On shaving...

Like most nights these days, I awoke four or five times last night, each time using the Jukebox to put me back to sleep...

I was listening to the collected works of Canadian band Rheostatics, one of my all time favourites...

I keep getting myself into positions which cause much pain in the leg, which then wakes me up. I also of course still have the frozen shoulder scenario, and that too causes much pain whilst in bed...

Truly, I am a wreck...

Made breakfast then surfed e-bay for a while, continuing to listen to Rheostatics, concentrating now on their latest LP, “2067” which is one of my top albums from 2004...

Then, mid morning, my first CD of 2006 arrived. Technically it’s not really a 2006 purchase since I bought it in December – but it was coming from Russia via e-bay....

It’s the reunion CD “Icon” from John Wetton and Geoff Downes, the two main songwriters from the band Asia, a “supergroup” from the early eighties who released several multi platinum albums before going their separate ways...



It’s probably Wetton’s best effort since his 1994 album “Battle Lines”, the title track of which is one of my all time favourite songs...

Listening to John Wetton and Rheostatics prompted me to compile a list of artists by whom I will always try and buy a new album as soon as it’s released. And so here they are in alphabetical order:-

Fiona Apple, The Blue Nile, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, Robert Fripp, Fripp & Eno, Peter Gabriel, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, Allan Holdsworth, Lucy Kaplansky, King Crimson, Kraftwerk, Lemon Juice Quartet, Madredeus, Alice Peacock, Pet Shop Boys, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Rheostatics, Roxy Music, Rush, Mathilde Santing, Sparks, Spock’s Beard, David Sylvian, Herman Van Veen, Roger Waters, John Wetton, Dar Williams, Yes

And then I compiled a playlist on the Jukebox featuring only those artists. This totals 3,307 tracks. So over a quarter of my total tracks on the Jukebox are by these 32 artists...

But if I was being brutally honest about my buying behaviour and it came down to whose albums I really, really buy as soon as they’re released regardless of price, then this would be quickly whittled down to just:-

The Blue Nile
David Bowie
Alice Cooper
Brian Eno (Incl Fripp & Eno)
King Crimson/Robert Fripp
Pink Floyd/Roger Waters
Rheostatics
Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry
Rush
Yes

And so, I guess these are my ten favourite groups/artists...

Whilst surfing the net and listening to Rheostatics, I came across this quote on the importance (or lack of) commercial success in the music biz from their guitarist Dave Bidini, who is also an accomplished author:

“Anyone who sells one cassette is commercially successful. I think the notion of discussing commerce and art together is obscene. It undermines the craft.”

This came of some comfort to me!

Also whilst searching for info on the Rheos, I rediscovered this site - http://www.artofthemix.org/index.asp – where people submit track lists of mixtapes, CD compilations and MP3 playlists. You could spend hours on there – but I tried not to...

Today I also took some more photos and in the evening I created some collages....




I also managed to book accommodation for our France trip – in an apartment in a converted tower within an ancient catle’s walls – which should be interesting...

Part of my day was taken up responding to a devout catholic who took exception to my post the other day criticising religion...

After I’d finished this (the results are in the “comments” under the post “Religion is the root of a significant amount of evil”) I realised what I was trying to do was explain to him the essential difference between reason and faith....

So I went looking on the web, found what I wanted to say and have attemted to precis it here...

In reason, you only accept conclusions which are proven to be true - conclusions based on sensory evidence and logical inference from such evidence...

Faith, on the other hand, is belief unsupported by facts or logic - the blind embrace of ideas despite an absence of evidence or proof...

From this, it follows that the only ideas that are reasonable to believe are those you know to be true by means of reason....

Spirituality, notably in the form of religion, is of course a staple of human civilisation. Even in today's modern societies, a large majority of people believe in gods and supernatural entities and practice divinity worship and rituals...

However, the important thing to remember is that its principles are not based on reason. They are based on the methods of faith : emotion, authority, doctrine, revelation, popularity, and so on....

These methods cannot reveal anything about reality itself. Thus religion gives false comfort, incites people to believe lies, and its moral principles are irrational....

The concept of "God", a supernatural infinite Creator being, is metaphysically absurd. Indeed, the notion that any “gods” could exist is absurd.

The falseness of religion and gods does not imply that our inherent desire for spirituality is bankrupt though and while spirituality may be a valid pursuit for most people, current religions are certainly not valid ways to find it.

Christianity, Islam, and any other such religious systems, ought to be rejected in favour of rational spirituality, or nothing at all. Unfortunately, that is highly unlikely to happen...

And so I am a sceptic. Which doesn't mean that I doubt, it means I need to apply a rational method of examination of extraordinary claims and, the evidence for extraordinary claims must be extraordinary itself based entirely on logic and the senses....

We must look to both theory and practice, as both point to the same reality - theory to what is possible in general, practice to what has been achieved in one particular instance...

When subjected to this, religion fails miserably and so I must reject the idea emphatically...

People die from pseudo-medicine, waste money on pseudo-science, and lose their lives or livelihood in the worship of gods....

These are all areas where a little rational thinking can go a long way....

Occam's Razor is a corollary of the demand for objective evidence...

It states:-

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate" or
"plurality should not be posited without necessity"

The words are attributed to the medieval English philosopher and (rather ironically, I suppose)Franciscan monk, William of Ockham (ca. 1285-1349)....



However, what is known as Occam's Razor was a common principle in medieval philosophy and was not originated by William, but because of his frequent usage of the principle, his name has become indelibly attached to it....

So, if we are confronted with two hypothesis that explain the same set of facts, then the one that necessitates the least entities or mechanisms is the best one...

For example, Evolution and Creationism both purport to explain the same facts, but Creationism entails at least one more entity, which is a Creator...

Stupid Creationists sometimes attempt to apply Occam's Razor in defence of geogenesis, claiming that theirs is the "simpler" theory as compared with evolution - i.e God said "shazam" or "abracadabra" and there was everything all ready to go...

But Occam's razor pertains to not assuming more than what is needed and so this demonstartes a failure to understand the principal, as a shorter theory is not necessarily true....

So there we are...

And rather appropriately, I shaved my beard and my head today...

I think that’s probably enough now...

Highlight of the Day : Getting the Accomodation booked for our next Holiday