The Howling: Dementia and Learning

A few days ago I found a video of a debate between an atheist and a theist. I decided to watch it because the name of the atheist was familiar to me and I don't see him a great deal. It was Peter Singer. It seemed odd though, there was an older man giving an atheist argument, and that was followed by a theist named Hare, and there was continual mention of Peter Singer, though I still had not seen him. I missed the name of the first older man. Finally it was time for Peter Singer to come to the mic and I nearly fell off the couch because it was the same older guy who had been on at the beginning. Say what!? It seems there must be TWO guys named Peter Singer! Now, I'm curious so I Google Peter Singer. All the links I get point to this same guy, an older man, born in Australia, a professor, etc. But where's the other one? The Peter Singer I have in mind, I can kind of picture him in my head, he is younger than this guy, probably is not Australian, and has long curly hair. I know I have read at least one book he wrote but the name of the book refuses to show itself.

It begins to dawn on me that maybe the guy I'm thinking of possibly is not Peter Singer. I know it has to be at least a similar name though, otherwise I would not have thought of him upon hearing 'Peter Singer'. It's driving me nuts, I have to figure this out! I message Blair on Facebook and explain the problem and ask if he knows who I'm thinking of. He responds with a perfectly reasonable suggestion, Victor Stenger, but I check and no, that ain't him. I even go to Amazon and start checking authors to see if I see the name. I know I will recognize it when I see it. Nothing. *sigh* It's aggravating as hell but what can I do, it will show up eventually. I went on to other things online and suddenly I have stumbled upon the guy I was thinking of! There it is, the name that would not reveal itself within my fevered brain. Stephen Pinker! Finally, I can satisfactorily associate the correct name with the mental image I have of a guy with curly hair. Singer, Pinker, those sound similar, right? Stephen, Peter? Well, maybe... is it "just" natural memory quality lessoning with age. Does it have anything to do really with any actual dementia? How could I know?

I won't assume that it is the beginnings of dementia yet. Many years back I read Stephen King's The Stand. Maybe a year and a half or two later I came across an old paperback in a box I was looking through. I started reading and was enthralled by this book and surprised that I had somehow overlooked it before. I was nearly three hundred pages in before I realized...I have read this before! Of course! I know Captain Trips and the walking dude, Randall Flagg. I don't think I've noticeably? deteriorated much since then, so maybe it's isolated incidents. But there was the other thing...

You might remember I mentioned we didn't have hot water in the bathroom. We always did before. Because the bathroom is a long way from the water heater, it takes a while for hot water to get there, so you have to let it run till it gets hot. I know this, I've lived here for years. I would let the water run, I let it run once for over 15 minutes and it still never got even warm back there, much less hot. But Melinda informed me that she had no problem having hot water in there!? Turned out I had forgotten which way you push the faucet for hot. Heh.

There was an incident in which Norton charged me for renewal of their software on my computer. Apparently I had installed it last December and authorized automatic renewal. And forgot. I was stunned to learn I HAD Norton on here...I've been using AVG. Anyway, Norton deducted $70 from my account for that. I lacked about 37 cents having enough, which triggered an insufficient funds fee from the bank for about $29. I got on the phone to Norton and got them to cancel that and refund my $70. It isn't there yet but should be in a day or so. The $29 is out the window. There are two bills left to pay, phone and power, which will total about $250. When I get my $70 back I will have about $160. Obviously one won't get paid. Five months left on paying for the computer at Rent-a-Center. Being without two computers is not an option...may as well get on with the suicide in such a circumstance. Melinda is really perturbed about not having the burial insurance. That's $60. I tell her I have to be more concerned with what is here and now than what might be then and there. It could possibly be thirty years or more before either of us kick off. I truly don't care, even slightly, what happens to my body, or hers, for that matter, when we are dead. But having "insufficient funds" prompts such arguments...while our extremely socialist President capitulates with corporate Republicans to make certain millionaires and billionaires have a few thousand more. It's the land of the free over heah, yanno.

I like learning. Everything from atoms to zygotes holds some interest for me though, now at least, I tend to be more drawn to philosophies for in-depth study. I find philosophy aggravating as hell too, because I like to ask a question and get an answer asap and get on with it, though I'm still not certain of what it is I'm getting on with. It gets really tedious to ask questions and think of a particular thing from every conceivable angle. If you are not used to doing that and you start, you may be amazed at how many possible angles there even are. Endlessly asking questions to which I never have any answers would be a kind of hell to me. But I cannot abide simply slapping an answer on for the sake of having an answer either. I feel compelled to keep pushing until I either decide an answer on this one is simply not yet available or until I find one about which I can say, "Yeah, this is right." Perhaps such a thing inevitably leads to something that at least sounds haughty and arrogant. If I find such an answer, it's a little like discovering gold (or something that actually does have great intrinsic value), and I want to tell my friends...if only you will just dig RIGHT HERE, it's down there, I tell ya! And if they dig there and then look at me like I must be insane because they found nothing besides old corroded plumbing pipes and clay... *sigh*

I wonder if Plato ever thought like that about his Forms? I sure understand how he could arrive at his conclusions...but I don't buy them. I'm currently nearing the end of a course called Death with Shelly Kagan, a wonderfully animated little feller, lol. I don't agree with all the conclusions professor Kagan reaches in the course, but I consider him an excellent teacher for such a course. The last lecture in the series is on the morality of suicide. I don't plan any yet, but well... in the last printed interview John Lennon ever gave he said he didn't have any interest in being a dead hero. Three days later he was (according to many fans).

Socrates was under the delusion that the hemlock was not The End for him, that it was merely the opening of a doorway into another life. Would he have been as jovial about the whole thing if he really understood the truth? Would you?

Places you can learn stuff:

Academic Earth
Seventeen different universities, from Berkeley to Yale. list of subjects.

Forum Topic associated with NPR.

TRB