Yeah, it's been a while since the last bender, errr, I mean posting, but who cares, I'm back in the balcony, watchin' the Show...
Science fiction's worth is found in the way it explains our times to us in a different light. At its best, it can be magical, at it's worst painful; and either way, the quality of the writing is always adolescent. Seriously - one hears about the great Philip K. Dick - and as fas as writing goes , the dick stops there. He's an awful writer. Asimov, the most prolific science fiction writer should perhaps have been more concerned about his thinning skin than his fecundity- I mean, really, what science fiction writer in their own right mind writes a big book about Shakespeare? Shakespeare?? It's as ridiculous to me as if some mechanical engineer proficient in CAD decided he would just go up one day and illustrate the local Church's ceiling, like a latter day Michelangelo, thinking it would be just as good as the Sistine Chapel. (It stinks of astronomical vanity, Mr Asimov!)
But there are transcendent experiences in sci fi - one of my favorites is, in fact, in a story by Mr. Asimov and it is called "Nightfall". A world with a few suns, so it never knows darkness. And, since it has been darkness-free, there should be no reasons to head the warnings of the world's Prophet, who warns of a coming darkness, as he has read in the ancient scriptures - a total darkness, where all the suns will turn away and leave the planet lost - again. Anyways - no one believes the Prophet. The darkness falls. The world goes into panic, hysterically afraid of the darkness, and they do what they can only do to regain the light. They burn everything - set everything wildly ablaze!?. And the Prophet watches this all from his balcony, kicked back, munching on popcorn, chuckling to himself warmly. Heehee. (Just kidding).
But to play the part of Asimov's Prophet I do think we live in "the Light" of electricity a little much, and our reliance grows. Where would we be without electricity? I mean, full out all out loss of electricity lasting weeks or months or more. Pioneer time, but a hell of a lot more people. The riots and lawlessness would flood the world. What to do? I've thought - buy a gun. But how could I ever have enough bullets, esp. if confronted by a mob? It would be like "Lord of the Flies".
Cell phones might mitigate things until their batteries ran out. Generators could help to an extent, if they haven't blown in the first place when the electricity was lost. What about we have mini generators connected to stationary bikes that store energy in batteries which we can then plug in for a few minutes of telephone or computer usage. But what about heat? Especially if this happens during the winter? Burn!! I say, BURN everything! We'll start over tomorrow!? Yee haw hallejuhah!??! Let's all go down tonight! Outta sight!?
Monday, 18 March 2013
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Sci---Fromage...
Hey,
I've been listening to men and women now for about 10 minutes, internationally-speaking, and I've come to the conclusion, in my room, here in this city that nothing is going to happen for Mayan Cosmogenisis.
And, then, maybe, something will happen. Technology precedes us - we are, in our orbital ken, seers only as far as our technology permits us. Nothing is real until it is verified through our technology. Einstein's Theory of Relativity was a great work of the mind, of theory, that had to wait til after WWI, after verifying his predictions during a solar eclipse, before everyone knew he was right. Fascinating. Do you know, if you travelled at the speed of light, things would seem normal inside your space capsule, but you would actually be frozen, living with no time, so that at that speed you could travel indefinitely, forever, never dying,visiting corners of the universe, visiting anywhere, eventually.
Take a 3-D big, square block of cheese. Randomly carve out spherical Swiss-cheese-like lumps of various sizes from all over and inside the block (saying you could do this without destroying the block of cheese), and you'd have a model of pi- dimensional space. In other words, a fractal area, slightly more than 3 dimensions, but less than 4. What's the point? I think the Universe has 3.1459 etc. dimensions. I think there are three Euclidean dimensions - Length, Height and Depth - and one fractal dimension, Time. I've seen images of fractals, and I think what I've seen of models with between 3 and 4 dimensions, is that, it seems to me anyway, that things have a sense about them with the Swiss-cheese picture of the Universe. (Those spherical areas are, I think, little round regions where planets and their orbital girth exist. What about the cheese itself? -> The so-called "Dark Matter", taking up so much of the universe, but no one knowing what it actually is. I would say, yes, that Dark Matter is the cheese.) As I am the cheese.
Bad movie, that. "I am the Cheese". The script-writer worked for Disney. Not for long. Nibble here a nibble there. The meetings were killer - people getting hungry, mice getting roused - nothing for hours, but a large man made of cheese, willing his co-workers to look away and stop drooling over his holes.
Do you know, we, today, almost have enough technology to measure acutely small vibrations in materials to the degree that we can identify words that were said somewhere hundreds of years ago? Which is to say - our friend Cheese-boy - let's suppose he can't take the pressure of being Food to his co-workers, - - Cheese-boy is now leaving the boardroom, sweating and worried -- a subject for conjecture along the lines of wondering why he left EXACTLY-> what was said to him, who said it, etc Nowadays, or soon anyways, forensic scientists would be able to analyse the body of Cheese-boy, and detect in it vibrations left by human speech, and actually go further to the point of determining what actually was said, and by who (by dint of pitch and volume).
For instance, "Heil Mickey!?" spoken by the CEO of Disney, during a meeting. The surfaces of any solid object in this board room would vibrate, however microscopically, with the sound waves of that phrase travelling through the air and be left with a physical trace of that. We can read these things today because the instruments are that delicate. How long before they can map our thoughts out, across our lives, and charge us, fine-wise, everytime we have a negative thought/think things that are a little sinful or mildly criminal. Passive thought control. We'll be paying out of our noses. In the future, I'm afraid to say - it seems so anyway - that everything , including thought, will be Regulated...
...what I wouldn't give, at times, to be on a spaceship, heading out across the heavens at light speed heading on to where the Mayans live happily ever after...feeling One with the Universe...somewhere feeling one with the cheese...and so many passing planets...I am the Cheese!? I am Pi-Cheese!?!??!
I've been listening to men and women now for about 10 minutes, internationally-speaking, and I've come to the conclusion, in my room, here in this city that nothing is going to happen for Mayan Cosmogenisis.
And, then, maybe, something will happen. Technology precedes us - we are, in our orbital ken, seers only as far as our technology permits us. Nothing is real until it is verified through our technology. Einstein's Theory of Relativity was a great work of the mind, of theory, that had to wait til after WWI, after verifying his predictions during a solar eclipse, before everyone knew he was right. Fascinating. Do you know, if you travelled at the speed of light, things would seem normal inside your space capsule, but you would actually be frozen, living with no time, so that at that speed you could travel indefinitely, forever, never dying,visiting corners of the universe, visiting anywhere, eventually.
Take a 3-D big, square block of cheese. Randomly carve out spherical Swiss-cheese-like lumps of various sizes from all over and inside the block (saying you could do this without destroying the block of cheese), and you'd have a model of pi- dimensional space. In other words, a fractal area, slightly more than 3 dimensions, but less than 4. What's the point? I think the Universe has 3.1459 etc. dimensions. I think there are three Euclidean dimensions - Length, Height and Depth - and one fractal dimension, Time. I've seen images of fractals, and I think what I've seen of models with between 3 and 4 dimensions, is that, it seems to me anyway, that things have a sense about them with the Swiss-cheese picture of the Universe. (Those spherical areas are, I think, little round regions where planets and their orbital girth exist. What about the cheese itself? -> The so-called "Dark Matter", taking up so much of the universe, but no one knowing what it actually is. I would say, yes, that Dark Matter is the cheese.) As I am the cheese.
Bad movie, that. "I am the Cheese". The script-writer worked for Disney. Not for long. Nibble here a nibble there. The meetings were killer - people getting hungry, mice getting roused - nothing for hours, but a large man made of cheese, willing his co-workers to look away and stop drooling over his holes.
Do you know, we, today, almost have enough technology to measure acutely small vibrations in materials to the degree that we can identify words that were said somewhere hundreds of years ago? Which is to say - our friend Cheese-boy - let's suppose he can't take the pressure of being Food to his co-workers, - - Cheese-boy is now leaving the boardroom, sweating and worried -- a subject for conjecture along the lines of wondering why he left EXACTLY-> what was said to him, who said it, etc Nowadays, or soon anyways, forensic scientists would be able to analyse the body of Cheese-boy, and detect in it vibrations left by human speech, and actually go further to the point of determining what actually was said, and by who (by dint of pitch and volume).
For instance, "Heil Mickey!?" spoken by the CEO of Disney, during a meeting. The surfaces of any solid object in this board room would vibrate, however microscopically, with the sound waves of that phrase travelling through the air and be left with a physical trace of that. We can read these things today because the instruments are that delicate. How long before they can map our thoughts out, across our lives, and charge us, fine-wise, everytime we have a negative thought/think things that are a little sinful or mildly criminal. Passive thought control. We'll be paying out of our noses. In the future, I'm afraid to say - it seems so anyway - that everything , including thought, will be Regulated...
...what I wouldn't give, at times, to be on a spaceship, heading out across the heavens at light speed heading on to where the Mayans live happily ever after...feeling One with the Universe...somewhere feeling one with the cheese...and so many passing planets...I am the Cheese!? I am Pi-Cheese!?!??!
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
I lik Jolie...
When she was younger, Angelia Jolie seemed like a dangerous
person to know. Brave. Yes.
Rebellious. Yes. Tattooed to smithereens. Yes.
Maybe gothic? (A goth? Yes. Maybe.
(A goth seems to me to be a hippy gone a little askew; a hippy of the
underworld; a “survival of the fittest”, evolved, Morlock-like hippy. ) When she played Lisa Rowe, in “Girl,
Interrupted”, it was in some ways
prescient, since the role served as almost an exorcism of the goth-ness in her
, (a transformation which would take place over the next few years); a symbolic exorcism
culminating finally with her award and acceptance speech at the 1999 Oscars for
Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Girl“ (incidentally, giving a strong
and fair speech, extending a solid compliment to her father, Jon Voigt, with
whom there had been palpable tension over an affair he had had at some point in
the past). Mrs. Jolie is decidedly more normal now, in some ways,
after becoming a mother, but I think a lot of the kick-ass attitude is still
there under the surface. One must only
watch her movies over the last decade, chronicling an evolution from “goth girl”,
up through the years, to our present, ”grounded –Goddess” stage, to realize
that that kick-ass spark of her youth has not dimmed with age; Angelina Jolie
has matured, yes, and is protective of that flame, which she must be as it
guides her, O, yes! come Hell or high water, down her path less travelled by.
Friday, 14 September 2012
The Kingdoms of All!?!
Well, disregarding the preposterously pretentious title of this posting, I do have something to say, really worth saying.
Let's just get to it right off:
I've always thought Reincarnation sounded like an interesting idea, despite the fact that we live in a non-hierarchical culture these days, and some of the examplars of this 'new age' in thinking would have a hard time saying a dog is 'greater' than a bird, or a bird 'greater' than a worm, etc. I however, do think there is a hierarchy, but a hierarchy that extends at least above, if not below, the animal kingdom as we know it on Earth. Thus, depending how goof - I mean 'good' - of a person I am when I die, I will either go up or down - in other words, I will move up into the spiritual realm (Heaven), or I will be reincarnated as a rodent or something (reincarnation's 'Purgatory') or head straight-on down. I don't believe the spiritual realm is aswim with soft, equivalent figures living, in a murk of love, however 'nice' that sounds to some. No, I believe that in the heavenly realms there is a hierarchy of angels that leads up to being very close to God:
GOD
Seraphim
Cherubim
Thrones
Dominions
Virtues
Powers
Principalities
Archangels
Angels
Humans
Mammals
Birds
Reptiles
Amphibians
Fishes
Echinoderms
Molluscs
Anthropods
Worms
Coelenterates
Sponges
Demons
SATAN
I'm not filling in the demon hierarchy because that would just be too cruel and too depressing (and I believe too few to mention are headed that far South). But the list above gives the gist of it. I firmly believe the vast, vast majority of humans living today will be animals of the middle or lower classifications in their next lives. It's just so easy and it just feels so darn good - being cruel, cynical, and unconscionable, and lying (not just verbal lies, either - but behavioral lies, socioeconomic lies and just plain pretending you're something you're not for whatever reasons). A small handful will descend into Hell, but this sort of talk is too cruel and too depressing.
As Christ said, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Those "few chosen", a statistical blip, will move on up the ladder to become Angels, most likely. Doubtfully, but just maybe, there may be an Archangel in our midst - Kierkegaard's "Knight of Faith", so to speak, who will rub elbows with Gabriel and Michael on a higher plane someday.
I don't know. Hehe. It's FUN to be self-righteous and judgemental and really condemnatory once in a while, isn't it?
Let's just get to it right off:
I've always thought Reincarnation sounded like an interesting idea, despite the fact that we live in a non-hierarchical culture these days, and some of the examplars of this 'new age' in thinking would have a hard time saying a dog is 'greater' than a bird, or a bird 'greater' than a worm, etc. I however, do think there is a hierarchy, but a hierarchy that extends at least above, if not below, the animal kingdom as we know it on Earth. Thus, depending how goof - I mean 'good' - of a person I am when I die, I will either go up or down - in other words, I will move up into the spiritual realm (Heaven), or I will be reincarnated as a rodent or something (reincarnation's 'Purgatory') or head straight-on down. I don't believe the spiritual realm is aswim with soft, equivalent figures living, in a murk of love, however 'nice' that sounds to some. No, I believe that in the heavenly realms there is a hierarchy of angels that leads up to being very close to God:
GOD
Seraphim
Cherubim
Thrones
Dominions
Virtues
Powers
Principalities
Archangels
Angels
Humans
Mammals
Birds
Reptiles
Amphibians
Fishes
Echinoderms
Molluscs
Anthropods
Worms
Coelenterates
Sponges
Demons
SATAN
I'm not filling in the demon hierarchy because that would just be too cruel and too depressing (and I believe too few to mention are headed that far South). But the list above gives the gist of it. I firmly believe the vast, vast majority of humans living today will be animals of the middle or lower classifications in their next lives. It's just so easy and it just feels so darn good - being cruel, cynical, and unconscionable, and lying (not just verbal lies, either - but behavioral lies, socioeconomic lies and just plain pretending you're something you're not for whatever reasons). A small handful will descend into Hell, but this sort of talk is too cruel and too depressing.
As Christ said, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Those "few chosen", a statistical blip, will move on up the ladder to become Angels, most likely. Doubtfully, but just maybe, there may be an Archangel in our midst - Kierkegaard's "Knight of Faith", so to speak, who will rub elbows with Gabriel and Michael on a higher plane someday.
I don't know. Hehe. It's FUN to be self-righteous and judgemental and really condemnatory once in a while, isn't it?
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Cat's Breath
I have a small urn in my bedroom that contains the ashes of my 15 year old cat, Basho.
He seemed fine weeks before his death, but the end came suddenly and swooped in; after a couple nights at the vet hospital, well, during the second night, he died from kidney failure. Nothing could be done. It was a renal inevitability - the veterinarians can't currently do any thing about it.
It's 2 1/2 weeks since his passing, and the house doesn't feel as eerie or as empty as it supposedly should. I don't know if he was ever very comfortable here. He certainly was aloof, as cats should be, and feigned any sort of 'need' for us. Though I loved him, I feel like he was just making do with the current arrangements, a best as he could. I find prolonged emotions difficult to summon up now. I take medication, maybe that's the 'difficulty', as I put it. Maybe they block emotions, a common complaint amongst my fellow pill-poppers. Maybe it's just me.
I'm left here. But I plan on burying Basho soon. There's a tree in the woods with a marker on it, oddly enough - a metal cut-out of a running cat, nailed maybe 10 ft. up a maple. It looks like the fleeing ghost of a cat. I think it will suit him, and I'll bury him at the tree's base. I'll miss him. Hope his little white marker stays nailed where it is. I'd hate it to be taken away, and lose him out there.
He seemed fine weeks before his death, but the end came suddenly and swooped in; after a couple nights at the vet hospital, well, during the second night, he died from kidney failure. Nothing could be done. It was a renal inevitability - the veterinarians can't currently do any thing about it.
It's 2 1/2 weeks since his passing, and the house doesn't feel as eerie or as empty as it supposedly should. I don't know if he was ever very comfortable here. He certainly was aloof, as cats should be, and feigned any sort of 'need' for us. Though I loved him, I feel like he was just making do with the current arrangements, a best as he could. I find prolonged emotions difficult to summon up now. I take medication, maybe that's the 'difficulty', as I put it. Maybe they block emotions, a common complaint amongst my fellow pill-poppers. Maybe it's just me.
I'm left here. But I plan on burying Basho soon. There's a tree in the woods with a marker on it, oddly enough - a metal cut-out of a running cat, nailed maybe 10 ft. up a maple. It looks like the fleeing ghost of a cat. I think it will suit him, and I'll bury him at the tree's base. I'll miss him. Hope his little white marker stays nailed where it is. I'd hate it to be taken away, and lose him out there.
Thursday, 21 June 2012
Blood from the Stars?
In the future, we may go to the store or shop online for a
blood sample from a star; a movie star, music star, sports star. A little taste of what it is like to be that
person. They boost up athletes all the
time with samples of blood that’s been doped with some or other drug, taken and stored, and then transfused later (i.e. the timely Mr. Armstrong). But I think the idea's a
little icky now – maybe hormones or some brain chemical might be used instead, something less messy. Something from someone like Jim Carrey might
be a blast – imagine if you could feel his manic energy for an hour
or two?! Now there’s a quadrillion
dollar idea right there!?!?!
(p.s. Hey, I'm behind the times, if anything. Deacades ago, Hunter S. Thompson would get serious kicks by tapping the adrenal glands of schizophrenics.)
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
A Grin without a Cat
I hope you're not totally unfamiliar with the story of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". You may know it was written by a thirty-something Victorian mathematician by the name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, (who used the pseudonym 'Lewis Carroll', as we all know). There is a scene which sticks out to me in "Alice", that I'd like to share. The Cheshire cat. Alice runs into this character en route on her adventures. He presents himself to her initially as simply a very wide grin, hovering in the air. The rest of the cat's body arrives a little bit later.
Around the time of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell and the Cheshire cat, a philosopher was cooking up a rather revolutionary idea. Simply put, and just as it was with the Cheshire cat, the grin comes first - - then everything else. This philosopher's name was William James and he believed precisely that - that when we smile, the grin comes first and the happiness second. Now this sounds a little like nonsense, probably. Victorian, Carroll-esque nonsense. But James was convinced that when we're talking about emotions and their physical expression, we smile first and our smiling face tells our brain that we are smiling, and as it knows smiling means happiness, our brain makes us happy. Common sensically, it's always the other way around. Namely, we feel happiness and then we smile because we are happy. The emotion precedes the physical response. James thought the opposite. I don't know, unfortunately, which side won out. In the historical scheme of things, William James isn't too well known, so we might assume that at least in a popular sense, common sense prevailed.
Nevertheless, I don't quite buy that James was wrong. Why? I remember reading something written quite some time after James, something by C.S. Lewis (of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" fame) -- a book called "Mere Christianity". (Now, don't get scared off because some religion is entering the fray. It isn't.) Mr. Lewis states at one point that if you're feeling down, turn the frown upside down literally, and keep it there for several minutes and you'll become happy! This sounds maudlin, but it's true. I've tried it. And it works. Curiouser and curiouser!
James was right, only his theory takes longer to manifest itself. I would agree that when one is happy, we smile as a response to that. But I also believe if we are to put a smile on our face - and it needn't be a Cheshire-cat-sized super-grin, even a slight smile will work - within several minutes we will start to feel better and even get a little happy.
I like outsiders like William James because he, like Lewis Carroll, were rebels and chose to look at things differently. I also like C.S. Lewis for saying something, years and years after James, that is still basic biological truth.
So, if it moves thee, flip a frown around and get a little happier, however nonsensical that may sound.
:) Cheers!
Around the time of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell and the Cheshire cat, a philosopher was cooking up a rather revolutionary idea. Simply put, and just as it was with the Cheshire cat, the grin comes first - - then everything else. This philosopher's name was William James and he believed precisely that - that when we smile, the grin comes first and the happiness second. Now this sounds a little like nonsense, probably. Victorian, Carroll-esque nonsense. But James was convinced that when we're talking about emotions and their physical expression, we smile first and our smiling face tells our brain that we are smiling, and as it knows smiling means happiness, our brain makes us happy. Common sensically, it's always the other way around. Namely, we feel happiness and then we smile because we are happy. The emotion precedes the physical response. James thought the opposite. I don't know, unfortunately, which side won out. In the historical scheme of things, William James isn't too well known, so we might assume that at least in a popular sense, common sense prevailed.
Nevertheless, I don't quite buy that James was wrong. Why? I remember reading something written quite some time after James, something by C.S. Lewis (of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" fame) -- a book called "Mere Christianity". (Now, don't get scared off because some religion is entering the fray. It isn't.) Mr. Lewis states at one point that if you're feeling down, turn the frown upside down literally, and keep it there for several minutes and you'll become happy! This sounds maudlin, but it's true. I've tried it. And it works. Curiouser and curiouser!
James was right, only his theory takes longer to manifest itself. I would agree that when one is happy, we smile as a response to that. But I also believe if we are to put a smile on our face - and it needn't be a Cheshire-cat-sized super-grin, even a slight smile will work - within several minutes we will start to feel better and even get a little happy.
I like outsiders like William James because he, like Lewis Carroll, were rebels and chose to look at things differently. I also like C.S. Lewis for saying something, years and years after James, that is still basic biological truth.
So, if it moves thee, flip a frown around and get a little happier, however nonsensical that may sound.
:) Cheers!
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