Five Questions Answered
The poll for questions went quite well. Next time, I realize that I will have to be more direct with the directions, so you can look forward to that. Here are the questions and “the answers that love them.”
KM asks: Who is the best sibling in the world?
My sister Katy is the best sibling in the world. She recently completed her Summa paper and therefore can essentially do nothing between now and graduate school at the U of M. For this situation, I envy her. Currently, I am conducting an informal screen of every man I meet in my continuing mission to find her someone cool for her. In all honesty, I have not really approved any of her choices of men-folk so far. Not that my stamp of “Grade-A” means anything, but we value one another’s opinions about the opposite sex. Hopefully next guy up will meet with acceptance. I’m pullin’ for ya Katy! Regardless, Katy and I get along quite well, and I had the opportunity to apartmentize with her this coming year, but opted out as I felt I needed at least one more year on campus. Besides, a younger brother would drag down all the wild parties she is going to have.
MP asks: What is your happiest child hood memory?
This is difficult, picking my happiest childhood memory. My happiest recent memory was accidentally biking the wrong way through a traffic light and not getting hit by a car. My happiest childhood memory, on the other hand, requires more effort; for example, the timeframe needs to be defined. I would put my childhood at twelve years old and before; I don’t see the teen years as anything more than a massive piece of confusion where people meld their personalities into what will be with them the rest of their lives. Happiness there is different than childhood happiness. One of the happiest memories I can think of right now occurred at the Place, a hidden dirt biking trail on the shores of Colby Lake. Matt and I were amongst a very small group of people who knew about it, and we almost never saw anyone else there. However, someone had built the jumps, so we came. It was there we took our risks, jumped our jumps, and did some risky acrobatics during successful and unsuccessful flights. I am unsure how far off the ground we were, but it had to be over three feet at times. Regardless, it was high enough to be scary and thrilling in the visceral way we all unconsciously seek sometimes. During those perfect days of summer, of warmth and sunlight, in a patch of forest cleared of underbrush, we could climb trees, make silly jokes, and be kids. I remember looking through the low hanging tree branches, illuminated with sunlight and glowing green, to the shimmering blue water beyond. Even then, even before I was old enough to be sentimental or to reminisce about much of anything, I knew this would not last and that I should enjoy it. It was at the Place that I learned how you can amuse yourself with simple things - how you do not need the latest processor or the largest television to enjoy the time you spend. And suddenly, it was over. Fall blew in, and with the cold weather came the end of our visits to the Place. I know in my heart I can never go to the Place again, and that makes it more precious to me.
NE asks: What program do you use to convert mp3’s to wav’s?
I use, as articulated in a previous post, CDEx to rip compressed audio files to wav files. I then invoke the ancient and powerful Art of Sound Recorder, a relic of bygone Microsoft eras. However, you may use just about any wav file editor you would like.
DS asks: Moooooo?
This favorite filler question of mine has been mirrored right back at me. Therefore, I must attempt to answer the question. The question could concern the existence of cows, and why we drink their milk on a regular basis. There are those (myself included) who frequently wake up and drink fresh, cold, cow byproduct. The purpose of this tradition remains unknown, but might be traced back to ancient times, when people were very bored. This question might also be referring to MOO, the programming language. The latter, however, I sincerely doubt. My answer to this question is, then, “my life would be much much duller if cows had not made the generous contribution that they have to my diet.”
SR asks: Why do we dream and what do they mean?
Whoops, we’ve tapped into a question of continual scientific research and questioning. We’ll supply you with the more scientific information on the “why’s” of dreaming and a more spiritualistic/philosophic view of the “meaning” part of dreams. Come, join me. Now, most people know that dreams occur during a specific, particularly deep, part of the sleep cycle. This part of the cycle is called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. In addition to being a great band name, REM is very important. As we get older, we have less and less REM sleep time. Ok, that is well and good you reply, but why to we dream?
We typically spend more than 2 hours each night dreaming. Scientists do not know much about how or why we dream … Some scientists believe dreams are the cortex’s attempt to find meaning in the random signals that it receives during REM sleep. The cortex is the part of the brain that interprets and organizes information from the environment during consciousness. It may be that, given random signals during REM sleep, the cortex tries to interpret these signals as well, creating a “story” out of fragmented brain activity.
This “story making” is sometimes referred to as the brain “twitching,” similar to the involuntary nature of a muscle twitch. In a way, this makes sense, if we think of our minds simply as massive electrical impulse centers; like highly refined “muscles.” At this point, we inevitably delve into philosophy. Do you see yourself as a “dualist” (the soul and body are two different independent things that combine to make the person … there are many other varieties of this) or a “materialist” (the body is only a material thing)? That is, do you believe that the mind is part of the body and the spirit exists separately, or do you believe that the body is all there is? Materialism encounters the problem of free will: if we are simply mechanical processes obeying natural laws, why are we able to choose freely? Or is free will an illusion? If so, what is the purpose of that? Because materialism runs into this fundamental problem, it becomes easier to argue for a body + spirit relationship. The question, then, becomes — what is the mind’s connection with any spirit we might have? This brings us back to dreaming. I think, in my youthful imaginative optimism, that dreams connect us to a higher level of consciousness by focusing our creativity and our thought processes. That is, dreams remind us what really matters, bring out what is bothering us, and reveal the content of our subconscious in a way that we can not deny. A tug at the corners of one’s mind might become a freight train of self-knowledge in the world of sleep. I believe dreams help us know ourselves better and thus deal more effectively with our problems. Dreams are undeniably enigmatic; their cause, consequences, and purpose are all up for debate. We’ve explored our universe from stars light years away to trenches at the bottom of the ocean; but the night-time ruminations in our heads remain mysterious.
Conclusions
I must admit, the questions were far different than I had anticipated. Nevertheless, they were a good surprise and a lot of fun to answer. I’m sure we’ll do something similar in the future.