Soup of the day

Zuppadelgiorno has a new home

zuppadelgiorno — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:40:55 +0000

http://zuppadelgiorno.tumblr.com/

A thesis by J.S. Mill

zuppadelgiorno — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:03:51 +0000

A fundamental statement that might complement the last two posts:

“There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true because, with every opportunity of contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation.”
-John Stuart Mill

Explaining the unexplainable

zuppadelgiorno — Sun, 30 May 2010 16:35:22 +0000

Analogous to Manilowski’s functional approach about rituals, I believe that people’s great affinity with their religious beliefs arises from an attempt to reduce anxiety and uncertainty about what cannot be explained. Ever since humans starting developing their cognitive reasoning, a need for understanding the world around seemed to be of ever greater importance. It is therefore no wonder how primitive people starting worshiping natural entities and phenomena, such as the sun, the moon, the rain, among others, for they could not truly explain nor understand their relationship with their actual existence. For this reason, they were thought of as almost divine entities or deities, which ultimately brought a social meaning for a group of people by creating symbols and rituals to interact with these “supreme” entities. In the same context, the development religions as one knows them, can be analogously compared to the previous case of early human ancestors. However, there is a significant distinction among both scenarios. Most world religions have developed into a complex set of practices and values that are to be followed by the believers to attain a righteous relationship with god (or many gods) as well as with other human beings and nature. In other words, they deliver a message of how people should live and what they ought not do. And even though religions developed in different parts of the world and at different time frames, they created a common consensus in the lifestyle and beliefs of their followers. Moreover, charismatic individuals such as Jesus or Muhammad, have had a tremendous impact in Christianity and Islam. In both cases, these historical characters were seen by followers, as either God’s messiah or prophet to deliver or fulfill God’s prophesies. Now, many centuries after their respective deaths, people still belief in their divinity through narrative documents such as the Bible and Koran, but most particularly due to their spiritual apprehension or faith. It is this faith that makes people very serious about their beliefs, for it does not require any prove to verify the validity of a given event or truth in history. It is a very efficient and “conformistic” method to validate what is uncertain. Nonetheless, it hinders the possibility for open debate in a rational context and it is easily transmissible through the masses. It is not surprising why Kant argued that “religion is the opiate of the masses”. A final argument as to why people are so passionate about their religious beliefs is that most people around the world are born into a family that already has a spiritual mindset, which is culturally learned, just like language. It is therefore very likely that if one is born into a Jewish family, that one will carry the religious beliefs of Judaism and not the ones of Hinduism. Obviously, it is not always the case, since certain individuals that were raised under the values of a particular religion can stop believing or can adopt the spiritual beliefs of another religion. The point, however, is that the majority of the population is born into a religious environment that most likely will condition any individual’s spiritual apprehension and beliefs.

An insight into scientific knowledge

zuppadelgiorno — Sun, 16 May 2010 07:02:41 +0000

Science is a source of human knowledge and constructive criticism, for which it depends on the public’s acceptance or rejection to attain its rational purpose. It is therefore always intertwined with advocacy. Science has been created by humans in the attempt to describe the nature of the universe by relying on our reasoning through hypothetical theories and observation, which ultimately will contribute to knowledge. However, it is virtually impossible to establish science as a completely unbiased practice since it has been developed by humans that will always possess certain affinities in their beliefs, objectives and methodologies. For this reason, science can become even more beneficial for humanity when accepting its vulnerability and limitations, to thus allow scientific discourse to reach a larger spectrum of experts and the public and not just rely on a reduced number of people to validate their theories or findings. Obviously scientific research should be conducted objectively and responsible to avoid drawing early deductions that would compromise its validity. To exemplify this further an analogy can be used, namely, Franz Boas’ cultural relativism. One can say that he provided a means to study a particular culture in the most objective and unbiased way possible by not relying on the standards of another culture. This was clearly a noble attempt to liberate a scientific study in cultural anthropology from subjective bias as in the times of armchair anthropology. Thus, Boas can be used as an example of using knowledge for a good cause, as it should always be. To conclude, science should be linked with advocacy for it is a source of human knowledge that ultimately should be used for humanitarian objectives and to solve social problems, while allowing the possibility of scientific debate open.

Making records

zuppadelgiorno — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:13:12 +0000

The tragicomedy of making music according to Quino.

An encounter with William Kentridge

zuppadelgiorno — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:24:15 +0000

Spent a day at the MoMA and among the incredible things that I saw, the work of a particular artist caught my eye. William Kentridge, a South African artist that uses an amazing technique in his animations. Using charcoal, pastel and pencil in some of his work, he films a drawing and continues modifying it little by little, each time making a new frame in what later becomes a short and meticulously prepared animation. Of course, once the sound and music are added, the effect becomes even more empowering. Such a simple concept, yet beautifully achieved. “Drawing from Stereoscope” is one of the animations that I watched. Voila.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYWHhYGENic

Recent speculation

zuppadelgiorno — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:14:44 +0000

In the last couple of weeks I came across different topics, which gave rise to a million questions and makes me feel that what is considered to be the “official” truth is far away from the actual facts. First of all, I watched certain documentaries on the food industry and how manufactures use preservatives, additives, colorants and what not, to obtain the desired product and boost their standings in the nutritional facts. For generations now, people have been ingesting all types of foods that resemble more the characteristics of a polymer than the ones of an actual organic food, exposing themselves to long-term side effects that lie far from our understanding due to the improper amount of research that should have been done before these products reach any supermarket. A new trend in alienating natural components of our diet, like sugar for instance, while replacing it with artificial solutions, has already been part of our eating habits for some time. I really wish we could have an easier access to organic foods and at the same time know what are really the effects of all the added ingredients of processed and high dense foods. Is it not obvious to see a correlation between the large number of new diseases, like diabetes and obesity, that have developed rapidly in the las century with the dietary habits of our current processed-food culture?

The second subject I came across is the huge mystery of 9/11. In short, everything that the media and the government claims to be what really happened doesn’t fit in the actual puzzle. There is no doubt that I can not come up with what actually happened, but I believe I can at least have some idea of what did not happen. More than eight years have passed since the incident and yet I think that the majority of people have bought the story told by the official report as if it were the medicine that one conceals in a piece of bread which is given to a sick dog. There is no question to me that the claim that an actual airliner hit the Pentagon is completely bogus. From my knowledge in engineering so far I know that a jet engine will not vaporize upon a crash, nor disappear as it seemed to have been the case! Besides, the extent of the damage would have been far greater (debris from the aircraft would have been completely visible around the supposable crash area) than what resembles more accurately to have been some sort of military weapon or missile. All the footage was rapidly confiscated leaving the public completely vulnerable against the facts. This leads to another question: given that there was no such airplane crash in the Pentagon, what happened to that flight? Are we supposed to believe what was told as the truth from the crashes in the World Trade Center AFTER one event proves to be far from the facts?? Even the available footage from the Towers is dubious and does not really fit in the whole picture. And the collapse of both buildings is another topic of discussion that I will not enter for now. At this point I cannot rule out any possibilities.

Moon Day

zuppadelgiorno — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:27:49 +0000

Today I want to remind people that exactly 40 years ago, mankind set foot on the moon. Quite amazing, isn’t it? I am not sure if this day has already acquired a specific name or not, but I will just call it Moon Day, for its obvious reasons (when we get to Mars we can talk about something else…). For whatever reason, people seem to sometimes forget about the implications and tremendous difficulty that was involved in accomplishing such objective. Despite the fact that a political race might have catapulted humans to reach the moon faster than ever thought at the time, it really fascinates me to think that someone like me (homo sapiens; not necessarily qualified as an astronaut) was looking at the Earth from about a quarter of a million miles away! It is truly an immediate reaction whenever I notice it up there, both day and night.

I even encountered people that do not believe that such event ever happened. I can imagine that if we were to tell this to all the engineers behind the project, they would most likely put themselves in the rocket and shoot themselves into outer space… But what people normally forget is the actual extend of the lunar program. The landing on the moon the 20th of July, 1969, was merely a culmination of all the minds and determination put behind the Mercury, Gemini and later Apollo program, from the first orbit rendezvous to the final testings of the Lunar Module on the actual moon’s orbit, in which it got as close as 15.6 km from the lunar surface in the Apollo 10 mission! The little knowledge about the Apollo 11 mission that is sometimes used to deny its very accomplishment is similar to our knowledge of how human language developed by only focusing on the last 12,000 years of history and yet overlooking another 200,000 years.

I think that this day should be marked in our calendars each year, for it deserves no less attention than St. Patrick’s Day or Halloween. For the first time in history, the Earth became the moon and the moon the Earth.

Do you want a receipt?

zuppadelgiorno — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:53:13 +0000

Funny enough, today I got to realize something that happened to me twice: Why do they give us such an exaggerated amount of paper in the receipts when we purchase something? First, I recharged my metro card at one station and the screen of the machine clearly displayed “Do you want a receipt for your transaction?”, and obviously, I pressed “No” thinking that I didn’t want my pockets full of disposable information, you know? But then what happened? The ticket machine still printed a receipt for me! This is as though it was just giving me the illusion of getting rid of paper this time, but not for long.

Next, I went to a music store to buy some strings for my guitar. This time I was quite sure I was not going to avoid the evil receipt, but then again, I figured that since I was just getting one single item, that it was going to be small. Of course not. I measured about 5 cm by 20 cm!! That is like 100 square centimeters of disposable information in the form of paper that nobody cares or wants to frame. Wouldn’t it be better to at least have the option of not having the receipt printed at all? I say this because when they ask you “Sir, do you want a receipt?” (and they have already printed the 100 square centimeters of …), they just throw it in the garbage. Very inefficient waste of paper, right? (Not that there is an efficient waste of paper but you get the idea) So, you can do the math of how big your evil receipt is going to be when you go grocery shopping!

We need a miracle for this movie

zuppadelgiorno — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:09:29 +0000

I guess Adam has tasted the blogging apple. Well, what better way to start than commenting about a movie that I watched the other day. The movie is called “Miracle at St. Anna”, by the acclaimed director Spike Lee, who incidentally visited my university a few days ago to give some lectures commemorating the Black History Month. Time was probably the excuse why I did not attend one of his lectures, but after having watched the movie I really wish there was a way to have that opportunity once again so I could interrogate him about a couple of stuff about his movie that still kind of nag me.

For people that have not watched the movie so far, I would suggest to go rent it and then come back to this paragraph, for I am about to ruin the ending (did I say ruin the ending? I’m afraid that the director and his assistants have already accomplished this in the most artificially-sweetened way possible!) Basically, the setting is Tuscany, Italy, during the fall of 1944. In short, the plot revolves around the lives of four black soldiers of the 92^nd Infantry Division (composed of solely black soldiers) that survive after the Nazis intercept their unit and pretty much annihilate everyone.

One of them finds an Italian boy, who was hiding alone, and decides to protect him at all costs. The young boy, named Angelo, was himself another survivor of a different kind of massacre, nonetheless also carried out by the Nazis. It is indeed interesting to find such an ironic set of circumstances come together. The picture tries to show how contradictory it might seem, for a black soldier to try to safe the life of a young white boy, given the discriminatory nature against black people at the time, even among fellow soldiers! However, aren’t these racial elements somewhat over-characterized? Even the need for a completely unfounded love story makes this story less credible (Please pay attention to the part in which Renata comes out after having spent the night with one of the soldiers, wearing his helmet and carrying his machine gun. Please give me a break…)

But let us talk about the grand finale: Now we find ourselves in the present and the only survivor from the four soldiers, Hector, who faces trial for having killed a man that he recognized from the war, is finally set free after someone has paid his two million dollar bail. So if you decide to kill someone in cold blood, there might be some rich lunatic to pay for it and not only that. He or she will also get you to the beach in the Caribbean! At least it is what happens in this movie. Hector is taken to the Caribbean to meet the one who paid for his bond and, after having a conversation with him, he faces another surprise… A funny looking guy approaches him and who could it be? Of course, it is Angelo!! Hector and Angelo hug each other and start crying, as the camera moves away from the scene, showing a beautiful setting at the beach. If you listen closely you can still hear Hector saying “Angelo…Angelo…” as the sound fades away! Someone call 911 please!

The great question to me is, how can an “acclaimed director” and his staff not realize the magnitude of a tremendous bullshit-ending like that?