Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere
This blog runs on WordPress, and I have changed the WordPress “theme.” The main reason is that the new theme is newer and gets updated when needed, whereas the old theme has been orphaned for years. The new theme also is optimized to work well on small screens, including phones.
Please let me know if you encounter any problems with the new theme.
How often do we get lavish period pieces based on a novel by Honoré de Balzac? I came across this on Amazon Prime Video. According to the Wikipedia article, the film (2021) lost money, though its rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 93/93. It’s a long film — two and a half hours.
According to the Wikipedia article, Balzac’s first novel (1829) imitated the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott. Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions), however, which was published in serial form between 1837 and 1843, was nothing at all like Walter Scott. Nor was Paris anything like Scotland. The only Balzac I’ve ever read was Le Père Goriot. I’ve ordered a copy of Illusions Perdues and will see if I have any French circuits left.
A very thoughtful piece of piano music is heard several times during this film — Franz Schubert’s Impromptu No. 3 in G♭ major, opus 90. After you hear excerpts in the film, you’ll want to hear the whole piece. The finest performance of this piece I’ve found on YouTube is by Khatia Buniatishvilli:
For extra credit, and to compare performances, here it is played by Alfred Brendel (a recording of which is used in the film). Brendel, by the way, is 93 years old and is still with us.
Do we all have old friends who have gone down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories? I certainly do. Arguing never works, does it? The only way I could think of to tell someone that they’ve disappeared down a rabbit hole is to acknowledge that we all have our rabbit hole, furnished in whatever way suits us best. This is what my rabbit hole might look like.
By the way, it is just remarkable how quickly AI imaging has become available. I subscribe to the Adobe Creative Suite, which now includes AI imaging tools.
Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics. Edited by Shan Gho. Oxford University Press, 2022. 520 pages.
First, a disclaimer. I am by no means qualified to review a book like this. The book is a mix of theoretical physics and the philosophy of physics. Theoretical physics goes way over my head, though I do think I can glimpse the gist of it. The philosophy of physics, though expressed in dense language, is not as dependent on mathematics and differential equations as theoretical physics. A patient and persistent reader can pretty much make sense of the philosophy of physics.
I read books like this even though I cannot completely understand them. I am more than satisfied to settle for understanding as much of it as I can understand. During the past forty years, there have been many excellent books written by scientists for ordinary people, because those scientists wanted as many people as possible to know where science, particularly physics, is headed. I often refer to Roger Penrose as my favorite physicist. He has written several such books. However, in the last ten years or so, as far as I can tell, there have been fewer such books. Thus, if we’re looking for an update on what has been happening in contemporary physics, we need to listen in on what physicists are saying to each other, and then try to follow that as best we can.
This book is a collection of seventeen papers by different authors. The papers cover the leading theories for understanding “the measurement problem,” which seems to involve conscious observers of how tiny particles behave. I won’t try to define the measurement problem here other than linking to the Wikipedia articles on the measurement problem and Schrödinger’s cat. If physicists can solve the measurement problem, that would resolve some profound questions about just what sort of universe we live in.
The thing is, all the theories pretty much go down a rabbit hole. That is not surprising, because what scientists observe in quantum behavior is so strange (think Schrödinger’s cat). It has been almost 90 years since the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment was proposed, and we still don’t know what’s going on.
Another disclaimer: Many physicists find the ghostliness of some of the theories repugnant. Not me! The more ghosts the better. I’m rooting for the ghosts.
Here’s an example of the distaste for ghosts, in this book’s chapter written by Michael Silberstein and W.M. Stuckey. They are writing about the mysterious nature of matter at the quantum level:
“Rather, panpsychism only makes matter weirder and seemingly less natural. It’s like learning that there are fairies in the world, but then being told to relax because we have decided they are just brute features of fundamental physics.”
Relax? OK. Some philosophers don’t like fairies. But we still don’t know whether there are fairies lurking in fundamental physics. Whatever Silberstein and Stuckey may think, I find the idea of fairies comforting rather than threatening.
One thing I get from this book is that the leading theories all seem to involve some version of panpsychism, the idea that the universe is conscious on some level. Roger Penrose’s theory, my favorite theory, is a panpsychist theory, though it regards objects such as electrons as “proto conscious” — not really conscious but capable of consciousness if organized into a larger unit and somehow “orchestrated,” which is what Penrose and Stuart Hameroff think happens inside the brain to generate consciousness. Nor is Penrose’s invocation of a Platonic domain without theoretical grounding in quantum mechanics. Before a “wave function” “collapses” because it has been observed or measured, it exists as a wide range of uncertainties that have a wide range of probabilities. After the wave function collapses, it is in, and stays in, a known and fixed state, or “eigenstate.” The theory is that certain possible states, ideal states, are favored by the probabilities — hence Platonic. Or, to say it a little differently, there may be natural probabilities that dispose nature to unfold toward ideal Platonic states. Thus, if there exists a Platonic bias in the structure of the universe, we get beauty of form, and we conscious creatures can perceive and work to realize the ideals of the true and the good, the just and the fair.
Some of the theories described in this book are as repugnant to me as fairies are to some people. One such theory is the “many worlds” theory. Many people take the many-worlds theory seriously, though to me it seems to be a ridiculous way of disposing of the measurement problem.
One theory described in this book is a somewhat modified version of the Penrose-Hameroff theory of “orchestrated objective reduction,” a theory that I have been trying to follow for years. The Penrose-Hameroff theory is mentioned in a number of the chapters, and always with respect. Penrose wrote Chapter 13 of this book, and Stuart Hameroff wrote Chapter 14.
The book makes no such judgment, but I might say that Penrose-Hameroff are out ahead with the most plausible — and, to me — the most attractive theory. It’s also the only theory that takes us into the brain and proposes a testable, falsifiable theory on how consciousness arises in the brain. Thus I don’t feel like I am out on a limb in having Penrose-Hameroff as my favorite theory, only because it appeals to me on aesthetic and intuitive rather than scientific grounds, where I am hardly qualified. I want a Platonic universe that is filled with ghosts (and fairies!), and it is entirely possible that we do live in a Platonic universe that is filled with ghosts and fairies. There would be an actual arc of justice in a Platonic universe, because of physics’ influence on nature and consciousness, disposing nature and consciousness toward Platonic ideals.
But we still don’t know.
Encounters: Experiences With Nonhuman Intelligences. D.W. Pasulka, St. Martin’s, 2023. 248 pages.
This book didn’t do it for me. Because I’m a UFO witness (seeing is believing!), I understand UFOs as material phenomena that should be investigated by the material sciences. D.W. Pasulka, who is a religion professor, sees UFOs as the focus of some kind of new religion. That’s an interesting angle, especially for those who think there is nothing real about UFOs. To many of us, though, it’s a kind of insult.
I’ve written here previously about the UFO I saw, so there’s no need to go into that now. I certainly don’t deny that there is something religionlike about UFOs for those who have never seen one and to whom their existence is a matter of faith. And it is certainly true that, if you’ve ever had a good look at a UFO (as opposed to mere lights in the sky), then that changes you forever, in the same way that Pasulka describes quite well, using the testimony of, say, astronauts who have seen the earth as a globe silently suspended in a vast but starry emptiness. Some of those astronauts have seen things out there that oughtn’t to be out there.
We UFO Truthers are still waiting for the truth. It would be ever so nice if it happened in my lifetime. The question, to me, isn’t whether UFOs exist. It’s who they are, where they come from, why they’re here, and what they can tell us about the universe beyond our solar system.
It’s very strange that I never read Winnie the Pooh as a child. School libraries certainly had copies of it. My guess is that I was a snob reader as a boy and that I considered Winnie the Pooh as beneath my grade level. But every home library should have a copy of Winnie the Pooh. I bought this copy on eBay. It’s the 1961 reprint edition, with the same illustrations (by Ernest H. Shepard) as the 1926 first edition. My copy has a charming bookplate, inscribed in a child’s hand as belonging to a boy named Gabriel. On the title page is a note to Gabriel that shows that the book was a Christmas gift in 1971. The book has some stains and is a bit frazzled around the edges, as a Winnie the Pooh book ought to be.
Winnie the Pooh, by the way, has been in the public domain in the U.S. since 2022.
My second book rebinding job was a worn-out Webster’s dictionary. Eggheaded nerds like me don’t often make things with our hands. But it’s a rewarding (and useful) activity. I can’t rescue cats, because Lily would never tolerate another cat in her house. But I can rescue old books.
It would have been ever so nice, when I built my house 15 years ago, if I had been able to afford a proper chimney. But a brick chimney on a house that is more than 30 feet tall would have cost a fortune. Not having a chimney foreclosed on the possibility of ever having wood heat (though I do have a propane fireplace that vents to the outside). Heating with wood would be very bad for air quality if everybody did it. And not everybody lives down in the woods as I do. But I have enough hardwood trees on my land to heat with wood without ever having to sacrifice a live tree. Elderly trees regularly fall over, especially in storms. Plus, my neighbors all own more woodland than I do. A nice thing about rural culture here is that downed trees are still seen as a kind of commons. If a tree falls, someone can always be found who needs the firewood. If a tree falls on a public road (as often happens), someone will quickly get it out of the way and turn it into firewood.
As a liberal prepper, one of the things I’m required to worry about is what I would do if the electric grid ever went down. Except for my propane fireplace, my heat sources rely on electricity. In a place this rural and dense with forests, power failures are common, though I’ve never had one here that lasted more than a day. Plus the propane fireplace does not have the capacity to heat the whole house in really cold weather. For a long time I had wanted a good wood stove to stash in the basement. If it was ever needed, it would be possible to make a makeshift but safe chimney out of metal pipe. I finally got my wood stove, and it’s a beauty, several years old but never used. It’s enormous, made from heavy steel plate (with a cast iron door). The stove was locally made by a welder who either died or went out of business before all the stoves he’d made had been sold. A neighbor of mine bought four of the surplus stoves at a steep discount, and I was able to get one of them. Its flat top is plenty big enough to cook on.
Wood stoves would not be practical in lots of places. But here in the woods, where everybody has chain saws and hydraulic wood splitters, wood stoves are eminently practical — as long as you have a chimney.
People, I think, sort roughly into two categories: Those who want to live in a universe in which some magic and an occasional ghost are possible; and those who insist that magic and ghosts can’t possibly exist.
One might think that scientists are always in the second category, but that’s not necessarily so. It might be going too far to say that Erwin Schrödinger believed in pantheism, but he was certainly interested in it. Werner Heisenberg was probably a Platonist. Roger Penrose writes explicitly about a Platonic realm. As for Albert Einstein, it’s difficult to figure out when he was being metaphorical, but he famously found some parts of modern physics “spooky.”
A few days ago, I came across an article at Axios Science, “Scientists propose a ‘missing law’ for evolution in the universe.” The article is about a new paper by a group of scientists and philosophers, “On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems.”
In a universe with no spooks, everything is tending toward disorder (entropy). But in spite of this ever-increasing chaos described by the undisputed second law of thermodynamics, random occurrences over billions of years eventually produced stars, galaxies, and kittens, without any assistance from anything spooky.
The paper proposes that there is a missing law that is a kind of opposite of the law of increasing entropy. This missing law asserts that, when material things combine in such a way that they are new, stable, and do something interesting, then, over time, complexity increases and evolves, even in nonliving systems.
Just for fun, I searched the paper for the word “Platonic” and actually found one occurrence. That’s in the citations, a paper named “The protein folds as Platonic forms: New support for the pre-Darwinian conception of evolution by natural law.”
If there is such a thing as evolution by natural law, then it is so slow that it may not seem very spooky. But think of it this way. If there was a ghostly, Platonic kitten eons before a living material kitten finally evolved, then a missing law like this might provide a way for that ghostly Platonic kitten to conjure itself into material existence.
I’m a very skeptical sort of person. But as science sorts this out, I’m rooting for the ghosts.
One of my neighbors has a friend who has restored a 1944 Willys Army Jeep, model MB. My neighbor, knowing that I’m a Jeep fanatic, arranged for me to have a ride in the Jeep, off road on some of the trails through the surrounding woods.
This Jeep, I understand, would have been a commander’s Jeep. It has a machine gun and a radio. I believe my neighbor’s friend uses the Jeep in World War II enactments.
I’ve been a Jeep owner for 22 years. I bought my Jeep, a 2001 Wrangler TJ, back in 2001 when I lived in San Francisco. It has only 80,000 miles on the odometer. I wouldn’t sell it for the world.
I’m a long way from making any thrilling drone videos shot in exotic places. For one, I’m a drone newbie. And for two, I’m still so pinned down by the late-summer heat that it’s miserable to venture outdoors except in the mornings.
One socially useful thing to do with a drone is to take videos of local points of interest (for YouTube), and photos of local points of interest (for Wikimedia Commons). Many people, I’m guessing, don’t know what a tobacco field looks like. As for the Belews Creek Steam station, it’s impressive from the air, but its environmental record is not so impressive.
My drone is a DJI Mini 3. The video is shot at 4K resolution. As for the background music, there are free “loops” available all over the web.
Augustus: First Emperor of Rome. Adrian Goldsworthy, Yale University Press, 2014. 598 pages.
I’m almost ashamed of my interest in Rome. The more I read about Rome, the more distasteful the Roman story becomes. But Augustus, at least, was in pre-Christian Rome (born 63 BC, died 14 AD), and therefore wasn’t responsible for any of the horrors that the Roman religion brought into the world. Also, by many accounts, he wasn’t that terrible, as Roman emperors go.
It was, strangely enough, the HBO series “Rome” (2005-2007), that made me want to read a biography of Augustus. I had watched this series years ago when it was new, and recently I rewatched some of the episodes. The series is quite good, with an excellent cast. The HBO series is set during the time of Julius Caesar. Young Augustus appears as a teenager. The HBO series presents the teenage Augustus as nerdy, very serious, a touch prudish, and very respectful of Roman traditions. That’s probably accurate.
Our fascination with Roman history seems to be eternal. It’s not hard to see why, since it was in Rome (and Greece) that we find the roots of our culture and our politics. Recent events in Russia are a reminder of that. That is, you’d better have some legions under your command if you want to play Game of Thrones. Without his legions, it seems unlikely that that we’d ever have heard of Yevgeny Prigozhin, and equally unlikely that Prigozhin would be alive today, without his private army.
The era of Augustus’ reign is often called the Pax Romana, because it was an unusually peaceful era in Roman history. But, peaceful or not, I felt vaguely nauseated while reading this book. It would have been a terrible time to live, even if you were a Roman aristocrat who didn’t have to worry about starving to death. If you were a nobody, then disease, starvation, or war might put an end to you. If you were a somebody, then you were vulnerable to all sorts of treachery including murder and assassination. Not to mention that there were many situations in which suicide seemed like the right course.
An episode a day of “Masterpiece Endeavour” helped me keep my sanity while reading about Augustus.
I have mentioned here in the past that, on a visit to the Isle of Harris in Scotland in 2019, I got bitten by a bug for collecting Harris tweed jackets (and also some Irish tweed). I stopped collecting jackets (by buying them secondhand on eBay) quite some time ago, not least because I have so little closet space for properly storing them. But I have been on the lookout for a Norfolk jacket ever since.
A full Norfolk jacket (as opposed to a half Norfolk jacket) would have a belt, buckled in front. A half Norfolk jacket has only half a belt (in the back) and fewer pleats. All Norfolk jackets have roomy patch pockets, ostensibly for stashing hunting gear and such. Back in the 1970s, when American companies actually made Norfolk jackets, I had two. Both were full Norfolk jackets. One was of corduroy, from L.L. Bean; and the other was of green cotton moleskin, from Orvis. Hardly anybody makes Norfolk jackets anymore, if at all. But there is a good market for them on eBay. Full Norfolk jackets of any quality will sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay. Half Norfolk jackets aren’t as pricey.
I bought the jacket in the photos from an eBay seller in England. Shipping took about two weeks. It’s Harris tweed, made by Dunn & Co., a British clothing company that started in 1887 but which was on the rocks by 1991. My jacket probably was made in the late 1970s. But, like all Harris tweed, the jacket has the magical property of continuing to look new decade after decade. The jacket has leather elbow patches, a nice tweedy touch that has been out of fashion for about a million years now.
The nice thing about Norfolk jackets is that they’re meant for the country. They’d be suitable attire for hoeing one’s garden or laying brick, not to mention target practice, or just a walk in the woods. I’m old enough and odd enough to get away with wearing one, even though this is 2023. Judging by the brisk eBay market for Norfolk jackets, which seems to have far quicker turnover than tweed jackets in general, I’m not the only one.
