Some things

Some things we think of as alive are actually dead. Ghosts hiding in the crowd and passing themselves off as living humans or animals.

Conversely, some things we think are inanimate are in fact possessed of life. Some rocks, some mountains, the wind sometimes. 

The Brick

In the 1950s an avant-garde artist makes his film ‘The Brick’. To make the film, he sets up a brick in artificial light and, with the camera on a static tripod, films it for one hour.

The film is rediscovered and shown in an art cinema. It causes a sensation and runs for a week. The projectionist is bored and sometimes runs the film backwards. Then he makes a still slide of the first frame and shows it for an hour.

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Suppose we take a snapshot of the universe in State A, then another in State B. If A and B are indistinguishable then nothing has happened (or time has not passed – which amounts to same thing).

There are many objections to this thought experiment – eg:

1.   Where is the camera which takes the snapshot? Is it ‘outside the universe’?

2.   If time does not pass between State A and State B, how can we take the second snapshot?

Rediscovered writing 1

One apparently fine morning, the axis tilted just a minute of arc.
The centre shifted just a micron or two.
And looking up, I noticed that the sky did not quite meet the horizon.
And when I went round to see her (turning corners just a fraction before I came to them,
And I think my feet were dragging a little through the pavement surface)
She looked slightly to one side of my eyes and said "Oh it's you".

This, That and The Other

I am This. When I look out at the world, I see That. That is the world I try to understand. Sometimes I try to look in at myself, I try to understand This.
To me, you are The Other, you are a special part of That which I assume is like me. Of course, you see yourself as 'This' and to you, I am 'The Other'. But we both share an experience of That.

The interface between This and That is my skin. Perhaps the self does not lie inside or outside this membrane but in the membrane itself - just like the present exists in the membrane between past and future.

The last drug

Research for a cure for dementia produces a drug which miraculously rejuvenates the nervous system. But only for a day. You experience a day of bliss - then you die.
Available on the black market, the drug kills old and young in large numbers.

Kiss

As the first syllable of the word is spoken
On the horizon
Just before the alarm rings
At the join of the toupee
On the seashore
As the finger touches the trigger
At the moment between breathing out and breathing in
Eternity

A zen koan

A koan is a kind of linguistic puzzle set by zen masters to subvert the logical thought process and provoke a state of confusion which can give rise to enlightenment. (a famous example is 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?')


This koan is called 'Not Wind, Not Flag'.
Q. 'See the flag blowing in the wind - what is it that moves?'
A1. 'The flag?' - 'No - the flag is what is moved.'
A2. 'The wind?' - 'No the wind simply moves the flag.'
A3. (supposedly the correct answer.) 'Not wind and not flag.' 

Some of the confusion arrises because Wind and Flag are different kinds of concepts. Even more confusion arrises because 'moves' has two meanings: as a cause of movement and as the movement itself.
In the Venn diagrams, Not flag includes Wind, and Not wind includes Flag of course.
Are you confused or enlightened? (or both).

Conservation of energy?

Since we invented the notion of 'energy', perhaps we defined it in such a way that it had to be conserved. Potential energy (for example the energy possessed by something by virtue of its height) is just an invention to keep energy constant.

New number line

Could you invent a number system which has zero and pi as fundamental integers instead of zero and one?

Imagination will save us

I watched the brilliant Argentinean film La Antena last night. A picture like this appears briefly towards the end and inspired me to draw this - and make a series for this blog.