Goes to show

Goes to show, even though you might have a pretty good idea what other people are, you never quite know who you are.

Intuition only gets you so far. Communication is essential.

Changes in circumstances trigger introspections.

Old habits return.

Desires channel like fluid.

Try not to break anything valuable.

Felt like sharing

Yesterday night saw the first semi-clear skies in my area for the last few weeks, so I took advantage of the opportunity and took my new camera plus tripod outside for experimentation.

Couldn't resist this one.

My experimentation was cut short by a bank of cloud that rolled in at about eleven PM.

There's definitely much more I need to figure out about astrophotography.

I can now understand the infinite values of both an optical viewfinder (stars are dim enough not to show up in the electronic viewfinder at all) and a wide angle lens (which would have enabled me to point the camera straight up with landscape on all sides).

I'm a complete beginner at this photography lark, but I hope I'll make progress. I've already decided on my next camera, looks like I'll be needing a combined birthday/Christmas/Hannukah present next year.

The case for reality...

I care about the truth a great deal. I cannot knowingly accept a fantasy. My drive to make sure that my beliefs jive with reality stems from this predisposition.

But is a predisposition all this is? Is my striving for truth just a personal choice?

The standard argument for seeking truth and against fantasy is the harm that believing comforting fictions can cause. Our beliefs affect our actions, and when beliefs are disconnected from reality, it is all to easy for toxic beliefs to thrive, ending in atrocities like 9/11 and the Holocaust.

The harm caused by magical thinking, superstition and pseudoscience is not always on such a grand scale, however. Much of the harm done occurs on the personal level, where it slips past headlines for the most part. Conspiracy theories divert attention away from real social issues. Bogus psychics offer comfort to grieving families, and do not deliver. Alternative medicine remedies offer hope to the terminally ill, and do not deliver.

But what if the psychic pretends to speak to a dead relative, and the family goes away satisfied, believing the fantasy? What if a patient takes a fake homeopathic remedy and feels better (the placebo effect being what it is)? Why hate on horoscopes, when no one really believes them anyway? Is there anything objectively bad about believing in fairy tales and reassuring fables, when such fables do no harm?

My response is that allowing this kind of thinking to flourish in our discourse may not be dangerous in itself, but will provide cover for the more verminous, dangerous and extreme superstitions. If reason is in exile, then all kinds of superstition will thrive, not merely the fluffy, garden variety woo that people like to believe in.

But all these arguments are based in the consequences of allowing fantasies to grow unchecked. Is there any properly basic reason to search for the truth in and of itself, rather than as a means to an end (i.e. a better, friendlier society)? I don't know, though I would be overjoyed if I discovered one.

In lieu of this, I must appeal on human terms.

I feel that it is sentimental and childish to embrace comforting fables when the truth is out there. No matter how comforting a fable is, there is also comfort and awe to be found in the world as it really exists, we don't have to demean it with pathetic fairy tales. If only we could get past our fear of being tiny, we could appreciate the vast wonder to be found in knowing the actual circumstances of our existence.

We are only here for a short time. And we are, shall we say 'blessed', with a tremendous opportunity. Our civilisation has progressed to such a degree that the tools to find the truth are at our feet. All we need do is show our maturity by picking them up.

So I have a camera now.

The FZ45 is what they call a bridge camera, in that it has manual settings and some other advanced settings, but lacks the optical viewfinder or interchangeable lens you'd expect from a proper SLR. My plan is to see how this goes, then switch to a better model in a year or so.

I have a bag and lens cleaning kit, awaiting the delivery of a tripod and lens filters.

Oh yes, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.