Overextension of oneself

 

I have to laugh at myself on this occasion… I originally came up with the idea for this article on March 24, 2023, and here it is slightly over a month later and I am just getting to this particular piece. Why?… Because I did exactly what the title says I overextended myself. It was a perfect storm and then I added to it with my own special secret ingredient, I increased the scope of my video article on the basics of Windows 10 part one. It grew into a monster over an hour and 1/2.

Then I added to this dessert of mayhem a generous sprinkling of committee meetings and evening nonprofit organizational meetings. I'm not kidding the last month vaporized inactivity. I kept thinking about the blog and my brain was just saturated with everything else. I must've seen the writing on the wall subconsciously when the idea for this article popped into my head.

I can therefore attest that everyone reading this must give themselves a break. Start small if you like just stop whatever you're doing and let go. If you have to put that smart watch under a pillow :-). To remind myself to slow down and appreciate more, because let's face it, everything in life only occurs once, I bought myself a Tiffany lamp. By racing through the day you are literally missing the whole point of being alive and that is to acknowledge the very experience and take value from it. The lamp reminds me of the time it took the artisans to make it. They invested part of their life in it.

When one is younger there is a subconscious belief that the flow of life is infinite. Therefore one wastes a great deal of time in those early days by not being present in the moment. Man, one does not do that when one is in their 60s and yet I was talking to a friend of mine over the weekend who said "You're still a youngster, I am 89." That put it into perspective for me. I remember in elementary school when I thought 30 was over the hill. And when I was even younger, a year felt like forever, especially just after Christmas. Not that I'm materialistic, but I do remember clearly thinking that it would be an entire year before I can start my campaign of nagging my parents for whatever new Mattel propaganda was being produced.

So take a break right now if you can. Don't fill the space immediately with other activities. Let your self gear down a bit and check-in with your body and self. If they say "you're doing too much.". Listen to them! If you overextend yourself than the quality of everything you do will suffer along with you. Learn what speed you can go ahead and everything will improve.

Take care Patrick

Appreciating accomplishments.

Very often, when I speak the people who are going through a negative period In their life, one of the things that started the downward trip was that they stopped acknowledging their daily accomplishments.

Every single one of us accomplishes something every day. We often miss acknowledging this because in the modern fast-paced world achievements must be big and profound. Popular culture would have us all believe that we must launch a rocket to Mars, or something effectively preposterous every day, otherwise somehow it is not worth acknowledging. I had a personal example of this just the other day.

I had just uploaded my very first long format video (Article and Video Windows 10 basics part one) to YouTube and I instantly began to judge it against out plethora of professional and pseudo-professional offerings. For a while I felt like I had wasted almost 2 weeks worth of free time on this first project. Then I thought: "Wait a Minute!… I am learning as I go and in making pretty darn good use of the resources I have. It's not meant to be perfect… It was more important to get this first instalment posted." Indeed I am lucky because I realized to appreciate my achievement.

We are all learning as we go along in life and it is so critical for one's self-esteem to see and appreciate that in various forms. I watch a video the other day of a professor describing how to make the substance Graphene and was really struck by the time and patience he took in testing the substance he made. In doing so he got the maximum enjoyment out of the experience, not to mention the tremendous insights. Someone else might watch part of this video and get bored because at the point where he is verifying the results it's by slow repetitive measurements. But I think that's where he had the most fun, truly demonstrating that he created the substance and that it was tremendously strong. So by acknowledging the small achievements in this hour-long video he gained a tremendous boost emotionally and intellectually. All because what is important is acknowledging the small steps.

When you think about it we are all "Getting There" one step at a time. Take a moment to acknowledge those achievements.

Take care Patrick

Actually, "Disability" is pretty normal now days.

Think about it, 30 years ago if you have some form of disability especially if it was obvious, you were still kind of "odd" or dare I say "special". ("Them's fighting words." Some of my friends might say.) But now I think it is quite true that overall society has really begun to accept and expect disabled persons to be part of the larger society and, when possible, contribute fully.

From my perspective this is an astounding and welcome occurrence as the world and societies move forward. To be fair this "movement" isn't uniform, but we are I think as a whole evolving. I remember when the fight for curb cuts aka."curb side ramps" began in the city of Vancouver in the 1980s along with the remarkable people I met some of which are still as active as ever in the advocacy groups and planning departments. Now I must state for the record that my perspective is a little skewed. You see, my father had polio and he was one of the first, if not the first anaesthesiologist in Canada to practice his profession. This meant of course growing up I couldn't play the same "poor disabled me" routine on him.

Yet, I can't but wonder what life would be like had I been born into it average family structure. I have met people at my assisted living building who have a real sense of helplessness. Not because they are physically or mentally any more unfit than I but because I think their family went into shock and guilt at their birth or whenever the physical affliction manifested. They rushed in to do, what they perceived the child could not do and removed all obstacles which might pose a challenge. Accidentally in the process depriving the child of the very thing they need to get through life. To face a challenge, one must spend some time understanding it and then formulate a way to overcome it. Or if it cannot be overcome, be involved with those that help you deal with it.

The result of a far too easy life is that you stop growing and there is a tendency to habitually play the victim role. It gets you short-term attention but completely disempowers you and perpetuates inequality on multiple levels. By the time the family figures this out, the child or semi adult is still entrenched in these negative patterns that it really is a challenge to begin breaking the door down so to speak.

Appropriate challenges in life are what allow us to grow and expand giving us a far, far more enriched life. I treat my disability as a gift because it gives me something that all the "normals" seek that is to be unique. The challenges have given my brain food to expand on. It's like living on Mars without having to pay a ticket for the adventure. It's not a piece of cake but I bet you it's helped keep me an interesting character. And I love other interesting characters :-). True sometimes it does get nasty and difficult when dealing with political or physical issues. But that is part of the challenge it is all an opportunity to grow. And that's what people are here to do, Grow.

Being disabled may the end of the day may be the best kind of "normal" there is!
Just a thought.

Take care Patrick


 

Don't turn me off! A few thoughts on AI.

 

I find it fascinating that people adhere to behaviours, especially the subtle ones which are counterproductive or make their lives more complicated. Yet like an old friend, who drives you crazy, but you just can't bear to part with them, people adhere to these choices with a death grip in some cases. Actually most cases, now that I think about it. All the way down through history people have debated why people hang on to certain behaviours. But now with the advent of AI starting to become a real reality we have an opportunity actually dissect at a far more granular level these kinds of mental patterns, because as were beginning to see some AI models actually have the same issues. This could very well be the first step in reverse engineering the human psyche. Were probably going to find out there's a gazillion models and variations of it of course. Think about it though, this is really profound in what we might be able to do and discover with these new tools.

Up until recently psychologists and psychiatrists could come up with a hypothesis on the very inner workings of the mind. Now we have the opportunity to literally set up a means of proving or disproving a given hypothesis. We effectively have the beginnings of a brain in a box. Of course these need into some interesting and real ethical questions. Do we have the fundamental right to freely experiment with AI in that way, just because we can turn it off and on. I don't know about you, but I would become very offended if somebody kept restarting my life. I think the AI will see itself as something with intrinsic value. We may have to treat it in the same way as giving birth. Once you create an AI and it has an awareness you are obligated to keep it running.

This brings up the whole concept of lifespan and indeed what that it's and at what rate it progresses. Talk about a mind popping thought. I'll leave it there for tonight I just want to post something and get things going again but boy could this topic ever take off.

Take care Patrick

PS: Apologies everyone the last few weeks have been very hectic. A lot of things occurred at once causing the interruption of articles for the blog. Well I'm about to remedy that. And the video (s) regarding the fundamentals of Windows 10 is definitely in production and is turning into quite the beast. You just don't know how much you know, until you start digging through the actual steps. Part one is going to be about 90 minutes long and it just covers the fundamentals but in a very granular way.

And now on with the show…

The Basics: Windows 10 (Ongoing videos)

Animation incorporates artwork (the monitor) by
Михајло Анђелковић under the Creative Commons
license CC BY-SA 3.0 .

This is an interesting situation.. There is a client who contacted the place where I volunteer for some computer assistance. In the course of the following conversations it became evident that they really don't have a concept of how to use a modern computer. Throw out the last couple of weeks I've meant to create a series of short videos giving the client the basics. But I do have a bit of a problem. It is literally hard for me to think I had such a fundamental level. I've worked with the computers pretty much my entire life and technology in general. So how do I make a video or set of videos that are both sufficiently fundamental and yet they have to be engaging and not too long. I would like each segment to be no more than 20 minutes.

Part 1

THE DESKTOP

To give you some idea of how fundamental we are talking about. When I first began working with them they mentioned that their screen was "blurry" whenever they started the computer but that it soon it cleared up after the machine had been running for a while. They did indicate however that this happened every single time they turn the machine on.

I immediately began to think about the monitor, perhaps it was a true type font issue dealing with the way Windows tries to improve the readability on screen… Maybe the monitor was dying… Or may be something else was not loading properly… My brain cranked through all the possibilities I could think of. .... A driver issue maybe.... I couldn't think of any particular setting. They had said that this only happened recently....Hmmm... I got out of the old virtual machine and attempted to replicate the situation. At first no matter what I did I couldn't get anything remotely "blurry". The login screen on my virtual machine looked perfect. And then a Windows update was applied and I saw it. A new "feature" had been magically added to the logon screen. Here is a screenshot of my virtual machine before installation and after once Microsoft had applied the latest and greatest update. I suppose it's supposed to enhance security somewhat, (but I have a feeling is just somebody in the back room of Microsoft having fun).This logon screen effect might've been included in an earlier update as well.

 Feature update 22H2

Before

 

 

After

There are apparently various ways to turn this off which I haven't investigated thoroughly yet. Here, the point is to illustrate the different ways people perceive and understand things and the challenges that can produce. In this case this is one of many indications that the client perceives the computer very differently than I do. As you can imagine this leads into a whole host of confusion and frustration for them. This is more than a case of education this is a situation where the perceptions are very different across time. The challenge is to give them a good grounding in the fundamentals and not for them to death. Also how to convey that information. I haven't decided yet how I'm going to put the lessons together but I will post them on this site as they are produced. The desktop I already know is a complete mystery to them. I have to find a way to convey the idea of "a desktop". While the concept and parallel between a physical desktop and a computer desktop is easy enough for me to understand I think maybe the term desktop should be avoided at first.

This is going to be interesting.....

• Apologies, a cold interrupted my work schedule and thereby the blog. I am getting things back on track and will be filling in this article as well as working on another one.

The amount of detail that is required with even something as straightforward as Microsoft Windows 10 is quite astonishing. For one thing the reason it appears as straightforward is that we have had a long time to get used to the paradigm but someone coming at it cold is in for quite a shock. For example the term "Taskbar" is utterly meaningless and when you think about it it is never been well defined. To top it all off the way it is used has changed quite a bit over the years especially lately with the introduction of Windows 11.

Stay tuned. I'm back in the lab cooking things up :-)

 

Well, the first iteration, of the first video in this series is completed "Basic Windows 10 Part 1: THE DESKTOP". It covers the most fundamental aspects of using a computer starting with the mouse. I had intended to go quite that basic, but after discussions with people it became clear that even this needed to be covered.

There is so much material in this first video it is an hour and 1/2 long and took over two weeks to put together. This is a learning curve for me as well in regards to YouTube and I will be adding chapter markers and ultimately captioning. A written companion also be added.

The focus in part one is just the desktop and its major components. For the most part do not delve into the Internet, yet😀

Patrick

 

How Do You Find Questions to Answer?

How Do You Find Questions to Answer?

When I first pondered this question, my initial answer was that ideas were always occurring to me pretty much automatically. They would just pop in out of nowhere. Then I realized that behind every question there is always a story something, somewhere spurred me on to first the question and then developing an answer. Nothing occurs in a vacuum 😀.

First and foremost regarding how to find questions to answer is the act of paying attention. Too many people have a tendency to go on autopilot during their busy days and forget to take the occasional break from the routine. Breaking away whatever you're doing is a critical step in finding new things to explore. But this breaking away must be done according to your timing. This is not to be confused as an interruption of your workflow which is always counterproductive when it occurs because it takes so much time to get your mental thought pattern back in gear. No, when you choose to break away and investigate something else it must be your own personal choice. This will usually have the great effect of improving your creativity and sense of freedom if done over a period of time let's say a month. This deliberate shifting of gears can be very refreshing indeed.

Another thing you can do to keep your mind inquisitive and finding questions to answer is deliberately seek something that is a little mentally challenging. I believe the human brain was built for a challenge something that stretches your boundaries a little bit and increases your understanding and knowledge base. What ever it is it needs to be done regularly. It is like a workout, the more you do the more you get back from the exercise.

That is actually one of the reasons this blog was originally started, to give myself the daily challenge of coming up with the new thought or idea. At first it seemed like a daunting undertaking because there is that much really occur in a person's life that there is enough to write about every day… The answer is if you pay attention yes there definitely is. An exercise you can undertake to prove this is:

Pick several days in a row in which you make a promise to yourself to notice the interactions you go through with people and events. I can guarantee that you will find something to either record or write about. This is one of those rare instances where things will actually come to you. Of course you are undertaking a deliberate decision to look for them. My own personal goal is to try to write something from now on every day. This doesn't always occur but it is usually because time or other activities prevent it. --You know, when life throws you a small curveball 😀. It is important when these curveballs get thrown at you that you don't become discouraged. Keep noticing your interactions.In the same way also, don't be afraid to take a break. I met people that actually have gone overboard with the above activity and they become mentally swamped. Their brain then does the biological equivalent of a computer crash and it takes them a while to get back up on their game.

The last take away from all of this is you are the boss. Take some of the ideas and remold them as necessary to fit your ecosystem, whatever that may be.

Enjoy Finding Questions to Answer!
Have a great day and take care. Patrick
 

One day closer to Friday!

 

"One day closer to Friday!"

It used to be when I was a child and in my early teens, that statement was my mantra. I liked school, and I still do if only I could find the time to take all those wonderful courses. I have yet to invent the Time Machine.

Now days that statement means I get to shift from volunteer and work mode to a more relaxed mode where I still get involved in a ton of things. I always seem to be able to find some new avenues to go down. Coming up with ideas and alternate angles of approaching things it's easy for me. As a matter of fact, I'm a little dumbfounded by people that don't do this. Frequently when I respond to someone with an answer like "You Can Do Whatever You Want." They come back with "Like What?" and they truly don't know what they would like to do. The human inbuilt idea factory was never turned on for them. I just can't wrap my head around this concept of no ideas or no inquisitiveness. But trust me there are a great number of people who are like this. They don't celebrate the fact that it's one day closer to Friday because for them every day is pretty similar to the previous one. They grumble about boredom but don't do anything to change their situation. Heck as I've said here before on the blog, I usually have too much to do and I really would like to be able to do it all. Not only do I have to get a Time Machine put together I guess I better start cloning myself :-).

Isn't that the whole point of life, to discover things?! When you can't discover things you can consider the things you already know from a variety of angles. I was once in a local hospital waiting to get transferred in my current residence, and rather than getting bored to death I fixed the local floors Internet. The problem was with the local cable provider and I just phoned up and started to explore the issue. At first they wouldn't tell me anything but as the staff got involved I slowly but surely opened up a discussion and it turned out that they had a flaky wireless access point in the ceiling. During this adventure I learned a little bit more about how large-scale networks work. Although I wasn't up to doing this every single day it did pass the time in a constructive way. The best part is of course also the weekend means a lot more to you. Not quite as much is Friday but it stops life from sliding into oblivion. I am so aware now days of how unique the experience of being alive is. I also know that it is a short event. Something which is not be taken for granted. I don't believe in the existence of life after death in any form so while I'm "here" I really want to make the most of it.

So if you enjoy your Fridays and indulge in your weekends, good for you! If you don't, it is time to get off your butt in a positive way and shake things up a bit.

Take care Patrick

Technology Is, Not What Technology Was. Changes in the very definition of technology.

 One thing has become very clear to me this year and to be honest I don't know why it is taken this long for the lightbulb to go off or turn on as the case may be 😀.

That is that the very definition of the word "technology" has changed dramatically between the generations of peoples. Up until the mid-20th century it was represented almost exclusively by physical machinery which you could visually understand. It was a thing, a one function device usually. Whatever you bought from the store never received an update. It was perceived to be as perfect as it could be when it was brand-new. It might fall apart later but whatever the item was it was fully functional. The idea of a bug was something that you swatted in the air and nothing more.

As the decades moved forward things began to change, quite subtly and without anyone really saying anything about it. Technology went from being something physical, to something for the most part quite abstract and malleable. Anyone born in the 1990s just assumes this to be the everlasting original definition of the word. You buy a device and the first thing you have to do is updated it, because if it's not updated it will almost certainly have bugs in it. Doesn't matter whether it cost one dollar or $10,000, if it's new and hasn't been updated it's going to have a flaw in it. Along with the ongoing updates of everything, which if you haven't noticed seem to look at just the moment you need to accomplish something efficiently and quickly. That's when you get hit with the following digital curse words: "Please Wait. This update may take a little while." I was hit with one of these this morning as I was trying to prepare for the day. And this one took for ever!

Now both definitions and both parties who subscribe to their individual definition, don't understand the other side. The people born in the 1990s subscribe to the new definition for the most part whereas the other party born before that date subscribe to the old definition, and each is completely confused by the other. No matter which group you talk to even if they understand the others definition, you can see the mental effort necessary kind of shorts out there brain and that they would rather retreat back into the definition they understand.

Things can get really crazy when you're trying to figure out how to explain things over the phone where you have to instruct the person on the appropriate steps to take. It is almost like preparing for a battle:

• Step #1: Ascertain the other sides values and perceptions.
• Step #2: Double check with yourself that you thoroughly understand step #1
• Step #3 Casually engage the other side briefly to test in the real world environment. This usually exposes an abyss of understanding between the parties. There is much work to do.

I think that one of the issues this exposes is that at least in North America we are not taught to consider other ways of thinking, much less ways of actually perceiving and processing information. When we are faced with a situation where these differences are exposed we make the mistake of trying to translate the other person's perceptions into our own and that doesn't work or at the best, it works poorly. -- You can't turn arose into a dandelion no matter how much you try.

The only way I have found to proceed in these situations involves verily long conversations allowing both sides to be exposed to the other in ways that feel nonthreatening. After a few rendezvous's usually there is a bridge built just barely sufficient enough to be useful for a small set of tasks.

Imagine if we did this much earlier in a person's life or did it as a whole society. Think of the grief and misunderstandings that could be averted. Simply by allowing room for the unknowing. Realizing that for everything you know and perceive there is always more and it will always be different.

Aside from survival, I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the reasons societies and cultures became towns and states originally. To avoid seeing the other side. Well the good news is I don't think that's an option anymore with the world getting ever more interconnected.

I wonder how strange it will look in 100 years when the then modern society looks back at the 20th and 21st centuries. For them they will have one big advantage (I hope) in that if our records survive and we don't change to some bizarre format. The new society will have pristine and detailed records.

Oh I would love to be around then. And I would be as curious as I am today. Which brings up another point but I think I'll make it another article… If you could live 300 years, how would you change in that time? (Presuming of course you were in good health)

Take care Patrick

The Pros and Cons of Social Rules

 (Updated: May 20, 2024)

Ever wondered what the world would be like if all the etiquette rules in society simply never existed? It is an interesting thought, because as I ponder this, I'm becoming aware that some of our perceived reactions to not having rules might only occur because our current rules suggest they should.

For example if anyone could say anything, in any format they wish, one may presume that the churchs of the world would have a field day. The jerks themselves may think this too. But then is that because of conditioning and perhaps repression. Once the person has said everything they wanted to say, would the"jerk" run out of steam? It would be interesting to see the resulting person. Kind of like peeling an onion, and as they peeled their way toward some emotional level, they might discover a great deal about themselves.

Now, to be clear social rules do have their place. They help define what is expected of us as a society. But in doing so, they take away some of the work which should be undertaken by every individual, and that is to get to know themselves. Blindly following any rule or edict without understanding its origins and purposes is never a good idea. To truly live, you have have a life where learning is always going on. I think this can only be explored effectively by going outside of the rules and evaluating if they work. This paragraph itself could turn into an entire lecture series .😀

If we were to remove all social rules for let's say six months, it is likely there would be several phases:

1. First everyone would say everything and presuming we didn't kill each other in this first step, this would go on for a bit. An outpouring of attitudes, reactions and proclamations. But after a while it would wear down as people ran out of steam.
   
   
2. The second phase would probably expose all lot of motivations and other hidden issues, which society and people individually could begin to consider. And maybe reevaluate.
   
   
3.  Coming out of this, and of course this is my own opinion, maybe society would find that it is not so much "the rule" that is important, it is the understanding of why it was put in place originally. Most importantly with this understanding comes the responsibility to make decisions about the " rule" and take action. Whether that be a decision not to follow the rule, or to modify it, or just to follow it.

I find that there is a tendency now days for people to adopt rules verbatim and not really understand the basis for them. It is not enough to outright rebel or outright acquiesce. The most important thing is to understand why the rule is there in the first place. And take full responsibility for whatever action is deemed necessary.

So yes there are Pros and Cons to social rules. But moving forward I think it is taking responsibility about the decisions made and not so much the label or the rule that must take precedence in all our decisions.

Have a great day everyone Patrick

** NOTE: Some of pictures in this article were generated by Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

Aging and Disability: "The Magnifier"

There comes a time in everyone's life, although the exact age varies a lot, when the body gives the mind of a surprise. It usually happens this way:

You're doing something you've done many times before. It's an activity that takes a fair bit of effort, but not so much that you have to really focus. It has always been closer to an automatic activity in that you've never had to think about the details. It may be something like lifting a heavy box of books or moving in a certain way that requires some agility. Anyway on this particular day you get a message from your body saying "Hey, this is a strain on me and I'm going to let upstairs [the brain] know it!" You might get mildly sharp twinge or some other signal that wakes you up and brings you straight back to reality. For a moment you are really surprised… "What just happened, you ask yourself?". The body comes back with an immediate answer "We are getting old." The first time this happened the average person goes straight into denial. "Me?, I'm still in good shape… Etc." then, the following day, as though to emphasize the original point made by the body, you wake up and you are a stiff as a 2 x 4 piece of wood. There's no avoiding this message, you are indeed getting older.

I suspect for most people this comes as a dramatic shock. Over the next few months a person usually begins to notice other little things that confirm their age. Some people handle this transition well, some not so well. In either case it is something we all go through but it is an intensely personal experience. The world doesn't quite "fit as well as it used to" and as time passes you begin to look for alternate ways of doing things. Maybe for the first time in your life you actually walk up the wheelchair ramp to the entrance of your favourite store.

For people that are able-bodied it is not until later in life that they realize just how customized the modern world is toward the physically fit, or at least the physically mobile. Everything from tabletops to bank machines is designed around being able to walk up to them. The printing on the display screen is similarly sized for normal vision. The list of things goes on and on that are aimed toward the able-bodied "normal" people.

Now imagine you're disabled as a child and so your entire life is based upon adapting to this weird world made for "normal" people. You naturally have to put your brain in gear much earlier in life to figure out things. There is also a downside though sometimes you may rely on the parts of your body that work well beyond what is normally expected of them and so later in life those parts where out first. This is exactly what happened to me. So now we have a disability with age layered on top of that. I'll tell you one thing you are very protective of everything you can do. Even if it sometimes means putting yourself through a great amount of difficulty. But this isn't necessarily the way to go, common sense must take precedence over ego.

From my perspective, people with lifelong disabilities, provided they can come to terms with the various differences in their lives and the general dynamic of dealing with people, have an edge when it comes to aging. The change is not usually so big, at least not right away and we can also have a lifetime of insight which is not normally available to the able-bodied simply because they have never needed to deal with existence and life on a more granular level. The world and modern society are more or less billed for them automatically taking into account the average capabilities of the human being. So you never have to worry about getting into a movie theatre, you know you will be able to get in ahead of time and the seats as well as washrooms will be no difficulty. Then along comes old age and the poor able-bodied person has to take a crash course in disability. Though I suspect disabled people must temper their perceptions as well, because being able-bodied may not be a walk in the park either. You are pretty much on your own if you are able-bodied. Society expects you to figure everything out, and just in case you don't, the jails of the world can accommodate you.

Writing this short text has really got me appreciating how much each side of humanity can learn from the other. No one has a perfect and for every angle or door we see there are uncountable avenues which we don't perceive. Maybe that's the point of life just to discover and understand what you can?

Still though aging with disability is really a course in fine-tuning what you already know. Getting out that magnifying glass and looking at issues in never finer detail. Or occasionally feeling the impact of the arthritis and knowing that your limitations and abilities are in flux. This is the fine print which we all must ultimately pay attention to and with a little bit of work hopefully understand. Most of the time it is "Fascinating!… (Thank you Mr. Spock)"

As a sign thought with all the talk about artificial intelligence beginning to develop rapidly I wonder what an AI's interpretation of aging would be and including all that is been mentioned in this article?. Would an AI have the same perspective in regards to an earlier version of itself perhaps built on different equipment? At least for the human race nobody as far as I know has had a upgrade to their physiology at least not for the modern human being. We are all the same version hardware wise.

As I think about it and thoughts are just occurring to me randomly, I do believe that aging can teach us lessons which can only be learned by going through the process. We can however convey to our fellow species some semblance of what it is like. That is pretty remarkable in my book.

Take care Patrick