Jeremiah Babe, 6/7/25
"Chaos Strikes Los Angeles,
California Looks Like A Third World Country"
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So, we rise from the rubble...
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Saturday, June 7, 2025
"Heaven's Queen, Hell's Prostitute"
Editors Note: This is a fascinating, lengthy, extremely well written and illustrated
article unlike any I've ever seen before. Well worth the time reading it! - CP
"Heaven's Queen, Hell's Prostitute"
Meet the supreme deity and secret practices
of the ruling class's antinomian cult.
by Mr. E
"We live in an upside-down world. Depravity is celebrated, corruption sanctified, and while loyalty and obedience to a government is demanded, it never reciprocates. The people in charge live a libertine life in not-so-secret, and the average person is left scratching their heads, asking “How on earth did all this come to pass?” The answer lay at the very bottom of a particular rabbit hole, one you may not have thought to look in. You also may have looked, and think you know the truth about the god of the elites, but you’re in for a surprise. You’ve learned from a previous series of mine that the god of the ruling class is actually a goddess. But even this, they do not do in its correct form and have inverted her worship just as they’ve corrupted everything else they get their demented hands on."
Full article here:
Musical Interlude: 2002, "A Divine Encounter"
Full screen recommended.
2002, "A Divine Encounter"
Beautiful!
"A Look to the Heavens"
“What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas. Located only 8,000 light years away, the Wizard nebula, pictured above, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer.
The active star forming region spans 100 about light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. The Wizard Nebula can be located with a small telescope toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus) Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun.”
Paulo Coelho, "The Bird And The Cage"
"The Bird And The Cage"
by Paulo Coelho
"Once upon a time, there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with glossy, colorful, marvelous feathers. One day, a woman saw this bird and fell in love with him. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird. But then she thought: He might want to visit far-off mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird.
And she thought: “I’m going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.” The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage. She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: “Now you have everything you could possibly want.”
However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out his cage.
One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds. If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body.
Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. “Why have you come?” she asked Death. “So that you can fly once more with him across the sky,” Death replied. “If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him ever more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.”
And she thought: “I’m going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.” The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage. She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: “Now you have everything you could possibly want.”
However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out his cage.
One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds. If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body.
Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. “Why have you come?” she asked Death. “So that you can fly once more with him across the sky,” Death replied. “If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him ever more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.”
- http://paulocoelhoblog.com/
The Poet: e e cummings, "Humanity I Love You"
"Humanity i love you because when you’re hard
up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink..."
"Humanity I Love You"
"Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death
Humanity, i hate you"
- e e cummings
"The Law of Jante"
"The Law of Jante"
by Paulo Coelho
"'The Law of Jante?' Of course I had never heard of this, so he explained what it was. I continued on my journey and discovered it is hard to find anyone in any of the Scandinavian countries who does not know this law. Although the law exists since the beginning of civilization, it was only officially declared in 1933 by writer Aksel Sandemose in the novel “A Refugee Goes Beyond Limits.”
The sad truth is that the Law of Jante is a rule applied in every country in the world, despite the fact that Brazilians say that “this only happens here,” and the French claim that “unfortunately, that’s how it is in our country.” Now, the reader must be annoyed because he/she is already half way through the column and still does not know what the Law of Jante is all about, so I’ll try to explain it here briefly in my own words:
“You aren’t worth a thing, nobody is interested in what you think,
mediocrity and anonymity are your best bet.
If you act this way, you will never have any big problems in life.”
The Law of Jante focuses on the feeling of jealousy and envy that sometimes causes so much trouble for people. This is one of its negative aspects, but there is something far more dangerous. And this law is accountable for the world being manipulated in all possible manners by people who have no fear of what the others say and end up practicing the evil they desire. We have just witnessed a useless war in Iraq, which is still costing many lives; we see a huge abyss between the rich and the poor countries of the world, social injustice on all sides, unbridled violence, people being forced to give up their dreams because of unfair and cowardly attacks. Before starting the second world war, Hitler sent out several signals as to his intentions, and what encouraged him to go ahead was the knowledge that nobody would dare to defy him because of the Law of Jante.
Mediocrity may be comfortable, up to the day that tragedy knocks at the door and people start to wonder: “but why did nobody say anything, if everybody could see that this was going to happen?” Simple: nobody said anything because the others did not say anything either. So in order to prevent things from growing any worse, maybe this is the right moment to write the anti-Law of Jante:
“You are worth far more than you think. Your work and presence
on this Earth are important, even though you may not think so."
Of course, thinking in this way, you might have many problems because you are breaking the Law of Jante – but don’t feel intimidated by them, go on living without fear and in the end you will win.”
"Hope In a Time of Hopelessness"
"Hope In a Time of Hopelessness"
by Washingtons Blog
"Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage;
anger at the way things are, and courage
to see that they do not remain the way they are."
- Augustine of Hippo
"Several long-time activists have told me recently they are overwhelmed, worried, and think that we may be losing the struggle. One very smart friend asked me if there is any basis for hope.
Hope is an act of will, not a passive mood. Admittedly, things are easier when circumstances bring hope to us, and we can just receive the hopeful and inspiring news. But if we care about winning, we have to be able to decide to have hope even when outer circumstances aren't so positive.
I have children who are counting on me to leave them with a reasonably safe and sane planet. As I've said elsewhere, I care too much about my kids and my freedom to be afraid. I care enough about them that it gets my heart beating, connects me to something bigger than myself, and that gives me courage, even when the chips are down.
If I allowed myself to lose hope about exposing falsehoods, about protecting our freedom and building a hopeful future, I would be dropping the ball for my kids. I would be condemning them to a potentially very grey world where bigger and worse things may happen, where their liberties and joys are wholly stripped away, where every ounce of vitality is beholden to joyless and useless tasks.
Many of us may be motivated by other things besides kids, and only you can know what that is. But we each must dig down deep, and connect with our most powerful motivations to win the struggle for freedom and truth.
I don't know about you, but I don't have the luxury of giving up hope. When I get depressed, overwhelmed or exhausted by the stunning acts of savagery, treason, and disinformation carried out by the imperialists, or the willful ignorance of far too many Americans, I will myself into finding some reason to have hope. Because the struggle for life and liberty is too important for me to give up."
"No Real Hope..."
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“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
“Thoughts on Evil, Human Nature”
“Thoughts on Evil, Human Nature”
by W. Christopher Epler
“Carl Sagan, author and astrophysicist from Cornell, used to wonder if atomic weaponry would be the nemesis of most “advanced species”. A flight of fancy of sorts since whales and elephants are certainly advanced species but don’t feel the need for technology (and should we patronize them for this since they aren’t rapidly destroying the planet?). Is it possible that much of science and technology are actually synonyms of self destructive stupidity? A kind of short sighted greed, perhaps.
In any event, what has now totally blocked the evolution of the human species is pure evil. The fringe of astronomically rich sociopaths is the absolute outer limit of evil. Similarly, so do all mentally ill religious fanatics poison the march of human civilization. And, probably most of all, the Earth’s Paris Hiltons and astronomically rich parasites (and vampires – remember, it’s all really OUR wealth), necessitate convoluted social/financial structures and processes which are the “crown of thorns” or highway to hell (or your metaphor of choice) for Homo sapiens. Maybe the wrong species got killed off during the demise of the Neanderthals.
Remember, “human” is a generic word that evolution has experimented with in actually a great many forms – we’re just the form that is still standing. But what’s the problem? Not a candy ass “religious” problem or a candy ass “political” problem but THE problem? Why is our species well on its way to going extinct? Indeed, why is it a near certainly that Home sapiens are going bye bye in the relatively near future (and taking countless “innocent by-stander” species with us in the process)? However, alas, they are just a sample of evil, since evil is as omnipresent as our breath. But what IS evil? Well, we don’t have to get particularly metaphysical about this. Evil is a function of human society. It has to do with the interactions of quantities of us (or probably any advanced life form).
So there’s a decidedly “quantitative” variable here. As our numbers increase, so does the complexity of our social infrastructure. And that seems to be the rub, since invisibly and insidiously the “social game rules” are conditioned into our vulnerable, biological brains. And just here is the door to hell. This dimension can be called “consensus reality” and it’s an admixture of language (always language!), the past, memory (not always our friend), and the miscellaneous conditionings of our time, place, and families (often profoundly dysfunctional). More openly, here are the programmed religions, laws, constitutions, and “theories” we so love to worship. In short, here is the stopping point of our species. Not atomic weapons, but the accumulated programming of years of social/psychological conditioning. The “operational definition” of all of the above is thought, because consensus realty IS thought; hence the thing the human race does best is think itself to death.
On a positive note, words like liberation, transcendence, and Enlightenment are “mystical” (the shoe fits) alternatives to this “swallowed whole” existence. The intelligence limitations of our species are still sublimely unknown, but whatever pragmatic value consensus reality may offer, our lives don’t even BEGIN until we get straight that this fire storm of conditioning that has become the “mind set” of the entire human race (indeed, the very “God” of the human race), is fundamentally, radically, and biologically arbitrary and random. In the context of this piece, what this means is that the social game rules that perpetuate the “Have’s,” that justify their astronomical wealth and power, and that (worst of all!) give an obscene “righteousness” to deranged lunatics who so love to commit genocide for the glory of God, aren’t worth the toilet paper they are printed on.
And exactly here is where our species is probably doomed, since many are called but few are chosen when it comes to being true to your birthright self and finding a reality/creativity/intelligence center that trivializes millennia of evil-perpetuating conditioning. Remember phrases like, “Might makes right”, “Manifest Destiny”, “survival of the fittest” (translation, survival of the wealthiest), and the loathsomely hypocritical “Divine Right”.
Of course these sayings (and even laws) are merely the tip of the iceberg. The dungeon is elsewhere. It is deep within the infrastructure of the collective human mind. Do we know that it is infinitely unjust that the elites spend more money on their wardrobes than most of us spend on our families in an entire lifetime? Do we know it is evil when religious fanatics try to steal an entire country and turn the lives of the people who have been living there for centuries into a WW2 concentration camp?
One response to these questions could be that we’re not sure if these things are evil, but almost certainly the world does know these things are filthy, evil, and infinitely unjust. However, you can know things on the “surface” of your mind that you play games with in the depths of your mind. The tragedy is that the world basically turns the other way from these evils and injustices because in the depths of our conditioning we are historically programmed to accept them. Hence, it is the deep, collective mind set that permits and justifies evil. We know better, but our “unconscious” (to use that word) “accepts” evil because we have been programmed to adapt to it for millennia.
The literally unimaginable suffering that necessarily goes with the existence of Greek God-like elites would make Jesus weep, but we accept The Haves (the evil) – indeed, most of us probably envy them. This is the paradox of evil. If we didn’t “accept” evil, it couldn’t exist! But since literally billions of us DO accept evil, that makes us an evil species.
This is not intellectualizing or empty theory. If the human race said no to “The Beast”, to the “Have’s”, to genocidal religious fanatics, to the Rockefeller’s, to the Rothschild’s, to the Bush’s, to murder in the name of God subhuman filth, to Saudi Princes, etc., etc., we could destroy them in a week. And I mean “non theoretically” destroy them in a week. Remove them from the planet as in cease to exist – now you see them, now you don’t! There are times in life you must be limitlessly aggressive. We can either watch The Beast destroy Mother Nature and our children’s future, or WE can destroy the beast. Remember, we know exactly who they are and we know exactly where they are. So what in the name of truth, beauty, and goodness are we waiting for? Certainly not for the paper bullets of religion and politics. ULTIMATE hardball is the name of this game.
Hence, looked at one way, there is great hope. Looked at another way, it is hopeless. It all comes down to how each of us deals with a lifetime of conditioning. Liberation is transcending the box. The world IS the box. So consensus reality (the home of evil) can be left. This is called being true to ourselves, or perhaps even Enlightenment. However, as a species, the probability that we will leave the box in sufficient percentages to “eliminate” evil is probably very, very small. Fortunately, even though our paralyzed and conditioned species continues to equate life with a moronically defective consensus mind set, each of us is still able to stretch our intelligence/spiritual eagle wings and leave this evil box forever. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: we’re the dogs – never the tails.”
o
Freely download “Beyond Good And Evil”, by Friedrich Nietzsche, here:
Adventures With Danno, "Big Lots Returns!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 6/7/25
"Big Lots Returns!"
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o
Elsewhere...
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell , 6/7/25
"I Went to Russia's Best Specialist Tool Store"
"Shopping for tools in Russia? I have discovered what is considered to be the best specialty tool store in the whole of Russia. Verisage Techmart has more than 30 years of experience in the Russian tool market. Is this really the best show in Russia?"
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"20 Fast Food Chains Going Out Of Business As Farmers Shut Down Production In US"
Full screen recommended.
Downturn Report, 6/7/25
"20 Fast Food Chains Going Out Of Business
As Farmers Shut Down Production In US"
"What happens when America’s food production slows to a halt? In this video, we uncover the deeper story. From rising supply chain costs to shortages in key ingredients, the impact of disrupted farming is now hitting your favorite fast food spots. We break down why this In US is more than just a trend - it's a wake-up call. What’s driving this crisis? How are small communities affected? And more importantly, what can be done before the next big wave of closures? This isn’t just about fast food - it’s about the future of food security, farming policy, and how we respond to changing supply chains. Whether you're a customer, a worker, or just someone trying to understand the bigger picture, this breakdown will help you connect the dots, a critical issue that touches every plate, paycheck, and town across the country."
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o
"Alert: Russian Ambassador Just Warned of a Major Nuclear Escalation"
Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 6/7/25
"Alert: Russian Ambassador Just Warned
of a Major Nuclear Escalation"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "People Have No Money for Anything - You're Not Alone"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 6/7/25
"People Have No Money for Anything -
You're Not Alone"
"People can’t afford furniture anymore, and it’s a sign of the times! In today’s video, I’m talking about the shocking closure of Progressive Furniture after 40 years, labor strikes affecting industries like bananas, and how rising prices are impacting everyday life. From crazy tipping stories to skyrocketing silver demands, it seems like nobody has money for even the basics these days. Plus, we touch on the housing market, real estate failures, corporate job cuts, and even new changes coming to stores like Costco."
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Friday, June 6, 2025
"America's Economic Crisis Is Worse Than You Think, Just Look Around"
Jeremiah Babe, 6/6/25
"America's Economic Crisis Is Worse Than You Think,
Just Look Around"
Comments here:
"Life Under Sanctions: Real Moscow Walking Tour"
Meanwhile, in a sane and civilized society...
Full screen recommended.
Window to Moscow, 6/6/25
"Life Under Sanctions: Real Moscow Walking Tour"
Comments here;
"Clash of the Titans"
"Clash of the Titans"
by Joel Bowman
“Our democracy is not perfect, but we do
have the best government money can buy.”
~ Mark Twain
Syros, Greece - "By now you’ve heard the news, dear reader. The Musk-Trump bromance is officially, spectacularly over... and the Internets are having a field day. Barely a week after Elon Musk revealed he was "disappointed" in President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (from X:“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful... but I don’t know if it can be both.”) the richest man on the planet and the leader of the free world were at each others’ throats, lashing out with threats and epithets enough to make a Kardashian blush.
Came the counter attack from Musk, not half an hour later...
As one commentator remarked, “once you take the pin out of the grenade, there’s no putting it back in.” This was war. Fired Trump: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Replied Musk: “Go ahead, make my day.” The man with the rockets went on to further up the ante, noting that such a move would effectively both end the International Space Station... and simultaneously provide no way to safely deorbit it. “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”
Big Beautiful Breakup: Whoa! So rapid fire is the escalation, so volatile and unpredictable the egos involved, that by the time you read this, the pair will either have gone full nuclear... or be enjoying a post-makeup cigarette.
Of course, in a battle royale of such epic proportions, everyone has his own axe to grind and petty agenda to advance... Thus some sought to frame the “Big Beautiful Breakup” as the first public divorce of pride month... while others wondered who might get J.D. Vance in the divorce... and a few dark humors merely wished that President Biden were alive to see the whole sordid affair unfold. Even the old school print media got in on the scandalous action. Here’s the front page of yesterday’s New York Post:
Lost amidst all the cheap shots and tawdry mud-racking, a few thoughtful commentators looked back through the pages of history, replete with cautionary tales of what happens when colossal wealth clashes with tremendous power, to see what mess the weary public might be in for next.
Like wedding dresses and spaghetti bolognese, money and power is something of an ill-advised combination. Get them at the same table, and someone’s going to have some ‘splainin’ to do. And yet, no matter the inevitable splatter, man’s nature is such that he cannot help but err on the side of folly.
Lex Agraria: One recalls, for example, the cautionary tale of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. A charismatic politician of the Roman Republic during the 2nd Century BC, Tiberius distinguished himself fighting in the Roman army in Africa during the Third Punic War and in Spain during the Numantine War.
Generally popular among the “elites” of his day, Tiberius courted the favor (and money) of the Roman aristocracy and equestrian class during his bid to become plebeian tribune... both of which he enjoyed until his election, when he promptly began pushing for radical land reforms.
Known as Lex Sempronia Agraria, the reforms were essentially a massive redistribution of properties, both public and private, from the state itself and wealthy landowners alike, to the masses. A quote from Tiberius survives in Plutarch’s Lives:
"The wild beasts that roam over Italy... have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in; but the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy the common air and light, indeed, but nothing else; houseless and homeless they wander about with their wives and children. And it is with lying lips that their [commanders] exhort the soldiers in their battles to defend sepulchres and shrines from the enemy; for not a man of them has an hereditary altar, not one of all these many Romans an ancestral tomb, but they fight and die to support others in wealth and luxury, and though they are styled masters of the world, they have not a single clod of earth that is their own."
Predictably popular not only with the soldiers, but with the hoi polloi who stood to benefit from the massive wealth redistribution, successful passage of the legislation would augur well for Tiberius’ chances of securing higher office. But when the tribune took the law directly to the Popular Assembly, bypassing the Senate entirely, he drew the ire of the senatorial elite, many of whom stood to lose fortunes in the land deal.
In 133 BC, Tiberius sought reelection, an unprecedented move at the time and one his enemies in the Senate used to accuse him of making a power play at monarchy, anathema to Roman republican values.
The Tiberius River: During a public assembly on the Capitoline Hill, Senator Scipio Nasica led a mob that stormed the meeting. Nasica, the pontifex maximus (chief priest) at the time, entreated his followers with a well known formula for levying soldiers in an emergency: “Anyone who wants the community secure, follow me.” (qui rem publicam salvam esse volunt me sequatur)
With his toga drawn over his head, Nasica attempted to frame the killing as a religious rite (consacratio), taken to free the state from an incipient tyrant. Armed with clubs, wooden staves, and broken furniture (carrying swords in the capital city was at the time forbidden) Nasica and other senators bludgeoned the tribune to death. Tiberius’s body was thrown into the Tiber River... along with 300 of his followers.
Often seen as one of the first instances of organized political violence in the late Roman Republic, the event marked a turning point in Roman politics, ushering in an era of increasing instability, populist reform, and elite backlash. Money had won the battle... but politics was ready for war. Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World..."
Musical Interlude: Vangelis, "Alpha"
Full screen recommended.
Vangelis, "Alpha"
"One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space. Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages. Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. My companion and I were alone with the stars: the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators. But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will."
- Rachel Carson
"A Look to the Heavens"
"The most distant object easily visible to the eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two and a half million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. In contrast, details of a bright yellow nucleus and dark winding dust lanes, are revealed in this digital telescopic image.
Click image for very large size.
Narrow band image data recording emission from hydrogen atoms, shows off the reddish star-forming regions dotting gorgeous blue spiral arms and young star clusters. While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept in the 20th century. Were these "spiral nebulae" simply outlying components of our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they instead "island universes" - distant systems of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations of M31 in favor of Andromeda, island universe.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100109.html
Chet Raymo, “New Philosophy”
“New Philosophy”
by Chet Raymo
by Chet Raymo
"It is one of Albert Einstein's most-often quoted quotes: "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible." Is the world comprehensible? Apparently at least partially so. Consider the NASA solar eclipse atlas I referenced the other day. It is possible to calculate the precise locations and times for solar eclipses thousands of years into the future and past. That's comprehensibility for you.
Of course, there are still things we do not comprehend, such as consciousness or the development of organisms, but there is no good reason to suppose those things are intrinsically beyond human understanding. The whole of modern technological civilization and medicine is a monument to comprehensibility.
Why? Why this strange consonance between the world and the human mind? For centuries the answer was simple. God created a world of space and time, a finite mirror, so to speak, of his own intelligence. He created humans in his own likeness. Human intelligence partook of the intelligibility of God. Everything in the closed, human-centered cosmos was ordered in his likeness. The world was comprehensible because it was made that way - for us to comprehend.
Then, in the 16th and 17th centuries, came the great disruption, which Alexandre Koryé described in his seminal 1957 book "From the Closed World To the Infinite Universe." Daring thinkers resurrected the Greek idea that the universe might be infinite in extent and eternal in duration - no boundaries in space, no beginning or end in time. It was a radical thought, heretical really, but it meshed well with what the astronomers and physicists were learning about the world we live in. As the poet John Donne wrote:
"And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out,
The sun is lost, and th' earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation."
The element of fire is quite put out,
The sun is lost, and th' earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation."
Of course, it wasn't as bad as all that. Galileo and Newton provided a new coherence. The physical world itself took on two characteristics of the Godhead - omnipresence and everlasting life. Everything unfolded not in accordance with the divine will, but according to eternal and immutable laws of nature. The Divine Artifex, master craftsman, in Koyré's words, was replaced by the Dieu fainéant, a lazybones God with nothing to do. And the comprehensibility of the world became- well, as Einstein said- incomprehensible. But...things were about to get more complicated.
Koyré's "From the Closed World To the Infinite Universe" was published in 1957. When I started teaching college in 1964, the required reading for my general studies science course included two articles by two prominent physicists published in "Scientific American" at about the same time as Koyré's book. George Gamow, a principal architect of the big bang theory, made the case for a universe that began billions of years ago as an explosion from an infinitely dense and infinitely small seed of energy. Fred Hoyle, stalwart champion of the steady state theory, took the stand for an infinite universe with no beginning and no end, in which matter is continuously created in the space between the galaxies.
Both theories had strengths and weaknesses. For example, the big bang successfully accounted for the known abundances of hydrogen and helium in the universe but posited an embarrassing beginning that could not be explained. The steady state theory avoided the stumbling block of a universe that seemed to come from nowhere but replaced it with many little unexplained beginnings (those particles of matter appearing continuously from nothing). Yet the big bang theory made one prediction that was testable: if the universe began in a blaze of luminosity, a degraded remnant of that radiation should still permeate the cosmos, and the precise spectral distribution of this microwave-frequency background could be calculated.
Then, that very year I started teaching, the cosmic microwave background radiation was serendipitously discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, with precisely the predicted spectrum, a triumph of comprehensibility. The universe- space and time- had an apparent beginning! For some people, this extraordinary development re-opened the door to a creator God, whose intelligence is the source for the intelligibility of the world. Koyré may have anticipated this. In his final paragraph he wrote: "The infinite Universe of the New Cosmology, infinite in Duration as well as in Extension, in which eternal matter in accordance with external and necessary laws moves endlessly and aimlessly in eternal space, inherited all the ontological attributes of Divinity. Yet only those - all the others the departed God took away with Him."
What others? Personhood. Love. Justice. And intelligence. Intelligence that is the source of the intelligibility of the world. But for Einstein, and many of us here, the mathematical singularity which is the big bang is an opaque barrier. To say the universe is created by God conveys no more information than to say it is created by X. We learned to live without Koyré's Dieu fainéant, the lazybones God who had nothing to do, and see no reason to bring him out of retirement. So why is the universe comprehensible?
Both theories had strengths and weaknesses. For example, the big bang successfully accounted for the known abundances of hydrogen and helium in the universe but posited an embarrassing beginning that could not be explained. The steady state theory avoided the stumbling block of a universe that seemed to come from nowhere but replaced it with many little unexplained beginnings (those particles of matter appearing continuously from nothing). Yet the big bang theory made one prediction that was testable: if the universe began in a blaze of luminosity, a degraded remnant of that radiation should still permeate the cosmos, and the precise spectral distribution of this microwave-frequency background could be calculated.
Then, that very year I started teaching, the cosmic microwave background radiation was serendipitously discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, with precisely the predicted spectrum, a triumph of comprehensibility. The universe- space and time- had an apparent beginning! For some people, this extraordinary development re-opened the door to a creator God, whose intelligence is the source for the intelligibility of the world. Koyré may have anticipated this. In his final paragraph he wrote: "The infinite Universe of the New Cosmology, infinite in Duration as well as in Extension, in which eternal matter in accordance with external and necessary laws moves endlessly and aimlessly in eternal space, inherited all the ontological attributes of Divinity. Yet only those - all the others the departed God took away with Him."
What others? Personhood. Love. Justice. And intelligence. Intelligence that is the source of the intelligibility of the world. But for Einstein, and many of us here, the mathematical singularity which is the big bang is an opaque barrier. To say the universe is created by God conveys no more information than to say it is created by X. We learned to live without Koyré's Dieu fainéant, the lazybones God who had nothing to do, and see no reason to bring him out of retirement. So why is the universe comprehensible?
There are reasonable arguments for the incomprehensibility of human consciousness, and some of them were given here the other day in Comments. Let me offer arguments for the contrary.
First, one very important feature of consciousness has already been comprehended. We can say with a high degree of confidence that there is no ghost in the machine, that consciousness is an emergent physio-chemical property of the material brain. Whether consciousness is deterministic or involves some measure of quantum uncertainty remains to be seen, but I find Roger Penrose's argument for quantum uncertainty unconvincing. For the moment, Ockham's Razor rules.
Second, we can study emergent consciousness by observing other organisms, from sea snails to chimpanzees. That is, in principle, we can build up an understanding of human consciousness incrementally. This assumes, of course, that human consciousness differs from that of other organisms only in complexity, not kind. Again, for the moment, the Razor rules.
Third, as I mentioned here once before, a project is underway to fully map the neuronal structure of the human brain, at which point it should be possible to construct an operational electronic analog of the brain. Will such machines be conscious? Google "artificial consciousness" and you'll find arguments for both sides. At the very least we will pare away some of the incomprehensibility.
Fourth, we may already have created a "conscious" machine: the internet, which approaches the human brain in its degree of interconnected complexity. It is continuously "aware," sensitive to millions of sensory inputs- touch, vision, hearing, smell, and for all I know even taste. I can ask a question in human language or tap an icon and instantly have a response from the internet's vast memory. The internet and its myriad of input/output devices mimic enough of the aspects of human consciousness for us to be increasingly confident that consciousness is not intrinsically beyond in principle understanding. And isn't in principle understanding all we ask of science, and Life?"
First, one very important feature of consciousness has already been comprehended. We can say with a high degree of confidence that there is no ghost in the machine, that consciousness is an emergent physio-chemical property of the material brain. Whether consciousness is deterministic or involves some measure of quantum uncertainty remains to be seen, but I find Roger Penrose's argument for quantum uncertainty unconvincing. For the moment, Ockham's Razor rules.
Second, we can study emergent consciousness by observing other organisms, from sea snails to chimpanzees. That is, in principle, we can build up an understanding of human consciousness incrementally. This assumes, of course, that human consciousness differs from that of other organisms only in complexity, not kind. Again, for the moment, the Razor rules.
Third, as I mentioned here once before, a project is underway to fully map the neuronal structure of the human brain, at which point it should be possible to construct an operational electronic analog of the brain. Will such machines be conscious? Google "artificial consciousness" and you'll find arguments for both sides. At the very least we will pare away some of the incomprehensibility.
Fourth, we may already have created a "conscious" machine: the internet, which approaches the human brain in its degree of interconnected complexity. It is continuously "aware," sensitive to millions of sensory inputs- touch, vision, hearing, smell, and for all I know even taste. I can ask a question in human language or tap an icon and instantly have a response from the internet's vast memory. The internet and its myriad of input/output devices mimic enough of the aspects of human consciousness for us to be increasingly confident that consciousness is not intrinsically beyond in principle understanding. And isn't in principle understanding all we ask of science, and Life?"
- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/
The Poet: Mary Oliver, “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”
“White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”
“Coming down out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful, and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings - five feet apart -
and the grabbing thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys of the snow -
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes
to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows -
so I thought:
maybe death isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us -
as soft as feathers -
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light - scalding, aortal light -
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.”
“Coming down out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful, and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings - five feet apart -
and the grabbing thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys of the snow -
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes
to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows -
so I thought:
maybe death isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us -
as soft as feathers -
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light - scalding, aortal light -
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.”
- Mary Oliver
"The Chief Obstacle..."
"The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race."
- Don Marquis
who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected,
though they are by no means respectable."
- Philip Stanhope
Free Download: Nevil Shute, “On The Beach”
“On The Beach”
by Nevil Shute
“Nevil Shute’s 1959 novel “On the Beach” is set in what was then the near future (1963, approximately a year following World War III). The conflict has devastated the northern hemisphere, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout and killing all animal life. While the nuclear bombs were confined to the northern hemisphere, global air currents are slowly carrying the fallout to the southern hemisphere. The only part of the planet still habitable is the far south of the globe, specifically Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America.
From Australia, survivors detect a mysterious and incomprehensible Morse code radio signal originating from the United States. With hope that some life has remained in the contaminated regions, one of the last American nuclear submarines, the USS Scorpion, placed by its captain under Australian naval command, is ordered to sail north from its port of refuge in Melbourne (Australia’s southernmost major mainland city) to try to contact whoever is sending the signal. In preparation for this long journey the submarine first makes a shorter trip to some port cities in northern Australia including Cairns, Queensland and Darwin, Northern Territory, finding no survivors.
The Australian government makes arrangements to provide its citizens with free suicide pills and injections, so that they will be able to avoid prolonged suffering from radiation sickness. One of the novel’s poignant dilemmas is that of Australian naval officer Peter Holmes, who has a baby daughter and a naive and childish wife, Mary, who is in denial about the impending disaster. Because he has been assigned to travel north with the Americans, Peter must try to explain to Mary how to euthanize their baby and kill herself with the pill should he be killed on the ocean voyage.
The characters make their best efforts to enjoy what time and pleasures remain to them before dying from radiation poisoning, speaking of small pleasures and continuing their customary activities, allowing their awareness of the coming end to impinge on their minds only long enough to plan ahead for their final hours. The Holmeses plant a garden that they will never see; Moira takes classes in typing and shorthand; scientist John Osborne and others organize a dangerous motor race that results in the violent deaths of several participants. In the end, Captain Towers chooses not to remain with Moira but rather to lead his crew on a final mission to scuttle their submarine beyond the twelve-mile (22 km) limit, so that she will not rattle about, unsecured, in a foreign port, refusing to allow his coming demise to turn him aside from his duty and acting as a pillar of strength to his crew.
Typically for a Shute novel, the characters avoid the expression of intense emotions and do not mope or indulge in self-pity. They do not, for the most part, flee southward as refugees but rather accept their fate once the lethal radiation levels reach the latitudes at which they live. Finally, most of the Australians do opt for the government-promoted alternative of suicide when the symptoms of radiation-sickness appear.”
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Freely download “On the Beach”, by Nevil Shute, here:
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Full screen recommended.
Complete movie "On The Beach"
"Not Much Mental Distance..."
“A man who has blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit - no matter how often he's reminded of it - that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley. Very few toads in this world are Prince Charmings in disguise. Most are simply toads, and they are going to stay that way. Toads don't make laws or change any basic structures, but one or two rooty insights can work powerful changes in the way they get through life. A toad who believes he got a raw deal before he even knew who was dealing will usually be sympathetic to the mean, vindictive ignorance that colors the Hell's Angels' view of humanity. There is not much mental distance between a feeling of having been screwed and the ethic of total retaliation, or at least the random revenge that comes with outraging the public decency.”
- Hunter S. Thompson
"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
- H. L. Mencken
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