Quasiparticle

Started it last night and then didn’t quite know how to finish. I’m satisfied with it now. It may seem a bit obscure but it makes perfect sense to me.   

              Quasiparticle

Alexia

My Lexi 

My mini kaiju girl

Terror of the styrofoam

I wish to take you fishing

Out on our private bay

We’ll fish up giant plankton

Then toss it all away

And you can gobble cashews

And never eat a one

A heart that loves to share

I used to once hold near

Now these are empty places

Where once you were at home

You are the electron

That’s now a hole within my heart

Rain, Rain

Surprisingly pleasant day today. It was difficult. It had its strains and stresses.  

And then it rained. Not The Rains of Ranchipur, but still, The Rains Came.

I have always loved the rain. I can’t remember a time when it didn’t delight me. When I was very young the bubbles rain would make in the gutters would sail away.  They  were to me strange dome shaped ships. The sound of the rain on an umbrella or a rain hat is one of the most pleasant sounds in the world. And, although it’s a bit hard now, I still feel the urge to stomp and splash in every puddle I see.

Rain rain, go away

Come again another day                                              

Little Johnny wants to play                   

Became for me:

Rain rain, come today

Come and do not go away

Little Jimmy wants to play

Woolley cat sees things differently. He has spent the day sitting on the porch glaring at the rain. He won’t come in the house except for a moment or two. He instead prefers to sit out there to… Intimidate the rain?

Anyway, in spite of having a very difficult morning, I decided to write a brief poem to reflect my pleasure with the weather.

Rain, Rain

Rain

Blessed rain

Giving of life to all the land

Rain 

My friend

Bring your sounds of peace

Rain

Earth’s shower bath

Come make the desert Bloom

Rain

My childhood love

Come heal the wounds of time

Wood Or Marble?

 

A Facebook post on the Guardian article is copied here. I have added additional thoughts which I felt needed to be shared. To be honest, I don’t suppose they really needed to be shared, I just wanted to do so.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/05/the-big-idea-why-relationships-are-the-key-to-existence

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8847863/holographic-principle-universe-theory-physics

 >So quantum physics may just be the realisation [sic] that this ubiquitous relational structure of reality continues all the way down to the elementary physical level. Reality is not a collection of things, it’s a network of processes.<

Which sounds an awful lot like the weak holographic principle. This concept declares that the entire universe is not real in and of itself, but only real in so far as it is an exchange of information or data points. Nothing is real except the information and how it interacts with the other information about it.

This has been expanded from its original concept into a very complex and interesting theory of quantum entaglement on a two dimensional surface causing  a projection of all that we consider to be real, including ourselves.

Lots to talk about here such as Berkinstein’s Bound, der ding an sich, etc.  Just the sort of stuff I love to talk about at great length with friends, pizza, and beer.

I can’t help but add a couple more thoughts because this is one of my favorite topics of discussion. Philosophy is a very broad subject area encompassing theology, metaphysics, science, government and just about everything else you can imagine.  Today many scientists express a great contempt for philosophy which is bizarre considering that science is and always has been a branch of philosophy. It’s rather like a scientist declaring, “I really hate automobiles.  They are stupid and a waste of time, unlike my Chevy Malibu which is so much better than a car.”

You could argue that the scientists are simply doing a poor job defining the term “philosophy”, but scientists should not do a poor job of defining their terms.  This is inherent in the very nature of what we regard as scientific.

Still, they have a certain point. If they were to argue that their particular branch of science is rigorous, logical, and meets other strict requirements for accuracy whereas other branches of philosophy can be quite vague, they would have a possibly valid point.

What I wish to share with you as my thoughts is that while this particular branch of philosophy, originally called natural philosophy, has isolated itself from the other branches and can make a case for considering itself superior in that it requires empirical evidence which is continuously tested and which requires a level of confirmation not applicable to other branches of philosophy; I think it is possible that the schism may be slowly healing.

As quantum physics advances and continuously undermines the rigidity of the old physics which insists the universe is utterly, totally and completely deterministic, thus abolishing the concept of free will and probability, the absolute certainty of the old physics crumbles. And absent that absolutism, science itself begins to look at least a bit more like the other branches of philosophy.

Einstein, and no doubt other scientists like him, abhorred the uncertainty of quantum physics. This is why Einstein spent (many would say wasted) the last 30 years of his life trying to disprove quantum physics and failing miserably. He would say that he preferred a world of marble, not one of wood.  By this he meant a world like that of Greek or Roman architecture. A world of mathematics. A world of certainty. A world of predictable engineering and meticulous design. What he disliked was the randomness of a forest.

This is not to say he didn’t enjoy a walk in the forest or wish to spend his life sitting in a Greek temple. He was speaking metaphorically of how he wished the universe to be designed.

But today, with matters such as the holographic principle, we see science becoming potentially more and more like the living forest and less and less like the engineered Greek temple.

Personally, I much prefer this more open ended universe. I would say the opposite of what Einstein said, and, in fairness, it is because of personal preferences rather than objective reality that I have this inclination – – as, no doubt, with Einstein.

So much more to say, but there are other things I must do today and I doubt many have had the patience to read this far, so at this point I will  tuck this away for future discussions with those who do enjoy them.

Lord Of The Woke?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/03/entertainment/lord-of-the-rings-amazon-controversy-blake-cec/index.html

A pox on on both their houses, from my frame of reference.

I will start with the original work of Tolkien.

> Some fans are even questioning if Tolkien was a racist.<

They finally noticed? Like so many of the greats of British literature, the human enemies were all dark skinned people from the south. Of course Tolkien was a racist. It’s very hard to find a Brit back in those days who wasn’t a racist.

This does not excuse the racism in the books, but it does identify why it is there.

That said, the issue of changing the race of some of the characters becomes a difficult one. If the changing of the races serves the storyline, then it is justified. If it is just done to make a token show of, “Look how non-racist we are!“ Then it is morally repugnant. Making a show of being not racist is not a good thing. Actually not being racist is a good thing.

Consider the remake of the Sherlock Holmes story which placed Holmes in our utterly non Victorian New York City and made Dr. Watson an oriental woman. When I heard the series was coming up I was interested because I am always interested in what is being done with the Holmes  milieu.  Nevertheless, I anticipated it would be a piece of garbage presenting itself as incredibly wonderful and ‘with it’ and all the great things that come with artificially and nonsensically casting minority characters in classically white roles for no good reason but only to engage in virtue signaling and good sales tactics.

I loved the show.  It had its flaws and it was far from perfect, not least of which was that it really wasn’t presenting the kinds of mysteries that Sherlock Holmes solved, but it was nevertheless an excellent and interesting adaptation.

So, at this point, I have no idea as to whether the casting of non-White characters in what was originally an all white series (with the exception of the evil Southerns) is good or bad. I can tell only after I have observed the results by watching the show.

In short, both sides are being excessive in their prejudicial responses.  

Note: First, I must clarify that when I’m referring to a pox on both their houses I mean those who are defending and those who are attacking the changes without actually knowing anything about how the series unfolds.  Therefore, in fairness, I must add that the defense made of these changes by those involved in producing the series sound valid. But I will not attempt a judgment until I have seen the results.