God.

Fairly controversial title that.

A few experiences and discussions with some of my more theistic friends led me to stumble upon the following real/rational-isation. The only analogy I can think of describe it is part of chaos theory, which pretty much defeats the purpose of making it easier to understand, but the actual thought is pretty easy to get a handle on anyway. Still, onward with the analogy.

From the wikipedia entry: "Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics which studies the behavior of certain dynamic systems that may be highly sensitive to initial conditions." Normally called the butterfly effect, small changes = large effects.

This leads to a principle - if you have a large number of end behaviours and don't comprehend the underlying formula, the behaviour is random. If you know the formula (and the initial conditions), the behaviours aren't random. This is the 'God moves in mysterious ways' argument.

- - -

In ages past, all natural phenomena were explained by being due to various Gods. As science offered a natural explanation of them, the domain of God was reduced. I don't see them as being exclusive. My concept of God is one that is synonymous with the concepts of natural law. God is everything, and therefore the interactions between everything - from this come omniscience and omnipotence - this is the theistic argument. Humans, some other primates and dolphins all have a consciousness (self-awareness here) contained within a few cubic inches. The universe itself has a consciousness of sorts in its cyclical nature; from the simple things like day/night which can be accurately predicted to the minute, to the complicated ones weather which we struggle to predict even a few days in advance.

I do not say that this universe is aligned with a particular moral compass. It is aligned with a force of a kind though, an incomprehensible arrangement of natural laws which would take another universes worth of computers to predict, though ultimately I think is a structured place - and I have no qualms about calling that force God.

NB: This doesn't leave much wiggle room for me on the subject of a soul. I don't know about it: most times I am a determinist, but occasionally when I am a little more conscious I feel there is a little piece of will - part of self but not of self - like being comfortably at home in another country - struggling to push a domino one way or the other inside my head, interrupting or assisting the chain already in place. I haven't had enough experience to call it though.

5 days

Sat in on 8 surgeries this week with a somewhat... cavalier surgeon who let me take the knife and do the cutting on three of them - after I had demonstrated enough anatomical knowledge to know what to avoid. Excised 3 BCC/SCCs (types of skin cancer for you non-medical types) and did the suturing on the last one, as well as some stitches elsewhere. He said my cutting was good ("perfect", actually, though I think that means I just came through the right layers in the right places), though my suturing needs work - if the stitches are placed unevenly on each side then one ends up shorter than the other and the wound doesn't close well, and that can mean infection. Need to go back to the cadavers to work on my stitching, methinks. It's amazing the differences between living and dead bodies like the strength/turgor of the skin; and even between different living bodies, how some head wounds bleed torrentially and others not at all.

Finally signed my transfer papers to the infantry. Hopefully looking at the November-December IETs, and maybe some advanced courses later in summer if all goes my way. Which it probably won't. But resting will be good for me anyway.

Had the best training session since my Canberra trip about 2 months ago. Turn vaults at speed are wikkid fun!

Following my Canberra trip I had more money than I expected left over, noticed that I needed more power, and wanted to keep working on my strength as my gym membership was about to lapse. I jumped on the website of Australian Kettlebells (apparently they have an actual store/gym in for you Melbournites) and bought me a weight vest and agility bands. A mate was having a play with them whilst I was having a light training session in a tree - he had looped it round a pole and was running towards a drink bottle. A play session turned very, very intense and soon we were running and swearing and digging our fingers into the gaps between slabs to get a hold and let us keep moving. Once we hit that, we switched and moved it further away. For the last round, we decided every failure would mean the bottle was moved an inch further. My first attempt was going well, I was about 10cm out of reach and attempted to leap towards the bottle only to have the band snap off my waist, hook round my ankles and drag me ignominiously along the concrete back to the pole. Right before attempt No. 2 I had a little zen moment - I was going to run, then swear and slap that bottle down. I ran, and with a mighty "You cunt!" - smote that bottle upon the concrete.