Jack

Jack > After looking at all the definitions we've posted, I'll still go with the simplist of those for Theism and aver, once again, that I am a Theistic Agnostic. I'm also a Libertarian Socialist, or maybe a Socialist Libertarian, but that's another discussion.

Buffman >> How often have we heard the claim that someone went to sleep with a problem and awoke with the solution? (No sexual inference intended.) What happened when they placed their sensory input systems on Standby for a number of hours? Did their mind, suddenly deprived of normal external reference input, start an internal search through the brain's storage files for comparable data to satisfy its own requests?

Jack > I don't know how, but this happened to me many times during my working days. I designed the layout of electronic circuits: PC boards and Hybrid Microcircuits. Mostly for military and space programs. Designs of mine flew on just about every space shot after 1968 and on many planes, missiles, and subs. Many times I went home late at night leaving a seemingly intractable problem on my drawing board or CAD terminal. The next morning I would sit down, take one look, and the solution would pop into my head.

One of the more satisfying parts of Gulf War 1 was the fact that all that stuff I had a hand in designing actually worked.

Jack

Buffman

Jack > After looking at all the definitions we've posted, I'll still go with the simplist of those for Theism and aver, once again, that I am a Theistic Agnostic. I'm also a Libertarian Socialist, or maybe a Socialist Libertarian, but that's another discussion.

Sounds fine to me. I'm just a Non Supernaturalist Old Fart who thinks that this current administration is being driven by a cabal of greedy supernaturalists who are doing great damage to the principles I (and they) swore to defend and uphold.

Jack > I don't know how, but this happened to me many times during my working days. I designed the layout of electronic circuits: PC boards and Hybrid Microcircuits. Mostly for military and space programs. Designs of mine flew on just about every space shot after 1968 and on many planes, missiles, and subs. Many times I went home late at night leaving a seemingly intractable problem on my drawing board or CAD terminal. The next morning I would sit down, take one look, and the solution would pop into my head.

I truly envy you those, what must have been extremely satisfying, moments. Many, many thanks for such creative and successful designs. Believe me, for someone who spent many thousands of hours riding around in the sky depending on the reliability of equipment brilliantly designed by those such as yourself, I can not award you, and all the other unsung heroes, enough accolades. I mentioned my eldest son before. He, too, is an electrical hardware design engineer. What I did not mention was that he was the leading project design engineer for all those TV set-top, digital broadband, boxes produced for the cable industry by General Instruments/Motorola. (Fortunately, so far, he has escaped the Motorola cutback from 150,000 to 93,000 employees over the last two years. What a blood bath!)

What a wondrous thing is the human Brain-Mind interface. An individual, creative, universe in and of itself. Just as the external world is composed of "zillions" of puzzle pieces that we have been attempting to locate, analyze, and fit together into some form of accurate picture of the universe in which we exist, so too, is our Brain-Mind a googolplex of chemical puzzle pieces floating around and bumping into each other to form all manner of pictures transmitted to our inner Todeo-Cinemascope movie theater. How fortunate are those few whose inner movies can be transferred to, and have a positive and productive impact on, the external world. Obviously your contributions can not be measured merely in terms of medals or financial well being. How does one reward progress in rolling back the frontiers of the unknown? To know that one has been able to contribute to the exploration of the universe just has to be an inner satisfaction almost beyond compare. Yes! I truly envy, and thank you, for those contributions.

One of the more satisfying parts of Gulf War 1 was the fact that all that stuff I had a hand in designing actually worked.

As well it should have been.

Thank you for a grand discussion. Live long and prosper, Jack!