Tuesday, May 31, 2011


I heard a scientist talking on NPR the other day from a pre-recorded interview on Fresh Air and he used this word to describe his philosophy and I found myself nodding along with everything he said. He found a way to verbalize every thought that's been developing in my head in regards to my internal battle between, Atheism, Agnosticism and Christianity. So, I guess I can label myself a Possibilian.
The text that follows is text I stole from Wikipedia.

Possibilianism is a philosophy which rejects both the idiosyncratic claims of traditional theism and the positions of certainty in atheism in favor of a middle, exploratory ground.[1][2][3][4][5] The term was first defined by neuroscientist David Eagleman in relation to his book of fiction Sum.[6] Asked whether he was an atheist or a religious person on a National Public Radio interview in February, 2009, he replied "I call myself a Possibilian: I'm open to...ideas that we don't have any way of testing right now."[6] In a subsequent interview with the New York Times, Eagleman expanded on the definition:
"Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilianism I'm hoping to define a new position -- one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story." [3]
In a New Yorker profile of Eagleman--entitled "The Possibilian"--Burkhard Bilger wrote:[7]
Science had taught him to be skeptical of cosmic certainties, [Eagleman] told me. From the unfathomed complexity of brain tissue—"essentially an alien computational material"—to the mystery of dark matter, we know too little about our own minds and the universe around us to insist on strict atheism, he said. "And we know far too much to commit to a particular religious story." Why not revel in the alternatives? Why not imagine ourselves, as he did in Sum, as bits of networked hardware in a cosmic program, or as particles of some celestial organism, or any of a thousand other possibilities, and then test those ideas against the available evidence? "Part of the scientific temperament is this tolerance for holding multiple hypotheses in mind at the same time," he said. "As Voltaire said, uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one."
An adherent of possibilianism is called a possibilian.[8][9][10] The possibilian perspective is distinguished from agnosticism in its active exploration of novel possibilities and its emphasis on the necessity of holding multiple positions at once if there is no available data to privilege one over the others.[5][11] Eagleman has emphasized that possibilianism reflects the scientific temperament of creativity and intellectual humility in the face of "the known unknowns."[12][13]
According to the Dallas Morning News and MSNBC, the possibilian concept -- including various spellings (e.g. "possibillion") and modifications (e.g. "possibilitarian") -- has become popular on the internet.[14][10] By November 2009, The List Magazine wrote:
"Googling 'possibilian', the position Eagleman invented to explain his belief system, throws up the beginnings of a worldwide movement."[15]
Articles about possibilianism are found in the major news outlets around the globe -- for example, in the Daily Monitor of Uganda[16], The Economic Times of India[17] and New Scientist.[18]
As of April, 2011, "close to a thousand Facebook members had switched their religious affiliation to Possibilianism."[7]

Saturday, May 28, 2011


Here are the entries that I got in our latest sketch challenge, based on a creation of mine called The Notorious Snog that I posted a couple posts ago. These are incredible and mind-blowing.

Credits go to Rod Salm, Alfredo Lopez Jr and Sergio Guerra and myself.

The top one is mine, then the next is Rod's and then Sergio's and the next two are Alfredo's.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Murky? Frogger? Amph?

Another item found in a notebook. For some reason, more ideas come to me on lined paper than have ever come to me on sketchpads. I'm wierd that way, I guess.

Anyway, here we have ourselves a Murky, or a version of a Murky. I've done quite a few since they've been prevelant from my early childhood. Here's what I had in my notebook to accompany the art:

Frogger? Amph? Generally peace loving. Pacifist. Ghandiesque. Small in stature (No bigger than a toddler. Just added) Doesn't usually say much unless he has something important to say (I don't think it will really talk) .. shy. Does have a Mr. Hyde, Hulk side to him. Or even better. He could multiply, like Gremlins, or pop off little versions of himself.

Murky? Lives in secluded corners of the world. Swampy, marshy, boggy areas not traveled by others. Worships anything that grows, perhaps even helps it to grow. Very territorial. If someone steps on a flower or bug by accident, the murky goes crazy and attacks. Almost a split personality. On one side, very innocent, child-like in wonder. loving and peaceful. The other side is very hostile, sprouts smaller versions of itself that swarm. The basic embodiment of rage. Like Gollum and Smeagle in a sense, though not truly split. No interaction between personalities.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Notorious Snog, Child-Devourer

Still finding cool stuff in notepads. This one even came with notes. Here they are:

The Snog is a zombie/gollum, made from the victim of a dark arts sacrifice, that feeds off the souls of rotten children. It stores the broken bodies in a nap sack, slung over it's shoulder.

Usually, the "victim" they use to turn into the Snog is already somebody with a dark soul which makes them more susceptible to the ceremony.

It's usually performed by five dark priests. They abduct their subject and tie them down to a large stone alter meant for such sacrifices. Each limb is tied to a stone pillar and pulled tight. The dark priests will usually drug the person so they are paralized but can still feel everything.

They proceed to shave the head and use the hair to sew the eyes and mouth shut. Then they make a horizontal incision across the abdomen and pull out the organs. These are then placed on a wooden platform hung above the opening made by the incision. The heart is placed in the center and the whole pile is set on fire.

As the embers fall into the body, the dark priests perform a ritual that traps the victims soul in the embers as they fall into the body cavity, wich is now transformed to hold the heat that will animate the body once it's released. Two pieces of obsidian are heated in the fire and then bound with the skin of the Snog. The obsidian becomes the eyes and the horizontal incision becomes the mouth of the Snog.

It is then released into a village or area to collect the souls of bad children.