beliefs, science, thoughts

In which I become Immortal

Time, according to common belief, is unending and infinite.  The Universe, but not time, began with the Big Bang.  For if time had started only with the Big Bang there was no time before the Big Bang in which to create the components thereof.  So time apparently stretches back into the infinite past.  And time will go on for ever; it stretches off into the infinite future.  Or does it? 

Some current scientific theories are suggesting that at some point in the future time ceases to exist, or perhaps becomes frozen (which seems to amount to much the same thing).  Other theories suggest that time has no independent existence anyway; it is but an artificial construct of our existence; it exists only because we are measuring it.  (There’s a mind-bending article on the science of all this in the September 2010 issue of Scientific American, but you’ll need to subscribe or buy the magazine.)

It seems to me eminently reasonable that something as intangible as time is purely a human construct.  Do animals (cats or dogs, say) measure time?  Does one not need a level of self-awareness, an understanding of self, to be able to measure time?

Logically therefore, if time has no independent existence, I am immortal.  Consider …

Before I was born (or conceived, or attained pre-natal consciousness, depending how one wishes to measure these things) there was no time.  It was not part of my existence, because I didn’t exist and therefore couldn’t measure it.

Similarly when I die, time ceases.  Again I am no longer able to measure or observe it.

Ergo I have existed for all time, and am thus, by definition, immortal.

Strange mind-bending things these scientific theories of everything!  Bishop Berkeley eat your heart out!

books

Full of Money

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I’ve just finished reading Full of Money by Bill James. Crime fiction is not the sort of thing I would normally read but I started dipping into it out of a sense of duty. Duty because Bill James uses Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time as a pivotal back-plot. But also because James is in real life AJ Tucker one of the earliest to write academically about the Dance sequence. I soon found “dipping in” wasn’t good enough and I had to start at the beginning.

I’m not really one for crime fiction. Why do I want to read about gangsters giving each other “acute lead poisoning” and being pursued by dumb cops? Is this different? Yes, it is. To start with there is no blazing gun battle or consequent “lead poisoning” (except off-stage at the end); not that we know that at the outset. It’s set in late 1990s London. And the only cop who plays a significant role is a senior female Detective Chief Superintendent, though by many measures she’d still rate as foolhardy if not dumb.

The main events of the story – murder and drug dealing on two inner London housing estates – all take place off-stage, the main one even before the book opens; they’re almost a backdrop rather than the raisons d’être of the story. So we have to piece everything together from set of cameos revolving around the DCS, a range of larger and smaller villains, and media types who play out these cameos through a variety of sub-stories. The twists and turns are interesting; the writing is good, and tight; the dialogue civilised and mischievous – all of which kept me turning the pages. Indeed the quotes on the jacket sum it all up rather well:

Engaging reading for mystery fans who like their crime stories gritty, realistic, and unsettling.

James knows how to pick the perfect turn of phrase and uses this gift to evoke dark hilarity, and bring a sense of menace and foreboding even in the midst of seemingly comic situations … [a] brilliant and thoroughly entertaining mix …

A gleeful send-up, by turns sinister and amusing, James is probably the most undervalued Brit writing crime fiction today.

beliefs, books, food+drink, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week

Well if last week was quiet, at least on the amusing & interesting quotes front, this week has seen a glut. So here’s a selection:

I will also continue my preliminary work on Project Be-less-fat. Because I WAS working on that project and that was all going well and good, and then in the last couple of months that all dropped off a bit because there was stress and bother and worry and comfort needing to be had. I do so wish the words “Yes, it’s been dreadful, we’ve been so stressed out the weight’s simply been falling off us” ever fell out of my mouth, but I, my scales, the gym manager and the owner of our local chinese restaurant know this is very very not true. And much as I know in my clever new-brain that exercising stops me feeling sad or anxious, the only thing that I want to do when sad or anxious is curl up under a duvet and sleep, so it’s hard to balance the two.
[Anna at http://littleredboat.co.uk/]

Don’t ever show something is important to you or you feel strongly about something otherwise you will be ridiculed.
Accept all abuse without retaliating.
If someone accuses you of breaking any rules or laws – don’t rise to it and defend yourself – you’ll only end up in the wrong.
Everything you think is insulting is actually humorous and you’re the stupid one for taking it seriously – no good expecting your own comments to be taken as a joke because they won’t be.
[Jilly at http://jillysheep.blogspot.com/ on how to deal with internet trolls]

Flora or Fauna?
Do you mean which would win in a fight, which is better company when I’m lonely, or what do I prefer to spread on my toast?
[Times Eureka science supplement, 08/2010, interview with Prof. Jim al-Khalili]

The formalism of post-selected teleportation closed time curves shows that quantum tunnelling can take place in the absence of a classical path from future to past.
[Times Eureka science supplement, 08/2010, in a snippet on time travel]

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.
[Fran Lebowitz]

A well-organized society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves.
[Tony Judt]

Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.
[Edith Sitwell]

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
[William Shakespeare]

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.
[Leo Buscaglia]

medical, science, thoughts

'eye 'eewls

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High Heels Cause Long-Term Damage says the headline.

We needed scientific research to tell us this?

Twenty years ago I had a colleague who was having serious physiotherapy because she was unable to put her foot flat to the ground, caused by spending too many years wearing 4 inch heels.

amusements, arts

Auctionalia

This month’s collection of the weird and wonderful from our local auction houses.

Mid 29th century Oak cabinet with two drawers fitted for cutlery above a cupboard flanked by barley twist columns.
[Do we get the time machine as well?]

Five pieces of pewter incl. a tobacco jar, a large musical jug, 2 brass  and wooden folding rulers, […]
[I think I find the idea of a musical jug even more alarming than the products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation]

A ceramic flat back-two damsels and knave in boat, pair of brass candlesticks […]
[Surely if he’s in a boat with two damsels he’s a knave by definition]

Quantity of Shelley tableware ‘Chelsea, 2 Copeland Spode Italianate bowls, metal dog nutcracker […] 2 sets  boxed silver plate butter knives […] quantity of buttons,
wood planes etc.
[Implements for opening metal dogs or for cracking the mutt’s nuts?]

Glassware including a charmingly enamelled French milk bottle with wire closure, a pair of 19th century large tumblers, 5 cranberry wine glasses, and 6 other pieces
[I’m curious as to why the French enamel their milk bottles]

An early 18th century iron cannon retrieved from the Thames at The Woolwich Arsenal. The  barrel is approximately 68″ long with a bore of 3″
[Just what I need to adorn the loo]

A rare mid 20th century Songye “Kifwebe” mask (Democratic Republic of the Congo), this important mask was made for a dignitary of the Bwadi Bwa Kifwebe society, the ruling group of the Songge tribe, the heightened striations in white signifies death and reincarnation (there is a monogram atop the left eye, possibly the original wearer/owner).
[Well this auction house does specialise in ethnographic artefacts]

Charming William IIII rosewood cabinet upper section comprising glazed cupboard beneath an ornate gilt metal gallery above 2 frieze drawers and cupboard base flanked by Corinthian half columns raised on a plinth.
[This has to be the pièce de résistance … I can’t even picture what it might look like!]

The taxidermist’s art was also in evidence, with:

A stuffed canary
A stuffed ferret
Pair of stuffed Jays mounted in a glass cabinet
A Victorian arrangement of two stuffed owls under a glass dome

beliefs, freedom of speech, science, thoughts

Accountability of Religious Leaders

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Prof. Lawrence Krauss writes a typically hard-hitting column in the August 2010 issue of Scientific American. I’m not sure if the piece is available online without subscription (I have access as I subscribe to the paper version of the magazine) so here are the key paragraphs.

I don’t know which is more dangerous, that religious beliefs force some people to choose between knowledge and myth or that pointing out how religion can purvey ignorance is taboo.
[…]
Last May I attended a conference on science and public policy at which a representative of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences gave a keynote address. When I questioned how he reconciled his own reasonable views about science with the sometimes absurd and unjust activities of the Church – from false claims about condoms and AIDS in Africa to pedophilia among the clergy – I was denounced by one speaker after another for my intolerance.
[…]
[In] Arizona, Sister Margaret McBride, a senior administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, recently authorized a legal abortion to save the life of a 27-year-old mother of four who was 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from severe complications of pulmonary hypertension; she made that decision after consultation with the mother’s family, her doctors and the local ethics committee. Yet the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olm­sted, immediately excommunicated Sister Margaret, saying, “The mother’s life cannot be preferred over the child’s.” Ordinarily, a man who would callously let a woman die and orphan her children would be called a monster; this should not change just because he is a cleric.
[…]
Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous. Unless we are willing to expose religious irrationality whenever it arises, we will encourage irrational public policy and promote ignorance over education for our children.

For my part I’m not sure which is more worrying: Krauss being shouted down at a scientific conference or the Bishop of Phoenix.  Both are very worrying.

food+drink, natural history

Chillies


Chillies in a Row, originally uploaded by kcm76.

The first chillies of the season, variety Habanero Tasmanian. Grown from seed (sown a bit late though) on the study inside windowsill in a couple of plastic window-boxes. I’m also growing Bulgarian Carrot (they look like their name suggests) and Hot Lemon (long yellow fruit with a fresh lemony flavour). These are all hot varieties. Unfortunately none of them seem to be very prolific for me so the crop will be small, but judging by the one Habanero I used tonight the quality is good.

amusements, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

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It’s generally been a quiet week and I’ve been doing lots of Anthony Powell Society work, hence the lack of activity and only a couple of recent quotes …

If you allow annoying people to annoy you, then you’ve allowed them to win.
[Hypersexualgirl]

Nature does not say that cats are more valuable than mice; nature makes no remark on the subject. She does not even say that the cat is enviable or the mouse pitiable. We think the cat superior because we have (or most of us have) a particular philosophy to the effect that life is better than death. But if the mouse were a German pessimist mouse, he might not think that the cat had beaten him at all. He might think he had beaten the cat by getting to the grave first.
[GK Chesterton]

food+drink, personal, photography

This Week's Photograph: Sky & Corn


Sky & Corn 1, originally uploaded by kcm76.

The East Anglian sky taken from the passenger seat of the car while travelling up the A11, early-ish on Wednesday morning. Wonderful light and cirrus clouds with ripe corn fields. The best few shots are on Flickr; I think this is my favourite of the series. Not bad for almost random grab shots!

We spent the whole of Wednesday with the house clearance guys finally emptying Mum’s bungalow which is now on the market. All we have to do now is get someone to buy it for a decent price. We dropped in to see Mum briefly on our way home; see looked so much better now everything is essentially done and she can draw a line under the whole thing. But it was one hell of a tiring day we just had to stop for an hour on the way back and have something to eat and (in my case) a couple of beers; we’re still recovering.