Matthew Singer

Category: Opinions

  • What I am thankful for

    During the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, many people post about the things they are thankful for. I have been stewing over just how to say what it is I’m thankful for, because it’s a little bit different than most people’s ideals.

    There are two major concepts that I am thankful for. Number one is free will. Number two is an objective universe. These two ideas are not unrelated. I am thankful to know that my thoughts, my actions, and my decisions are mine, and belong to no one and nothing else. At the same time, the consequeses of my actions are mine, and only mine to bear. I am my own master, and I am under no obligation to serve anyone else.

    The thing is, the world is not a static place, and events happen outside our control that force us to make decisions that we don’t necessarily want to make. The thing is, these events aren’t inherently good or bad, we label them as good or bad depending on whether the outcome, or the effect, will be positive or negative on our lives. In fact, the same event can be both positive and negative at the same time. For example, your favorite team wins the championship game. That is good for you. You’re happy and joyous and generally in a good mood. Meanwhile, fans of the opposing team see this as bad. In reality, this event just is. It’s the outcome of a game where both teams played their best, and the winning team happened to play better on that night. We can find all sorts of causes to this effect after the fact, but we could only predict it from a known (or unknown) probability distribution.

    When things happen to us, a common response is to say “It was meant to be.” It’s meant to be a statement of comfort. It’s the less extreme verson of “God wills it so.” But what does that really mean? If it was meant to be, then the world or universe (or God) intended it to happen. Intent implies cognitive will. Can non-living entities really impose intent? Does matter and energy really care what happens to you? If it was “meant to be,” then it was determined to happen from the start, and if that’s the case, we really don’t have any free will, do we? How is that comforting to walk around knowing that something out there is out to get you?

    Instead, we can take another approach. This objective approach suggests that events in the universe are simply neutral. They have a cause and an effect, but they don’t happen specifically to target you. Instead, they are “good” or “bad” depending on what we make of them. When an earthquake hits a city, it’s not because some transient being wants to wreak havoc. It’s not to punnish people. It’s because the earth’s crust is broken into fragments that float on a semi-liquid mantle. These pieces move and crash into each other causing earthquakes and volcanoes that can set off other chains of events, and we just happen to be in the way. These events happen with some predictability as we gather data about our planet, but predictability does not translate into determination. Instead, there are tons of confounding variables that impede our ability to determine with 100% accuracy just what the oucome will be. Instead, we can predict a range of outcomes and their probabilities of occurance.

    So what is it about an earthquake that makes it effectively neutral? For one, the earth’s crust is not a conscious being making cognitive decisions. Earthquakes happen wherever tension along naturally occuring fault lines builds up. This happens somewhat randomly and can occur away from centers of human activity. When this happens and no effect is felt, it goes unnoticed by the general public and can be dismissed as a neutral event. Of course, these very same processes that cause destruction and mayhem in our lives are the processes that allow us to be alive in the first place. If the earth’s  mantle were to cool down and solidify, the climate would change, our atmosphere would collapse, and life would cease to exist.

    Of course, I’ll stop here because, as it turns out, Neil DeGrasse Tyson can explain the objectivity of the universe a lot better than I can.

    To me, this idea of a random and objective universe is a lot more comforting because I know when things happen, it’s not specifically directed toward me, and all I can do is choose to dwell in the negative or find the positive. And for that, I am thankful.

    Oh, and also for my wonderful wife.

  • Observations from my Weekend

    Everywhere I go I make observations on the world that would be great commentary for this journal. Unfortunately, I never write them down and most of these notes get lost in the millions of thoughts going through my head. But I will try to recall what I can.

    Observation no. 1: Zoos

    Last weekend I went into Chicago to visit Lincoln park and wandered around the Lincoln Park zoo. As a kid, I liked zoos and then I kinda lost interest with all of the fakeness. Lately I’ve been into checking out various city’s zoos to see how they compare. Habitats nowadays are getting more realistic and natural, especially for indoor exhibits. The Lincoln Park Zoo had some pretty nice displays for being a small and free zoo. I especially liked their small primate house, small mammal house, reptiles, and birds exhibits. I also enjoyed their Africa Expedition.

    This weekend, Erin and I went to the National Zoo in Washington, another free zoo but that was made up with parking fees. The national zoo is bigger and funded by the Smithsonian, but is in need of a renovation. The relatively new panda habitat is quite nice, but the big cats and African mammals had the old-fashioned concrete step enclosures and the primates had cage-enclosed trees to climb on, though most were inside for the winter. The small mammals building was set up with better habitats, but there were too many repeat species among the displays. The reptiles were set up nicely as were the invertebrates. I really liked the bird habitats. Like the Lincoln Park Zoo, the exotic bird house in Washington included a large free-flight room which you could virtually bird-watch with binoculars. My favorite part of the National Zoo is the Amazonia building which was newly built the last time I was there senior year of high school. You walk into Amazonia greeted by a shallow flooded forest aquarium with sting rays and other fish. Then you move on to some river displays including some rather large fish of the Amazon and some turtles and so forth. That’s followed by a discovery area with some small animals in 10-gallon tanks. But the best part of all is the rain forest upstairs with plants, free-flying birds and free-climbing monkeys.

    At any rate, I’m a sucker for forest exhibits whether at zoos or aquariums. The best zoo with continental enclosures is Toronto’s. But many aquariums have rain forests too. Most of us, if you live in the mid-Atlantic region, are familiar with the Baltimore Aquarium’s forest. Well, as we were wandering around Inner Harbor, I noticed the entrance to the aquarium was newly remodeled and sure enough there was a second forest exhibit to walk through. The original one appears to be there as well, so now I really want to check out the aquarium.

    Observation no. 2: Airports

    When you look at a map, the sheer size of Chicago’s O’hare airport dwarfs the city much like JFK, which could easily fill the lower half of Manhattan. Midway’s airport looks tiny in comparison, taking up one of those square blocks made up by the grid of major roads in the suburbs. I mean, just compare the two on the map. But maps are deceiving. Midway was quite larger and busier than I expected, though it didn’t service any planes larger than a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 (about the same size). At any rate, I was amazed at the terminal size and the amount of food options. Then you realize that O’Hare is about 6 Midway terminals spread out, so yeah… its huge.

    I’ve flown out of Baltimore many a time as a kid, and its a bit bigger than Midway, but no giant that I remember it. Its also not nearly as busy as it used to be. In fact, walking around the ticketing loby, Southwest was the only airline to take up all of its counters. Many of the ticketing counters were just empty, perhaps just under half of the total check-in booths. Security, which used to be at the front of each terminal had been moved up so that only ticketed passengers could go to the shops and restaurants. I guess the FAA and security agencies don’t want visitors just hanging around anymore. Then again, most of the security measures implemented since 9/11 are just an unnecessary joke and probably cause more feelings of paranoia than safety. Perhaps that’s the downfall of the airlines. Sometimes I get the feeling the government just wants U.S. citizens to sit around at home like shmucks rather than travel and explore the world.

    Observation no. 3: The Weather

    Here in Chicagoland, its anywhere from 10-20 degrees colder than its been out East. As a result, we still have snow on the ground and got another inch last night. Its supposed to warm up by the weekend so maybe I’ll find something fun to do by then.