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| Apologies for not updating for a wee while but I've quite horrendously busy at work. It's been good to be busy but it's also been very stressful and tiring as I've had to get in very early for a few weeks now. Getting up quarter to 6 and leaving the house while it is still pitch dark is quite shit. I've refused to work any nights though, I really can't be doing that as it means sacrificing my vital relaxation time of an evening and also having to eat some shitty take away food, both of which would take a toll on my health, and a toll I'm not willing to pay. Our move up london might be delayed while we finish this big project for a chocolate company. I've been making the background for it all and it is very enjoyable (it's a sort of rolling hills in an english countryside way thing). I've been enjoying a very good book about time, called 'about time'. It's fascinating reading. Time is so malleable with no fixed 'cosmic time' that it leads to the conclusion that time doesn't really exist at all. It's mentioned briefly in this book but I remember reading in detail about when a colleague of Einstein's died he wrote to his wife to explain how her husband is still out there, a part of spacetime because space and time exist together at once, it is simply an illusion that we perceive time to pass. Our 'now' doesn't correspond to any kind of cosmic 'now' as the concept of a cosmic 'now' is meaningless except in a human context. I'm going to quote a little bit from the end of the book here "Quantum physics, like general relativity, also places the observer in a central role, but in an altogether more significant fashion. The act of observation in quantum physics serves to concretize an otherwise fuzzy and uncertain physical state. As I have explained, quantum states generally involve multiple overlapping phantom realities. More accurately, these alternative worlds are contenders for reality - statistical expectations rather than actually existing physical universes - melded into a subtle amalgam. In the absence of observation, this cocktail of superimposed worlds evolve as a whole, but when we inspect events in the quantum domain, we see a specific, concrete, single reality, not a ghostly superposition of worlds. This "collapse" of multiple possibilities, of statistical expectations, into a unique actuality remains one of the great unsolved puzzles of physics. Many scientists are adamant that the "concretization" of quantum reality has nothing whatever to do with the mind, but others maintain that the mystery of the "collapse" and the mystery of consciousness are intimately bound up with each other. Eddington and Bondi, for example, and philosophers such as Hans Reichenbach and Gerald Whitrow, have argued that the flow of time, or the phenomenon of "becoming" has its roots in this quantum "collapse" process." I've been enjoying listening some adam and joe mp3 downloads (I hate the word podcast). They are an amusing listen. One thing they were talking about was having me remembering my youth. They were discussing the sort of childish fantasies you have. Joe was walking about how he always thought of himself as being able to run incredibly fast and the day he thought if he extended his fists into 'blades' it would make him even more streamlined and how people looking at him were thinking 'he's so fast!' rather than looking at him because he looked an idiot. I remembering running as fast as I possibly could as a kid, even when just going to the shops, thinking about how fast I am. It had me chuckling to listen to them talking about this sort of thing especially when they are clearly old friends and just break down giggling at points, which you can't help giggling along with. I had a night through in Croydon last night, seeing my, well, fiance's (never used that word before now) parents. A lovely couple, i really get on with them and it was nice having a few drinks with them. It was odd being in Croydon again. I was sat at work looking out the window when a song I adore came on my headphones (Adem's these lights are meaningful, which I've mentioned before) and I just had a sudden surge of the wonderment of everything. The sun coming through the clouds overlooking Bromley with all its leafless trees and I just felt overwhelmed for one little moment. Sat in a drab office in dear old dull Bromley while working on some advertising artwork and my mind suddenly turned to everything that is out there, from the whole universe to the tiny madness of the quantum world all around me. It really is amazing that we are here at all to sit and think about the universe that is our home. I've started reading an autobiography of John Wheeler, a big name in physics who was around at the time of einstein, bohr, and the other greats of the early years. He worked on the american atomic bomb project during the war. He mentioned how during the war his brother was fighting up through Italy and sent him a telegram that simply said 'HURRY UP!' in relation to his work on the atom bomb. Days later his brother was killed and his writing is filled with regret that the project didn't start sooner and end the war sooner saving millions of people and maybe his brother too. Years later he coined the term 'black hole' and has been a powerful name for many years. He had a heart attack a few years ago and it dawned on him how close his end might be and so he is tackling the question 'how come existence?' which I think is admirable and leads to some mind bending thoughts. I read these things and wonder how exciting it must all be, theoretical physics, delving in to the machinations of the universe. Always makes me think about just how silly my job is, but I doubt I highly doubt I'd have the required intelligence to have made it in physics. Anyways, I'm off for a read, hopefully I'll be able to blog a little more next week. | ||
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| Metres and centimetres don't exist - they're merely measures that allow us to grasp and describe the world around us. Surely time is just the same? If you accept the Big Bang (or similar) theory then the universe does have a 'history', and despite tiny anomalies at the quantum level, cause and effect tend to be just one way around? "I drink, therefore I fall over..." | |||
| Posted by ps | |||
| Entry 201 of 431 |
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