Hey Tim... You've got some 'splainin' to do....

Fractaled Love

Tonight during prayer, I think I had a bit of an epiphany.

But as a little background, I've read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Fooled by Randomness" and "Black Swan" which illuminated quite a bit for me. Too much to go into here, but part of his perspective is to suggest that the bell curve doesn't really exist. Rather, reality seems to follow more of a fractal-like appearance. For example, there is "rich and poor"...but wealth is relative. "Rich" is only rich if it's compared to "poor". Neither can be defined w/o a comparator. Once you're within the category of "rich", then people w/in the "rich" category differentiate themselves...and thus you have the "poor-rich" and the "rich-rich". Similarly, compare any poor American to true (global) poverty... and you have the "rich-poor" vs. "poor-poor". So in essence, the bell-curve is a narrative fallacy designed to allow us to wrap our minds around the distribution of reality. Unfortunately, it's flawed...because modern statistics (including the Bell Curve) *intentionally* ignores the outliers. And it is these outliers that have a very significant impact (skew) on reality. (But our software programs and formula work just fine as long as we through out part of the data-set, and transform our existing data-set to ensure that it meets the assumption of normal distributions! *smacks forehead*)

Again--the analogy of wealth is a good example. There's no way in heck that's a normal distribution. The vast majority of us have a net worth that's (relatively) a hill of beans compared to the hyper-wealthy. I'm not saying this as class welfare at all...but it's the truth. Look at the income tax statistics... The top 1% of Americans pay over 39% of all federal income taxes...

And what's the difference between two athletes...one a fraction better than the other? A professional contract resulting in millions. Or two authors, one fractionally better than the other? An oprah book deal...

So this gave me a whole new appreciation and application for fractals. Before, they were just pretty pictures. Now, it gave me a whole new way in which to perceive reality. Reality has a tendency to repeat itself, albeit on different levels...

So how does this apply to prayer life? Well--this fractal thinking helped me appreciate or visualize a little bit easier how God can get the job done. From creating life and matter out of nothing, to knowing the number of hair on my head or providing me w/ a random (consulting) check in the mail when facing a rash of unexpected bills (thus avoiding the dreaded withdrawal from savings--an act of shame in the Snyder home)...

The fractalization concept seems to work. Or--it seemed to give me a bit of peace with the narrative fallacy of understanding the nature of God at least one infinitesimal point more. Before, I didn't get how God could care about the personal issues of one whiny individual out of some 8 billion at one slice of time. (Which, by the way, I bet God works beyond time...so it's likely all people throughout time...) This is coming out wrong at this point... My only point is to suggest that fractalization of thought allows one to slice through any number of levels of macro and easily enter into the micro. And I just thought that was pretty neat...

Sex Advice from Mathematicians...

...I got nuthin...

Looking forward to this...

This might make me gay, but it's cute.

I'm not so sure about this one. I think I'm calling shenanigans on it. I get your point, conceptually... but I think it falls short of the real-life test. You're only looking at 1 variable...the "being in the world" part of the verse, but not so much the "but not a part of it." Stated bluntly, keeping abreast of the breasts shown on slut-tv, in my view, is not a necessary component for living in modernity. The mere exposure to some of this stuff, alone, can be toxic.

Stated differently, what is the greater harm to my children? Ignorance or knowledge? Seeing the sexualized images of pre-teen girls, dressed in attire that assaults her sense of modesty? Because that's the reality--the norm that's being painted. Normal "cool" is having no modesty and dressing "cute", which is code for "whore in training." We've got to expose ourselves to that in order to remain relevant, right? I vote, "no".

I know of the evil that is done in the world, but I don't need to expose myself or my family to it on a regular basis... let alone invite it on a weekly basis.

Here is another aspect to it. There is no way to expose yourself (or your child) to something and avoid its negative effects. I read this book, "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters"... and one line in that text resonated with me. "You must vehemently protect your daughters right to modesty." Hell yes I will. Pop-culture strips that from us just as soon as it can. The incremental slippery slope of relative values, which in my view is of satan, has entirely infiltrated modernity. To the point where there are gay families on Sesame Street and kids in elementary school are learning about dental dams and how to put a condom on a cucumber. How is this a win?

Similarly, I saw a book that looked interesting. Written by a female feminist, none the less. It's called something like, "How young girls search for sex and delay love and self-worth...and end up getting none." Even the self-worshiping secularists are beginning to clue-in to the lies in our pop-culture.

I cannot see how it is possible for us to expose our children (if not our own minds) to sickness that is fully embedded and entrenched in pop-culture without it infecting us. Sure adults may be more resistant or resilient to it--or are we? At this point, I'm not even reading the comments section on 'fark' anymore, simply because of some of the comments and images that are posted in them.

And exposing my children to the infectious culture of relativistic godless immodest (satan-driven) values? I'll pass on that, thanks. That will come soon enough, and they need their time to build up their sense to what is right, so that the wrong will be all the more clear.

Tangentially, my wife watches trash (by my standards). 90210. Vampire shows. She doesn't like to watch them around me, because she says she feels like I'm judging her. She's probably right. And I don't want to be around it either--as I have a vile revulsion to such tripe. Not only is it a waste of my time (completely), but it also idolizes the values that are aberrant in God's eyes. And some feel that this is acceptable, because it's entertainment. I feel that it's an open gate towards moral relativism that shouldn't have been open in the first place. So instead of watching that utter shit, why not use that time towards something of merit? Truly inspired music or other media programming.

The thing about cable is that we watch what is offered. When I cut the cable, I realized that I was doing much better actively choosing what I did, rather than settling for what was available.

If there's anyone out there that's interested in cable-free living. Try it for a month. And with the money that you saved on the cable bill, use it towards something like netflix, iTunes, music, or dvd's...

So in a response to my response, Greg made an interesting comment:

It will be very easy for me not to have any sort of TV at all in our house in the near future. I am almost to the point that I see absolutely no utility in it whatsoever.

I've actually been thinking along these lines quite a bit for the last couple of months because TV has become decidely less important in our household. At present we follow five shows: House, 24, Survivor, American Idol and a fifth show that I am ashamed of and will not admit to publicly. :-)

The thing is, I could happily ditch 24 and American Idol. They do absolutely nothing for me. But Sarah likes them and so I usually end up watching be default. As for the unnamed show, it is becoming imperative that I ditch it. It is so wretched, so vile, so absolutely antithetical to my values that I must give it up.

So that leaves me with House, Survivor and the NFL. I gave up baseball this season and I highly doubt that I will return. The Cubs are so organizationally inept that I no longer enjoy a single game because the time surrendered seems foolish when I know that everything will blow up by the end of the season.

So, we pay for cable and all I really want to watch is House, Survivor and the NFL. Truth is, if it weren't for the NFL, I'd probably ditch it altogether and just buy the DVD's of the two series. It would be a lot cheaper.

But here's the catch. I honestly think that we, as Christians, have an obligation to have a basic, rudimentary understanding of the culture around us. Conversations regularly occur on the subject of culture and if we are uninformed, I wonder if we in someway become irrelevant. So what do you think? Do we keep TV as a means of keeping abreast of culture?

Some of the blogs I "subscribe to" in Google Reader are by fellow math teachers. This guy is actually the brother of a science teacher at my school. His latest post amused me greatly, about a consultant who spoke to the faculty about "creating an 'anti-bias' curriculum." I am just so glad I was not in that meeting.