How To Fly in One (Impossible) Lesson

Post-Modernists tell us there are no facts, only competing narratives.  But no one lives that way; we all behave as though some things are unambiguously "true."  A critic asks "What happens if you jump off the George Washington bridge thinking you can fly?"

A real Post-Modernist  answers: "Gravity is a narrative.  It doesn't work if you don't believe in it."

But some conditions apply:

First, you must really believe gravity doesn't apply to you.  Any doubt at all and you'll plummet.  Belief is part of a feedback loop in which consciousness plays a part, but not the biggest part.  Try it.  Decide, as an act of will, to adapt a new belief; one that's wholly out of character for you. 

Not so easy, is it?  No wonder there are Calvinists (who believe it's predestination, not faith, that saves us).

Second, even when you succeed in changing your belief about gravity, no one else will know about it.  You can levitate around your neighborhood as easily as Peter Pan - but you will be invisible.  Your neighbors won't see you flying, because they don't believe you can.

The great "reform" movements of the 20th century were totalitarian because they had to be.  Unfortunately for them, brainwashing takes tremendous effort, and even then it rarely works - obedience can be coerced, but not Faith.

If post-modernists are right, the question of whether you can learn to fly like Peter Pan depends on the answer to the question "is something like self-brainwashing possible?"  And if it is, how does one do it?

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

The Universe: Probably Not A Hologram

Our very first blog post was about an experiment showing the universe is "pixellated" - what you'd expect if we are, in fact, living in a giant hologram.  But:

[A] European satellite that should be able to measure these small scales hasn't found any quantum fuzziness at all, contradicting the interpretation of the GEO600 results and indicating that the pixellation of spacetime, if it exists, is considerably smaller than predicted.

By examining the polarisation of gamma-ray bursts as they reach Earth, we should be able to detect this graininess, as the polarisation of the photons that arrive here is affected by the spacetime that they travel through. The grains should twist them, changing the direction in which they oscillate so that they arrive with the same polarisation. Also, higher energy gamma rays should be twisted more than lower ones.

However, the satellite detected no such twisting -- there were no differences in the polarisation between different energies found to the accuracy limits of the data, which are 10,000 times better than any previous readings. That means that any quantum grains that exist would have to measure 10^-48 metresor smaller.

So if the universe IS a hologram, it's a fine-grained one. Assuming, of course, that nature doesn't lie to us.

What Did You Predict In The War, Daddy?

People - more than one person - wants to know exactly how "America will win World War III and not even get a scratch."  So, with a caveat, here it goes:

1. Our nukes go "boom."
2. Their nukes go "pfft."

How would we arrange this happy (?) state of affairs?  Easy.  Since 1996, none of the great powers has tested a nuclear weapon by actually setting it off.  No - it's all done with simulations, running on supercomputers.  If we could trick our advasaries into making mistakes with their simulations, we could neuter them.

It's a risky plan, but it has precedent - the US did something similar with pipeline control software back in the 80s.

Another weird aspect of this theory is that the only countries, besides us, who would have working nukes, are the Pakistanis and the North Koreans - who never signed the Test Ban treaty, and actually DO set off H-bombs once in awhile.

I've had grave misgivings about this post.  I have NO access to classified information of any kind - this is the ranting of a disturbed mind.   But predictions - even wacky ones - can sometimes come true.  England's last "Witch Trial" happened during World War II; the "witch," Helen Duncan, had "prophesied" the sinking of the British battleship Barham - which had actually already happened! 

One of the best books about the experience of studying Fortean phenomena is "The Mothman Prophecies," by John Keel.  Keel's message is clear: when you think about weird stuff, weird stuff thinks about you.

Food Of The Gods?

Does God want to eat us?  We recently commented on Charles Fort's theory that ""The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property."

Perhaps he got the idea the Bible, where the 23rd Psalm begins "the Lord is my shepherd."  But the Psalmist doesn't take this imagery to it's logical conclusion; the Psalmist isn't shorn, then killed and eaten.

Still, Christians, especially Catholics, are often accused of cannibalism because of the imagery of the Last Supper.  "This is my body," says Jesus.  "Eat this in remembrance of me."

Reading Scripture with an open mind is hard.  We only see what we expect to see.  In GK Chesterton's Father Brown mystery "The Invisible Man"  everyone swears no one entered the building where the murder occured.  The killer became "invisible" by becoming ubiquitous - he disguised himself as a mailman.

Christian imagery depicts "the good shepherd," but is blind to its implications.  Raising us - for wool or any other purpose - is an action consistent with a flawed, limited creator - a Demiurge, not a Messiah.