Flatland

What is the point of this blog post? Besides the obvious pun, which will become clear to you in a moment, I'm not really sure what the point of posting this quotation is, except that I found it interesting and compelling. I guess I will just write and we'll find the point together.

Near the end of Flatland, by E. A. Abbott, the Sphere is showing the Square (who has already witnessed visions of Lineland and Spaceland) the being, and entirety, of Pointland:

"Behold yon miserable creature. The Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy. Now listen."

(Italics mine.) The first set of italics I found profound in a Zen kind of way. In Pointland, one, everything, and nothing are all the same. Let's just sit with that for a moment.

...

...

...

Got it? Everything is nothing, and nothing is everything.

Now to the mathematics... does a point even exist? How can an infinitesimally small thing, which has no extent in either of our three spatial dimensions, be said to exist? How can it be extant with no extent, as it were? We can write down a lot of things mathematically, like infinity, for example, that are useful to solve problems about the real universe but don't actually exist themselves. How can infinity carry any ontological weight? There are an infinite number of numbers between any two numbers, sure, but numbers are abstractions; they are not real things in the real world, but instead they are properties of things in the world. Similarly, a point is a mathematical abstraction - a way to specify this number exactly - but a thing can't be a point, can it? We would have to know its location to infinite precision (and as I've said, it would have zero extent).

Points are difficult for physics. Zeros and infinities make black holes, which tear apart the very fabric of space and time. Singularities (like black holes) are a sign that something is wrong with our theories or that they are incomplete. The embarrassment of naked black holes is covered up with event horizons, which hide the awkward theoretical rip in space-time. But it is interesting to me, in a very Zen way, how zero and infinity are reciprocals of each other - divide by zero to get infinity, and divide by infinity to get zero. They are inverses, so in some way they're the same - zero is infinity, just viewed upside-down. Everything is nothing.


The second set of italics above, "to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy," is interesting for a completely different reason. Here is the Point making a very profound (to me) point about existence, and yet the higher-dimensional beings call him vile and ignorant. His happiness is a reflection of his ignorance of the higher dimensions (or really any dimensions at all), and this is obviously to be scorned. In some ways I sympathize; the Point is certain that he knows all there is to know, by virtue of being his entire Universe, so while we can't exactly blame him, he is completely and utterly wrong. He hears the Square speak, and thinks it his own thoughts. Being wrong is uncomfortable, but I value the attempt at being right (the aspiration for knowledge, not knowledge itself) more than being ignorant, certain, and blissful.

And yet:

"Infinite beatitude of existence! It is; and there is none else beside It. It fills all Space," continued the little soliloquizing Creature, "and what It fills, It is. What It thinks, that It utters; and what It utters, that It hears; and It itself is Thinker, Utterer, Hearer, Thought, Word, Audition; it is the One, and yet the All in All. Ah, the happiness ah, the happiness of Being!"

 Ah indeed, the happiness of Being. What an intriguing and enticing ignorance!
 

Inspirational

You know those inspirational messages that pop up on social media? Sometimes they're a quotation from a semi-famous person, sometimes just a sentence or phrase, and your friend seems to think they contain wisdom worth sharing. Sometimes they're your friend's own wisdom they came up with themselves. Well, I've come up with one that pretty much sums up them all. No further inspirational messages need to be shared, now that we have this:

Whenever I see a message like this, some or all of these thoughts go through my head:

• That is trivial and meaningless.
• That is not even good advice.
• STOP TELLING ME HOW TO BE!
• I guess some people get inspiration from this... why do I hate everything?

I don't want to come up with specific examples because I don't want to pick on anyone. Seriously, if you get little happy neurons to fire in your brain because you feel like you understand something about life and you want to cement this feeling of "getting it" by sharing it with your friends... believe me, I understand what that's like. Have you read my blog?

But I stop myself all the time from posting little snippets of "wisdom" because I eventually think they are just as trivial, or not good advice for some reason or other, or because I don't want to tell people how to be. (And I hate everything.) As if I could get people to think more critically about the world just by telling them to.

For example, when I see trivial nonsense like the above, I want to say, "But it's human to do or feel bad things, so stop beating yourself up about it! Good and bad are meaningless social constructions anyway! What's important is to do what you do and feel what you feel! But that is just as meaningless, so don't listen to me, please carry on with your life!" So instead I say nothing.

I think most of the reason this stuff bothers me is because I don't think we need to be telling each other what's the right way to think or feel or act. There is no right way to think or feel or act. We need to stop giving each other advice and focus on understanding each other better. But of course, that is itself advice on the right way to be. I can't win!

Fuck it.

DO OR FEEL GOOD THINGS, everyone.

Eat, Drink, and Be Meriadoc

In the beginning there was Eru, the One, and he created the Ainur, and they made the world with their song. And then, some considerable time later, during the Fourth Age, someone posted this link on Facebook. And I knew that I had just been witness to The Greatest Idea Ever: a Lord of the Rings movie marathon hobbit feast. I knew I had all three extended editions of LOTR at Mom's, and that I would soon be there myself; and I knew that we would be watching the 2nd Hobbit film, and that I would again try to read The Hobbit to my nephew - which, given how little I see him and how quickly he falls asleep, is going to take FOREVER. Therefore I emailed my family and said "Make It So." And it was.

I'm sure my loyal readers need no assurance of my Tolkien Geek Cred. As the great link says, food is very important in Tolkien's world, a fact of which I'm well aware. Obviously food is important to the Hobbits, but as a theme it appears in very many places throughout both Bilbo's and Frodo's adventures. Whenever there is a respite from the toils of the road, there is a description of plain and simple food that makes "a loaf with honey and cream" sound like the most delicious thing ever. And when Frodo and Sam make it to Ithilien and Sam finally gets to use his pots and cook a brace of conies, and in the movie they never get a chance to eat it!, I just weep, knowing how starving they are and will be.

Sure, Mordor is terrible and the ring is a heavy burden, but having no food to get you there? How can a hobbit hope to go on?

Here follows an account of The Great Feast of 2014, in which we were too full and tired to even bother with the last course and skipped straight to dessert. We accompanied the food with (if I remember correctly) a sampler of New Belgium ales, red wine, and sherry. We couldn't find any decent mead, but at least we tried.

First Breakfast - 8am

Blackberry tarts from Bree. As the recipe says,

There was hot soup, cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter and half a ripe cheese: good plain food, as good as the Shire could show.

Though I probably didn't put enough sugar in these, and the blackberries never quite liquified like I thought they would, the tarts were perfect and I want one now.

Second Breakfast - 9am, start FOTR

 

Fried eggs, tomatoes, crispy bacon, and ham. There is no recipe for this because who needs a recipe for this? I know how to fry an egg. Also, I'm assuming you all know what LOTR, FOTR, TTT, and ROTK mean because I expect a minimum of intelligence from my readers.

Elevenses - 11am

Elven Lembas Bread. This was the hit of the day. My nephew literally could not stop talking about it, and not being able to say "lembas" did not stop him.

Luncheon - 1pm, start TTT

Mushroom Soup from the Inn at Bree. Barliman really knows his cooking and apparently has access to a blender or food processor.

Afternoon Tea - 3pm

Lavender & Lemon Muffins, served with Portsmouth tea. The lemon extract we found in Mom's cupboard was probably less than 20 years old and totally okay to use.

Dinner - 5pm, start ROTK

 

Roast Mutton for the Trolls, with Shire pudding. (Get it? Yorkshire pudding??) OMG delicious. I'd never made yorkshire pudding before, and I decided it was like pancakes cooked in meat drippings. Lovely.

 

Supper - 7pm 

 

Daddy Twofoot's Eggplant Parm. There are no pictures because we never got around to this, plus we were at least an hour behind schedule. And since the 7th meal is technically outside the cannon, being part of the movie and not part of the books, we didn't feel obligated to follow our delicious lamb with some cheesy vegetables. Instead we went on to....

Dessert

We made ten cup ranger cookies, mostly because I really liked the description, "for Rangers in the field who only have one measuring cup with them." At this point we were done with pictures, so instead here's my niece, who had fun getting in our faces and messing with our food.

A new/old supernova/star is born/dead

If this were a science blog, I would be all over the discovery of a Type Ia Supernova in a very nearby galaxy. I mean, I used to work on Supernovae Ia! Though the ones I studied were admittedly very far away... and though they were admittedly only simulated, i.e. not real at all... well, after I simulated them I treated them as real... but what does "real" even mean in this sense? How are data points from a "real" supernova different than data points from a simulated one? What is the ontology of simulation?

Where was I?

Oh yes, that's right: "Woohoo! This is a cool thing for science!" is something I would be saying if this were a science blog. I would talk about how close the supernova is, using analogies that would help you understand how something incredibly far away is practically next door on the scale of THE UNIVERSE. (It's so close the galaxy is a Messier object, M82, with a name, the "Cigar Galaxy.") But others are doing that. I'm more interested in how contemplating the scale of THE UNIVERSE can make us feel simultaneously very small and very important.

I mean, we, as human beings, are already an unimaginably small dot on the Earth which is incredibly tiny compared to our Sun, not to mention the vast emptiness of space that separates the Earth from the Sun, which, cosmologically speaking, is practically buzzing with debris and not empty at all... and of course, cosmologically speaking, the Sun doesn't even register as an infinitesimally small speck in a mediocre galaxy in the unfathomable hugeness of space. It takes light a mere 8 minutes to reach us from the Sun, but light from this new supernova has been traveling to us for 11.4 million years! And it is a nearby event! The star died 11.4 million years ago, and the supernova explosion marking its death happens on the scale of a month. And here we are to observe it, sitting on our planet in a nearby galaxy, focusing our prisms and mirrors on this awesome event, cozy with our blankets and hot chocolate (stay warm, USA) in the knowledge that our Sun won't die on us for at least another 5 billion years.

I might talk about how the news is making some of my colleagues as excited as kids in a candy shop. There is so much astrophysical data and in so many colors! (That is an Astronomy joke, by the way. Feel free to laugh.) And I would show some pretty pictures, if this were a science blog, for sure. Wait, I can still do that... hold on... there:

From Astronomy Picture of the Day; Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, U. Arizona

If this were a science blog, I could talk about how it's so bright, and getting brighter still, that anyone with access to clear skies and small telescopes can see this new point of light for themselves. But others are doing that too. And I'd rather imagine what it might be like, looking through an eyepiece up into the sky at a dying star in another galaxy... sure, the image itself might not be spectacular, but knowing what it is brings so much more.

I have a small telescope, and I've seen Jupiter and its moons. But without that knowledge, all you can see is a smallish dot with a few smaller dots around it sort of along a straight line, and if you're lucky, the biggest smallish dot has some dark lines across it. The experience is less meaningful if you don't know that you're looking at another planet, which is very big and very far away. I don't mean knowing the names of Jupiter and its moons, or how far away they are, or any details like that, is important... but looking at Jupiter, or this new supernova, without knowing its place in the pattern is like seeing a puzzle piece without any picture on it - basically, meaningless. And that is the magic of learning, and of science - turning a bunch of pieces of a puzzle into a beautiful picture, or even an ugly picture when you get down to it, but a picture nonetheless of something you understand. I would even say that understanding by itself is beautiful, and that understanding something ugly turns it into something beautiful - not beautiful in the sense of aesthetically pleasing, but in a larger meaning - whole and right and beautiful. Of course, I can say all of that because this isn't a science blog.

If it were, I would talk about how this particular type of supernova was responsible for the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and how this messes with our understanding of cosmology in a fundamental way. Actually, I might write about that one day... but this supernova is so close, it's unlikely to answer those fundamental questions.

What I would really talk about, if this were a science blog, is how this particular type of supernova is responsible for the creation of all heavy elements, without which life as we know it would not be possible. You may have heard that "we are made of star stuff" because of the creation of all elements heavier than Helium (and trace Lithium) in the nuclear furnaces of stellar cores. (Or you might have heard that "if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe.") But all elements heavier than iron (and most of the iron) can only be created in the special conditions of a stellar death - the massive energy of a star collapsing in on itself and exploding in a supernova. Of course, I would check all of my facts before saying things like that, if this were a science blog.

I would focus on the creation of heavy elements because this supernova is the perfect metaphor for the un-metaphorizable, the awe and the awesome, the "Tao" or "Brahman" or "whatever, none of that is real" or whatever you want to call it. It is creation and destruction at once: the creation of the possibility for life, as the elements in its ejecta travel out to one day find their way into new stars of their own - or possibly into the planets around that star and eventually the life on those planets; but also, it is the destruction of the possibility for life as the death of a life-giving star itself. In order for there to be life, there has to be death, in the heavens as it is on Earth.

Amen.

Working While Sick

Sometimes when you're at work and trying to focus on the task at hand, your body has other plans for you. You might have a cold or a hangover and find it hard to concentrate, but since it's not a "real" sickness you stick it out as long as you can... you just drink water and hold off until you can go home and nap because you don't want to take sick time or because missing work due to a hangover is too shameful to imagine.

But for some of us (approximately half), our bodies sometimes sabotage us while at work in another way, not a cold or hangover or depression, that in addition to not feeling like a "real" sickness worth going home for, going home would feel like betraying decades of struggle for gender equality in the workplace.

Of course I'm talking about menstrual cramps.

What to do when you get bad cramps at work? I've come up with a few options:

1. Do drugs. (OTC painkiller)
2. Eat chocolate and pretend it also works as a painkiller.
3. Take a walk until it gets better.
4. Take a walk to find some drugs.
5. Take a walk to your house and stay there.
6. Suck it up and pretend you can still do meaningful work because women can do anything men do including write coherent emails while bleeding painfully from the inside.

Today, not having number 1, I tried number 2 and contemplated 3 through 5 until it passed, which means I successfully carried out number 6. I've done number 5 in the past but there is always the guilt.

I absolutely cannot stand when women are referred to as "the weaker sex." I mean sure, on average men have greater strength and muscle mass, but just because they can - on average - bench press more seems a pretty narrow criterion with which to define a whole gender as weaker. And then I get bad cramps and think, "well damn, this would be quite a disadvantage if I was being attacked by a mountain lion right now" or "if I was out hunting wildebeast" or whatever prehistoric men used their muscle mass for... it was probably for fighting other prehistoric men, but anyway.... my point is, it feels like Nature is trying to remind me that women were intended to be weaker whenever my uterus punches my insides.

Obviously I think it would be better if all sicknesses were treated equally. For anything that makes it impossible for someone to work productively - with the possible exception of the hangover because you only did that to yourself - it should be up to that person how to deal with it, whether they go home, nap on a workplace couch, cry in the bathroom, take a walk, or stick it out and pretend nothing is happening.

Personally, I would suggest having some dark chocolate, because it is possible it also works as a painkiller and may have other curative properties.

Disclaimer: As an academic I can pretty much do what I want, so I don't really know what the constraints are in a real workplace setting when you have a "not quite sickness." This is another reason why science wins.

The Christmas Spirit

For some reason this year, I am all about Christmas. I bought a wreath and candles about two weeks before Thanksgiving, and that was it. I held off as long as I could, but I had already listened to Mannheim Steamroller and watched Scrooge before the Season had officially begun.

Perhaps I got into it early because in England they don't have Thanksgiving for a buffer. As early as October, shelves are stocked with Christmas crackers (not for eating) and mince pies, and by November the German Christmas Market is up. Sure, there's nothing particularly Christmas-y about a bratwurst to Americans (though it's a tradition I could get behind!), but there was something about it - the little fake cabins with the fake holly - that put me in the Christmas Spirit.

So what the hell is the Christmas Spirit?

Like all good questions, this has many answers. Anyone who celebrates, or lives in a country that celebrates, Christmas could give you their own answer, and these are all fine by me. I could go on about the things I enjoy... dark red and green together, lighting candles, decorating the mantle in just exactly the right way, cuddling by the fire with hot chocolate, listening to Mannheim Steamroller wrapped in the Christmas blanket, smelling the tree... it's about being warm in the middle of the cold, and feeling good for absolutely no reason.

I'm an atheist and I love Christmas. There I said it. And it doesn't bother me one bit that I'm ostensibly supposed to be worshiping the Sun God. (Do you ever use a word without being certain that you're using it in the right way? Ostensibly that's what I just did.) I don't blog about religion as much as I thought I would. Partly because people can get easily offended, but mostly because I don't care what people believe. For questions of spirituality and faith and love, there are no right answers; for questions that deal with the physical world, such as the age of the Earth and biological evolution, we have science.

But these are complicated philosophical issues, and I digress. I've become more interested not in what people believe, but why. Religions weren't created in a vacuum... there are psychological and sociological reasons for why humans believe what they do and behave they way they do, and that shit is fascinating.

It's no coincidence that the primary holiday of the Northern hemisphere is during their winter, the same as it's no coincidence the Christian church eventually chose December the 25th as the birthday of their savior. Yule, Saturnalia, Solstice... of course Jesus is born when the sun is at it's lowest in the sky, for Jesus is the Son and the Sun. The pagan traditions that Christmas adopted, like bringing a pine tree into your house, are a celebration of life in the midst of death. There is no need to celebrate life in Summer when it is all around you; but Winter is the time for endings. The evergreen tree, the birth of Christ, remind us that life will begin again.

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall.... let's break the seasons down. You might be thinking that no, Spring is the real time to celebrate life. And you'd be right, too; Easter with its eggs, bunnies, and resurrection celebrates the renewal of life: Spring is the season of Beginnings. Summer follows as the season of Being, and Autumn/Fall as the season of Ending: the trees lose their leaves, and we treasure the last bounty of the harvest.

So where does that leave Winter? What is left after Beginning, Being, and Ending, can only be Non-being. Winter is the season of the Spirit.

The spirit, like the Sun, is constant. The moon symbolizes the cycles of time by its monthly cycle of birth and death, but the sun symbolizes the eternal, which is outside of time. (I will admit that this is from Joseph Campbell, like most of my deep thoughts on symbolism and mythology.) Symbolized by the evergreen tree and the birth of the Sun God, Winter, then, is outside of time; between death and birth; the silence between the sound. Christmas is the time to settle, regroup, reflect, and prepare for the New Year. And eat lots of chocolate.

So that, in a very large nutshell, is what I think about the Christmas Spirit. I didn't even mention how I love the icon and imagery of Santa Clause, with a twinkle in his eye and a deep laugh. To me he is not the fat man in the bright red with white trim, but more of a Mithrandir archetype of the wanderer, doing good where he can, eternally wise and eternally eternal. (Mithrandir is Gandalf, btw. It means the Grey Pilgrim in Sindarin. Do I have to explain everything to you?)

Happy Christmas!

The Philosophy of Cosmology, or: What I Didn't Spend Three Weeks Doing This Summer

Sit a while, and let me tell you a story. About hopes. About fears. About an epic battle between science and philosophy, and a lone blogger caught in the crossfire...

It starts way back in February. There I am, checking Sean Carroll's blog (a cosmologist who regularly blogs about philosophy, i.e. me if I had fame and tenure and was better at blogging), when what do you know, there is a call for applications for a Summer Institute on the Philosophy of Cosmology! My hobby and my day job all rolled up into one!

My first instinct is that I need to apply because Believe in Your Dreams. (Uncertainty Phase 1: Excitement.)

Then after a bit of research, I decide I do not trust the motives of the Templeton Foundation, and I'm not going to get in anyway, so why bother? (Uncertainty Phase 2: Insecurity.)

Uncertainty Phase 3 then slips into cold hard reality...

In tandem with researching the people involved with the Philosophy of Cosmology institute, I watched the Moving Naturalism Forward videos, which seemed the natural thing to do once I was in a philosophical mood. One of the speakers, who was a physicist and is now a philosopher, talks about the practical differences of the two academic fields to emphasize that as a scientist, you just don't have the luxury of taking a broader view and reading literature in related fields - at least not until you go on sabbatical or get old and philosophical! There are teaching duties, overseeing graduate students, solving practical problems in the lab, and writing a ton of grant proposals to occupy your time, and there is only so much time in the day.

The cold hard reality of the situation is that perhaps I don't have the luxury to spend a day thinking about philosophical issues, much less three weeks, because it's normal - even expected - for postdocs to work on weekends. Sure, not all do, and sure, mostly this is my guilt and insecurity about not working enough, but I don't hear faculty talking about how much they slacked off as postdocs. I hear them talk about how much sleep they didn't get. It turns out I love sleep. I also like to pretend to be profound and pretend to be philosophical, but that's not something I should have the time to do as a serious scientist. Crap.

Despite all that, I convince myself (and let friends convince me) to apply anyway. (Uncertainty Phase 4: Action. slash Believe in Your Dreams and Figure Out Later Whether They Are Your Actual Dreams.)

Cut to April, when the most annoying thing happens.

I get in.

Uncertainty Phases 1 through 3 kick in all at once! Of course I'm super excited about getting in, but actually going would mean keeping up with philosophers for three weeks (and actually talking to them! Ahh!)... and then there's the added annoyance that a very relevant conference overlaps with the philosophy institute, and because time only moves in one direction, I can't do both. (WTF, time?)

I almost resolve myself to do it despite my misgivings. Abandon Certainty and Follow Your Bliss and all that. But there's that nagging question of the actually-relevant-to-my-job conference. If you are aware enough to notice things like blog post titles, perhaps you can see where this is going. I get the word from the higher-ups: "if you want a job in astrophysics, go to the science conference. you will be able to do this interdisciplinary stuff once you have a permanent position (if you have time! because no one has time to do anything as a professor, haha!)." I may have paraphrased just a little bit, but the message is clear: scientists are interested in science and nothing else.

Believe in Your Dreams... Later.

This signaled to me that the paranoia behind why I don't have my full name on here or link here from my actual website turned out to be justified. Perhaps I didn't intentionally plan it that way, but at some point I realized that I definitely don't want potential employers to read this blog. First, some would see it as indicating that I'm not serious about science, or think that blogging takes away from time better spent doing research. If this blog were only about science, that would probably be okay - but most of the time I would rather talk about "somethingness" and "nothingness" and "wait what does that even mean?"

Which brings me to my second point: I sometimes write about personal shit and sometimes write about Chakras and sometimes mention how time is an illusion or discuss the unity of duality. Who would hire a scientist who doesn't believe in time? (Of course, I do, really, insofar as "believing in time" is even a useful concept... and of course I don't literally think that chakras are pools of energy in the body that we can open by meditation and yoga... but metaphors are useful and logic can be boring!) Not only am I philosophical, but I have weird ideas...

In hindsight, the science conference did turn out to be very worth it and good for my research/career. Also, as a bonus, the philosophy of cosmology lectures were all put online and seem to be mostly on topics in which I'm not particularly interested... not that it wouldn't have been awesome, but the actual awesomeness level of counterfactuals is impossible to determine. (Again, unidirectional time. What a let-down.) Anyway, another philosophy of cosmology opportunity may come again, and meanwhile maybe I will write about the Copernican vs. Cosmological Principles and how no one understands them because cosmologists are bad at philosophy.

I guess the moral of the story is: Believe in Your Dreams Even If You Don't Necessarily Follow Them All the Time.