Curiosity of the Mundane & Mystical

You'll love the ending please get there naturally!

There's simply not enough time I thought while pumping gas and noticing the octane discrepancies. By rote my current car and all priors have received the safe bet 89 while I frowned on the 87 surmising it 'cheap' and scoffed at the 93 as a waste of money. Amazed that I hadn't really considered the differences and could possibly have saved lots of money over the years I continued on that thought stream estimating it would take about >20 hours of real research in order to get a reliable answer. Not gonna happen. No, I won't take Chevron's word for it, or virtually any other opinionholder on the matter. Pressing on, who the hell wants to spend their time studying whether Techron Ultra is any better than regular unleaded?

Meanwhile, back at the homestead, there's a stack of books on the nightstand delving into the Rig Veda, nymphs, extra-dimensional existences, di-methyl triptamine, and a host of other interesting topics deemed unfit for respected scientific inquiry. Likely there will be never be a satisfactory answer no matter how much scientifically obscene information is digested on these topics but they're certainly fascinating to learn about. I guess it's a matter of priorities but sometimes I wish there was the time and resources to satiate all the things I'm curious about instead of continually having to eat off the intellectual buffet.

The Bigger Picture

There is yet a person on the planet I have met who does not have an agenda, big or small. That means me, and especially you! Some people are boisterous about it, proselytizing, others somewhat passively aggressive, and still others set in their ways of formed opinion though never revealing it. The end result is that their way of thinking is the light at the end of the tunnel, if only you'd open your eyes wide enough to see it. With this in cynical mind the only reliable conclusions I can come to when there's time enough and adequate interest are those whose lineage are studied--past the wikipedia definition or one author's take on it. In comparison with the guy next to you, it has been said that if you read three books on any singular topic you are, in essence, an expert in that field. Seems reliable enough when I speak with a stranger about anything in my arsenal within those parameters.

Dinosaurs Roamed 65 Million Years Ago

Here's where the trouble begins. I have accepted as pure fact the time line asserted by years of incremental scientific building that Tyrannosaurus Rex was busy pooting and contributing to global warming an astonishing 65 million years ago. Why, if I can contrast a straw hut to a modern skyscraper clearly the evidence of application is plainly viewable. But what about the things we can't see? What of those we cannot fully understand?
The support of Carbon-based anything that is dated is based on, you guessed it, carbon dating! (God knows it beats online dating, but that's another story) So as to avoid a science lesson here which I'm ill-equipped to administer what I learned/remember is that a runaway Carbon Isotope, C-14, has specific properties of decay (entropy) with a half-life of 5500+ years. This means that after 5500 hundred years half the Carbon atom will remain and after another 5500 years yet another half will remain. The base is it's molecular weight which seems unchanged, and unchangeable lest it become something that isn't C-14. Scientist measure the degree of decay, taking into account terrain, weather, etc. and come up with a reasonable range for time of formation. Simple study of this will reveal that there's a finite (measurable) amount of C-14 such that it's usefulness as a terrestrial timepiece expires after 10 half lives, or roughly 60,000 years. As anyone who has learned basic mathematics will tell you the difference between 60,000 and 65,000,000 is considerable. What then is the basis for ascertaining something older than 60,000 years? I simply don't know. Furthermore I'm not sure how high in the aforementioned priorities list this might fall.

My point here is that without direct study I cannot personally ascribe a high degree of certainty or accuracy, much less immutable truth to Carbon dating. Nor can we discredit the idea out of hand, as I did only about a week ago, of the earth actually being 6,000 years old as reverse-timed by that Archbishop whose name escapes me. Understandably there's a degree of faith in the information we come across that we must heed, such as "well, it shows Bangladesh on the map, therefore it's there." I feel pretty comfortable in stating that yes, Bangladesh is a territory between India and Pakistan though I have no real evidence of its existence. It's the constant re-examining and unearthing of new information that needs to continually be verified that makes me, uh, crazy. It feels as though whatever idea or truism one holds is only a fleeting vision on the road to the 'true truth' soon to be overturned and overwhelmed. Maybe this is why I mostly delve into subjects whose truth is likely indiscoverable...where at best it only lends a probability in reality after investigating all the many informational tentacles required to reach some conclusion. Serenity now!