Check this article about rich people's bad taste. The psychology driving financial (not metaphysical) materialism or attraction to the look of raw numbers in your bank book is incompatible with the kind of psychology that allows appreciation of music, art, aesthetically pleasing people etc.
The only artistic thing I truly, deeply, immediately understand is music. And I don't give a damn about others' opinions' of my own opinions with respect to music, the same as any genius in any field doesn't give a damn. If they think you're uncultured for thinking that Katy Perry's last single was a triumph of melodic craftpersonship, soul and gloriously attentive and restrained production it might just show their own lack of understanding / immediacy of relationship with the art form.
It's hilarious to see culture wannabes read what they're meant to appreciate and fork out stacks of cash to watch neo-jazz (the original jazz artists were renegades who would be doing avant-garde electro music if they were around now, not reprising admittedly beautiful stuff from a century ago) etc and wank on about it. One way you can tell whether someone gets music is how they dance, or whether they start dancing in their seat without realising it. Once I caught a family member trying to work out how I was moving my feet under the table when I was unconsciously dancing in my seat while simultaneously talking about a high-concept issue.
There's no shame in not getting an art form. I don't get visual art unless a genius in that field explains it to me. Apart from that, it's enough that I like a picture. I don't know why or what's going on at a deeper level, or have an immediate, arresting, physical relationship with it, but I just relax and admit it rather than being dishonest, which is what wanking essentially amounts to. Why make people feel unincluded unless there is an important, usually information-imparting reason for it? Feigning immediacy/physicality of reaction is not cool and is an embarrassment when there's actually a genius at experiencing that particular art form in the room who is quietly having a laugh or getting angry that you're making third parties feel inferior.
Someone I know has two very intelligent sisters who are incapable of watching "Kath and Kim" because it mocks their world view and actions. Hilarious. If you don't get a certain type of comedy, you should always consider whether that's a result of just crap comedy or your own personal hang-ups. Things you can't confront. John Howard convinced a whole generation of working-class people (particularly in places like the North-West of Sydney) that they were middle class. The whole "Aspirational Class" thing. They didn't realise their lives were still being controlled by the ruling class. It's hard to have sympathy for the ones that knock other working people over in their rush for crumbs from the table. Have some pride. And guts to admit what you are.
14 July 2012
Higgs Field Ontology, Dark Matter and the Zero Point Field: Interpretation
CERN physicists' announcement a few weeks ago with respect to their belief that they have enough evidence that there are/have been particles with properties considered sufficient enough to qualify as the proposed Higgs boson is a total game-changer. For all of humanity. But especially for me because I was the centre of a couple of occurrences that I have since named "The God Particle Synchronicities". And it was the day I found out soy chai lattes have 600 calories. I had been drinking them everyday.
First, I believe, along with some physicists, that any description of a phenomenon or law is subject to reductio ad infinitum. For instance, even Richard Feynman believes that the concept of "force" itself is incapable of conceptualisation or definition. This idea is linked with the belief, which I also hold, that all systems/theories are ultimately circular - they proceed from arbitrary, self-confirming ansatzs. I reckon everyone should think "Zeno's Paradox" when thinking physics.
I'm reading an intellectually honest but sadly compromised book called Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad: A Journey from Burning Man to the Akashic Field by James Oroc. There are two chapters in which Oroc gives Quantum Physics and Zero Point Energy respectively quite muddled and overly-inferential interpretations, both of which are "mystical". (I hate that word in this context because it's manipulatively derogatory, delineates orthodox from non-orthodox with sleight of speech, is intellectually repressive and conveys to the layperson the impression that there is nothing "mystical" about the most standard interpretations of physics. "Spiritual" might be more appropriate.) I'm not attacking him; he writes from an honest, inquisitive place. Anyway, he ultimately seems to come to a conclusion that all particles derive their mass from the resistance created by their acceleration through "the" Zero Point Field but then self-contradicts by going off on Lynne McTaggart rants about light. He also says that Einstein's relativity theories imply that, to a photon, there is no such thing as time or space. This is a fundamental misunderstanding, but I also think that Einstein was merely giving a useful, tactical switch in perspective but along the way made the mistake of privileging light (through claiming that its vacuum velocity is insuperable) in its relationship with space and time.
I had been thinking of writing a kind of thought-experiment piece removing time from Einstein's Universe, thus creating a "vector-less" or "scalar" Universe in which mass and energy still exist, but the equivalent of e=mc2 is changed to e=mk (k being a random constant). Motion would be impossible, there would no light except for static photons, etc. Without motion, would energy be possible?
When I studied physics at university I was surprised at the alacrity with which lecturers (who, rightly, all said chemistry was just a minor branch of physics) would both "prove" equations and make unwarranted parallels to ontology without questioning assumptions at all. There was only one who was not like that. He was clearly suffering extreme depression. He showed us a two-page slide of a version of Schroedinger's Equation and just skipped it, telling us not to bother because his graduate students couldn't even understand it.
When I studied the physics of electricity both theoretically and experimentally, I was blown away by the fact that the concepts involved are a priori beyond human comprehension. None of my tutors could explain and didn't seem perturbed that they couldn't. Carry on, robots. And I thought there was nothing controversial anymore about electro-magnetism.
Everyone should read Paul Davies' The Mind of God. He's a decent mainstream physicist/philosopher; far superior to Stephen Hawking.
Einstein was so humble: he was embarrassed by his cosmological constant and called it his greatest blunder. With increasing knowledge about dark matter and dark energy, the past five years has seen increasing acceptance that Einstein's "blunder" was no such thing.
Everyone should also know that an electron has never been directly observed (much less other sub-atomic particles like quarks). It's impossible by definition because of the massive difference in wavelength between photons and electrons. Electrons are "observed" by throwing other electrons at them. Hilarious. So physicists have the hide to misinform the public about the fact that their "observations" about sub-atomic particles (and even molecules) are mere intellectual inferences from measurements of other phenomena that are observable. Question a biologist about receptors, neurotransmitters etc. When you push, their embarrassment is palpable. It must be distressing to have the foundations of your entire system of thought on which your career is based thrown into doubt by a few questions. All scientists should be forced to study a substantial amount of the philosophy of science.
With quantum physics, the simple fact is that there are about 20 or so conflicting and hotly contested interpretations that the community deems to be non-pseudoscience. The rest are laughed at. And there is no criterion through which the distinction is made except blind reverence for certain physicists' reputations. There are some who are good enough to declare their agnosticism but you just can't help but fall into a camp.
Similarly, mathematics lecturers have no issue with imaginary numbers. Wow.
Then the Higgs boson story hit. So a model of the Universe in which there is a pervasive, unobservable field with which otherwise massless particles interact, imparting the particles with mass, looks like an even nicer model than before (when you submit your thinking to standard assumptions in physics). The Standard Model of physics looks tighter.
An interesting thing about this is most people's intuitive equating of mass with being. This means that, especially, or only, materialists now have a level of explanation of ontology one step up from before. But only one step. Where does the Higgs Field derive its mass-bestowing power from? It goes on ad infinitum, as I said.
All of these things (the Higgs field, dark matter, the Zero Point Field, etc) are flawed models but seem to be pointing in the same direction. We've made real progress. What we need to make progress with is the epistemological issue. The simple fact is that all human reasoning takes place within frames that are inherently unprovable themselves. Interpretation is a matter of personal taste. Propositions in logic, mathematics and physics are as unfalsifiable as propositions about "god". So Popperian "that's not falsifiable" nazis are clueless and scientistic. Falsifiability itself a ridiculous concept. If theory A cannot be disproved through observation, then theory not-A is also unfalsifiable. Which means dismissal of a proposition on a Popperian basis is an act of unwitting self-contradiction. You can't falsify an agnostic stance. Therefore agnosticism is "religion".
First, I believe, along with some physicists, that any description of a phenomenon or law is subject to reductio ad infinitum. For instance, even Richard Feynman believes that the concept of "force" itself is incapable of conceptualisation or definition. This idea is linked with the belief, which I also hold, that all systems/theories are ultimately circular - they proceed from arbitrary, self-confirming ansatzs. I reckon everyone should think "Zeno's Paradox" when thinking physics.
I'm reading an intellectually honest but sadly compromised book called Tryptamine Palace: 5-MeO-DMT and the Sonoran Desert Toad: A Journey from Burning Man to the Akashic Field by James Oroc. There are two chapters in which Oroc gives Quantum Physics and Zero Point Energy respectively quite muddled and overly-inferential interpretations, both of which are "mystical". (I hate that word in this context because it's manipulatively derogatory, delineates orthodox from non-orthodox with sleight of speech, is intellectually repressive and conveys to the layperson the impression that there is nothing "mystical" about the most standard interpretations of physics. "Spiritual" might be more appropriate.) I'm not attacking him; he writes from an honest, inquisitive place. Anyway, he ultimately seems to come to a conclusion that all particles derive their mass from the resistance created by their acceleration through "the" Zero Point Field but then self-contradicts by going off on Lynne McTaggart rants about light. He also says that Einstein's relativity theories imply that, to a photon, there is no such thing as time or space. This is a fundamental misunderstanding, but I also think that Einstein was merely giving a useful, tactical switch in perspective but along the way made the mistake of privileging light (through claiming that its vacuum velocity is insuperable) in its relationship with space and time.
I had been thinking of writing a kind of thought-experiment piece removing time from Einstein's Universe, thus creating a "vector-less" or "scalar" Universe in which mass and energy still exist, but the equivalent of e=mc2 is changed to e=mk (k being a random constant). Motion would be impossible, there would no light except for static photons, etc. Without motion, would energy be possible?
When I studied physics at university I was surprised at the alacrity with which lecturers (who, rightly, all said chemistry was just a minor branch of physics) would both "prove" equations and make unwarranted parallels to ontology without questioning assumptions at all. There was only one who was not like that. He was clearly suffering extreme depression. He showed us a two-page slide of a version of Schroedinger's Equation and just skipped it, telling us not to bother because his graduate students couldn't even understand it.
When I studied the physics of electricity both theoretically and experimentally, I was blown away by the fact that the concepts involved are a priori beyond human comprehension. None of my tutors could explain and didn't seem perturbed that they couldn't. Carry on, robots. And I thought there was nothing controversial anymore about electro-magnetism.
Everyone should read Paul Davies' The Mind of God. He's a decent mainstream physicist/philosopher; far superior to Stephen Hawking.
Einstein was so humble: he was embarrassed by his cosmological constant and called it his greatest blunder. With increasing knowledge about dark matter and dark energy, the past five years has seen increasing acceptance that Einstein's "blunder" was no such thing.
Everyone should also know that an electron has never been directly observed (much less other sub-atomic particles like quarks). It's impossible by definition because of the massive difference in wavelength between photons and electrons. Electrons are "observed" by throwing other electrons at them. Hilarious. So physicists have the hide to misinform the public about the fact that their "observations" about sub-atomic particles (and even molecules) are mere intellectual inferences from measurements of other phenomena that are observable. Question a biologist about receptors, neurotransmitters etc. When you push, their embarrassment is palpable. It must be distressing to have the foundations of your entire system of thought on which your career is based thrown into doubt by a few questions. All scientists should be forced to study a substantial amount of the philosophy of science.
With quantum physics, the simple fact is that there are about 20 or so conflicting and hotly contested interpretations that the community deems to be non-pseudoscience. The rest are laughed at. And there is no criterion through which the distinction is made except blind reverence for certain physicists' reputations. There are some who are good enough to declare their agnosticism but you just can't help but fall into a camp.
Similarly, mathematics lecturers have no issue with imaginary numbers. Wow.
Then the Higgs boson story hit. So a model of the Universe in which there is a pervasive, unobservable field with which otherwise massless particles interact, imparting the particles with mass, looks like an even nicer model than before (when you submit your thinking to standard assumptions in physics). The Standard Model of physics looks tighter.
An interesting thing about this is most people's intuitive equating of mass with being. This means that, especially, or only, materialists now have a level of explanation of ontology one step up from before. But only one step. Where does the Higgs Field derive its mass-bestowing power from? It goes on ad infinitum, as I said.
All of these things (the Higgs field, dark matter, the Zero Point Field, etc) are flawed models but seem to be pointing in the same direction. We've made real progress. What we need to make progress with is the epistemological issue. The simple fact is that all human reasoning takes place within frames that are inherently unprovable themselves. Interpretation is a matter of personal taste. Propositions in logic, mathematics and physics are as unfalsifiable as propositions about "god". So Popperian "that's not falsifiable" nazis are clueless and scientistic. Falsifiability itself a ridiculous concept. If theory A cannot be disproved through observation, then theory not-A is also unfalsifiable. Which means dismissal of a proposition on a Popperian basis is an act of unwitting self-contradiction. You can't falsify an agnostic stance. Therefore agnosticism is "religion".
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