Ignore for the moment, the incessant call of the doomsday naysayers.

 I will admit that I do enjoy the role of the devil’s advocate. I do it so often that I do it without consciously thinking about it. It’s kind of a verbal exercise in which I make statements concerning things that are at the same time both factual and not entirely true. The goal of the exchange is to elicit a response an then perhaps  friendly debate.

 Last weak  as I was preparing to be away for several days, I had need to communicate some last minute instructions to my coworkers. After having written a fairly complex set of instruction to one particular coworker via email I asked if there were any questions I could answer before I go. In response Dana who sits beside me in the next cubicle posed a question. “What does it all mean?” To which I answered automatically, “To consume and to be in turn consumed”.  She responded with her usual sarcastic tone. “What about love?” I must admit I was uncharacteristically caught off guard.

 Days later while sitting in my beach chair by the Jersey shore my mind wandered back to this question. Gazing out along the black rock jetty I imaged a long ago time when life as we now know it began to flourish. Encrusted there upon a craggy spring-tide edge a rusting patina of bio-film held precariously. In those hard times had spontaneously arisen a fundament of a body.

                                              

              Roland Thaxter - Thaxter, R. Botanical Gazette 17(12):389-406 (1892

 Cells had differentiated perhaps by accident preserving resources in the process. Cells over generations continued to specialize in myriad experimental expression. In the process blind alleys and dead ends would be exposed and eliminated by natural selection. After a near infinity of trial and error a configuration akin to a system of tissues was achieved. A fruiting body  would then rise to perchance preserve its fragile survival until the hard times had passed. In Parallel we too must survive the rigors of this world. We however through the lenses of everyday life tend to be blind to the struggle.

               

 Animals have been documented by science to possess many amazing senses and abilities that far outpace our own. Our brains it would seem had needed to reorganize with nature selecting to replace or abandoning others deemed less valuable survival mechanisms. Through some chance genetic bottle neck the landscapes of our minds were altered. A race in tune with the well fare of its kind created a new way of life in which we could sense for the first time our essential oneness with others. 

                                                            

Valuable senses were lost in the process. Dull to the world around us we are surrounded instead by a ring of family bound by love. It was perhaps on the edge of a sea not unlike this one where our ancient ancestors were busily collecting crab and fish first felt these budding emotions. They in time would become so tightly bound to our new way of life that they became integral to it. It was then that to protect and care for each other went from a weakness to strength.

In the breadth of time on Earth in which life has existed what we think of as purely human emotions are relative newcomers. In comparison within the billions of years prior to the advent of our line life’s only goal was survival.  The first order of life did so by, consuming the abundant chemical and solar energies that were so readily available. As competition grew fierce an arms race was triggered in which it was far more economical to let someone else do their work of collecting energy for them. This way of life persisted as the primary mode of existence onward up until the end of the last ice age.

If you imagine these ephemeral ideas such as the emotion of love as being creations of the sentient mind or recognized from the primordial wellspring, either way these notions are new to us. So why then do we insist on placing them squarely at the top of our existential spectrum? It is I think not merely the fact that this is a human-centric world. Can it be that simple that the desire to love and be loved merely a mechanism through which we by extension increase our genetic survivability? By recognizing the essential oneness with those of our kind we have gained a powerful tool that allows us to more easily able to share and exploit common resources. Enhanced over millennia there traits have been ingrained into every aspect of culture. When all is said and done the equation To consume and to be in turn consumed, still rings true. It is also true however that Together we survive and alone we perish.

When looking out upon the roiling sea I am reminded of when in my days of youth how complex it all seemed. Through the eyes of a young artist I was obsessed with trying to capture in graphic form what I was experiencing. With my limited abilities I could not achieve anything approaching a facsimile of experience. It would take me a few years of trying before I realized that such a feat was unachievable. 

Our experience of the natural world through our senses has been altered to where we can only reference it through abstract patterns. We must infer meaning of imagery through the sieve of the mental and cultural images we have already created. This is the nature of Art and this is why it is so important to us. It is our nature then to weave from these emotions a landscape of connections.  Despite the incessant call of the doomsday naysayers there is one unavoidable fact. Never before in all of the history of our species have we lived in an age of such abundance. Take a moment now and again take note of it.

The Impossible Drive

Last week over the course of a number of days I had read several contradictory reports in regards to the apparent confirmation by NASA scientists of a controversial new space technology.   Beyond the claim itself which was remarkable I found myself fascinated by an ensuing drama. In most instances such as this when extraordinary claims are made a phalanx of establishment detractors’ rise up against the claim in judgment and ridicule. However in this instance it was not the usual case of “The Dreamers” versus “The Nay Sayers”. An observant reader could easily see that as battle lines were being drawn that the Nay Sayers were careful not to mock too vigorously.

 The major bone of contention is the fact that this technology, what British Engineer Roger Sawyer calls an EmDrive should not work at all. According to the theory electric power is converted directly into thrust, bypassing the need for propellant.  Within a sealed vacuum chamber high energy radio frequencies are bounced around somehow propagating thrust from the quantum ether.

                                                                    Remember this?

In a recent report published by NASA it has officially reported that experiments to either confirm or disprove this technology were conducted in 2013. The published results seem to back up earlier reports out of China that confirm that small but measurable levels of thrust were detected.  I thought it was rather interesting how the NASA abstract states right from the beginning that it is in no way trying to explain or describe their observation beyond the results. It would seem that the scientists at NASA the venerable granddad of space science are at a loss for word as to explain or describe their observation beyond the results. As for now it is standing by its results and has published them to the internet.

An abstract of the report entitled “Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum” was published July 28^th and can be found at the following link.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140006052

 At the bottom of the abstract one of the authors states;

 “Test results indicate that the RF resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma. Future test plans include independent verification and validation at other test facilities.”

 Science is often scared to get ahead of itself. According to accepted conventional physics this theoretical technology breaks the law of conservation of energy therefore it cannot work. However with NASA making such extraordinary claims the scientific community should take a moment to examine these findings. It will be curious to watch this unfold over the next months or years. In the worst case scenario if they are proved wrong you can still reserve the right to say I told you so and then it’s back to giant rocket that goes nowhere. However if it proves to be true this could lead to a golden age of science and could possess the side effect of offering economically priced space travel to all. So for the moment let’s indulge the dreamers. In this case it’s the right thing to do.

                                                             The Wave of the Future

The Arrow of Time

Though we sometimes pride ourselves on our high degree of science, culture and our unique individuality within it, there is a legacy from which we cannot yet escape.  With good reason we rarely doubt what we are able to observe and confirm against those preconceived ideas that populate our paradigm of reality. For we surely would not have survived the rigors of wild nature without such dependability built into our landscapes. Despite our advances in science and technology, the manner in which we observe the world forms our experiences. However we do this in much the same fashion that our Stone Age ancestors did. This legacy inherited from our primordial past is not in truth very much removed from those of our mammal cousins.   For me however a question remains. Was this inherent hard wired dependability a natural product of our environments, or was it rather a manifestation of our uniquely human senses?  Will these senses eventually evolve to a point through which the new theories will be readily observable to us? Until such a time we must be satisfied with the knowledge that advances in fields of general and quantum physics that tell us now that all is not exactly as it seems.

 The concept of space-time is by no means a new Idea. Although it has been accepted for over a century by most experts it however remains contrary to common sense. It in essence states that what the universe of our experience is a four dimensional object through which an observable particle’s course through it can in theory be plotted at any point in its existence. The past then, once thought to be only a construct of memory could one day in theory be charted as navigable points along the arrow of time. However current ideas on expansion in which it is postulated that at one time the universe expanded at a rate far faster than the speed of light.

Quantum entanglement or what Einstein called Spooky action at a distance describes in essence that a pair of particles separated by great distances can affect each other’s characteristic states instantaneously as if they are entangled. This includes particles separated by distance greater than that which light can travel in that same time. This exchange of information between the pair apparently is contrary to general relativity which sets the cosmic speed limit at the speed of light.

Schrodinger postulated in his famous cat in a box thought experiment that an outcome cannot be known until it is observed and until that moment it can exist in all of its potential states at once. This thought experiment was examined in the equally famous Double slit experiments. Where in evidence was discovered that when unobserved particles behaved as both particles and waves, fixing their states only upon measurement.  The same is true of the cat he is both alive and dead until we observe the cat.

Furthermore what we consider to be matter is no more than fields of force conferring their constituent characteristics such as mass onto otherwise  nondescript particles or waves. All of these things due to the limitations of our innate senses seem immediately to be counter intuitive or out and out false. All through advanced techniques however are observable, quantifiable and considered by most to be scientifically correct. The question then remains. Will the human race evolve to possess a deeper understanding of the universe and own place in it or shall we go the way of the Dodo?

Either side of zero.

In grade school math all of us were eventually introduced to the concept of negative numerical values. You might remember the arrow pointing off in both directions with zero stuck right there in the middle. On first impression the idea seemed fairly logical but also a bit unreal. After all I could not possess a negative value of anything only a potential. Therefore it being outside my frame of reference it began to feel like the notion of a negative value was as elusive as Santa Claus. It had to be some kind of trick the teachers had cooked up to make their weird number games add up. For some time that’s how I figured it. Later as I began to look at the world with more objectivity the secrets these numbers began to tell fascinated me. I wound up back again to the notion of potentiality this time however its meaning was profoundly different. Today we live our lives scrutinized by hosts of ever changing charts; diagrams and bell curves all measuring our relative position on either side of zero. Overtime the feedback gained has proven to be a valuable tool to many of man’s endeavors. There are a number of real world examples that reinforce the power of this scale that leap immediately to my mind. Forecasts in weather, economics and epidemiology are have increased harvests, profits and longevity. This however can be a double edged sword. Daily we are bombarded with factoids designed to either stir emotion or apathy. To reinforce these ideas statistics are quoted often out of context. I personally am at a point that if someone is telling me something involving interpretations of statistical trends, I immediately assume they must have their own personal agenda. It would seem that our lives are lived in the shadow of potentiality. How long will we live, and to what degree of success will we attain? The answers to which are hidden somewhere on that invisible line that we studied in childhood. Seemingly each day in our choices and actions we make tiny adjustments to the calculations. In theory then feeding data into these abstract diagrams we should with just a turn of the head be able to survey simultaneously both our futures and our pasts. This surely however has never been the case. It said that every war is won or lost before it is fought, but this is only true in retrospect. In order for these things to be made real the game must be played and pieces moved out across the board. Only after the fact, can anything be known with a degree of certainty. I wonder then if I have come back around full circle to the outlook I possessed in my elementary school days, or if I’m becoming again comfortable with a healthy degree of skepticism.

Moon Aborted

Moon Aborted

Recently some of my childhood heroes got together to send a letter of protest about the administration’s proposal to completely cancel our nations plans to return to the moon. These men now in old age appear as messengers from a nobler era. Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan were among the signatories in this rebuke of national policy that claims we are conceding our rightful place on the cutting edge of space technology to those less deserving. I remember that night of the first moon landing in July 1969, how very exciting it all was to be alive in such amazing times.
I remember how, as a youngster I felt betrayed when our national goal disappeared as our nation grew bored with it. I have secretly held resentment all these years as if a future that could have been, filled with technology’s promise, was taken away and replaced by Disco music and mood rings.

I wrote this little following snippet as an aborted blog entry last year in a failed attempt at dry humor. At the time I thought it was terrible and it’s still terrible but its kind of timely now in a way that will soon seem evident.

“In honor of the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing I would like to pay homage to that other testament to the human spirit, my summer Vacation. I can still hear the words of my wife reverberating in my ears on that chilled February morning, “We as a family should commit ourselves to achieving the goal before the end of this summer go to the Eastern shore of Maryland before and return safely to Philadelphia” I, being the family’s Werner Von Braun, was charged with implementation of these lofty goals. Immediately I began making plans for my long anticipated summer vacation. Despite having all these months to prepare the inevitable crunch time has arrived.

This coming Thursday we will pull our fully laden trailer loaded with a thousand essential things the two hundred or so miles to Maryland’s Eastern shore. Once there if all goes to plan, we will begin to reap the fruits of my labors. The fact is however that things often don’t go as planned, just as our intrepid astronauts discovered when their computer told them to land in a boulder field. Having the sense and the training they were able to adjust their landing site with just seventeen seconds of fuel remaining. To avoid such calamities, I always plan things in advance so I might have the time to bring my plans into action and run any simulations as required.

In preparations for all manner of endeavors I often will first create lists within lists. This past weekend as a hundred things filled my head I entered pre flight mode in which I began the process of fleshing out the details on the final checklists. Some of the first items on my lists were obvious needs like food, sporks and space blankets. Others like my mp3 collection and a dozen different baseball caps, although not technically necessary they are not any less essential.

The logistics involved with planning such a trip were staggering, and not unlike those labored upon by the Apollo program in their race to the moon, I attempt to anticipate every eventuality. I began this practice years ago in an effort to fight off the chaos brought on by a flurry of my own thoughts. Of late I feel however I may just be feeding the fire. If something were to go wrong out there and I were to become lost in a lifeless, chaotic wilderness I might soon crimp my air hose and be left to die in an alien landscape. Or worse, I could forget the dogs shot records. However if all goes well I may yet catch that spotted flounder on my surf rod or kayak the length of the sound without dropping my sunglasses in the drink.

And when the trip is over and we’ve returned to our cubicles we will remember those golden days of glory and how we did these things not because they were easy but because they were hard.”

I wrote this originally as a play on how our adventurous natures were somehow usurped while we slept by a culture of safety. One year out this entry now seems funny to me because in this era of cost cutting, not only is the future of space exploration in doubt so also are the tried and true rituals of summer vacation. It seems this too has become victim to budgetary short falls. There will be no planning and packing, no daylong voyage. There will no thunderstorms at sea, no watching in awe the lightning arc across the charcoal sky. The lists and tools, for at least a season, will now sit idle. Hard cuts had to be made but I wonder if the spirit can long endure the rigors of austerity.

The culture of accountability

In the waning years of the great civilizations of the Bronze Age there was a belief among the royal and priestly classes that their fortunes and dynasties would endure the ages. Despite their wisdom, they could not see the true meaning hidden within the subtle changes that had befallen their world. There are lessons there among the heroic tales of the Iliad that describe for us a world characterized by desperate actions by ill advised and desperate leaders who would cling to a forlorn notion of honor. The realities were far more complex even for a bard of Homer’s stature to describe. What is often lost to the casual historian is the fact within a mere eighty years, the Greek culture that had launched a thousand ships for the sake of fair Helen, had ceased to exist. The cultures of the eastern Mediterranean had fallen into a Dark Age. What parallels could be drawn by an astute observer from these ancient tales to the current state of affairs in which we find ourselves. Some say to those in the past their primary enemy was their own success. By this I mean, their populations grew beyond their capacity to feed them. As the privations of an economy in turmoil made themselves evident their leaders could not look beyond the status quot for answers.

For those of us, who came of age during the Reagan era and were unlucky enough to live outside the sphere of the wealthiest of Americans, there is something that each has in common. This being experiential thread of being the cultural scapegoat for the perceived excesses of the baby boomers that came before us. This population boom flowered in the cultural revolutions that followed and was characterized in popular song as the dawning of a new age. This new age was however short lived as the economic realities of the 1980’s were made evident. The promise of a world free of war and disease was perhaps a long shot to begin with but what about the other things? It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when this all began to change. Sometime during the 1980’s a culture of profit at any cost was embraced by an elite cadre of the wealthiest who shunned industry as a cause unto itself for the fortune of the bottom line. In one generation the assets of our nation were liquefied to line the pockets of these privateers in gold. For these men, pride in a sense of accomplishment that comes with the production of goods and services or the welfare of workers families would no longer be a priority. Instead, the goal of increased profitability would be their rallying cry.

Since then the computer from which reams of data can be processed instantaneously has become commonplace. In their hands it would become the tool through which the institutionalized scrutiny that pervades our culture was created. This scrutiny has trickled down to a point where it is involved in virtually every facet of our every day lives. We are told what we should eat, what we should look like, how we should spend our free time and how to be safe. In this made for television fantasy land of images and fun facts, there is safety in numbers. For our short sighted and narcissistic society, it is true in both the sense of a herd and as algorithm. For those who are held accountable these numbers can be arranged to prove or disprove anything. And the subsequent finger pointing allays any collective responsibility. We can pretend then that we should expect guarantees against the ravages of crime, nature and disease even as the climate itself goes through the most dramatic changes since the ice age. In this era of terrorism, plauge and foreign war Statistics have replaced commonsense and dignity. As a result, the cooperative nature of the common good is seen as an anachronism.

Where did the time go?

My father always said that time was slipping away from him. This prediction was a forgone conclusion that was as true for him, as it is for all the rest of us. He was not talking about life’s inevitable end, but of the experience it self. I’m now middle aged and I’m beginning to understand what he was on about. What he meant was, as the length of his Days, Weeks, Months and years passed him by in comparison to the full measured length of his life, these segments became shorter and shorter. This type of experiential perspective can only be attained along the way in the fullness of life’s journey. I’m not convinced yet that this is a common experience shared among all people. But I too have watched summers float on seemingly like ages onto themselves. In comparison they now have been reduced to the twelve calendar weeks that mark their passing like a gym teachers stopwatch. Taking this thought further I would ask, would living five hundred or a thousand years further skew this perspective? And would then those punctuations on our calendars then become meaningless?
If space and time are inextricably linked as is described in modern cosmology and space is expanding at an ever-increasing rate then is time also expanding? We can easily measure the three dimensions in which we live. We are all familiar with how this works. Time however to our current understanding is a linear construction moving forever forward in one direction. If space-time is in fact one entity, then should we not be able to measure some manifestation of this expansion in time? Currently, time can only be measured in the same manner in which it always has been. If however due to some human sensory limitations we can only experience time in this one way then we may never know.
For the sake of argument I’ve begun to image time as sphere expanding outward in all directions from the big bang onward. Contained in the surface of this theoretical sphere are the infinite points representing infinite lines of temporal movement. And there within the volume of the sphere are held frozen each elapsed moment from the beginning onward. Assuming we are on the leading edge of this growing sphere the future has not yet been created. It however would be equally possible then that we exist now in someone else’s past. If these things were found to be true, it would prove what many throughout time had suspected, that time like any other dimension can be traversed. Perhaps scenarios like these have already taken place in places where the fabric of time may be worn thinner than in others, allowing for some a kind of extra sensory perception to occur. My hope is that if these moments are there frozen than we one day could float there for a while and bask in a golden moment. Or maybe even just hold it still for a while as we experience it again. If you future people happen to be reading this obscure little blog and this question were answered would you please let us know? I expect a knock on my door right about now.