Light and Dark in the Universe

This picture is a NASA/ESA (European Space Agency) collaboration, it was tooked by Hubble space telescope and published on NASA's website on August 29, 2014.

It depicts various cosmic phenomena like a star formation or a dark nebulae.

For sake of honesty, I really don't know almost anything of cosmology (isn't a synonym of astrology, so, get out you Pedro Engel fanatics), I think it's really interesting to understand it or talk about Universe phenomena like redshifting, light years and physics like Interstellar do(a movie of Christopher Nolan about, well, interstellar travel). Instead, I like this photo so much because it remembers, at least to me, that in Universe, or, Observable Universe (because we know so little about what it's beyond what we can observe) it's darkness what prevailes. In my opinion, we should take a lesson of the predominant nothingness or darkness in the cosmos. 

We humans tend to judge light like a good or positive thing and dark in the other way. Why is that? may be, cultures in a ubiquitous way (apologies to anthropologist if I'm wrong. If that's the case, please correct me with passion) associate what they don't know - that thing hidden in the shadows. A robber in a city, a savage animal in the nature - with fear. The uncertainty of being in danger, exposed to something evil, or both. I know that someone could argue that, sometimes people fear the light, fear what is known, and that's a really good counter-argument, perhaps so good that I'd lose the discussion.

So, to make my point about that ''lesson'' I will say that light is momentary, a spark condemned to die. If the major theories of physics are right, the Universe will die and the darkness prior to Universe will reign again. What I mean with all of this, is that we should start to appreciate darkness, like the beauty in this picture. Light can't exist if there is no dark to contrast, at the same time, darkness has a lot to show us. If I follow my previous analogy, we should understand that we can't know everything, is good to be in the shadows, in the uncertainty. It's good to expect "dark" things too, in this life, a lot of things will go bad and really really bad (but good too, there is light). We should understand that the fear of the unknown is almost every time, a share experience with other humans, and in that point, we should be more empathic, and understand the fears of others, to be understand.
What is a stranger if not a shadow when we see at his mind?
Don't confuse it with the apparent light that is guess what is in his mind, specially when we guess based on prejudices.

There's no dark side of the moon
Matter of fact, it's all dark
(Eclipse by Pink Floyd)

What is my favorite piece of technology?

Well, this could easily turn into a really tough question, I mean, what is technology? Just to begin. If I were supposed to say something about that question, I would say that almost every tool that humans have made is technology; some people would argue that even language is technology, so the question could quickly led to a, kind of, philosophical question. But, for sake of the real focus of this question, I will choose my smartphone.

         What is a smartphone in any case? It’s a kind of minicomputer, where you can connect to internet and almost every social media. It has a lot of uses in fact, it’s like getting your laptop or pc in your pocket, you can check your e-mails, play some videogames, watch videos on YouTube, and oh, you can call people with this, is amazing, also you can see the time.

         The technology of smartphones update really fast, most of people renew his phone every year, my last smartphone bear with me 4 years give or take, I think I’m not a consumerist with this kind of technology. I acquired my actual phone three or four months ago.

         There is something that could be creepy I think, people is getting more dependent of its smartphones, I know that you could perfectly think, <Oh, this guy is like my uncle Joe> or something, ok, I take it, it’s kind of a concern of older people, but I have read that greek philosophers think that writing would be the end of memory, or a similar idea that people centuries ago have about books and novels, people is getting lonely and immerse in his reading forgetting the ‘real’ world and his beloved ones or something. ‘El Quijote’ it’s a kind of satire about that last idea.  So, what I want mean with this is people will always worry about new technologies (especially elder people). Now, what is interesting about smartphones (and I think this is a game changer) is that they are an extension of ourselves, in the social media or when we manage our money on them, even our health. We also can read books or every sort of information on them, what is interesting or worrying, I don’t really know, is how much information, or, how much of ourselves we put in them, we personalize it, we identify with it, even we say <My battery is out>, as if the smartphone were a part of us. What’s next? Implant it on our skulls? In our brains? How that could be normal? (And I think, it could definitely be normalized). I thought all of this because I really use it a lot, I can’t spend more than a few hours without checking it, for some people that’s is a lot of time, because there are people that can’t spend some minutes without checking it, still, I see myself as a dependent like everyone else who is immerse in this new technology. I see it as a revolution, like the consummation of the third industrial revolution or something.

         Perhaps, I’m a little, just a little, paranoid, I hope not become a paranoid android soon. Or a paranoid smartphone.

         In any case, I can’t imagine my life without it, it’s how I said before, a part of me, it put me in contact with all my friends and beloved ones, I can watch a lot of interesting contents and all the things that I need of internet (which is a lot, in this times), are in the reach of my hand.

         Sporadically, I imagine how would feel to break free from the facilities that this tech offers, not checking it, not seeing his vicious screen every five minutes or something. But in that case, I think I could not live in a city, because I would lose contact with the people that I like to be, the things that I like to do and well, everything would be more difficult. Smartphones are the way we have to live in this interconnected society and I don’t conceive another way to live in it. If I wanted to leave my smartphone, I’d prefer to leave all the things of the city, or the ‘interconnected social life’ and live a different kind of life, may be, when I grow older. May be a I like life this way, and complain too.

Is Breaking Bad about Existencialism?

This week, I will talk about my favorite tv series, which is also by many, as much for popular acclamation and enough to some specialists the best series ever. I'm talking about Breaking Bad. 

(Yes, I know, was this neccesary?, you know from the title that this is about Breaking Bad, but I need to put some flavour to the introduction)

Well, Breaking Bad is about Walter White, an overqualified chemistry teacher that also has to work in a carwash to gain more money for his family and is diagnosed with lung cancer. With this last notice, he only wants to die and not face the due that will cause the treatment for his disease. Of course his wife Skyler and his son Walter Jr. (Who has cerebral palsy, what makes the life of the protagonist a bit harder) want him to beat the cancer whatever it costs.
That's when he decides to become a drug dealer to pay his treatment and help monetarily to his family.

This drama became so mesmerizing because, well, many reasons, the series is full of tiny details. But I will focus on one of the most mesmerizing parts, Walter White, the change in his personality and motivations.

Walter left his job as a chemistry teacher and in a progressive way became a metanphetamine druglord knows as Heisenberg. For Walter, in the beggining of the series, <<Chemistry is about transformation>>, so this is the main chemistry in the drama, his own transformation.

Heisenberg is in the beggining a pseudonym that Walt adopts to move in the criminal world, this pseudonym born with a personality, goals and ways to act, far away from Walt habits.
Little by little this kind of b-side erase Walt's personality. Heisenberg is a bit nihilistic, he has a sociopathic behavior, acts in cinic, machiavellian ways, it's a bit megalomanic or narcissistic, manipulates everyone because of his greed and does not have any kind of moral. So, we have this deep change from a shy, quiet, hardworking, submissive, fearless, cowardly, "good person" stereotype to a fearless sociopath kingpin.

The way he became Heisenberg is really interesting and for sake of time, I will simplify to the life meaning point of view of his transformation to explain it.

Viktor Frankl, was an austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a holocaust survivor. He's the founder of logotherapy, a way of therapy that focus on existencial meaning to the person. In his book Man's Search for Meaning (1946), Frankl narrates his own struggle to survive the concentration camps. In order to survive and keep mental sanity, he was only focus in the finish of a book. Frankl visualizes and describes what lose of life meaning do in people in concentration camps. In his thesis, what makes people happy (in existencial or philosophical terms) is having a purpose,<<There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life>>, <<What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task>>.

That worthwhile goal to Walter is in the beggining to pay the due of this lung cancer and leave his family good in economic terms. Soon, the danger, extreme situations, talk and be in contact with violent criminals makes him feel alive, actually he start to empower his personality and his situation in the criminal world. Little by little, in Heisenberg he reveals against whom he had been his entire life, his lack of purpose in life and wish to death fades with his new will to power.

Frankl describes very well the personality of Walter, who manifest this existencial vacuum in a short and rampant sexual libido. Frankl also describes that will to power manifest in a will to money. Walt accumulate a really really big fortune and power in his carrer of metanphetamine druglord.

"Existence precedes essence" Sartre famously said. This quote from an existencial-nihilistic perspective, says that we humans have not intrinsical meaning, we just exist. Frankl's logotherapy is an existencial treatment, he tries to guide people on finding his purpose to exist. It's very interesting that Aristotle, defined hapiness like "Eudaimonia", that etimologically means good-spirit. It's like a life fullfilment in terms of purpose, being virtuous (with all the aristotelian philosophy behind).

So, what could explain the mesmerizing transformation of Walt's character and goals, is this life meaning or eudaimonia theory. This view offers a way to understand the complex personality of Heisenberg struggles between his empowerment and greed, and his beloved ones.