Death in a Multiverse

My religious views oscillate from being a theist to total atheist and back again. Of late, my views have been changing partly as a result of reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which I found an absorbing and honest book.

Nonetheless, I am still basically open minded when it comes to thinking what happens when we die. I am not a believer in Father Christmas, tooth fairies or heaven as such, but I do think that the universe(s?) we inhabit are barely understood and our place in time puzzling. In a multiple universe all things in all time may be possible so who can be sure that this one life of ours is "it"?  The very existence of each one of us is a miracle of coincidences and chances over a period of billions of years: just one sexual coupling missed, or one chance meeting of two people missed, in all that time and you or I would not be here at all. Can we even be sure that we are not living some kind of dream?

So, when we finally drop down dead will we just cease to be? Or will we find ourselves in another universe as someone or something else, even perhaps reliving the very same lives but choosing different paths at the critical moments when we went in one direction and wondered what would have happened had we chosen differently?

Medical Records

Recently my wife and I made requests at our local surgery for copies of our childhood medical records. They were very helpful and managed to produce mine and photocopy them for me. However my wife's records before the age of 20 were missing. There is usually a small charge for copying these but as there were only a few pages of records, plus letters relating breaking my leg as a youngster, they did not charge me.

Recent experience of hospitals - my daughter-in-law in Kent and my wife in Addenbrookes in Cambridge 2 weeks ago - confirm that, although medical care is generally excellent, the handling of medical records data is appalling: how many times do you have to give the same information to different people? Surely in this day and age it is possible to manage a simple database of information on a patient and have this available over a secure wi-fi network in hospitals? OK, grand national database schemes may be too complicated (although I don't see why) but on a local level surely there is no excuse. Not being asked the same questions by a dozen different people when in hospital would surely make the patient experience a better one, and save the NHS both time and money.

At least I now have a copy of my early medical records in PDF format.

Charity Letters

Do you get annoyed when people like the British Red Cross send envelopes filled with greetings cards begging for a contribution and putting emotional blackmail on you? I  prefer to give when I choose and wonder how much money is wasted with these unsolicited postings costing at least 50 pence a time.

Power to the People

This picture appeared on my Facebook pages today. It shows someone on one of the marches across the world protesting at bankers and the mess they have caused.  I think it is excellent and speaks volumes about the concerns of good, decent and ordinary people. Stupid bankers have gambled away OUR pensions and OUR livelihoods for the sake of THEIR short-term gain. Power to the people!!