Normal gravitation can be simulated in a lunar environment as well by constructing large rotating rings with sloped floors, magnetically suspended above the ground to prevent friction losses. Also, launch from the lunar surface could be performed much more cheaply than from earth with a magnetic mass-driver, thanks to the hard vacuum and the lower gravity.

Belt asteroids will probably not be nearly as popular initially due to speed of light delays and huge travel times. There won’t be decent internet access or real-time phone calls. The commercial motivation of asteroid mining may outweigh this, particularly if too many regulations on NEA mining are enacted, and some people will of course want to get away from earth government for ideological reasons. Internet caching stations may make surfing more bearable, as disk space availabilty is increasing — but conquoring the speed of light barrier is impossible under current understandings of physics. Travel times to and from the belt will be enormous as well, so the development of good life support and ways to keep psychological health up would be necessary prerequisites.

The asteroid belt is so large that its inhabitants won’t be able to have a single internet where you can talk in real-time. Only caching will let belters access the majority of sites. Perhaps there will be different governments defined by speed-of-light factors. Of course, it’s only a matter of hours to send a message anywhere in the inner solar system, so it may not be enough to stop the determined spread of bureaucracy. For that, you may need to head for the Oort cloud.

One big concern that space travellers will need to confront is that an asteroid can be accelerated or steered to create a really fearsome impact weapon. Anti-impact measures will need to be developed and implemented by any colony, as well as earth itself.

Buddhism may not be a religion in its quintessential form, but it seems fair to say there are religions that call themselves Buddhism. (I would say reincarnation is a religious concept, for example.) Meditation itself seems more a technique for attaining a particular sensation of enlightenment and well-being. This in turn (I’d say) is a psychological state.

The term “rational” essentially means dividing into discrete components. (Think rationing during wartime, or even rational numbers. Same root concept.) The rational mind (or the rational function within the mind) is the part that divides things into appropriate divisions. There is a sense of finality to a rational statement, just as a rational number can be expressed by a finite fraction.

Irrational statements have no really definite interpretation. You can approximate them rationally but not nail them down. I tend to think the brain has seperate processes for dealing with these kinds of things. I’d expect they fall into sensation and intuition categories, depending on whether they fit into the experience of the present or represent anticipation of future possibilities.

The conscious/unconscious dichotomy is interesting as well, but I think it is a different aspect than rational/irrational. We can be aware of sensations or intuitions consciously, without having yet made a judgment about them, and we can make decisions based on feelings or logic without being aware of having done so.

I don’t really like the notion of rational and irrational minds. I think it makes more sense to talk of conscious and unconscious minds. I can totally relate to the existence of the conscious mind and how it can interfere with the wisdom of our unconscious mind.

I think the brain overall is quite rational as a result of evolution. But our “conscious” self (a recent addition), has trouble understanding the rest of the brain. That’s where buddhism comes in I think. Buddhism is about understanding the nature of self, life, pleasure, etc.

I think buddhism is not a religion, but rather much more philosophical but also practical because it is about people learning how their brains and their sense of self works.

Koans seem like tools to encourage philosophical thinking and to explore the sense of self and reality. With a combination of detachment and attachment, there’s enlightenment. I wonder if enlightenment needs to be described as religious though.

There’s some ambiguous words that I try to get away from like spirit, soul, religious, etc.

The statement is utter nonsense, of course, from the rational perspective (and Huston admitted such to be the case.) Which I think is kind of the point… the religious experience is actually something that only happens when the rational mind is suspended. The irrational mind then steps in and performs a sort of reconciliation on the opposites.

I do think the rational mind is supreme, as a way to properly live your life. However, I can see the logic that perhaps the rational brain function needs a break sometimes for purely psychological reasons. If this really induces a state of reduced stress, it could lead to a longer life and more productive relationships — which is a rational goal, after all. You just probably don’t want to become an insane mystic over it…

From a Jungian perspective, it could be a J/P thing. The N/S functions are irrational, in that they don’t call for a resolution of every seeming paradox or contradiction. Instead they recieve the information passively. T/F functions are more aggressive about defining things in a way that brings closure. My theory is that by temporarily shutting down the rational functions, you can exercise the irrational ones and get better use out of them, and perhaps less biased information.

Perhaps some people today are fuzzy in their thinking because they don’t understand (or admit to) the distinction between the rational experience and the religious experience. If they drew a sharper line in the sand between the two, it might make more sense.

git ls-files –deleted | xargs git rm

Lets make the extension smaller though, ‘ptl’ seems good to me.

somepartial.ptl.html.erb could work.

But that makes me wonder, why is .erb on the end in the first place? Most editors syntax highlight based on the last extension.

Seems like somepartial.ptl.erb.html would make more sense.