[Title riffs on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"]
Rule #3: Cosmological Art
LIGO-Virgo GW170814 Skymap, A. Mellinger, et al. on APOD
Post 3,790 “Spacetime Ripples in the Sky with Big Al”
Showing posts with label (Universally Inclusive and Real) Time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label (Universally Inclusive and Real) Time. Show all posts
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Spacetime Ripples in the Sky with Big Al
LIGO-Virgo GW170814 Skymap, A. Mellinger, et al. on APOD
Post 3,790 “Spacetime Ripples in the Sky with Big Al”
Saturday, September 16, 2017
The Metric of Our Universe
Entropy: The Metric of Our Universe
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| Credit: Wikipedia |
Ever since that initial event, our evolving universe (or its current cycle of evolution) has had its overall entropy increasing monotonically, albeit its rate of increase has been nonmonotonic. The nonmonotonic rate of increase has been due to the counter effects of gravity, the emergence (and evolution) of organizational phenomena that create pockets of decreasing entropy in spacetime, as well as the observed (though not yet understood) effects of dark energy.
Thus, we have traversed a chronology of cosmic spacetime-epochs, including the Planck epoch, the cosmic inflation, the Quark epoch, the Photon epoch, the "Dark Ages" (during which the universe was transparent but no large-scale structures had yet formed). Then followed the period of large-scale structure formation, including stellar evolution, galaxy formation (and evolution) and the formation of galaxy clusters and superclusters. The latter period has been characterized by local reductions of entropy corresponding to all the large-scale structure formation, all of which qualified as reductions in the disarray of matter.
The thin disk of our galaxy began to form at about 5 billion years ago. The solar system formed at about 4.6 billion years ago, with the earliest traces of life on Earth emerging by about 3.5 billion years ago. These epochs, up to and including the present time have been characterized by the emergence and evolution of (self) organizations with the concomitant localized decreases of entropy.
That universal metric, entropy, or, what is more nearly correct, its local decrease (called "negentropy" by Erwin Schrödinger), may be viewed as the lifeblood of our existence. As this lifeblood waxes, our existence flourishes. As it wanes, we hurtle towards heat death.
Nevertheless, there may be an ultimate reversal to the expansion of the universe (the "Big 180"), in which the universe (at least its current cycle) will end in a Big Crunch, after which a Big Bounce might initiate another new cycle, in endless repetition ...
It could happen.
Post 3,758 “The Metric of Our Universe”
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Take Big Al and Give the Points
Gravitational Waves Detected on Earth!
Related source » [This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
Cosmic breakthrough:
Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger
“Scientists announced Thursday that, after decades of effort, they have succeeded in detecting gravitational waves from the violent merging of two black holes in deep space. The detection was hailed as a triumph for a controversial, exquisitely crafted, billion-dollar physics experiment and as confirmation of a key prediction of Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. […] ”
— By Joel Achenbach and Rachel Feltman February 11, 2016 (washingtonpost.com)
"In March 1916 Einstein completed an article explaining general relativity in terms more easily understood." Coincidentally, that was just one month short of a century ago!
Big Al never ceases to amaze!
Big Al never ceases to amaze!
Post 2,854 “Take Big Al and Give the Points”
Friday, December 26, 2014
Time Reborn, Money Wasted
Disclaimer: As in all my online commentery, whenever I make an unsupported assertion, it should be taken together with the implicit tag IMHO (in my humble opinion).
Lee Smolin is a brilliant theoretical physicist. When applied to many theoretical physicists, "brilliant" might be deemed redundant. But in the case of Smolin (and a handful of others) "brilliant" is an intensifier — Smolin is brilliant squared. He is also a person of abundant integrity. He has the mental ability to not only probe the mysteries in the extrema of scales (from the Plank to the cosmic) but also to analyse complexities within socioeconomic theories.
In the case of the so-called "climate change" controversy, however, I think his analysis overlooked the key issue that bedevils the opposing contenders. The proponents, who favor a massive financial effort to moderate climate change, believe in the perfectibility of human nature. The opponents of such massive expenditures of wealth do not.
Smolin conjoins conceptually the effort to intercept asteroids that may pose a threat of annihilation to life on Earth, with the effort to moderate a sudden change in climate. But these two threats, both of which deserve our attention and our ambition to preclude them, are different beasts. The asteroid effort would be the purview of science and technology supported by funding from wealthy nations, without much (relatively speaking) controversy over how the funding was allocated. It would be analogous to the ongoing effort for the International Space Station mission.
The climate change effort is a beast of different color. From the get-go, the slimy charlatan profiteers saw the huge opportunity to cash in. If the world's political leaders comprised a plurality, which was within shouting distance of Lee Smolin's integrity, and had a smidgen of his intellect, something akin to the effort being made at CERN might have been possible.
But let's face it, the cost of addressing critical and worthy causes confronting our world far exceeds the available funding. So what are we to do? We can only do cost/benefit analyses to prioritize them. The climate-change advocates have poisoned the well of good will. The huge sums that have already been "spent" have largely been wasted via corruption and propaganda. I don't see any possibility of turning around this ugly state of affairs. Not in my own lifetime; and perhaps not even in the lifetime of my grandchildren. Whatever funding is available is much better spent on efforts that are not already infested with bloodsuckers.
Post 2,511 “Time Reborn, Money Wasted”
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| (Image via badosblog) Einstein discovers that time is actually money. |
Related source » Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe - Kindle edition by Lee Smolin: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“... it is we who are now destabilizing the climate, but it is also true that the climate has fluctuated suddenly in the past between very different states. If this happens again — whether triggered by our doings or not — it will have dire consequences for us. Because we're able to prevent or moderate major changes in the climate, we must do so — for the same reason that we must look out for and destroy asteroids that might collide with Earth.” [emphasis added]
— Lee Smolin, Time Reborn, p. 255.
Lee Smolin is a brilliant theoretical physicist. When applied to many theoretical physicists, "brilliant" might be deemed redundant. But in the case of Smolin (and a handful of others) "brilliant" is an intensifier — Smolin is brilliant squared. He is also a person of abundant integrity. He has the mental ability to not only probe the mysteries in the extrema of scales (from the Plank to the cosmic) but also to analyse complexities within socioeconomic theories.
In the case of the so-called "climate change" controversy, however, I think his analysis overlooked the key issue that bedevils the opposing contenders. The proponents, who favor a massive financial effort to moderate climate change, believe in the perfectibility of human nature. The opponents of such massive expenditures of wealth do not.
Smolin conjoins conceptually the effort to intercept asteroids that may pose a threat of annihilation to life on Earth, with the effort to moderate a sudden change in climate. But these two threats, both of which deserve our attention and our ambition to preclude them, are different beasts. The asteroid effort would be the purview of science and technology supported by funding from wealthy nations, without much (relatively speaking) controversy over how the funding was allocated. It would be analogous to the ongoing effort for the International Space Station mission.
The climate change effort is a beast of different color. From the get-go, the slimy charlatan profiteers saw the huge opportunity to cash in. If the world's political leaders comprised a plurality, which was within shouting distance of Lee Smolin's integrity, and had a smidgen of his intellect, something akin to the effort being made at CERN might have been possible.
But let's face it, the cost of addressing critical and worthy causes confronting our world far exceeds the available funding. So what are we to do? We can only do cost/benefit analyses to prioritize them. The climate-change advocates have poisoned the well of good will. The huge sums that have already been "spent" have largely been wasted via corruption and propaganda. I don't see any possibility of turning around this ugly state of affairs. Not in my own lifetime; and perhaps not even in the lifetime of my grandchildren. Whatever funding is available is much better spent on efforts that are not already infested with bloodsuckers.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
On the perfectibility of human nature
“It is time, on this view, that envelops everything else. It is the only feature of nature that enjoys absolutely the attribute of non-emergence.”
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| Image via ideas.time.com |
Everything about the universe changes, evolves or emerges in time. Even the characteristics of changes change in time. And so do constructs of the mind (such as mathematics), as well as the laws of nature (as we presently intuit and deduce them). The single exception to universal change in time — is time itself.
Hence, "perfectibility" as a goal can be approached in principle to arbitrary precision — in time. But depending on the target of our ambition, the approach to its perfection may take any amount of time, from one Planck time up to the entire lifetime of the universe at its heat death, or in the event it changes into another form of universe in time.
Let's consider a thought experiment. Suppose we had an acceptable measure for the "purity of human kindness" (PHK), and the means to assess the appropriate PHK value for each individual now living and for all those who have lived during the past century. I assume that such a multitude of individuals (let's say ten billion humans) would display a range of PHK values. At one extreme we would group the likes of Mother Teresa. The opposite extreme would harbor monsters like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam, and others equally grotesque.
If we plotted this population of PHK values with respect to coordinate axes for the number of humans as a function of their PHK value-interval, we would visualize some form of a bell-shaped histogram, with Mother Teresa at the extreme tail of saintly beings, and at the opposite tail the monsters of humanity. The average Joe Sixpack would appear somewhere within the centrally located broad peak of the distribution.
With this lengthy introduction, I now turn to my main point of this post: How likely is it that human nature, which we both love and abhor, can be perfected within the lifetime of any organized society? Based on the available historical record, I don't believe there has ever been (to date, of course) an observable change in human nature, let alone a change for the better, which latter would be displayed as a skewing of our above-described plot in the direction of Mother Teresa.
So what can we surmise about the chances that any group of self-appointed individuals (even if all of them were on par with the likes of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, et al.) could establish some form of utopia via centrally devised and promulgated policies (with the understanding that any such worldview relies unambiguously on the perfectibility of human nature)? I assert the chances are slim to vanishingly small.
Alternatively, we have in America a framework for societal organization that comprises: the rule of laws (stemming from a Constitutional social contract, which is amendable but not whimsically so); a tripartite representative government; the concept of personal property; and a free market economy. This framing was accomplished by a group of geniuses who by and large must have known implicitly that a utopia based on the hoped for perfectibility of human nature was a non-starter. There has been much historical evidence that the Framers were right. And there has been much more evidence that the so-called "perfectibility utopians" ushered in hellish monstrosities, without exception.
Post 2,490 “On the perfectibility of human nature”
Hence, "perfectibility" as a goal can be approached in principle to arbitrary precision — in time. But depending on the target of our ambition, the approach to its perfection may take any amount of time, from one Planck time up to the entire lifetime of the universe at its heat death, or in the event it changes into another form of universe in time.
Let's consider a thought experiment. Suppose we had an acceptable measure for the "purity of human kindness" (PHK), and the means to assess the appropriate PHK value for each individual now living and for all those who have lived during the past century. I assume that such a multitude of individuals (let's say ten billion humans) would display a range of PHK values. At one extreme we would group the likes of Mother Teresa. The opposite extreme would harbor monsters like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam, and others equally grotesque.
If we plotted this population of PHK values with respect to coordinate axes for the number of humans as a function of their PHK value-interval, we would visualize some form of a bell-shaped histogram, with Mother Teresa at the extreme tail of saintly beings, and at the opposite tail the monsters of humanity. The average Joe Sixpack would appear somewhere within the centrally located broad peak of the distribution.
With this lengthy introduction, I now turn to my main point of this post: How likely is it that human nature, which we both love and abhor, can be perfected within the lifetime of any organized society? Based on the available historical record, I don't believe there has ever been (to date, of course) an observable change in human nature, let alone a change for the better, which latter would be displayed as a skewing of our above-described plot in the direction of Mother Teresa.
So what can we surmise about the chances that any group of self-appointed individuals (even if all of them were on par with the likes of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, et al.) could establish some form of utopia via centrally devised and promulgated policies (with the understanding that any such worldview relies unambiguously on the perfectibility of human nature)? I assert the chances are slim to vanishingly small.
Alternatively, we have in America a framework for societal organization that comprises: the rule of laws (stemming from a Constitutional social contract, which is amendable but not whimsically so); a tripartite representative government; the concept of personal property; and a free market economy. This framing was accomplished by a group of geniuses who by and large must have known implicitly that a utopia based on the hoped for perfectibility of human nature was a non-starter. There has been much historical evidence that the Framers were right. And there has been much more evidence that the so-called "perfectibility utopians" ushered in hellish monstrosities, without exception.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Seven score and ten years ago …
Four score and seven years ago …
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| (Image via Wikipedia) Abraham Lincoln (circled) at Gettysburg |
Related source » Gettysburg Address: 150 years ago Abraham Lincoln dedicated the Soldiers' National Cemetery: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“It has been 150 years since President Abraham Lincoln got up in front of thousands of people in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to dedicate the Soldiers' National Cemetery at a turning point in the Civil War.”
— Nicole Saidi, November 19, 2013
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press)
“Seven score and ten years ago, our father Abraham brought forth at Gettysburg a high resolution, conceived in Civil War, and dedicated to the proposition 'that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth'.” — TheBigHenry, in tribute to President Lincoln, on the 150th Anniversary of his Gettysburg Address
Thursday, November 8, 2012
On disappointment
“One thing you can never say: that you haven't been told.”
Related source » Newmark's Door: Four miscellaneous thoughts on the election: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
“4. And thinking about the Americans who voted to re-elect this administration brought to mind a few minutes of the absolutely best TV I have ever seen. Carmela Soprano is married to a criminal. She realizes that marriage to such a man is destroying her life. But she hasn't gotten close to the courage she needs to break with him. So she sees an elderly psychologist. She is full of self-pity and self-drama and she aches for someone to tell her how noble she is. But the psychologist doesn't play along. He tells her to divorce. Immediately. Now. Her husband has blood on his hands and she can never have a decent life until she leaves. She protests: that would be difficult, what about her children, what about her religious faith? The psychologist argues with her a bit but soon becomes resigned because he has heard similar rationalizations and excuses before. But before she goes he looks at her and, in the tone of an Old Testament prophet, says: 'One thing you can never say: that you haven't been told'.”
— Craig Newmark, November 08, 2012 (newmarksdoor.com)
It sucks to be a perfectionist, but not that there's anything wrong with that. The downside, of course, is that disappointment is a frequent companion. The upside is that the accompanying humility is character building, which is a good thing if you are into that sort of thing, to paraphrase Lincoln.
Having spent what seems like forever trying to convince anyone who was willing to listen to me that Obama is the worst influence on the best of American society that has ever come to light, I do in fact feel like shit that he has been reelected. It wasn't long before I saw evidence of the sort of execrable behavior that Obama influences in his admirers when, soon after he won, "f*ck white people" was trending on Twitter! Can you imagine, if Romney had won, that "f*ck black people" would trend on Twitter? I can't.
Then in the immediate aftermath, I saw images of crowds of people cheering the outcome. OK; I get that they are happy their guy won. But how, I wondered, will this improve the well-being of our society and our Nation to justify such wild enthusiasm?
I am not, I repeat not, looking forward to saying "I told you so", when it becomes more apparent that Obama will have become the most negative influence on American life, ever. Nevertheless, being in the kind of funk that I am currently in, it does help me to know that I fought the good fight to the best of my ability.
And, having survived a much worse crisis in my own life, namely the Holocaust, I will focus on getting on with what every person's first priority should always be: striving for more life.
Post 1,921 “On disappointment”
Having spent what seems like forever trying to convince anyone who was willing to listen to me that Obama is the worst influence on the best of American society that has ever come to light, I do in fact feel like shit that he has been reelected. It wasn't long before I saw evidence of the sort of execrable behavior that Obama influences in his admirers when, soon after he won, "f*ck white people" was trending on Twitter! Can you imagine, if Romney had won, that "f*ck black people" would trend on Twitter? I can't.
Then in the immediate aftermath, I saw images of crowds of people cheering the outcome. OK; I get that they are happy their guy won. But how, I wondered, will this improve the well-being of our society and our Nation to justify such wild enthusiasm?
I am not, I repeat not, looking forward to saying "I told you so", when it becomes more apparent that Obama will have become the most negative influence on American life, ever. Nevertheless, being in the kind of funk that I am currently in, it does help me to know that I fought the good fight to the best of my ability.
And, having survived a much worse crisis in my own life, namely the Holocaust, I will focus on getting on with what every person's first priority should always be: striving for more life.
Post 1,921 “On disappointment”
Friday, September 14, 2012
Remember the Maine?
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| "The Maine entering Havana harbor. January 1898." HD-SN-99-01929. Resized version of the original downloaded from the source listed. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Of course you don't!
Unless you are a centenarian it is not physically possible for you to remember the Maine, which is best known for her catastrophic loss in Havana Harbor on the evening of 15 February 1898. And even if you are a centenarian, you probably can't even remember what you had for breakfast. The relevance of all this will be clarified below.
My wife, Tristein, who is wise beyond her relatively "tender years", has pointed out to me that a person's reality is relative, in the sense that it is largely informed by his personal experiences. The experiences of close family members and respected acquaintances are of secondary importance. And, except for historians and serious readers, what is "learned" in one's journey through academia is a very distant third, if it is at all of any relevance to a person's subsequent experiences of reality.
Since Big Al Einstein had already informed us that, "It's all relative", and since Big Al, along with Lincoln, Tristein, and a handful of others are the people for whom I have the greatest respect, I am much inclined to agree that most American civilians do not incorporate the ravages of war in their personal experiences of reality. How could they, if most American civilians have had no first-hand exposure to war? Need it be mentioned that seeing Marion Mitchell Morrison or Silverster Stallone win wars single-handedly on the big screen (in glorious technicolor, no less) doesn't count?
Having been born in Nazi occupied Poland to a Jewish mother and father, I have had first- and second-hand exposure, albeit as an infant and toddler, to the horrific circumstances of, arguably, the cruelest brutality in human history, while my parents kept us in hiding until we were rescued by the Allied armies from certain annihilation. I can not say whether it was through my first-hand exposure as a young child, or more likely from cues projected by my parents, that I became imprinted with a life-long fear of what humans are capable of perpetrating against their fellow man. But that fear is most definitely a part of my personal reality.
Which brings me to the point of this essay. Clearly, my own personal reality can only be a distant outlier in the distribution of personal realities for American adults. Which fact finally clarifies for me something that has recently been gnawing at my credulity with respect to the flagrant dismissal by the American Left of what are, to me, obvious signs of a murderous hatred directed at our Nation and people, as well as toward the people and the Nation of Israel, by radical Islamists.
How could presumably sane adults not perceive what, to me, seems crystal clear? Am I not, by at least some small consensus, a sane and intelligent individual? Perhaps. But what has been unclear to me, until now, is that my own personal reality is unlike that of the vast majority of Americans. And that, finally, explains a lot.
Post 1,887 “Remember the Maine?”
My wife, Tristein, who is wise beyond her relatively "tender years", has pointed out to me that a person's reality is relative, in the sense that it is largely informed by his personal experiences. The experiences of close family members and respected acquaintances are of secondary importance. And, except for historians and serious readers, what is "learned" in one's journey through academia is a very distant third, if it is at all of any relevance to a person's subsequent experiences of reality.
Since Big Al Einstein had already informed us that, "It's all relative", and since Big Al, along with Lincoln, Tristein, and a handful of others are the people for whom I have the greatest respect, I am much inclined to agree that most American civilians do not incorporate the ravages of war in their personal experiences of reality. How could they, if most American civilians have had no first-hand exposure to war? Need it be mentioned that seeing Marion Mitchell Morrison or Silverster Stallone win wars single-handedly on the big screen (in glorious technicolor, no less) doesn't count?
Having been born in Nazi occupied Poland to a Jewish mother and father, I have had first- and second-hand exposure, albeit as an infant and toddler, to the horrific circumstances of, arguably, the cruelest brutality in human history, while my parents kept us in hiding until we were rescued by the Allied armies from certain annihilation. I can not say whether it was through my first-hand exposure as a young child, or more likely from cues projected by my parents, that I became imprinted with a life-long fear of what humans are capable of perpetrating against their fellow man. But that fear is most definitely a part of my personal reality.
Which brings me to the point of this essay. Clearly, my own personal reality can only be a distant outlier in the distribution of personal realities for American adults. Which fact finally clarifies for me something that has recently been gnawing at my credulity with respect to the flagrant dismissal by the American Left of what are, to me, obvious signs of a murderous hatred directed at our Nation and people, as well as toward the people and the Nation of Israel, by radical Islamists.
How could presumably sane adults not perceive what, to me, seems crystal clear? Am I not, by at least some small consensus, a sane and intelligent individual? Perhaps. But what has been unclear to me, until now, is that my own personal reality is unlike that of the vast majority of Americans. And that, finally, explains a lot.
Post 1,887 “Remember the Maine?”
Friday, March 23, 2012
Time — what a rush!
Wisely-using time is good; saving time is better; investing time is priceless.
Related source » Theo Spark: They live among us: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]
— Theo Spark, 22 March 2012 (theospark.net)
Just in case it's not obvious, daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less. This practice of shifting clocks (spring forward; fall back) involves no actual saving of time.
Only two people can save time — Jesus and Einstein, and I'm not sure about Jesus. Moreover, whereas Jesus saves, Moses invests. Furthermore, it was Einstein who proved beyond reproach that time equals money.
And that, dear reader, concludes today's lesson on time, money and investing.
Post 1,783 Time — what a rush!
Friday, November 11, 2011
On Apples, Oranges, and Dimensional Analysis
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| Image via Wikipedia |
“But all of these concepts suffer from the same problem: For equality, inferiority, or superiority to have any meaning, what is being compared must first be commensurable. A symphony is not equal to an automobile. Nor is it inferior or superior. They are simply not commensurable.”
To invoke a more familiar example of incommensurableness: you can't compare apples and oranges.
The concept of "equality" (or the lack thereof, "inequality") is formally defined in mathematics. Whereas practically everyone knows that 2+2=4, many people might not realize that the claim, "Two apples plus two oranges equal four pears" is a meaningless statement. The reason such a statement, though numerically reasonable, is mathematically meaningless has to do with mixed units (or dimensionality). Thus, in order to make rational comparisons between objects, even related objects such as apples, oranges, and pears, one must first establish a common unit for comparison of those objects. In this instance, it could be, by agreement, units of fruit.
Dimensional analysis, by which one can establish whether or not a physical equation, involving quantities having various units of measure (such as energy, distance, time, etc.) can possibly make sense, is a very useful analytic tool. If both sides of the equation do not have (or can not be reduced to) identical combinations of units, then the equation can not possibly be meaningful.
Unfortunately, in the real world of sociopolitical discourse, such niceties as commensurableness are frequently ignored. But the consequences of such ignorance can, and often do, add up to dramatic waste of time, effort, and wealth, through bad blood, bad policy, and many tears of frustration.
Post 1,730 On Apples, Oranges, and Dimensional Analysis
N.B.:
My article "On Apples, Oranges, and Dimensional Analysis" was first published November 10, 2011 at 6:32 pm on the Technorati web site. I am reproducing it here today, in accordance with Technorati's cross-posting policy.
— TheBigHenry (AKA Henri LeGrand)
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Conservation of Time
“Time — I cherish it while luxuriating in it.” — TheBigHenry
Related source » Time, not bling, is the ultimate luxury
[This related source is recommended in its entirety. h/t The other Craig Newmark]
“(Reuters) - They may be trying to sell you that $10,000 suit or $35,000 necklace, but what luxury's tastemakers really yearn for themselves is not material at all.”
— By Dhanya Skariachan, May 26, 2011 (reuters.com)
“Hey man, d'you wanna buy a watch?”
“Hey no, man. Like, I'm not into time, man.”
— Cheech and Chong
Unlike Tommy Chong, I am into time, man. Very much so. Because, Einstein's discovery not withstanding, time is the one commodity that money can't buy.
For most of my adult life, I labored under what I suppose is a common paradoxical situation for a professional man — my love/hate relationship with my wristwatch. Though it has always been my favorite personal possession, it has also been my strictest taskmaster. And, most ironically, I wasn't consciously aware of this stress-inducing conflict of feelings about my watch. Until I retired.
Many of my contemporaries dread retirement. It represents what is perceived to be everyman's crossing of the Rubicon, especially for those men (and women) who define themselves primarily by their professional accomplishments. Though I am happily in my tenth year of retirement, I know former colleagues who have not yet cast that die.
During my professional days, I always imagined that once I retired, I would never have to endure the agony of forcing myself to get out of bed on a cold Monday morning to face a myriad of obligations that had festered all weekend. But, to my great surprise, during my retirement, I have metamorphosed into a morning person! I get out of bed as soon as I wake up, eager to face whatever atrocity has been perpetrated against the good people of the United States by the likes of Barack Obama.
I knew, albeit intuitively, that my retirement would prove to be a most important decision for improving the quality of my life. Having done my "homework" regarding financial matters, and having paid my dues to society and to myself over the course of my professional career, I stepped boldly into my own chosen future and never looked back. So far, I have had no regrets.
Post 1,695 Conservation of Time
For most of my adult life, I labored under what I suppose is a common paradoxical situation for a professional man — my love/hate relationship with my wristwatch. Though it has always been my favorite personal possession, it has also been my strictest taskmaster. And, most ironically, I wasn't consciously aware of this stress-inducing conflict of feelings about my watch. Until I retired.
Many of my contemporaries dread retirement. It represents what is perceived to be everyman's crossing of the Rubicon, especially for those men (and women) who define themselves primarily by their professional accomplishments. Though I am happily in my tenth year of retirement, I know former colleagues who have not yet cast that die.
During my professional days, I always imagined that once I retired, I would never have to endure the agony of forcing myself to get out of bed on a cold Monday morning to face a myriad of obligations that had festered all weekend. But, to my great surprise, during my retirement, I have metamorphosed into a morning person! I get out of bed as soon as I wake up, eager to face whatever atrocity has been perpetrated against the good people of the United States by the likes of Barack Obama.
I knew, albeit intuitively, that my retirement would prove to be a most important decision for improving the quality of my life. Having done my "homework" regarding financial matters, and having paid my dues to society and to myself over the course of my professional career, I stepped boldly into my own chosen future and never looked back. So far, I have had no regrets.
Post 1,695 Conservation of Time
Saturday, October 10, 2009
The Classification of Everything
Related Link » The Fundamental Dichotomy
“[T]he fundamental dichotomy is dimensionality itself. Everything in the universe, including everything that can be conceived, either has an implicit dimensionality or it doesn't. If it has dimensionality it can, in principle, be measured; if it doesn't, it can not be measured (not even in principle). The reason that dimensionality is more fundamental than even a bit of information is precisely because bits can only describe measurable concepts, concepts that are in some fundamental sense quantifiable (and ultimately digitized).”
— TheBigHenry, October 1, 2009
Related Link » "A Package of Information"
“Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter. I address this problem in my 1992 book, Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges. These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term "reductionism." You can speak of galaxies and particles of dust in the same terms, because they both have mass and charge and length and width. You can't do that with information and matter. Information doesn't have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn't have bytes. You can't measure so much gold in so many bytes. It doesn't have redundancy, or fidelity, or any of the other descriptors we apply to information. This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.”
— George C. Williams, The Third Culture - Chapter 1
“It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.”The fundamental meaning of everything is classification.
— President Bill Clinton
And the fundamental classification of everything is defined by the fundamental dichotomy, namely dimensionality.
"Everything" includes "classification", which latter may be thought of as the fundamental process. So that existence, which in the broadest sense includes fantasy, may be thought of as the classification of everything (including the process of classification itself).
The expanding universe, which includes us as elements of itself, is the "autobiography" of knowledge, a work in progress titled, "The Classification of Everything". It begins thus:
The Classification of Everything Dimensionality The Big Bang Dimensionality = 0 Dimensionality > 0 Matter/(Information Structure) Mind Dimensionality = 1 Dimensionality > 1 Information Mass/Energy Mass = 0 Mass > 0
Post #960 The Classification of Everything
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Fundamental Dichotomy
Everything, without exception, can be categorized. That in itself is not a startling statement — unless there exists a fundamental dichotomy! This is abundantly clear if you think about it for a moment or two. For, without further ado, if there was not a fundamental dichotomy, then clearly, the fundamental top level classification (or top level taxonomy) would be: everything that exists or can be conceived of in the universe; and that, of course, is a degenerate classification, where "degenerate" is, in this context, a technical term meaning "being mathematically simpler (as by having a factor or constant equal to zero) than the typical case".
At this point, many people would be inclined to jump up and exclaim, with some indignation, "Of course, TheBigHenry, everyone knows that the fundamental quantifiable entity is information, which is the fundamental unit of entropy, which in turn is at the heart of one of the fundamental universal laws of nature, namely the Second Law of Thermodynamics. And, as anyone knows, anyone who is even remotely familiar with how computers acquire, process, and store information, the fundamental unit of information is a bit. And, every bit of information is binary — its value is either a zero (0) or a one (1). The rest is mathematics.
But, that is not the dichotomy I have in mind. There are quite a few others that spring to mind: male/female; up/down; left/right; positive/negative; animal/vegetable/mineral (which, of course, is not a dichotomy but a trichotomy). None of the foregoing is more fundamental than the binary bit of information. But, what I have in mind is something that is more fundamental.
I submit that the fundamental dichotomy is dimensionality itself. Everything in the universe, including everything that can be conceived, either has an implicit dimensionality or it doesn't. If it has dimensionality it can, in principle, be measured; if it doesn't, it can not be measured (not even in principle). The reason that dimensionality is more fundamental than even a bit of information is precisely because bits can only describe measurable concepts, concepts that are in some fundamental sense quantifiable (and ultimately digitized). For example, just to invoke one of the most common concepts that virtually everyone is aware of, except, perhaps, those who are completely catatonic, is consciousness. To my knowledge, no one has yet been able to explain it or define it satisfactorily, which in the most basic sense that I can imagine constitutes our inability to quantify it. Consciousness has no dimensionality. Nor, to my knowledge, does love, pornography, hope, and charity, just to name a few other concepts that many people can't define, but everyone, to quote a famous Supreme Court Justice (whose name, at the moment, escapes me), "knows what it is when they see/experience it".
Why does any of this matter? It matters very much for the following reason (and many others too): anything that has dimensionality can be quantified and, therefore, can be marketed (i.e., the market can, in principle, serve as a passive system of allocation for it); anything that does not have implicit dimensionality can not be allocated by a market allocation system. Therein lies the source of our world's contentiousness, and in particular, our society's penchant for litigation and political protest. The issues that invariably lead to controversy between individuals as well as between collective ideologies are those that are not quantifiable. Hence, they are not in principle amenable to market solutions.
What we need is not an alternative to market solutions, which work just fine for quantifiable concepts. We need an alternative solution for disputes that involve non-dimensional issues, other than the old standby — war.
Post #956 The Fundamental Dichotomy
At this point, many people would be inclined to jump up and exclaim, with some indignation, "Of course, TheBigHenry, everyone knows that the fundamental quantifiable entity is information, which is the fundamental unit of entropy, which in turn is at the heart of one of the fundamental universal laws of nature, namely the Second Law of Thermodynamics. And, as anyone knows, anyone who is even remotely familiar with how computers acquire, process, and store information, the fundamental unit of information is a bit. And, every bit of information is binary — its value is either a zero (0) or a one (1). The rest is mathematics.
But, that is not the dichotomy I have in mind. There are quite a few others that spring to mind: male/female; up/down; left/right; positive/negative; animal/vegetable/mineral (which, of course, is not a dichotomy but a trichotomy). None of the foregoing is more fundamental than the binary bit of information. But, what I have in mind is something that is more fundamental.
I submit that the fundamental dichotomy is dimensionality itself. Everything in the universe, including everything that can be conceived, either has an implicit dimensionality or it doesn't. If it has dimensionality it can, in principle, be measured; if it doesn't, it can not be measured (not even in principle). The reason that dimensionality is more fundamental than even a bit of information is precisely because bits can only describe measurable concepts, concepts that are in some fundamental sense quantifiable (and ultimately digitized). For example, just to invoke one of the most common concepts that virtually everyone is aware of, except, perhaps, those who are completely catatonic, is consciousness. To my knowledge, no one has yet been able to explain it or define it satisfactorily, which in the most basic sense that I can imagine constitutes our inability to quantify it. Consciousness has no dimensionality. Nor, to my knowledge, does love, pornography, hope, and charity, just to name a few other concepts that many people can't define, but everyone, to quote a famous Supreme Court Justice (whose name, at the moment, escapes me), "knows what it is when they see/experience it".
Why does any of this matter? It matters very much for the following reason (and many others too): anything that has dimensionality can be quantified and, therefore, can be marketed (i.e., the market can, in principle, serve as a passive system of allocation for it); anything that does not have implicit dimensionality can not be allocated by a market allocation system. Therein lies the source of our world's contentiousness, and in particular, our society's penchant for litigation and political protest. The issues that invariably lead to controversy between individuals as well as between collective ideologies are those that are not quantifiable. Hence, they are not in principle amenable to market solutions.
What we need is not an alternative to market solutions, which work just fine for quantifiable concepts. We need an alternative solution for disputes that involve non-dimensional issues, other than the old standby — war.
Post #956 The Fundamental Dichotomy
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Distance, speed, acceleration, and time
"Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme" — refrain from Scarborough Fair
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| TheBigHenry quoting BigAl |
Most people who are familiar with the quoted ballad refrain are also conversant with the physical concepts of the title. But, what is the next derivative in this physical series? Well, the first derivative of acceleration, or second derivative of speed, or third derivative of distance (with respect to time) is called jerk. Just as acceleration is the "speed" of speed, jerk is the "speed" of acceleration or, alternatively, the "acceleration" of speed. Is there a point to all this jerking around?
Well, if you multiply a jerk by mass you get a yank. In particular, if the acceleration happens to be grave, the force of the mass becomes the weight of the mass, and the yank is converted to a wank. Moreover, the latter concept has important applications in Britain, where, by coincidence, Scarborough is located!
All of which presages the following hidden message, if you're into that sort of thing:
A Yank jerk and a Brit wank are "birds of a feather" (so to speak), as it were.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Email Immortality
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Then there's the email option. I have, by now, accumulated more email addresses than you can shake a stick at. I have really lost track of all of them, but I had the presence of mind to aggregate all of their incoming mail at one catch-all terminus inbox, which is buried so deeply in the strata of convoluted copy-forwarding that some of my mail is delayed by up to 27 microseconds. Thank god for fiber optics and the speed of light, which insures that a googol transits of an infinite loop can be completed in under a minute.
So here's my plan. Some day, when a certain companion to taxes (no, not Texas) rears its ugly head on the horizon, I will forward the mail coming into my terminus inbox to one of my multitude of other addresses, thereby closing the email Mobius strip. Then I will email myself a farewell message that will be in transit forever.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying. — Woody AllenI would venture to say many people have harbored a wish such as Woody Allen's famously clever plaint. Despite the alluring statistic that most people who have ever been born are still alive, people eventually realize that immortality can only be achieved the old fashioned way — you have to earn it.
Then there's the email option. I have, by now, accumulated more email addresses than you can shake a stick at. I have really lost track of all of them, but I had the presence of mind to aggregate all of their incoming mail at one catch-all terminus inbox, which is buried so deeply in the strata of convoluted copy-forwarding that some of my mail is delayed by up to 27 microseconds. Thank god for fiber optics and the speed of light, which insures that a googol transits of an infinite loop can be completed in under a minute.
So here's my plan. Some day, when a certain companion to taxes (no, not Texas) rears its ugly head on the horizon, I will forward the mail coming into my terminus inbox to one of my multitude of other addresses, thereby closing the email Mobius strip. Then I will email myself a farewell message that will be in transit forever.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Entropy; Timshel; Life
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In seeking a simple (i.e., concise) general physical description for life, it seems plausible to me that I must ascribe to it a compatibility with basic natural law, as well as some spark of the sublime, so as to differentiate the essence of what is animate from the inanimate. In so doing, I propose to define life such that it does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and also incorporates the concept of free will, in the sense of an innate ability for making willful and, potentially, creative choices. The former aspect of my definition incorporates natural science, acknowledging that life exists within the 4-dimensional fabric of spacetime. The latter introduces the divine or, if you prefer it, sublime ingredient — that which differentiates living from inanimate objects.
The Second Law specifies that entropy, the measure of randomness in a closed physical system, increases with time. Entropy is that physical phenomenon responsible for the inexorable expansion of the universe toward a state of complete dissipation of useful, creative if you will it, energy. This, crucially, does not obviate the possibility of temporary localized reductions in entropy, however.
Consider the possibility of a temporary and localized reduction in entropy. Such a physical possibility is ordinarily designated a physical potential. Thus, let us consider the physical potential that serves to quantify a realizable (but as yet unrealized) reduction in entropy. Bearing in mind that a realized reduction in entropy implies a realized reduction in dissipated or useless energy, it, correspondingly, implies a realized increase in available or useful energy. At this point we have a plausible candidate for a physical description of what we know to be life, when we see it: a potential reduction in entropy. I will now address the need to incorporate a qualification that imputes a certain something, which will give the definition a spark of the sublime.
Timshel is a transliteration of the Hebrew word that means "thou mayest." It is a succinct exposition of the philosophical concept of Free Will. 'Timshel' memorably appears as the last quote in Steinbeck's East of Eden, and is, arguably, the principal theme of that novel. 'Thou mayest' suggests a divine (or from an as yet unknowable source) grant of potential. If we define an adjective "timshel" as a contextual extension to mean 'Thou mayest cause', it gives us the means to express, in local spacetime (i.e., in local 3-dimensional space and also temporarily), that aspect of potential for a reduction in entropy, which offers a possibility for an increase in useful, and conditionally creative, energy.
Thus, entropy and timshel give birth to a definition for life that incorporates both a natural potential and the philosophical concept of Free Will:
The rest is the explanation; go and learn. -- Hillel the ElderBig Al quipped, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." He also posited that, "One seeks the most general ideas of operation which will bring together in simple, logical and unified form the largest possible circle of formal relationships." These two statements, one jocular one not, both prescribe the guiding attributes of a generalized truth.
In seeking a simple (i.e., concise) general physical description for life, it seems plausible to me that I must ascribe to it a compatibility with basic natural law, as well as some spark of the sublime, so as to differentiate the essence of what is animate from the inanimate. In so doing, I propose to define life such that it does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and also incorporates the concept of free will, in the sense of an innate ability for making willful and, potentially, creative choices. The former aspect of my definition incorporates natural science, acknowledging that life exists within the 4-dimensional fabric of spacetime. The latter introduces the divine or, if you prefer it, sublime ingredient — that which differentiates living from inanimate objects.
The Second Law specifies that entropy, the measure of randomness in a closed physical system, increases with time. Entropy is that physical phenomenon responsible for the inexorable expansion of the universe toward a state of complete dissipation of useful, creative if you will it, energy. This, crucially, does not obviate the possibility of temporary localized reductions in entropy, however.
Consider the possibility of a temporary and localized reduction in entropy. Such a physical possibility is ordinarily designated a physical potential. Thus, let us consider the physical potential that serves to quantify a realizable (but as yet unrealized) reduction in entropy. Bearing in mind that a realized reduction in entropy implies a realized reduction in dissipated or useless energy, it, correspondingly, implies a realized increase in available or useful energy. At this point we have a plausible candidate for a physical description of what we know to be life, when we see it: a potential reduction in entropy. I will now address the need to incorporate a qualification that imputes a certain something, which will give the definition a spark of the sublime.
Timshel is a transliteration of the Hebrew word that means "thou mayest." It is a succinct exposition of the philosophical concept of Free Will. 'Timshel' memorably appears as the last quote in Steinbeck's East of Eden, and is, arguably, the principal theme of that novel. 'Thou mayest' suggests a divine (or from an as yet unknowable source) grant of potential. If we define an adjective "timshel" as a contextual extension to mean 'Thou mayest cause', it gives us the means to express, in local spacetime (i.e., in local 3-dimensional space and also temporarily), that aspect of potential for a reduction in entropy, which offers a possibility for an increase in useful, and conditionally creative, energy.
Thus, entropy and timshel give birth to a definition for life that incorporates both a natural potential and the philosophical concept of Free Will:
Life is timshel entropy reduction.The rest, as they say, is left as an exercise for the student.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Mistakes; not what they used to be
When even the best legal minds that money can buy are not up to the task of extricating someone against whom there is overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing or mindlessness, the last resort is the inevitable plaint: "I just made a mistake, man. What is your problem?"
My problem is etymological in nature. I seem to have missed the memo that defined a new catchall "mistake" that subsumed the definitions for acts of criminality, stupidity, ignorance, and all manner of bad behavior. Don't get me wrong, however; I like what such creative euphemism has accomplished. It has broadened the scope of socially acceptable behavior, bringing in from the cold the formerly sociopathic, narcissistic, and perpetually perplexed. Nobody has to suffer the humiliation of wrongdoing anymore, and that is a good thing.
Before "making mistakes" became de rigueur, people had to make an effort to maintain a semblance of good citizenship. Mistakes were held to a strict constructionist view by the community, and that made felonious behavior (including criminality, ignorance, and stupidity) something to be avoided. Some people would resort to gallows humor so as to appear infallible (i.e., "I was wrong once. Back in '76 I thought I had made a mistake.") But now, who cares anymore? No need to get worked up about anything. 'Mistakes are where it's at, dude', to use a mixed decade expression.
But, I could be wrong. I was once.
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