10. The worst of the financial meltdown is over.
9. We are out of the war in Iraq.
8. The world has not ended.
7. Health care reform is about making healthcare more affordable and better.
6. Education reform is about giving every child the opportunity to improve their learning.
5. We can conquer the challenges of climate change before it's too late.
4. There is no climate change challenge.
3. Happiness is a state of mind.
2. We can improve our state of mind.
1. We should all resolve to be happy in 2010.
Reading a fascinating book by Robert Burton, On Being Certain or How We Know What We Know, which challenges us from a scientific point-of-view to check our assumptions at the door. Is my "pink" the same mixture of red-and-white that you see when you think of pink? Do I believe that science will one day reveal evidence for the rational view that all we see is random? Is "reason" the answer over "faith" because it is based on facts that can be proved?
Or do all these facts that we take for granted (I would say, "hold on faith", but that would be too ironic) only true until we find something "truer" that invalidates what we've deduced? And even if we can answer these questions, is there still a larger question about what set the random universe we inhabit (which is not even to tackle "knowing" multiple universes or multiverses and different understandings of time and space relative to other positions outside our tiny vantage point of knowledge) in motion?
Mind-boggling, no? What do you think?
