A few weeks ago, mainstream news with some shock reported the "discovery" that a person making a decision actually makes the choice a fraction of a second prior to being consciously aware that they have made their decision (actually, much of the research had been around for a while, it's just that somebody somewhere happened to have noticed that they could make a sensational story about it). Unfortunately, this has set off a wave of questions about how much a person is actually responsible for what they do and speculation about "free will" that I think betrays several societal biases.

It seems that people fear that this reduces the conscious mind from being the one in control and calling the shots to something more like a central communications hub, a processing center for the multitude of "important" information that has been passed through various different filters. And yet, the reason I put quotes around the word discovery before is because these scientists have now explained the biology behind something that we already knew was deeper.

Before you glance at the title of this blog and run naked and screaming through the streets that we're all under the thrall of the hideous beasts of our subconscious (the resulting video might be worth you doing that anyway), please understand that when I'm talking about "conscious" and "unconscious," I'm not talking about "ego" and "id." For purposes of my conversation, the "conscious thought" I'm talking about is the thing that you think you are, and the "subconscious" is the rest of the machine that is your mind.

The idea that our conscious mind is not that active in the decision-making process is not news. We already have terms like "Freudian slip" and "institutional racism," which are acknowledgments that the conscious mind isn't really calling the shots in our brains. How many times have you gone somewhere new but on a relatively different path and accidentally made the wrong turn out of habit? How "aware" were you of making that turn?


And you thought it was your friend.

Practically, this means that a person is no less responsible for their actions with this knowledge than they were before. I don't think anybody would disagree with me when I say that the decisions that are made by an individual tend to be consistent with that individual's background, experiences and genetic predispositions (the sum total of which we colloquially refer to as "personality"), and that the resulting decisions tend to be consistent with one another. Your conscious mind doesn't necessarily make choices, but it is nevertheless reflects them when they occur.

There is another element to this issue that seems to be bubbling underneath the surface of the public reaction to this information, and that is that at this point we are really talking about the brain as a machine. I think people are okay with the idea of their brains being the seat of thought, but when you start actually breaking down the mechanics of how we think, how this piece of meat actually generates a mind, you start bringing topics that were traditionally where materialism ended and spiritualism began sharply into focus in the material world. Again, this is not news (we've known for some time that if you damage the brain, you alter the mind), but the full reality of it makes people feel less self-aware, when, in fact, it is the opposite that is true; we now have a greater understanding of ourselves.

"While our behavior is still significantly controlled by our genetic inheritance, we have, through our brains, a much richer opportunity to blaze new behavioral and cultural pathways on short timescales."

— Carl Sagan
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence (1977, 1986)

I bought an iPhone yesterday.

I had been intending for some time to get a new personal phone. I have yet to get into any trouble with my employer for personal use of a business tool, and would like to keep it that way. I also found the BlackBerry pretty lackluster for following links posted on Facebook and Twitter, and forget about YouTube on that thing.

The choice of iPhone over the operationally similar Droid was a practical one: I wanted to make some space on my iPod for more film music, and the iPhone gives me an opportunity to put other genres of music on a separate device that can not only be loaded with my existing software, it is also compatible with everything that I already have for my iPod (including my car stereo, my home theater and my portable boom box, all of which have docks on them).

I have only just started; my primary goal for my first day was only to get all of my social networking and whatnot off of my work phone and on to this one, which has thus far been an easier prospect for the iPhone than the BlackBerry. Yes, the process of removing optional programs threw the BlackBerry into a state of confusion.

Right now that phone is being used solely for work purposes and the BlackBerry Instant Messenger (my use of which is primarily work-oriented anyway). The iPhone, on the other hand, has been loaded with personal apps (including the one I'm using right now to compose this entry), a lot of rock, jazz and reggae, and even a few games (Scrabble, of course, I'm also going to look into this "Words With Friends" game that looks very similar I keep hearing about whenever Alec Baldwin gets into trouble).

I've named the iPhone Vital Information Centralized (if you get the reference, I'll give you a virtual dollar). I'm loving it.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

I have been sick all week. I was sick two weeks ago as well. It's amazing how when you get to work, all you want to do is go home, but when you're stuck home, all you want to do is get to work. It's not like I don't have anything to do (a have a large collection of books, movies, music, Netflix and, oh right, the freakin' Internet) but when you're stuck with nothing else to do it can be rather dull. Time off from work ought to be for vacations, not boring oneself stupid in one's apartment.

I'm not exactly in a bad mood, but I'd characterize it as a "drab" mood. I'm stuck in the apartment on the BRAT (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast) diet (also plain roasted chicken and chicken soup) until my body deals with whatever it is dealing with.

So I'm bored.

• ( Resistance Is Fruitless )

From redqueenofevil is the ( 2011 meme )

My interest in film music is tied very closely to Jerry Goldsmith's involvement with the Star Trek series. I've said on many occasions that if Star Trek: The Motion Picture had been a better film, I may have been less inclined to be entranced by its music score. The film music I found interesting in my childhood became a full-blown passion in my adolescence, one which has persisted to this day.

And yet, with all of the personal involvement I have with Goldsmith's Star Trek music, I never felt that I got any of mixes I had made of his contribution to the franchise exactly right. Red Alert was a voluminous two-disc set that was overlong and unfocused, while Battle Stations, my attempt at making a more concise album, always seemed a bit sloppy to me. I wanted to return to this after I revised Silver Screen Star Trek, but two things stopped me: the dire sound of any unreleased music from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the lack of any material beyond the original album of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Recently, however, this has changed; La-La-Land addressed the latter issue with their comprehensive edition of the score whilst a fan did a superb job cleaning up the recording sessions from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which allowed me to re-evaluate both the tone and structure of the new album.

While there are similarities, the new disc has a more introspective spin than the previous two. With some techniques I taught myself while working on my Lord of the Rings compilation (which I have completed; the liner notes are extremely in-depth and will be posted once I've finished them), I labored to keep my touch more subtle than previously possible, concentrating less on building suites and more on crafting a satisfying whole with compelling transitions. "Battle Stations" no longer really worked as a title as it was too aggressive for this more lyrical take on the material. Instead, I named it after "A Busy Man," a cue from Star Trek V that appears as track 11 on this album and could as easily be used to describe the extremely prolific Goldsmith himself.


( 25 Tracks • 83:27 )

It's very bizarre to realize that you're in a sort of "minority" that can be offended by uninformed writing.

I don't have cable, so I don't usually see shows on their first-run, and I almost never watch sitcoms. It was in this manner in which I was able to successfully avoid exposure to the series Big Bang Theory. I'd heard of it, seen promos for it and was pretty sure that despite its supposed casting of geeks as protagonists, it was basically just Revenge of the Nerds on T.V., just without the jocks.

This weekend, while over at a friends' house, I saw two episodes. They were exactly what I expected: round after round of "let's laugh at the geek obsessions!" (baseball and football fans evidence the exact same behavior, albeit with much less interesting and thought-provoking topics; watch ESPN and mentally replace the sports statistics with information about the TARDIS. Pretty familiar, ain't it?) It wasn't until two characters got into a serious argument about the relative merits of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, however, that there was the sort of "huh" moment. The scene can be viewed here.

If you watch the video, you probably know where this is going.

From Allan Asherman's The Star Trek Compendium:

About the only things people seem to agree on about Star Trek: The Motion Picture are that it was expensive to produce, is visually attractive, and has a fine musical score.

Right. That musical score provided the theme that Gene Roddenberry specifically requested be used for The Next Generation. The score that set the standard thereafter for the musical depiction of Starfleet and Klingons for the franchise as a whole. The score from the composer who was asked back to the franchise for four more features and a television series theme. To refer to the music as a "failure," even as part of a passing joke, just makes no sense.

However, the problem with the show comes quite clear toward the end of the clip, where one of these guys suggests that Star Trek IV was "unarguably" the best of the original series films. Star Trek IV was the most popular of the original series films because the comedy element gave it great crossover appeal to the mainstream.

NO ACTUAL GEEK WOULD EVER ARGUE THAT THE VOYAGE HOME WAS BETTER THAN WRATH OF KHAN.

Trust me. I know this.

I get that the series is attempting to appeal to a mainstream audience, but seriously — geeks finally get to be the protagonists on a television sitcom, but they can't even get a Trekkie on the writing staff to correct obvious mistakes? Isn't that kind of like having a medical drama without a doctor to consult with?

…and I'm sick with the flu. Again.

Let's finish this once and for all.