. All contribute and all is re-distributed so that we all have according to our needs. Some may have more than others, but we all have sufficient for our needs. Sound familiar? The church is a great institution, but we are obviously not living by a celestial law here. There is inequality and God said that there will always be poor among us to test us. Why is it that we are drawn to equality? Perhaps we remember what it used to be like (to a small extent) we have reminders of our previous life.

In accounting, we always have to have everything balance. It all has to be equal. Why do couples exist? Why does the 3rd wheel always feel so awkward? Where does Yin and Yang come from? Why is there opposition in all things? Equal just feels right. If I give you one chip and you give me one chip and I give you one more chip, and then I talk about something else completely, aren't you frustrated because you didn't give me one more chip? The law of mercy and the law of justice must balance. (mercy + punishment = judgement) An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. There are so many examples, and yet when it comes to money or possessions or power or anything that Satan offers, we couldn't be further from equality. Why is it so hard? D&C 14:7 provides the answer.

The last thing that made me finally sit down and write this post was an article a friend of mine in the church told me about today. Its an article from Elder Nelson about God's love being conditional. It didn't seem quite right. Don't go bonkers and call me a heretic yet, but to me, it seems that God's love is unconditional, but that our rewards/consequences are. I feel like Elder Nelson combines and sometimes blurs the two making me uncomfortable about this article but getting back to this topic of this post, it would seem to me that God loves all equally and unconditionally. Love can mean many things but it seems that equality is something that is a celestial principle as is love and therefore, I have a hard time with this article. I challenge all of my readers to read the article and let me know what you think via the comments and also of other areas where you see equality represented.

Link to talk: lds.org/liahona/2003/02/divine-love?lang=eng

Random Thought #33

So I learned a valuable lesson today. I went out and bought little clementine oranges. We all love to eat them because they are healthy and easy to peel and eat. We usually buy a particular brand and so when I went to look for them today at the grocery store, I saw two brands. One was a 3lb bag of the brand we like and the other was a 5lb box of a brand I haven't heard of. Typically, the smaller the oranges, the sweeter they are and the more we like them. The 3lb bag was cheaper but the oranges were larger than normal. The 5lb box had smaller oranges but we don't like getting the box because its awkward in our fridge and it was a brand we didn't know. Well, turns out the larger oranges for a cheaper price from the brand we knew and liked weren't that great. Although judging a book by its cover is never recommended by itself, it may be indicative of what lies beneath. I guess I can't really complete my comparison since I never tried the other brand. Perhaps I should have listened to myself and got the smaller oranges. I was somehow deceived. I'm sure you can draw your own parallels from my "parable of the clementines" :)

Random Thought #32

I think expiration dates are only meant for women. Men tend to ignore them anyways, except milk. You should definitely pay attention to that one. Trust me, I know from experience...UGH!!

Random Thought #31

I've always wondered how dreams come into being. It must start from thoughts or feelings that exist in our sub-conscious so, in a way, I think our dreams are related to our thoughts and feelings. I don't believe in dream interpreters or anything (unless they have mad skills and some revelatory help...like Daniel; check out Daniel Ch.4) but I do think they are related to what is on our mind. I think they are representations of our thoughts/desires and we should consider what they mean. I'm reading a document now that explains what the various pieces of the Facsimiles in the Book of Abraham really mean or what they represent and it makes much more sense. This is where modern science and in this specific case, Egyptologists, get it wrong. We cannot take things at face value. We must understand things from the perspective of the ones who authored the content and also their surroundings. We must literally put ourselves in that person's position, not just in terms of perspective, but in terms of environment, time, cultural normals, etc. One thing that dreams and ancient documents have in common are the fact that we can't ever really reproduce them in their original state, but we do have them in some form or fashion and they are for our benefit. We would be wise to understand their content.

Random Thought #30

So several of my regular readers have noticed that its been awhile since my last post. This is how I know that my thoughts are true inspiration :P First of all, if I have bad or negative thoughts, I get nothing, nothing worthy of this blog anyways. Apparently I haven't been too worthy or good random thoughts lately. Sorry about that. Good news though. I most have thoroughly repented though because I got a flood of them today. Hope you enjoy the new ones.