Monday, February 20, 2017

Thoughts on the Andorian basis of Quantum Reality


We can try to place the andorian basis for quantum reality within a number of possible schemas in space, one in which an electron's location is viewed in relation to the other, and another in which we view andorean forces as affecting the electron's relationship/location to itself.

The first is relatively simple and straightforward.  The and is moving the electron toward another and the or is moving it away from another.  If we viewed the "and" and "or" as forces that pull, it is possible to view them as canceling each other out and the electron as not moving at all, something that quantum physics says is not the case. Thus, this schema does not work.  If, rather than seeing the and and or as pure movement, rather than force, the electron is simultaneously moving in two different directions, one towards another particle and the other away from it.  Under this schema, the electron is in any number of different places at the same time given the relative speeds of the and and or.  This does allow for both a particle and wavelike quality and could coincide with quantum reality.

 The other possible schema, its relation in space in relationship to itself, (rather than to another) takes some more vigorous thinking but seems to work best.  The or doesn't "want or allow" the electron to be wherever it seems to be at any given time. Rather, it refuses to be in any given place at any given time, but wants to be or tries to be somewhere else.  Since it refuses to be anywhere at any given time, but is always trying to be somewhere else, at any given time it exists, when unaccompanied by the and,  as poor possibility.  In essence, it doesn't have a corporeal existence but only exists as possibility or probability.  The electron's andness, on the other hand, wants the electron to be somewhere and elsewhere, or more accurately everywhere, at the same time.  Thus the "and", when unaccompanied by the "or", makes the electron be everywhere, and thus be everything at any given time.     Since the andorean schema provides that both the "and" and the "or" are operative, the electron's orness is making it exist nowhere at any given time but only exist as possibility, while the electron's andness is making it exist everywhere at any given time.   This weirdness, this simulaneous existence and nonexistence, this being everywhere and nowhere at the same time seems to correspond more with fuzzy quantum reality, and is more likely the best schema within which to place it. Of course, we have to trust our senses to some extent, and our senses tell us that matter exists.  And in a sense, the "or", taken alone, is not saying that the electron does not exist; it is simply saying that it doesn't exist here.   While the "and" is saying that it exists everywhere.  Thus, this schema weighs more heavily, overall, in favor of existence, but a more fuzzy existence.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

More thoughts on Creativity

A precondition for creativity, besides intelligent beings, is a certain degree of diversity.  In creativity, the "and" and the "or" cooperate to increase diversity.  Or we may say that diversity perpetuates itself through the "and" and the "or".   In any event, creativity involves the "and" gathering the disparate other together, and the "or", which wants to escape itself, split away from itself and become other,  modifying the boundaries of each individual other so that each of the separate pieces can become intertwined, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  And through sufficient work and time, the pieces become completely welded together until the separate identity of each piece is no longer recognized, and a new single piece is created.  In sum, the process of the "and" gathering pieces together, the "or" modifying each piece, and the "and" taking advantage of that modification to link them together, culminates in the entire melding of these separate pieces into an entirely new piece, which the "or" separates from other pieces, ultimately increasing diversity.    Of course, there is a temporary sacrifice, or murder, if you will, involved in creativity, in that the formerly separate pieces, the disparate others, who have already been assaulted, lose their identity when welded together.   But not to worry,  their separate identity continues to exist in memory and can be reproduced if need be.  

Creativity, of course, has various degrees.   Take the example of a songwriter (me). I will take various tunes I may have heard before, modify them (change their boundaries somewhat), and meld them together, using bridges between tunes when necessary, to create a song.  Something with a higher degree of creativity,  such as a new musical genre, occurs when the separate pieces have been so modified and so melded together that their former separateness is no longer apparent.  And of course, the geniuses are few who have played significant roles in the birth of new musical genres.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

More on Language

Of course, to put language in a box, to categorize it, would be to commit the same offense that language routinely perpetrates.  For language is more than a leveler.   Language also forms the glue, the "and" that enables members of the same speciies, particularly humans, to cooperate. People use language to conspire to dominate all other things (and other people).  Language is something that develops over time so that people can dominate or get a handle around more things.   So we may see a cycle: the "and" uses the tool of language to further develop that tool, so it can subjugate more and more of the other.    Or maybe the "the"(the person?), through language uses the "and" to cooperate with other thes, to further develop the tool of language, so it can  get a handle around and dominate more and more of the other.

Most nonhumans use very little language, it is rudimentary, and if it is used to classify things, a big if, it classifies very few things.   A dog doesn't see a CD as a CD.  It sees something that is flat, shiny, may have a certain smell, is difficult to bite into, metallic tasting, and the dog likely makes no attempt to recognize that there are other CDs.  If it recognizes a similarity between this and other CDs, it is just the experience that it is useless, not good for the teeth and has no nutritional value.  And it is doubtful that the dog sees CDs as different from other worthless pieces of metal with similar smells. It is possible, however, that the dog's experience of the CDs, without the leveling, without the differentiation, is in a sense richer than ours.  The animal does not feel a need to "box" things to the same extent that people do.   And it likely has no interest in doing so.  But humans use language to box everything in the universe.  Language allows us to cast a wide net. We use language to subjugate all others.  And then the "or" then goes to work, using language to separate things into different categories, and killing their individuality in the process. In creating these different categories, the "the" and the "and" create an artificial diversity among things, trying to undo the damage they had originally done to the "or" through the leveling process.   Thus, language is both a leveler, a conqueror and an enslavor.  And I, my friend, am turning language against itself, using language to level language.  And I said I wouldn't do it, but I did.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

A slightly more serious thought about poetry

Yes, language is a tool, and poets, novelists, editorialists, essaysists, and would be philosophers wield it for various manipulative purposes.  When that tool is meant to be a window to the world, which words can truly never be, I wonder to what extent the imagery in poetry is meant to create a sense of yearning - because the images poetry creates cannot be as vivid as those we actually experience with all our senses - because words by their very nature destroy individuality - to what extent is imagery meant to create a yearning for the experience?

Friday, February 3, 2017

Utilitarianism or "Kill the Poets"

Thus, in the act of categorization, we are stripping the other of its otherness.  Or as Nietzche might have said, we are, in a sense, filing down a coin until it has lost its distinctive character, until you know not the country from which it originated, until the face that appears on it is unrecognizable.  When you use the word "cat", you are not referring to some idealized form which gives cats their substance.  Rather, you are viciously robbing millions of felines of their identity by putting them in a box so you can "get a handle" on them.  For securing a conceptual handle is the first step on the long road to hegemony, to dominance.

Thus forms, categories, universals are man made.  We make them by combining the "other" with the "the" and stripping the other of its otherness.  It is as if we are paring down a beautiful branch, once burgeoning with leaves in their multiple fall colors, stripping it thereof, and paring down its tip until it forms an arrow.

From categories, we move to language.  We'll discuss the structure of language in a little bit more detail later,  but all sentences, all declarations are composed, in part, of "objects" - subjects, nouns etc., - that relate to each other through verbs, which themselves involve the four pillars (the "and", the "or", the "the" and the "other".)  And objects are forms or categories.  In the sentence, "the cat caught the mouse," we have two categories: a category we have conquered by slitting the throats of millions of cats, and another category we have derived from running billions of mice through mazes until they've lost their individual spirit.

Man uses categories, and language, to get a handle on things so he can dominate them.  Language is largely a tool, like mathematics, science etc., which man uses to subjugate others.  Language strips individuals of their identities. In its crudest form, it is a weapon, what was once a beautiful branch, flush with leaves of various hues, that we have stripped away and honed into a spear.   There is nothing beautiful about it.   Poets are magicians, who somehow make dead branches, well honed spears,  appear beautiful; they are illusionists. They show us tools, and pretend they're showing us something else.  They are frauds!!!!! They must be stopped!!!.