Cracks showing

So, as I knew would happen, I've not been the most sane lately.  Not too bad.  It's very much tied in with my physical well-being.  My blood pressure rose to the point that a med student friend almost drove me to the hospital there and then when she measured it.  My resting heart rate was over 90, compared to 50 normally.  Mind racing.  No concentration.  Physically shaking, with many people in work asking me if I'm cold... perhaps I am some of the time, my homeostasis seems to be a bit off generally lately.  I'm also incredibly tetchy.  My normally infinite self control is very thin at the moment and I have snapped at a few people... it must be terrible to live on aggressive impulses like that all the time.  People like that should be locked up ;)

I thought I may as well go to the doctor so I did my research beforehand and bonded with him over his favourite TV program and the car he'd just bought, to ensure he took care of me and wouldn't put anything in my notes I didn't want.  So now I've been given some beta-blockers which have taken my heart rate and BP down.  I'm still shaking though, and weirdly the insomnia is now fine at night (getting to sleep before midnight sometimes!) but now I'm waking between 4 and 6 and not getting back to sleep - that has never happened before; once I'm asleep I have never had a problem staying asleep.  I've slept through a smoke alarm, in a noisy pub, and in the back of a helicopter doing low level maneuvers.

More test results tomorrow, hopefully ruling out anything very bad.  96% likely that it is just a manic phase combined with work stress, combined with no weed to slow down my mind, combined with not enough sleep.  But that 4% should be ruled out - e.g. liver/kidney/thyroid/adrenal gland problem.  I should be very disappointed if it turned out I were mortal after all!   ;)

Sin

If there is a god who created us, then it was She who gave our species the divine gifts of reasoning, intelligence, and free will.

Surely the biggest sin against this god would be to not use these gifts and to just have blind faith in superstitious rituals and some old text that is full of contradictions.
If there is a heaven, it is the atheists who get in. 

Scientosophy - A New Religion

What was there before the big bang? God? Then what came before God? This is a major problem for the world's religions and one only my proposed religion - Scientosophy - has the answers to. 

The abiding state of truth in the universe is one of consistency. It is not possible for two statements to contradict each other and for them both to be true. Every explanation for the origin of the universe is either contradictory or incomplete (i.e. you can always ask "and what caused that?"). If an explanation is happened upon that is patently complete and consistent, then surely that must be the truth - Scientosophy.

The basic premise is that in the future, human knowledge and technical know-how evolves to the point where we are able to formulate a way to create a big-bang, a universe. We would be able to position the start point of this universe anywhere within our own space and time. As it was created inside our universe, all the same dimensions and laws of physics would hold in it as do in ours. The key understanding now is that this new big bang gets positioned at the same point as our big bang! It isn't a second universe, it IS our universe. This creates a closed loop in time, thus avoiding any causality problems. We have become our own creators.

A good religion also needs a purpose, and by golly does this one have a purpose. To ensure humans reach the stage of intelligence to pull this feat off we need to encourage selective breeding - smart people should have more kids,and stupid people should have fewer. As the uberintelligent head of the religion I would, of course, have mating privileges with any of the Scientosophy women I choose, and any of them can choose to have AI from my seed. 

The reason it is important to reach the universe creation point as soon as possible, and not just hang around happy that it will happen some time, is due to the question of free will and determinism. Before we create our universe we are stuck in a time loop and so can't be sure of our free will. The sooner we can precipitate the loop point, the sooner we free the whole of humanity (and any aliens out there) from the slavery of determinism and allow us to be truly conscious - individual pioneers in the brave new world.

Of course, some of the Scientosophy rituals involve hallucinogenic drugs; I wouldn't want anyone thinking too clearly about how likely these religious tenets are, even if they are eminently more plausible than those of any religion I can think of!

Failure of existing religions

Why is there something rather than nothing?  By 'something' I include space and time themselves, not just things that exist within them.

I don't know.

Nobody does.

Nobody ever will – any explanation would utilise logic and laws of physics, both of which are 'something' and so the explanation would be bootstrapping.

Positing 'god' doesn't get around the question – the posited god is a 'something', and raises far more questions than it answers.

So get over it – accept that there are unknowable things and don't be scared by it.

Positive Action Vs Action by Omission

You are standing on a railway bridge and see a runaway carriage on one side, around a bend, careering towards five workmen on the other side.

There is no chance that they will see it in time or hear it coming, or hear your warning cries, due to their hard work with loud tools.

A fat man is also leaning over the bridge shouting to the men, and you can see that his bulk would derail the carriage (you don't believe you are hefty enough) and save five lives if you just give him a bit of a push down onto the rails.

Do you do it? The vast majority of people would say no; that actively killing someone is far worse (x5 worse? x100..?) than passively allowing someone to die. If you do nothing and they die then it is fate and you can't be blamed, whereas you most definitely would be blamed if you pushed a fat bloke off a bridge!

Is it possible for an emotional person to decide that the 'right' thing to do would be to push, and yet still know they would feel guilty if they did?  If they then didn't push, would they feel guilty about not doing what they thought was 'right'?

What would I do?  If I could do it anonymously with no chance of society judging me for it (they aren't qualified to judge me!) and sending me to prison, then I would.