Retelling Names of the Wind

Your music your words, your worlds
Spinning Galaxy with gravity
While illiteracy traces symbols
Forged from power and perception married
Married in metaphor even down in subatomic levels

The 's', the dis-ease, while statisticians predict
And crucify the freed... harvesting silence at times
While slithering up tree to tempt eve of dawn with forked tongue of probability
The talking tree that knows everything is one retelling
Of arche-type that lives in you, but also the world
-one bridge spanning fascination of mind's eye and focus-
But where are the clouds or land, where is climate and giraffes or even rememberance
For every fact has truth and context like any metaphor,
even axioms if they are to promise anything,
       even laws have to be Just,
              or advocates compassionate...
        untruths mitigated...

living despite hardship is made possible by daylight
The light in your life lifts up all it's own, troubles
And when groping for truth and context in troubles we can't see
Often seemingly made easier by ye old metaphor, p.
Suited up to fit you, shields, camouflages your dis-comfort
And builds fort within which to operate privately your thoughts
Behind hair, make-up, and furrowed brow in which promise resides...
the archetype of Captain America or perhaps Spider-man or Hulk...
All framed by a suit of clothes, designed and manufactured someplace like Montana
Too

You're a superhero to someone who loves you

Meniscus Floats the Sign of Birth at Times in Gravity's Boat of Worlds Unknown, Known Life

I am Boat
I sail the seven seas with knots and breeze
Judas Priest the captain, pour money into me
But I am depleted when housed in thee
The words I scribe are temporal
The swords I carry for peril
And the cannon so xenophobic
Elon Musk be a terrorist

I am boat
I can mate, I can earn
And suggested health is my wealth
For wood replaced my bone

This is heaven, A life of slavery,
To priest whom blames me
As I carry
his shame, his guilt... laid upon me

Because he would not explain his bullshit, not to a boat
for fear of being overheard by bird or sea or fish that pees in ocean deep.
And so I'm blamed for being a boat and boatlike because he can't ram you finished
In this material world of sink or swim.
But that, too, is more bullshit for grammarians to parse in beautiful world
With all their bitches and blame for the game is still the same
If captain be one deaf leoppard from anywhere besides Judea

And what be him?  Duck!  and keep ducking!
The machinery is in motion, the mast... the hoist

I quit these loveless friends and jobless work
While Giovanni's smile... in memory... still ciphers my prow with princess riding
whispering, "heavenly..." clung to said prow with legs spread in dream
I owe my thanks to the blood of humanity for my freedom.  But not you. Or you.
Riding on in fantasy... I kinda somewhat am hating my life of isolation.

Oh, the uncertainty: how do we cope? by Steven S. Holden

 Uncertainty is a paradox. On one hand, it is a potent and powerful force that motivates research, a need to know. The gratifying result of research is evidence used to guide practice and policy.

On the other hand, uncertainty always remains after research because of the inherent complexity and ambiguity of the real world. So policy-makers and practitioners are (or ought to be) troubled about inevitable residual doubt. Examples include what to do about climate change, what body mass index is ideal and whether to test for prostate cancer.

Why uncertainty remains

Research may help reduce uncertainty, but it can never provide certainty. Research is an errorful process that peers into an obscure reality.
Determining what is true is plagued by the problem of induction, which was recognised in antiquity by Pyrrhonian sceptic Sextus Empiricus. As British philosopher David Hume explains, it is a mistake to infer “that instances of which we have had no experience resemble those of which we have had experience”.

Research evidence may be useful, but it cannot deliver certainty. Another British philosopher, Charlie Dunbar Broad, notes that inductive reasoning is the “glory of science” and the “scandal of philosophy”.

In effect, concluding from one observation, or even many, what is true may be wrong. Accordingly then, claims may simply be false alarms.

Falsification was Karl Popper’s response to the induction problem. In his view, we can disprove notions but can never prove anything. For instance, the generalisation that all swans are white can never be proved, but it can be disproved by the discovery of just one black swan.

The theory of falsification acknowledges that research findings are never certain, but raises a new problem: many useful truths may be missed as confirmation is not possible, and disconfirmation may never be achieved.

Research is caught on the horns of a dilemma, between reporting what may be a false alarm and and missing out on identifying an important truth for lack of evidence.

Ultimately, none of this is very satisfying. Researchers, it appears, cannot escape uncertainty.

 

How do we cope with uncertainty?

Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position for many people and will generally give rise to varying levels of uncertainty-related anxiety. So how do we cope?

One approach is to deny the uncertainty, to act as if the eureka moment is true. But overconfidence does not eliminate the uncertainty as incorrect theories, conclusions and claims based on research often reveal.

Sometimes even the most famous get it very wrong as Mario Livio details in his book, Brilliant Blunders.

Another approach is to accept that there is doubt about what is true, being careful to distinguish doubt from denial. The confusion of the two is seen in the common use of the word sceptic as a denier of the research, such as a climate-change sceptic.

But a sceptic in the philosophical sense of the word acknowledges that what is true is uncertain. Scepticism is a factor that limits confidence as revealed in the 18th-century British anthropologist and philosopher Thomas Henry Huxley’s definition of agnosticism:

In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

For instance, in any modelling of future weather – be it tomorrow, next week or two decades hence – it must be acknowledged that there is doubt about what will happen.

But a researcher expressing such a view about future climate projections in the current environment is very likely to be howled down by those who dogmatically divide the world into believers and deniers.

Claiming evidence-based knowledge and uncertainty simultaneously is a tough position for the researcher to hold, but arguably a very important one. For this reason, epidemiologist and journalist Elizabeth Pisani and physician and writer Michael Crichton observe that while research feeds policy, there is much danger when the two become entangled and, in particular, when research becomes political.

Advocates for action can be especially intolerant of uncertainty and may seek to simply dismiss it. An important role for researchers is to stand up for uncertainty.

A good researcher will maintain a degree of scepticism, according to the North American philosopher Pierre Le Morvan. He describes “the doubtful scientist” and “the humble scholar” as prototypes of “healthy scepticism”.

The third option is resignation and despair. This, however, does not solve the problem of uncertainty. Rather, it simply returns us to the observation that uncertainty is unsettling for many.

Uncertainty is unsettling. Research seeks truth but will always falls short. The uncertainty that remains encourages humility and discourages hubris among the advocates for action.

For researchers, uncertainty is a motivating force with an endless supply. If research is never final and uncertainty always remains, then one certainty is that there will always be plenty more work to do.

original artwork @ CCA by Steven S. Holden

Guest Post from friend entitled:"Mercer's First Journey"

What makes me happy,
sunsets and sunrises
car movies and drive-ins
kayaking makes me happy
Building solar arrays makes me happy

What makes me healthy,
pills and paints
habits and routines
socializing makes me healthy
living in one place makes me healthy

But they call me mad, the uninformed
That cost me my career and education
And that does make me angry
Because I am MAD!
I'm MAD because few hear me
I'm MAD because few see me
And if hearing and seeing is believing

Then fewer than few understand
And f.e.w.e.r than f.e.w.e.r. realize
That I'm mad that they can't understand
TIME After Time after time repeating my relation

there ain't no realization
so some don't get out of bed, Cuz they know
so some don't feel easy, Cuz they worry why
so some don't slide through, Cuz they burnout
so some don't explain anyway, Cuz they stressed
so some don't live, Cuz they died inside

so some don't stay, Cuz they give up
so some don't heal, Cuz pain feels real
so some don't forget, Cuz shit traumatic
so some don't forgive, Cuz they guilted
so some don't understand, Cuz they lied to

Me this all all makes me angry, the repetition
You seeing but not seeing me
You hearing but not hearing me
You sensing me, but not understanding
Because all the realization I want, is really smallSo small... on one thousand mile journey like footstep after footstep

Instead those steps are those of angry slow motion!
A thousand miles and eternity don't mix in anyone's heart well:
In our world manifests care-less spirits, on stranded path, because of this.
That, would make you mad, too,
If you tried staying to heal, forget, and forgive all while understanding why.

They Think I illmatic Cause of Talsorian Games

Your reality is like my video game
I play with pen and paper
There's some constraint
But rules are dropped and raised

My video game, does only what it's told to
There is no minus 1$ dollar swift-talk
No pouch of unendable mendables
And with no third-eye, little imagination

But you're locked in, some fantasy cell
With key.. while masturbation has lost it's fun
And in city the fantasy is cyberpunk
And in country the science is magic

While in city, it's all criminal
And in country the devil prowls
Through and through
Through and through

So play your cyberpunk and be the illmatic
And I in country time will idyll away with magic
But you got to keep them seperated
Any city folk around will have to toe the line
And country folk will need to sing the dime

Because in the country we ain't heard of machines
As the Or-i come to claim your souls
Whereas in the city you better act somebody
Or the Gold will forget your guns

So, we have a forgotten peace, nobody knows we're arguing
Because Reality's don't always win
Nor does dogma completely fit in with future dreams.
No, the mighty thing that justifies beginnings is
Evolution through trying good things for you to do
For adoption is like adaptation for those of you whom think
Wherein only the meek and fleet will ever win global catastrophe
If you call rank survival, "winning", and small furry things the beast!