Adventures in Thought Space

When most people think of advanced alien civilizations and super-sentient species’, they imagine a spacefaring civilization unbound by physical laws. The Sci-Fi writer in me imagines the same, but, especially after writing this post, the philosopher imagines something much less grandiose, even banal. The impetus for this article was the aliens in the Netflix show  Three body Problem , based on the book series by Cixin Liu. The species, supposedly, couldn’t lie and may not have had independent minds with the perception of Free Will. Perhaps they are a hive-like species. Although there’s no way to know, this seemed counterintuitive, but despite this, or perhaps BECAUSE of it, I was intrigued. Then again, it’s possible they’re lying about their ability to lie, which would really thicken the plot. While the aliens are supposedly not more intelligent, just older, they made me wonder what a “superior” species might be like.    The article took longer than expected and ended up ...

An understanding of Olympic lifting is helpful but not truly required for the following. Some attempts are made to accommodate the less initiated.   The clean and snatch are not mere weightlifting exercises--but athletic events. Explosiveness, speed, flexibility, and coordination all contribute to proficiency, especially in the “full” versions of the lifts (that is, if achieved by squatting under the bar). Unlike bodybuilding—and to some extent “power”-lifting—it is not at all a stretch to call Olympic-lifting a sport. However, the all-too inevitable aggrandizements of the sport's practitioners have led to the misconception they require more skill and general athleticism than is the case. While in some ways this outlook may motivate O-lifters and provide other psychological benefits, it doesn’t make it entirely correct, nor does it make it a useful outlook for conventional athletes performing the lifts for general strength-training purposes. These aggrandizements coupled with epid...