If I Had A Hammer

This note is a sequel to the previous one, all about playing the odds when the odds are poorly understood so we have to use intuition. I intuited that there was a good chance I would get out of bed this morning, and I was right. I intuited that there was a good chance church would be cancelled because of snow. There were two phone calls asking about cancellation, but church went ahead as announced. I intuited that I would be able to show slides and videos on the TV at church using my ancient computer. That mostly worked, although there was an unexpected chime at one point and the video of the last hymn quit early so we finished singing a cappella. I had no intuition at all about my hearing aids and I forgot them once again, so I couldn't hear much of what was going on.

That pretty much covers it: sometimes we guess right, sometimes wrong, sometimes partly right and sometimes we forget or don't notice there is something we need to do. We do our best to create order in a chaotic universe and don't quite manage it because the universe is arbitrary (God plays dice) and we aren't sure of the odds. That's life.

I've been thinking about the ghost in the computer that messed up the last hymn. Well, maybe there is no ghost in the computer, but I intuit that if I had a hammer he wouldn't be repeating that little trick. Or I could figure out why it happened and play the odds instead of buying a new computer. 

Now that I think of it, there was some intentional annoyance built into the operating system. Microsoft wanted a way of financing their ongoing support. Their solution was selling an annual subscription for MS Office software by displaying a nag screen when the computer starts up. Years ago, I deleted the nag file, but I couldn't stop the operating system from trying to load it. So, every time I turn on the computer, it spends an hour or so looking for that file and then interrupts with an error message. That is the ghost in the machine. Solution, I should avoid restarting the computer within an hour before church.

Just in case, I have a hammer in the garage; but intuition works best with a dollop of reliable information. 

Now, define reliable.

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Cost of COVID Misinformation: CBC News, January 26 2023

We Were Wrong: Opinion by Kevin Bass, Newsweek, January 30 2023

COVID Remains a Public Health Emergency: CBC News reporting on the World Health Organization announcement, January 29 2023

Post-truth Misinformation: Terence Corcoran, Financial Post, February 1 2023

Do The Math...Or Not

God plays dice and people play the odds.

So says Dennis. Millions will disagree, convinced that God (or luck) is looking out for them if they trust and obey (or whisper the correct incantation, like "Baby needs a new pair of shoes"). We are equipped with intuitions that are unreliable when it comes to playing the odds. That's why we invented mathematics.

A little test of intuition: when you roll two dice, are you more likely to get a five or a nine total? 

da da da da, da da da da, da da da da...

Got your answer? No cheating. Write it down. 

OK, why did you choose five? Could it be that having five fingers on each hand means you encounter five more often than nine in everyday experience, and therefore judge it to be more likely? 

But you chose nine, didn't you. Could it be that you think the universe is out to fool you so you chose the opposite of what you intuited?

Here is the right answer. (I'm not being clever. I didn't know so I had to work it out.) Five has one chance in nine of coming up. Nine is just as likely, one chance in nine. That was news to me. How about you?

Proof.

There are four ways of getting a total of five: 1+4, 2+3, 3+2, and 4+1. There are also four ways of getting a total of nine: 3+6, 4+5, 5+4, and 6+3. Compare this to a total of 36 possible combinations, six for each die, 6x6=36. The probability of 4/36 reduces to 1/9, as I stated.

Surprised how ignorant your intuition is even for such a simple question? Want more proof? What is the most probable result when you roll two dice? You can choose any number between 2 and 12. Got your number?

Answer: seven is most likely. Proof: there are six ways of getting a total of seven: 1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2,  6+1. That is a probability of 6/36. If you work out combinations for a total of six you will get 5/36. Same for eight. The probabilities go down for the other numbers: two has a probability of 1/36 as does twelve. Seven is clearly the most likely total for two dice. What are the odds you guessed seven? No data on that. I'm guessing that you were right because I intuit that you're brilliant.

That's as far as I am going into math, no Gaussian curves or Z scores. I got a C in statistics, which shows I am as intuitive as the next person. So when I play the odds, I am not usually being clever, just guessing. 

Sometimes clever... maybe. For example, I am pretty sure I will get out of bed tomorrow, since I have done it every day for the past decade or so, about 3,650 mornings. The last time I didn't get up, I was in a hospital bed. There will not likely be any reason I can't arise tomorrow, although, for certain, that will happen once in the next decade with increasing probability as the mornings go by. Furthermore, I am pretty sure that when I get to church tomorrow and plug my computer into the TV, I will be able to show the slides and videos I have prepared. Why not? I forgot to tell you about the snow forecast, POP 90%. There is a chance, with good probability, that church will be cancelled, though I don't know the odds because I won't be making the decision. Even if church is on, my computer is twelve years old, in e-hospice with digital death imminent, and God is not an IT nerd on call. 

When it comes to heart attacks, snow days or motherboard failure, the odds are sketchy and your guess is as good as mine. Best laid plans... That's life.

O Christmas Tree

This week we put away the Christmas tree, actually six Christmas trees, the big one and five small table decorations. Not nearly as much fun as decorating (now done by the grandchildren). We do this every year. We decorate recalling good times past and undecorate anticipating getting back to normal so we can take care of business. Each time the cycle repeats we change things a bit. Early on it was adding decorations the kids had made. One year we realized that bringing in a tree full of pollen and mold was causing itches and sneezing, so we switched to an artificial tree the next year, one that we assembled branch by branch. That was eventually replaced by one pre-strung with lights that could be stored assembled. Years ago, we received a couple of ceramic trees, hand-made gifts from friends now departed. Then we added a small tree for the porch with lights on a timer, a little table-top wooden tree with tiny decorations that would keep the kids busy for an hour, a little musical tree with sleigh and reindeer and electric trains and carols playing, a fiber-optic tree for a shelf in the bathroom. Along the way, the additions became precious, indispensable treasures.

And here we are spending a day undecorating, not my favourite activity.

Wisely, this year there was some simplification. We didn't put the tree on the porch. There may be lights on some of you guys, but there ain't no lights on us. Let me think. How can we shrink the decorations next year?

Did you notice how I snuck in a metaphor? This note is really about something more serious than Christmas trees, a way of thinking and being that must, sooner or later, end in a disastrous collapse of the biosphere. Others, who know what they are writing about, describe this better than I can. Click the link below to go on. When you're done, think about simplifying how we live before we get buried in our precious, indispensable treasures.

Paradigm Shift Needed to Halt Biodiversity Loss: David Suzuki and Ian Hanington
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P.S.:
More Thinking about Thinking: by Yours Truly

Three Wise Persons and the Others

Dorothy recalls when little Shannon, then three years old, questioned our manger scene wondering where the cat was. When we asked why she wanted a cat, she recited the hymn, "The cat all are lowing...". The next year Andrea found a little cat to add to the nativity, and the story grew a bit. 

Then Natasha wanted a pig in the scene, just because it was her favourite animal. So we added a pig and the story got bigger.

Of course there are Mary and Joseph, wise men and shepherds and camels and cattle and donkeys. We like that. The story is supposed to grow. Let's all get in there.

Christmas came and went and we had a good time visiting family. Last Sunday we celebrated Epiphany at church. The pastor said a few words and then invited the rest of us to tell what epiphany meant to us. This is how a 45 minute meeting turns into a 90 minute discussion. Then the pastor drove us home, and we kept talking for another 45 minutes. When you tug on one idea, it pulls out another which connects to another, and soon the map of the entire universe is in play.

So, epiphany celebrates the wise men finding baby Jesus in the manger. One wise observation about that is that Jesus reveals God's love, which is a significant event in our awakening to the divine. A second wise thought is that the Wise Men were from the east, that love is not tribal, and that is good news for all people everywhere. A third insight is that this event is universal, not merely human, that it reveals something about the nature of being, for all people, sheep and cattle and camels, cats and pigs, starry nights and everything.

We forget. Scan the news. Notice how many stories are about blaming others because they have harmed us, about laws broken bringing shame and retribution, about excluding those with different ethnicity, social status, political views or gender orientation, about human activity altering the climate and causing extinctions, about taking care of us while harming the others.

Epiphany is a new understanding: that fear and courage, despair and hope, grievance and anger, shame and pride, ambition and privilege, aggression and subjugation, all our tattered motives can be transformed by love. 

We should be so wise.

No Worries

You made it past the title. I fooled you. You already know that in my opinion climate change is something to worry about. I am tempted to say it's the only issue to worry about, since ignoring it leaves us with no future. So why aren't we doing more to fix it? There are reasons. If you continue reading and dip into the reference links below, you may get vaccinated against complacency or denial. You may also lose hope. I suggest we forget hope and just do what's right.

A few scientists say there is no climate emergency.
Do a search if you want. I won't provide references because I don't want to contaminate your mind with misinformation. However, I will give links to rebuttal. Whenever  scientists publish conclusions, they invite criticism, a process known as peer review. The vast weight of peer reviewed scientific literature concludes that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity. 

Whether it's an emergency may depend on how close you were to the latest disaster. If the disasters are happening elsewhere, you may gain some respite from anxiety by listening to those who say there is no emergency. Remoteness in place and time feels safe. It isn't. The greenhouse gases (GHGs) that have already accumulated in the atmosphere are not going anywhere anytime soon, and emissions continue to increase. Release of GHGs from the ocean, tundra, and soil are going to add to emissions from human activity; and the loss of carbon sinks from deforestation, desertification and warming of the oceans will accelerate the temperature increase. Within decades there will be no place to hide.

We got here by well-intentioned use of science and technology to make life more comfortable, prosperous and safe for human kind. This progress was fueled by fossil carbon. Since 1900, human population has increased from 1.6 billion to 8 billion (factor of 5), and annual carbon emissions have increased from 0.5 to 10 billion tonnes (factor of 20). A future without burning fossil carbon is the only way out of the impending collapse. When it happens, don't complain that nobody told you this was coming.

Pay attention.
Make a plan.
Do something.
Rejoice in success.
Learn from failure.
Plan what to do next.
Don't lose hope.
Forget hope and do what's right.
Belong with restraint to the world that gives us life.

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Assessing Exxonmobil's Climate Change Communications: a history of the science from within the fossil fuel industry.

The Climate Future: Just Have a Think, January 8, 2023.

Debunking Denial: by Steven Vigdor and Tim Londergan

Debunking Climate Change Denial, part 1

Debunking Climate Change Denial, part 2

The Sacred Balance: David Suzuki in search of a new worldview.

Act Now: United Nations Plan for Individual Action