DÉJÀ VU
According to recent research, which makes very good sense, déjà vu is a memory problem. Well “of course” we all say. What else could it be! As for me—the article goes on to say that it tends to happen more as one ages and is also a problem in Alzheimer’s patients. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I used to have a lot more déjà vu moments when I was younger, when I was drinking, which also makes a lot of sense when I think about it. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a déjà vu experience, a long time. What about you? Read the whole article here.
PS: If you notice that I’m making fewer or shorter blog entries that’s because my interest in writing creatively seems to have reappeared. I’ve begun my first novel in more than 15 years—or longer—and I’m combing over my poetry with an eye to putting together a book of my best writing there too. Currently, I'm working through a book on neuroscience called, The Feeling of What Happens and a book by Tobin about Ernie Pyle, called Ernie Pyle's War.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
SO MUCH FOR BIBLE AND CONSTITUTION
I have lately begun reading from time to time the writings of Thomas Jefferson collected in a book which I bought from the Monticello Foundation. A mind so clear as his could never become the kind of fundamentalist that fundamentalists like to consider our American founders were.
The two paragraphs below are from his autobiography and show some of the ways that Jefferson thought specifically about two Bible laws which he considered as a Representative to his own Virginia Legislature after he had already written and revised the American Constitution as a Representative to the Continental Congress.
You’ll see that he had little regard for old Hebrew Law in at least these two cases. In other places which I hope, in future, to include in this blog, you’ll see that he uses the word “liberal” to describe his own mind and the minds of the men he found congenial to his own. What? A “liberal” fundamentalist!
[SNIP]
Mr. Pendleton wished to preserve the right of primogeniture, but seeing at once that that could not prevail, he proposed we should adopt the Hebrew principle, and give a double portion to the elder son. I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion; but being on a par in his powers & wants, with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony, an such was the decision of the other members. . . .
On the subject of the Criminal law, all were agreed that the punishment of death should be abolished, except for treason and murder; and that, for other felonies should be substituted hard labor in the public works, and in some cases, the Lex talionis [the law of retaliation]. How this last revolting principle came to obtain our approbation, I do not remember. There remained indeed in our laws a vestige of it in a single case of a slave. It was the English law in the time of the Anglo-Saxons, copied probably from the Hebrew law of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," and it was the law of several antient people. But the modern mind had left it far in the rear of it's advances.
[PASTE]
OF ABSOLUTELY NO CONSEQUENCE
Discovered the other day while watching a PBS show that Picasso was painting “Guernica” while I was in the womb. I do wonder how much my 17 year old mother considered these events while I was ahatching? She was a singer and played the clarinet for awhile and tried to draw and sculpt. She was quite a person for her time, but, buried in Southern Ohio mores, her path out was blocked and became, at least for her, inescapable.
I have lately begun reading from time to time the writings of Thomas Jefferson collected in a book which I bought from the Monticello Foundation. A mind so clear as his could never become the kind of fundamentalist that fundamentalists like to consider our American founders were.
The two paragraphs below are from his autobiography and show some of the ways that Jefferson thought specifically about two Bible laws which he considered as a Representative to his own Virginia Legislature after he had already written and revised the American Constitution as a Representative to the Continental Congress.
You’ll see that he had little regard for old Hebrew Law in at least these two cases. In other places which I hope, in future, to include in this blog, you’ll see that he uses the word “liberal” to describe his own mind and the minds of the men he found congenial to his own. What? A “liberal” fundamentalist![SNIP]
Mr. Pendleton wished to preserve the right of primogeniture, but seeing at once that that could not prevail, he proposed we should adopt the Hebrew principle, and give a double portion to the elder son. I observed that if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion; but being on a par in his powers & wants, with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony, an such was the decision of the other members. . . .
On the subject of the Criminal law, all were agreed that the punishment of death should be abolished, except for treason and murder; and that, for other felonies should be substituted hard labor in the public works, and in some cases, the Lex talionis [the law of retaliation]. How this last revolting principle came to obtain our approbation, I do not remember. There remained indeed in our laws a vestige of it in a single case of a slave. It was the English law in the time of the Anglo-Saxons, copied probably from the Hebrew law of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," and it was the law of several antient people. But the modern mind had left it far in the rear of it's advances.
[PASTE]
OF ABSOLUTELY NO CONSEQUENCE
Discovered the other day while watching a PBS show that Picasso was painting “Guernica” while I was in the womb. I do wonder how much my 17 year old mother considered these events while I was ahatching? She was a singer and played the clarinet for awhile and tried to draw and sculpt. She was quite a person for her time, but, buried in Southern Ohio mores, her path out was blocked and became, at least for her, inescapable.
Friday, July 13, 2007
EMOTIONS ARE NOT INCORPOREAL, MORAL ENTITIESBUT VERY PHYSICAL THINGS
I know that anyone who has really thought about his or her emotional life probably knows the information which follows, yet, for me, it was not that long ago that I fully realized that emotions are really nothing more than physical states in the body. The names we give to various of those body states make us believe that emotions have an existence other than their embodied existence as neurological and chemical states, but Antonio Damasio explains the situation very thoroughly in the following paragraphs from his book, The Feeling of What Happens (pp.50-52). Once one begins to think of emotions as purely chemical or neurological states, he can begin to rethink so much he has been taught about the “morality” of emotional states. Emotions are neither wrong nor right, sinful or wholesome; emotions just ARE.
[SNIP]
The mention of the word emotion usually calls to mind one of the six so-called primary or universal emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, or disgust. Thinking about the primary emotions makes the discussion of the problem easier, but it is important to note that there are numerous other behaviors to which the label "emotion" has been attached. They include so-called secondary or social emotions, such as embarrassment, jealousy, guilt, or pride; and what I call background emotions, such as well-being or malaise, calm or tension. The label emotion has also been attached to drives and motivations and to the states of pain and pleasure.
A shared biological core underlies all these phenomena, and it can be outlined as follows:
1. Emotions are complicated collections of chemical and neural responses, forming a pattern; all emotions have some kind of regulatory role to play, leading in one way or another to the creation of circumstances advantageous to the organism exhibiting the phenomenon; emotions are about the life of an organism, its body to be precise, and their role is to assist the organism in maintaining life.
2. Notwithstanding the reality that learning and culture alter the expression of emotions and give emotions new meanings, emotions are biologically determined processes, depending on innately set brain devices, laid down by a long evolutionary history.
3. The devices which produce emotions occupy a fairly restricted ensemble of subcortical regions, beginning at the level of the brain stem and moving up to the higher brain; the devices are part of a set of structures that both regulate and represent body states, which will be discussed in chapter 5.
4. All the devices can be engaged automatically, without conscious deliberation; the considerable amount of individual variation and the fact that culture plays a role in shaping some inducers do not deny the fundamental stereotypicity, automaticity, and regulatory purpose of the emotions.
5. All emotions use the body as their theater (internal milieu, visceral, vestibular and musculoskeletal systems), but emotions also affect the mode of operation of numerous brain circuits: the variety of the emotional responses is responsible for profound changes in both the body landscape and the brain landscape. The collection of these changes constitutes the substrate for the neural patterns which eventually become feelings of emotion.
[PASTE]
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
GEORGE BUSH: THE POLITICALIZATION OF EVERYTHING,
EVEN YOUR HEALTH AND SAFETY
In a compelling article for Rolling Stone Magazine, Tim Dickinson tracks down the lies and obfuscations which George Bush/Cheney and Company have used to make certain that the American public is confused on the issue of global warming. If the American public were not confused on the issue, they certainly would not be giving Georgie an astounding 29% approval rating. How can it be that high after all we now know about the lying, crooked George Bush regime? An intelligent, informed electorate would have him down to 10 or 15% by now. Some people do have IQs less than 70 percent, and they can be forgiven since they are too illiterate to read and understand written, complex reasoning processes—and Fox watchers. Then there all those Republican politicians who have been bought and paid for by the oil lobbyists. Maybe that is 29% of the American public? The administration’s plan is completely political, ignoring science and favoring the corporate polluters, all to the detriment of my, your and our children’s and grandchildren’s health, future and safety. Read the whole thing here.
[SAMPLE SNIP]
Cheney took full advantage of the president's cluelessness, bringing the CEQ into his own portfolio. "The environment and energy issues were really turned over to him from the beginning," Whitman says. The CEQ became Cheney's shadow EPA, with industry calling the shots. To head up the council, Cheney installed James Connaughton, a former lobbyist for industrial polluters, who once worked to help General Electric and ARCO skirt responsibility for their Superfund waste sites.
Industry swiftly took advantage of its new friend in the White House. In a fax sent to the CEQ [White House Council on Environmental Quality] on February 6th, 2001 - two weeks after Bush took office - ExxonMobil's top lobbyist, Randy Randol, demanded a housecleaning of the scientists in charge of studying global warming. Exxon urged CEQ to dump Robert Watson, who chaired the IPCC, along with Rosina Bierbaum and Mike MacCracken, who had coordinated the National Assessment.
Exxon's wish was the CEQ's command. According to an internal e-mail obtained by Rolling Stone, Connaughton's first order of business - even before his nomination was made public - was to write his White House colleagues-to-be from his law firm of Sidley & Austin. He echoed Exxon's call that Bierbaum, the acting director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, be "dealt." In the end, each of the scientists on Exxon's hit list was replaced. "It was clear there was a strong lobby and activity against me by some in the energy industry—especially ExxonMobil," says Watson.
[PASTE]
EVEN YOUR HEALTH AND SAFETY
In a compelling article for Rolling Stone Magazine, Tim Dickinson tracks down the lies and obfuscations which George Bush/Cheney and Company have used to make certain that the American public is confused on the issue of global warming. If the American public were not confused on the issue, they certainly would not be giving Georgie an astounding 29% approval rating. How can it be that high after all we now know about the lying, crooked George Bush regime? An intelligent, informed electorate would have him down to 10 or 15% by now. Some people do have IQs less than 70 percent, and they can be forgiven since they are too illiterate to read and understand written, complex reasoning processes—and Fox watchers. Then there all those Republican politicians who have been bought and paid for by the oil lobbyists. Maybe that is 29% of the American public? The administration’s plan is completely political, ignoring science and favoring the corporate polluters, all to the detriment of my, your and our children’s and grandchildren’s health, future and safety. Read the whole thing here.
[SAMPLE SNIP]
Cheney took full advantage of the president's cluelessness, bringing the CEQ into his own portfolio. "The environment and energy issues were really turned over to him from the beginning," Whitman says. The CEQ became Cheney's shadow EPA, with industry calling the shots. To head up the council, Cheney installed James Connaughton, a former lobbyist for industrial polluters, who once worked to help General Electric and ARCO skirt responsibility for their Superfund waste sites.
Industry swiftly took advantage of its new friend in the White House. In a fax sent to the CEQ [White House Council on Environmental Quality] on February 6th, 2001 - two weeks after Bush took office - ExxonMobil's top lobbyist, Randy Randol, demanded a housecleaning of the scientists in charge of studying global warming. Exxon urged CEQ to dump Robert Watson, who chaired the IPCC, along with Rosina Bierbaum and Mike MacCracken, who had coordinated the National Assessment.
Exxon's wish was the CEQ's command. According to an internal e-mail obtained by Rolling Stone, Connaughton's first order of business - even before his nomination was made public - was to write his White House colleagues-to-be from his law firm of Sidley & Austin. He echoed Exxon's call that Bierbaum, the acting director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, be "dealt." In the end, each of the scientists on Exxon's hit list was replaced. "It was clear there was a strong lobby and activity against me by some in the energy industry—especially ExxonMobil," says Watson.
[PASTE]
Photo: Wilson / Getty
Monday, July 09, 2007
AS WE’VE BEEN POINTING OUT FOR SOME TIME NOW....
A recent article in the Washington Post reveals that “[neuroscientists] are using brain imaging and psychological experiments to study whether the brain has a built-in moral compass. The results—many of them published just in recent months—are showing, unexpectedly, that many aspects of morality appear to be hard-wired in the brain, most likely the result of evolutionary processes that began in other species.”
Yep—altruism is not the result of being forced, by commandments, to treat one another well, but is probably the result of our realizing at a deep evolutionary level that the person we treat well is also made of flesh and blood just as we are. Altruism results from our comprehending that the person (or animal) we help is made up of the same tissue as we are. Link up to the article for more evidence of this fact.
Long ago I came across this idea in a book called The Moral Animal. Now more evidence is accumulating.
A recent article in the Washington Post reveals that “[neuroscientists] are using brain imaging and psychological experiments to study whether the brain has a built-in moral compass. The results—many of them published just in recent months—are showing, unexpectedly, that many aspects of morality appear to be hard-wired in the brain, most likely the result of evolutionary processes that began in other species.”
Yep—altruism is not the result of being forced, by commandments, to treat one another well, but is probably the result of our realizing at a deep evolutionary level that the person we treat well is also made of flesh and blood just as we are. Altruism results from our comprehending that the person (or animal) we help is made up of the same tissue as we are. Link up to the article for more evidence of this fact.
Long ago I came across this idea in a book called The Moral Animal. Now more evidence is accumulating.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
SICKO
If you notice that my entries are not as current or as frequent as they have been, it's because I've been recovering from shingles. It's a very debilitating sort of disease, you know—a recurrence of chicken pox, and this old body doesn't bounce back like it did when it carried the consciousness of a ten year old around inside of it. This illness is another reason why this entry is so short.
ON BEING AN ATHEIST
Being an atheist is, if you can picture this, like breaking through the thin layer of an egg shell and crawling out to stand on a pristine, white surface. Here and there, one spots a courageous lad or lassie who has crawled out there with him. Beneath one’s feet, so to speak, trapped within the thinnest of shells, remain the poor, sad lot of his fellows, still trapped in and coated with chicken-yellow goo. The atheist looks up into a black, infinite void and, filled with the most tender sensation of awe, he crows like a rooster to have attained such unlimited freedom.
ON BEING BEN FRANKLIN
“The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon.”—Ben Franklin
If Ben Franklin can say that, imagine how we ought to feel?
DESPOTIC GOVERNMENT AHEAD?
“I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults—if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”—Ben Franklin
If Ben Franklin can say that, imagine how we ought to feel under the boot heels of GWB?
If you notice that my entries are not as current or as frequent as they have been, it's because I've been recovering from shingles. It's a very debilitating sort of disease, you know—a recurrence of chicken pox, and this old body doesn't bounce back like it did when it carried the consciousness of a ten year old around inside of it. This illness is another reason why this entry is so short.
ON BEING AN ATHEIST
Being an atheist is, if you can picture this, like breaking through the thin layer of an egg shell and crawling out to stand on a pristine, white surface. Here and there, one spots a courageous lad or lassie who has crawled out there with him. Beneath one’s feet, so to speak, trapped within the thinnest of shells, remain the poor, sad lot of his fellows, still trapped in and coated with chicken-yellow goo. The atheist looks up into a black, infinite void and, filled with the most tender sensation of awe, he crows like a rooster to have attained such unlimited freedom.
ON BEING BEN FRANKLIN
“The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon.”—Ben Franklin
If Ben Franklin can say that, imagine how we ought to feel?
DESPOTIC GOVERNMENT AHEAD?
“I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults—if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”—Ben Franklin
If Ben Franklin can say that, imagine how we ought to feel under the boot heels of GWB?
Monday, July 02, 2007
SHINGLES
Yes, I've had shingles now for the last three weeks, but I managed to make a short dash North to visit friends and family up through Poulsbo and onto Whidbey Island. Then, the next weekend, Mertie and I headed West over to the Washington Coast, Long Beach, to spend two nights, a full day and parts of two days there. All the while I was sick and could not enjoy anything as much as I would have liked to. This shingles stuff is for the birds. I'm hoping I don't get the complication which lasts for months afterwards, where the hurts continue and the tenderness or deadness of the skin remains. The entire left side of my face and my mouth has been affected. Lesions on my face, my gums, and inside my mouth and also the lips. Even the skin on the top of my left shoulder feels extremely tender to the touch. It's a rebirth of the chicken pox in old people.
Anyhow, here's a couple of photos from the Long Beach trip:
Looking sort of North.
The boardwalk West of Long Beach, the longest beach in the whole world?
One of many friends to visit us on a Saturday morning trip
to the Northern tip of the peninsula
upon which Long Beach rests.
To Ledbetter Point State Park.
A sort of primeval creature found on the beach of Stackpole Harbor.
Two more creatures found on our journey the next day at Bruceport Park.
Looking West across the great Pacific waters on Saturday evening.
Yes, I've had shingles now for the last three weeks, but I managed to make a short dash North to visit friends and family up through Poulsbo and onto Whidbey Island. Then, the next weekend, Mertie and I headed West over to the Washington Coast, Long Beach, to spend two nights, a full day and parts of two days there. All the while I was sick and could not enjoy anything as much as I would have liked to. This shingles stuff is for the birds. I'm hoping I don't get the complication which lasts for months afterwards, where the hurts continue and the tenderness or deadness of the skin remains. The entire left side of my face and my mouth has been affected. Lesions on my face, my gums, and inside my mouth and also the lips. Even the skin on the top of my left shoulder feels extremely tender to the touch. It's a rebirth of the chicken pox in old people.
Anyhow, here's a couple of photos from the Long Beach trip:
Looking sort of North. The boardwalk West of Long Beach, the longest beach in the whole world?
One of many friends to visit us on a Saturday morning tripto the Northern tip of the peninsula
upon which Long Beach rests.
To Ledbetter Point State Park.
A sort of primeval creature found on the beach of Stackpole Harbor.
Two more creatures found on our journey the next day at Bruceport Park.
Looking West across the great Pacific waters on Saturday evening. Wednesday, June 27, 2007
MOVIE REVIEW AND BIBLE SENDUP
Dear Editor,
Jeez! I can hardly wait not to see that heart warming comedy/horror flick, “Evan Almighty”, based on that mythological Bible story in which the Judeo-Christian-Islamic hypothetical superbeing murders the entire human race for daring to exercise its hypothetical free will. Hunh? A free will that can only be used to not use free will? Ah—these religious guys—they’re certainly some kidders, eh?
I must admit that the murder of everyone in the whole world whose willfulness disagrees with mine is an interesting concept, but, given my economic limitations and my powerlessness in the face of the immense numbers of humankind who disagree with one or another of my ideas, I guess I’ll just have to stick to my sturdy imagination for my titillation just as the writers of the Noah fiction and other Bible fantasies used theirs. I’m rather intrigued, however, by the fact that so many of my fellow beans would derive a kick out of the story of their own murder and the murder of all their family and friends. Could it be that just way too many of my fellow humans imagine themselves of an hypothetically superior morality? Free even of the sin of pride?
Laughingly Yours,
Geo
Dear Editor,
Jeez! I can hardly wait not to see that heart warming comedy/horror flick, “Evan Almighty”, based on that mythological Bible story in which the Judeo-Christian-Islamic hypothetical superbeing murders the entire human race for daring to exercise its hypothetical free will. Hunh? A free will that can only be used to not use free will? Ah—these religious guys—they’re certainly some kidders, eh?
I must admit that the murder of everyone in the whole world whose willfulness disagrees with mine is an interesting concept, but, given my economic limitations and my powerlessness in the face of the immense numbers of humankind who disagree with one or another of my ideas, I guess I’ll just have to stick to my sturdy imagination for my titillation just as the writers of the Noah fiction and other Bible fantasies used theirs. I’m rather intrigued, however, by the fact that so many of my fellow beans would derive a kick out of the story of their own murder and the murder of all their family and friends. Could it be that just way too many of my fellow humans imagine themselves of an hypothetically superior morality? Free even of the sin of pride?
Laughingly Yours,
Geo
Thursday, June 21, 2007
MORE ‘MISSING LINKS’ DISCOVERED or
FISH AS FINGER FOOD OUT ON A LIMB
I remember when this first came out about a year ago, and, now, the discovery is bearing more detail, but since almost all Creationists are “ignorant”, they, of course, will “ignore” the facts. You see, all Creationists aren’t unintelligent, they just have a tremendous capacity for ignoring the facts.
[SNIP]
[A] study, published in the journal Nature, follows the recent discovery of a fossil described as showing the "missing link" between fins and limbs.
In 2004, the fossilised remains of the Tiktaalik roseae revealed an animal with fins that were equipped for a life in the water but also for support on land.
The crocodile-like creature, which lived about 380 million years ago, was said to "blur the distinctions" between land- and water-dwelling animals.
[PASTE]
PS: LIVING TO A WISE OLD AGE HAS SOME DRAWBACKS
BESIDES BECOMING A PRETENTIOUS BORE
WHOSE “I TOLD YOU SO’S” MAKE CERTAIN FUNDAMENTALISTS SICK
I’ve been sick awhile and missed an entry or two and, because of travel, might miss a few more.
HERE’S AN INTERESTING WAY OF TWISTING
YOUR BRAIN
TO LOOK AT HUMAN CULTURE
I’m ashamed but. . . this is not my idea. It’s something I scribbled down on a yellow pad and forgot where it comes from. (Another drawback of older age.) But imagine human beings linked together into a vast creature, much like colonies of bees and ants are linked to their groups, by language. Think how ideas travel around the globe, nearly instantaneously now, from brain to brain, giving us direction and purpose. This echoes the meme idea that I’ve mentioned before, but instead of looking at a language meme as a germ, traveling through the human colony, it’s a more macrocosmic view, looking down on the globe as a huge termite hill. We are signaling by language as bees and ants in their colonies signal each other through other means.
DOCTOR WHO DUCKS
I came across a doctor's card here in Vancouver. It says, "We treat. God Heals." I called and asked them if they charged less than doctors who do the complete job themselves. No such luck. They told me to go to a faith healer, but I soon realized that would probably cost me more.
FISH AS FINGER FOOD OUT ON A LIMB
I remember when this first came out about a year ago, and, now, the discovery is bearing more detail, but since almost all Creationists are “ignorant”, they, of course, will “ignore” the facts. You see, all Creationists aren’t unintelligent, they just have a tremendous capacity for ignoring the facts.
[SNIP]
[A] study, published in the journal Nature, follows the recent discovery of a fossil described as showing the "missing link" between fins and limbs.
In 2004, the fossilised remains of the Tiktaalik roseae revealed an animal with fins that were equipped for a life in the water but also for support on land.
The crocodile-like creature, which lived about 380 million years ago, was said to "blur the distinctions" between land- and water-dwelling animals.
[PASTE]
PS: LIVING TO A WISE OLD AGE HAS SOME DRAWBACKS
BESIDES BECOMING A PRETENTIOUS BORE
WHOSE “I TOLD YOU SO’S” MAKE CERTAIN FUNDAMENTALISTS SICK
I’ve been sick awhile and missed an entry or two and, because of travel, might miss a few more.
HERE’S AN INTERESTING WAY OF TWISTING
YOUR BRAIN
TO LOOK AT HUMAN CULTURE
I’m ashamed but. . . this is not my idea. It’s something I scribbled down on a yellow pad and forgot where it comes from. (Another drawback of older age.) But imagine human beings linked together into a vast creature, much like colonies of bees and ants are linked to their groups, by language. Think how ideas travel around the globe, nearly instantaneously now, from brain to brain, giving us direction and purpose. This echoes the meme idea that I’ve mentioned before, but instead of looking at a language meme as a germ, traveling through the human colony, it’s a more macrocosmic view, looking down on the globe as a huge termite hill. We are signaling by language as bees and ants in their colonies signal each other through other means.
DOCTOR WHO DUCKS
I came across a doctor's card here in Vancouver. It says, "We treat. God Heals." I called and asked them if they charged less than doctors who do the complete job themselves. No such luck. They told me to go to a faith healer, but I soon realized that would probably cost me more.
Monday, June 18, 2007
A VERY MOVING POSSIBILITY
The following is from p. 206 of Dancing Wu Li Masters. I can’t guarantee that the info contained in them is not already outdated. The book is 20 years old, and that’s a long time in the study of the Cosmos.
[SLASH]
For example, if black holes are as we have speculated them to be, whatever disappears into them reappears somewhere. Is it possible, therefore, that there are black holes in other universes which are sucking matter from those universes into our universe? This is a seriously considered possibility. There are objects in our universe that appear to be the reverse of black holes. They are called white holes (of course). These objects are quasi-stellar radio sources, or quasars for short.
Quasars are extraordinarily intense energy sources. Most of them are only several times the diameter of our solar system, yet they emit more energy than an entire galaxy of over l50 billion stars! Some astronomers believe that quasars are the most distant objects ever detected, yet their incredible brightness allows us to see them clearly.
The relationship between black holes and quasars is purely speculation, but the speculation is mind-boggling. For example, some physicists speculate that black holes swallow up matter from one universe and pump it either into another universe or into another part and time of the same universe. The "output" side of a black hole, according to this hypothesis, is a quasar. If this speculation is correct, then our universe is being sucked into its many black holes, only to reappear in other universes, while other universes are being pumped into our own universe, which is being sucked through black holes and into other universes again. The process goes on and on, feeding on itself, another beginningless, endless, endless, beginningless dance.
[STITCH]
As I read those paragraphs I feel the poetry of the Cosmos and sense the energy around me. It’s a very interesting imaginative leap which only the imagination, aided by the limbic system, can do. This is no place for the logical mind. I wrote the following poem many years ago when my fears took up a bigger part of my psyche than currently, but it expresses for me something of the wonder and fear of treading on thin ice in new territory.
SKATING THIN ICE
Stepping from the landlocked trees to ice,
On thin, steel blades, the skater leaves
His two sure feet and sails;
He skims the grey-smooth ice on out
To places where the firmness softens and water's deep.
There, black holes gape and bubbles rise
Through thick, black water like thoughts of gods.
That far out on flying edges,
The skater's body quails with soaring fear,
And shore fires cast a fitful light
On small musings that freeze like cubes of ice;
That far out
The rugged shore and threadbare trees
Seem dreams that edge a frozen universe
Where bubble thoughts drift up through thick
Black air on spumes of mist to burst away,
And water's deep.
The following is from p. 206 of Dancing Wu Li Masters. I can’t guarantee that the info contained in them is not already outdated. The book is 20 years old, and that’s a long time in the study of the Cosmos.
[SLASH]
For example, if black holes are as we have speculated them to be, whatever disappears into them reappears somewhere. Is it possible, therefore, that there are black holes in other universes which are sucking matter from those universes into our universe? This is a seriously considered possibility. There are objects in our universe that appear to be the reverse of black holes. They are called white holes (of course). These objects are quasi-stellar radio sources, or quasars for short.
Quasars are extraordinarily intense energy sources. Most of them are only several times the diameter of our solar system, yet they emit more energy than an entire galaxy of over l50 billion stars! Some astronomers believe that quasars are the most distant objects ever detected, yet their incredible brightness allows us to see them clearly.
The relationship between black holes and quasars is purely speculation, but the speculation is mind-boggling. For example, some physicists speculate that black holes swallow up matter from one universe and pump it either into another universe or into another part and time of the same universe. The "output" side of a black hole, according to this hypothesis, is a quasar. If this speculation is correct, then our universe is being sucked into its many black holes, only to reappear in other universes, while other universes are being pumped into our own universe, which is being sucked through black holes and into other universes again. The process goes on and on, feeding on itself, another beginningless, endless, endless, beginningless dance.
[STITCH]
As I read those paragraphs I feel the poetry of the Cosmos and sense the energy around me. It’s a very interesting imaginative leap which only the imagination, aided by the limbic system, can do. This is no place for the logical mind. I wrote the following poem many years ago when my fears took up a bigger part of my psyche than currently, but it expresses for me something of the wonder and fear of treading on thin ice in new territory.
SKATING THIN ICE
Stepping from the landlocked trees to ice,
On thin, steel blades, the skater leaves
His two sure feet and sails;
He skims the grey-smooth ice on out
To places where the firmness softens and water's deep.
There, black holes gape and bubbles rise
Through thick, black water like thoughts of gods.
That far out on flying edges,
The skater's body quails with soaring fear,
And shore fires cast a fitful light
On small musings that freeze like cubes of ice;
That far out
The rugged shore and threadbare trees
Seem dreams that edge a frozen universe
Where bubble thoughts drift up through thick
Black air on spumes of mist to burst away,
And water's deep.
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