and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

So this guy Jeffrey Miller thinks that the large size and processing ability of human brains is due to sexual selection. He's wrong, but let's talk about the argument here, because it brings up interesting points. Symmetry is a cue to high genetic quality, right? The mate selection processor was designed in such a way to preferentially chose mates that had a high degree of symmetry, because symmetry indicates the ability of the individual to fight off asymmetry-causing pathogens, and thus mating with symmetrical individuals will likely confer the same ability to one's own offspring. Another way of saying this is that symmetry is a cue to high genetic quality.

Miller says that intelligence is a cue to high genetic quality; intelligence is not a desirable trait because it will help you survive (he says it's far more complex than is necessary for mere survival . . . Just look at chimps. They do fine.), but because intelligence is so hard to assemble. This makes it a reliable cue that the organism has satisfied assembling machinery, and thus is likely to assemble it's other machinery well, too. It's stupid argument. It makes all sorts of predictions about male/female differences in intelligence, for example, that females should be choosing to mate with males that are highly intelligent rather than highly symmetrical. Ah, were the world so.

Daniel Dennet's "Elbow room." It's about free will. I'm about to read it. You want to pick it up too? You'll like it, I know . . .

I just did laundry yesterday, too. And I made another giant tub of guacamole. I literally cannot even think of eating any more avocado products for a while. I've made it about 7/8ths through the avocados that I stole from 257. I'll have to give the rest away.

I'm going to hear Dr. John on Friday. I'm debating as to whether to get f'ed before the show . . . may be worth it not to, but then again, I'm sure he would approve.