Back in the day as we oldsters apparently say, things were different. It used to be that old forgetful fart would be relying on his memory to assert that "back in the day...." everything was cheaper, doctors gave a shit, things lasted longer and were made in America by union workers.
Interestingly enough, you might notice that all that stuff is true. Things change. Hell, even I change! For instance, I have lost a lot of weight on purpose and by plan, so I am packing less lard. Furthermore, we garden a lot more area now even though both myself and my sweety-pie are finding it hard to bend, kneel or otherwise move like you must in order to work a garden. This must mean I am alive, since as we all know, life changes things, things which change are alive, even if we don't understand how. Mountain ranges change over time, in fact they might have been an ocean floor at some point in the past/future, and being alive, they have changed over time. Changing life over time is evolution and all things evolve which are changing/alive. Nothing stays the same, because Nothing is a One Part quality. Nothing is all that it is.
Our perceptions of the Universe are changing over time as our sense improve. In the same way a baby is half blind at birth, having not needed vision in the womb, as this sense changes over time they are able to perceive a different Universe. Now that we have so many high resolution cameras in orbit, and super powerful computers to process the feed, we are seeing the old Universe in such a new way it has created a New Universe.
We saw before by visible light, photons hitting our retinas and activating chemical changes in our neural net. When a camera sees in much higher or lower frequencies than the human eye can see, objects and conditions appear which change our understanding of "empty" space.
First of all, we got here by basic Newtonian physics. The way things spin is controlled by the simple physics most of us learned in high school. Gravity, ramps, levers, etc. all work well at low speeds and frequencies. Take those cameras in space: they spin around the planet at speeds relative to their altitudes. When you have thousands of satellites flying around the earth at many different heights you need to know where each one is going to be at any one time, and Newton's Laws and equations always do that for us. The trouble began at different speeds and sizes. When you look at things going at the speed of light or so they no longer quite match those predictions based on Newton, and when great masses are involved, like galaxies, light is noticeably bent into a focus, causing very odd artifacts in the eyes of those cameras. What you see is no longer what you get, should you be able to go there and get anything.
Well, when you examine the things orbiting the entire Universe, i.e. the galaxies, it seems the equations don't match the data. Actually, when you examine the problem you can see that some of the "facts" are actually assumptions, like the mass of the known Universe. That changes the gravitational pull on those galaxies and that changes their speed relative to their orbits.
So, they looked in long wavelengths for those dark Things which were adding so much mass but not radiating in the visible light spectrum. They did not see anything. Then they checked the math and the data and what they realized was they did in fact see what it was, but their perception was spoiled by certain assumptions.
Consider what a bacteria sees when it looks out upon your lower intestinal tract. Chances are, we believe, the bacteria does not see a great ape descendant, or a higher being, but more like a landscape, spread out and mindless before it, waiting to be developed by tens of thousands of similar bacteria. We, of course, assume the bacteria within do nothing of the sort because that would be too scary to admit.
We looked out at the Universe and assumed our perfect human eyes saw all there was to see, and our perfect human minds could figure out what exactly it was we did see. Things change.
95% of the Universe is "Black Matter"... stuff that pervades everything you see but is so monstrously huge that it literally staggers the imagination and you must see it as lifeless. This assumption is not backed by any data. 5% of the Universe is matter like you and Mars, stuff that works by either Newtonian or Quantum physics rules and laws. 5% is Black Energy, stuff which does what energy does but does it in a form and frequency that we just can't perceive it except with complex math, split out among many Big Computers.
Now, with the introduction of the concept we can modify our math used to process images and "see" where the dark matter is relative to the "light" matter which we can see with our own eyes and it is like clouds in our coffee, to be expected because the Universe doesn't like the sort of "order" our brains love to impose on things which have no inherent order, like spots on a piece of paper, or stars in the night sky.
Now that we see and perceive the Universe more properly and it now has a math to fit the data, we can begin to work with reality, maybe new realities to go along with the new understanding of how things move the way they do up there. As we do, perhaps we can also reconsider the idea that the Thinking Thing is looking up at the Nonthinking Thing. Perhaps it is the other way around, perhaps a bit of each. Thus we are looking up at a consciousness so great and made up of energies we have just begun to notice, that it may think of us as less interesting than a benign bacteria in the cosmic gut, undoubtedly incapable of thought/consciousness. It's okay, perhaps it is just as well we are not very noticeable.
Saturday, August 06, 2016
Saturday, April 16, 2016
April Showers
The collapse of the American Empire is unfolding before our eyes. Bridges are no longer being repaired, we just put up signs warning heavy trucks to stay off. Schools are closing and villages are merging with towns and counties to save costs. One of the great things about the Internet is that people of like minds can find one another and share views. One of the bad things about the Internet is that people of like minds can find one another and share ideas. So, while we get solutions to problems we also get the rise of the Fascists. The damage the Party has done to the election industry is being felt as a compulsive liar and reality show host is presented as the best of the Right and a power hungry compulsive liar is the darling of the so-called Left. I suppose being Left of Right counts, but since the Right in question is so far to the right it wears a swastika a left leaning person could still be a fascist police state advocate.
Then we have Bernie Sanders.
The Powers in charge misunderstood just how pissed off the People are over the decades of lies, the up-flow of all wealth to the .1%, and the costs of getting their children an education compared to every other civilized nation. So while they teased us allowing Bernie to run as a "Democrat" they pt all their power and money towards a Hilary for President. They can't just put her up as the candidate and still call themselves "Democrats", in reference to the concept of "democracy", so they just do what they can to sabotage his campaign. The heavy-handedness with which they have approached their self-made "problem" is so obvious even Democrats can see it. The vocabulary used to cover the stories is glow-in-the-dark clear: Hilary crushes her opponent whereas Bernie only wins or takes votes.... but whenever they can scrape off votes he earned and give them to Hillary, they do. Not exactly rigged per se, but certainly very little is left to chance or democratic principles.
I often wonder what a society would look like as a democracy. If People could write laws and present them to the People for review, comments and votes, what laws would exist, what kinds of regulations? Now we can have a single person with wealth and power send up a Bill which financially benefits them and their business partners, post it at midnight and weasel enough votes by dawn that it becomes law, once the trained President is allowed to sign it. In a democracy I could draw up a Bill using forms online and present it to the voters for several weeks of comments and perhaps revision before the entire population is allowed to cast a vote and upon winning the majority of the votes, my Bill would become law! At the moment it is against the law for people to write their own laws and vote on them in a general election, this being New York, one of the most corrupt and fascist of states. Furthermore it should be that in a democracy we have Bills which are written on a single subject, no additional unrelated sub-bills allowed. In this way we don't get a Bill to finance the government with an "Easter egg" of concealed perks for a few businessmen.
Most people have been trained to accept any small portion of democracy permitted by the fascists, primarily harmless Bills which declare today to be national bullshit day or some such thing. It brings in extra cash to be part of a committee looking over these useless laws, so our lawmakers like to have plenty of them. It has been observed by the great philosopher Fred Brighton that when all the good and necessary laws have been written we should stop writing new laws, but Congress gets paid both by salary and by number of laws passed, so we then start getting absurd and sometimes even illegal laws passed, which then make lawyers tons of money while they go to the Supreme Republican Court for a Party declared correction. We have "corrected" the Bill of Rights to include the Right of a President to murder American citizens remotely or by proxy so long as they first declare the victim to be a "bad guy". Anyone standing near the victim will also be blown apart but that is what we call, "incidental collateral damage to structures".
If Bernie somehow is allowed to take the White House and if Bernie does not stop the fascist wars we are waging, or does not stop the slaughter by drones, then we can declare America to be a "democracy free zone" and we should quietly begin finding a refuge somewhere else on the planet, assuming they allow us to leave.
Then we have Bernie Sanders.
The Powers in charge misunderstood just how pissed off the People are over the decades of lies, the up-flow of all wealth to the .1%, and the costs of getting their children an education compared to every other civilized nation. So while they teased us allowing Bernie to run as a "Democrat" they pt all their power and money towards a Hilary for President. They can't just put her up as the candidate and still call themselves "Democrats", in reference to the concept of "democracy", so they just do what they can to sabotage his campaign. The heavy-handedness with which they have approached their self-made "problem" is so obvious even Democrats can see it. The vocabulary used to cover the stories is glow-in-the-dark clear: Hilary crushes her opponent whereas Bernie only wins or takes votes.... but whenever they can scrape off votes he earned and give them to Hillary, they do. Not exactly rigged per se, but certainly very little is left to chance or democratic principles.
I often wonder what a society would look like as a democracy. If People could write laws and present them to the People for review, comments and votes, what laws would exist, what kinds of regulations? Now we can have a single person with wealth and power send up a Bill which financially benefits them and their business partners, post it at midnight and weasel enough votes by dawn that it becomes law, once the trained President is allowed to sign it. In a democracy I could draw up a Bill using forms online and present it to the voters for several weeks of comments and perhaps revision before the entire population is allowed to cast a vote and upon winning the majority of the votes, my Bill would become law! At the moment it is against the law for people to write their own laws and vote on them in a general election, this being New York, one of the most corrupt and fascist of states. Furthermore it should be that in a democracy we have Bills which are written on a single subject, no additional unrelated sub-bills allowed. In this way we don't get a Bill to finance the government with an "Easter egg" of concealed perks for a few businessmen.
Most people have been trained to accept any small portion of democracy permitted by the fascists, primarily harmless Bills which declare today to be national bullshit day or some such thing. It brings in extra cash to be part of a committee looking over these useless laws, so our lawmakers like to have plenty of them. It has been observed by the great philosopher Fred Brighton that when all the good and necessary laws have been written we should stop writing new laws, but Congress gets paid both by salary and by number of laws passed, so we then start getting absurd and sometimes even illegal laws passed, which then make lawyers tons of money while they go to the Supreme Republican Court for a Party declared correction. We have "corrected" the Bill of Rights to include the Right of a President to murder American citizens remotely or by proxy so long as they first declare the victim to be a "bad guy". Anyone standing near the victim will also be blown apart but that is what we call, "incidental collateral damage to structures".
If Bernie somehow is allowed to take the White House and if Bernie does not stop the fascist wars we are waging, or does not stop the slaughter by drones, then we can declare America to be a "democracy free zone" and we should quietly begin finding a refuge somewhere else on the planet, assuming they allow us to leave.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
A New Year
Now that I have survived yet another year I suppose I should be happy not to be stuck in a hospital bed somewhere or living in fear in Syria, but life is a funny thing when you have it, it seems like it is just like air: you take what you get and exhale the rest.
David Bowie died for our sins, our sins of omission, our sins of neglect, our sins of distraction. He was beloved by millions and will will long be remembered. Almost on the same day a 89 year old lady died in Massachusetts and her family mourns her now, plans her wake and burial and dozens of people mourn her passing. We may agree that when a soul moves on the Earth is diminished and when a new person is born the earth is reborn, thus the heartbeat of the universe is maintained. The pulse of the planet remains strong.
Now the oceans are rising and will do so increasingly as our "Leaders" debate if mankind is worth saving or if we should simply count it as a real estate offering which promises great things. But here's the Thing: when disaster occurs we lose the very young, as they cannot yet adapt. We lose the very old as they have no resources left to recover. The remaining have neither the innocence of youth nor the wisdom that comes with age. The world like a black hole eats the knowledge and spits out random radiation. As islands disappear beneath the waves, as Disney watches it's castles crumbling into sand, as beach side resorts become a scuba divers vacation spot, as the skyscrapers in New York find their foundations crumbling under salt water attack, will we have the intelligence to forget the damn elections for a few years and get started moving the populations away from Death and towards Tomorrow?
Probably not, such a reaction would be unique in our history.
The sun rises and the sun sets. Life flares and then fades. The music has to stop eventually, why not sooner than later? But chances are the last to leave will whistle a little tune as they stride toward the Light. A few eternities later the energies will have created new worlds, new Life, new debates about meaning. The new poets will little suspect they walk on the powdered bones of great thinkers and performers.
But there will never be another David (Jones)Bowie, never another Ziggy Stardust. Grandma will never hold her dear babies in her lap, never brush away their tears again.
But existence and Love cannot be destroyed as this is the basis for life, so things change but they change again later. So someday another child of earth will sing a song nobody has ever heard, in a tune nobody has ever imagined.
The universe tapping it's feet to the tune of the gravity waves washing up on the shore of a black hole, pauses and listens to the thin sounds of a great ape helping her child sleep beneath fading stars.
David Bowie died for our sins, our sins of omission, our sins of neglect, our sins of distraction. He was beloved by millions and will will long be remembered. Almost on the same day a 89 year old lady died in Massachusetts and her family mourns her now, plans her wake and burial and dozens of people mourn her passing. We may agree that when a soul moves on the Earth is diminished and when a new person is born the earth is reborn, thus the heartbeat of the universe is maintained. The pulse of the planet remains strong.
Now the oceans are rising and will do so increasingly as our "Leaders" debate if mankind is worth saving or if we should simply count it as a real estate offering which promises great things. But here's the Thing: when disaster occurs we lose the very young, as they cannot yet adapt. We lose the very old as they have no resources left to recover. The remaining have neither the innocence of youth nor the wisdom that comes with age. The world like a black hole eats the knowledge and spits out random radiation. As islands disappear beneath the waves, as Disney watches it's castles crumbling into sand, as beach side resorts become a scuba divers vacation spot, as the skyscrapers in New York find their foundations crumbling under salt water attack, will we have the intelligence to forget the damn elections for a few years and get started moving the populations away from Death and towards Tomorrow?
Probably not, such a reaction would be unique in our history.
The sun rises and the sun sets. Life flares and then fades. The music has to stop eventually, why not sooner than later? But chances are the last to leave will whistle a little tune as they stride toward the Light. A few eternities later the energies will have created new worlds, new Life, new debates about meaning. The new poets will little suspect they walk on the powdered bones of great thinkers and performers.
But there will never be another David (Jones)Bowie, never another Ziggy Stardust. Grandma will never hold her dear babies in her lap, never brush away their tears again.
But existence and Love cannot be destroyed as this is the basis for life, so things change but they change again later. So someday another child of earth will sing a song nobody has ever heard, in a tune nobody has ever imagined.
The universe tapping it's feet to the tune of the gravity waves washing up on the shore of a black hole, pauses and listens to the thin sounds of a great ape helping her child sleep beneath fading stars.
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