Come on, End Times!

I often forget the world is shortly to end regardless of what Obama can or can't do. Golly! So, in that spirit, bring on the Sarapocalypse! At this point, why the hell not?

Unbelieveable

Unfortunately, belief might not be close to enough, as we have, in our midsts, people with power determined to undermine anything Obama might do to get this nation on track. Repuglicans. They are a blight not just on America, but the World, and until they are overcome philosophically - until we learn to work together than tear each other down (ha!), then the insanity is likely to continue, regardless of what Obama does or does not.

Sadly, belief is our greatest threat as well. Belief in lies and superstition.

Don't Stop Believin'

I'm still a believer. How could you not be? The man is a natural leader and FSM knows we need one.


We need to believe - no matter how grounded in logic and fact you are, belief is still required to operate in this world. Our very reality is a collection of fictions, stories woven by our senses, interpreted by our brain, distributed via chemicals and pulses, aggregations of thousands of actions collectively we call, ourselves. The mighty I. But that's just a belief, one that could be changed overnight. 


So, keep believing. Just believe in better stuff.

Time is the fire in which we burn

Evolution is very simple, at root. I could express it in a formula, as such:
T = Time
C = Competition
M = Mutation
R = Reproduction

Such that Evolution = C(R*M)/T

Or, basically, competition over time will favor certain mutations via reproduction over others. These mutations are the engine of evolution, in that they will either flourish or die out based on their competitiveness in the given environment, and the corresponding changes are what we label the results of evolution.

Now, that's for living evolution. But evolution actually describes ANY system in our reality, since all systems operate within time and within competitive environments (that is, limited resources).  Consider the evolution of a planet: It's born, so to speak, and will die, so to speak; it has to compete for space and material in the solar system with other objects, and, over time, it accumulates mutations that will result in changes. It evolves, in other words. Just as idea evolve, just as everything evolves, since, as discussed before, the very basis of our existence is the transformation of energy. Thus, evolution will always occur with these transformations.

Inherent in this is the idea that it is so called "imperfections" that give rise to all of reality, much like the grain of sand in an oyster causes the creation of a pearl.

Redemption for the Devil

A

Another fantastic episode of Lost last night. That was my favorite "Alt" story yet - Dr. Linus and office politics.

The show has always focused heavily on the fate v. free will debate, with neither side favored so far, as I can tell. Sometimes we're given large doses of Fate; other times, Free Will seems to be the prime consideration.

But consider what we saw last night in the Alt reality: Ben gases his Father, again. This time its helpful oxygen. Ben uses the infidelity of a superior for blackmail, and to gain power. This is how Widmore got exiled - Ben found out he was going off island and had a daughter. This time, however, instead of sacrificing Alex for his own power, Ben defers, instead helping Alex. And so on.

Point being: Sure seems like a foundation of Fate with little dollops of Free Will.

This episode made it pretty clear that Ben will get redeemed, or will walk the path of redemption. Amazing storytelling in that very same character I have hated in the past (when he murdered Locke, for example), I can empathize with now, and even root for. He's not unsympathetic, even though he's kinda the Devil.

We actually learned a lot last night, for example: Seems safe to conclude that Candidates are now immortal, but not invincible. Alpert can't kill himself. This explains one of the bigger niggling mysteries to the show: When Michael was off-island, he tried to kill himself repeatedly, with Mr. Friendly daring him to try, telling him "The Island isn't done with you yet". And what we saw last seemed to confirm that Jack is immortal in this same way, and it seems reasonable to assume the same for Hurley, Sayid, Kate, etc. Anyone touched by Jacob.

The scene where Ben breaks down to Illana was very powerful, I thought. It was also the first time anyone other than Richard has refused an offer from Flocke.

Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do!

I can make dioramas out of Lego's if'n I want to. Or, conversely, Jon Furman can, and I can post a picture, if'n I want to!

Foreshadow

Ominous, eh? I've started my latest rewatch of all of Lost, starting with Season 1 episode 1. I've rewatched all of Lost probably four times now in the past year, as I watch an episode a night while I run nowhere on my elliptical trainer. It's great for me, since I'm still paying attention to the show, and thus the workout just flies by. In fact, watching old episodes of Lost is so very enjoyable to me now, with the events of the last two seasons.

For instance, Locke: They set him up as not only mysterious from the get go, but also ominous. His musical cues are all ominous. He's alone for most of the first 6 episodes. There's a series of edits which connect Locke and the ghost of Christian - as in, we see Christian briefly, he disappears, than Locke appears in the same spot.

Finally, the scar over his eye. It just occurred to me that Jack also received several large cuts on his face in the Pilot episode, yet he heals up fast (due no doubt to the island); Locke, on the other hand, maintains the scar from this initial cut throughout the show - even as Flocke.

I suspect the only reason for this is visual - it looks menacing. But still, you never know with this show.

Rosie's got a doll

It occurred to me as I found this pic that I often blur/confuse Rosie and Roseanne in my head. They are sort of the same character, right? With Rosie being the tamed down version, at least for now.

Bet Roseanne isn't a "friend of Barbie", however.

Eau De Redshirt

Good idea in theory. In practice, not so much, as it smells like corpses.

Dioramarama

He's plastic, Jim.

Redshirt by another color

He's no Yellowshirt.

Yellowshirt Leader

You don't want to disagree, ok?

U can dance if U want 2

Obviously. And this is what makes us special among the animals of earth.

Destruction - Creation

This is a statue of Shiva at the CERN institute in Switzerland - pretty much the world's leading research location.

Of all the Gods mankind's busy brain has created, Shiva is one of the best, as in, the most realistic. Nature is not just smiley faces and ice cream cones, nor is it only pitchforks and hellfire. It's a struggle, with ups and downs, creations and destructions, births and death. Shiva represents this well, as in some forms, he's munificent; in others, vengeful and cruel; he can be other Gods depending on the situation, and can take both male and female forms. In other words, Shiva is situational, flexible, adaptive to whatever reality is present.

Because this is our reality: It's impermanent, always changing, always in motion. We perceive this motion as "creation" and "destruction", but these are just our terms, human interpretations of cosmic motions. Flux is our permanent condition, and refusing to realize this - as most other Religions teach - only builds an internal tension that undermines a person's well being.

Remember! Form is emptiness, emptiness form. You can't really change anything, except how you perceive, but that is enough.

Here's another picture of this same statue. The text at the base is from "The Tao of Physics", by Fritjof Capra (great book, a little dated by now however):

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, seeing beyond the unsurpassed rhythm, beauty, power and grace of the Nataraja, once wrote of it "It is the clearest image of the activity of God which any art or religion can boast of."
More recently, Fritjof Capra explained that "Modern physics has shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of all living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter," and that "For the modern physicists, then, Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter."
It is indeed as Capra concluded: "Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics."

An Angry God

Let's pretend, for a moment, that the God of the Old Testament is real, and created everything we see today - all of the earth, every star, every galaxy, black hole, other universe, atom, quark, string, energy, etc. Everything.

This being the case, why oh why in the world would HE be angry at anything a single person could do? If I eat shellfish while wearing woven threads, is this somehow an offense and insult to a being that created every molecule of existence?

Seems rather foolish and unbelievable!

Or! Just perhaps, is it more likely this God does not exist, and everything attributed to him really comes from the works of man, and ultimately forms a system of tribal control. Hmm.......

Creation - Destruction

If one accepts the premise that in order for something to be "created", something else must be "destroyed", than there really is no such thing as separate notions of "creation" and "destruction", but rather, each is but a form of the same phenomena, which I would call "existence".

Like, life. Implicit in the very definition of life is death. You can't have one without the other and thus, they are not separate, opposed, binary concepts at all, but really just the same thing, looked at from a different perspective. All things are like this, I believe, and any apparent binary, or conflict, is due to the limited perspective of the observer, and not an actual condition of the phenomena. 

Heads, tails, whatever: There's just one coin.

When Fighting Monsters

This mural was from the Season 5 episode "Dead is Dead" and was located beneath the Temple, directly above a block with holes in it, expressly made, it seems, for Smokey. In this picture we see Anubis to the right, invoking or welcoming what must be the Smoke Monster; other symbols include an upside down Ankh in the upper right (meaning death?), some snakes, an inverted 131?, an eye in the center (linked no doubt to the frequent eye references in Lost), and two wheel shaped symbols on the left, one of which might indicate the "Donkey Wheel" which can move the island.

What this all means? Your guess is as good as mine. I like the idea though that maybe some ancient Egyptians found the Island and the weird creatures living on it, and took their stories of these strange creatures back to Egypt, which became the basis for Egyptian mythology (and our legends of Atlantis).

I collect books of symbols, so this is just cat-nip for me. Love it.

Anubis and his pet monster

It is of course ludicrous to conclude that there is objective "Good" and "Evil" in a man's "Soul". Such concepts are all subjective, human notions passed down to us from countless generations of mythmaking, of ancient attempts to explain why this world is the way it is. However, these concepts are rich grounds for storytelling.

Lost has been rocking the Egyptian influences for awhile, but they've really picked up steam the last two seasons. Above is an ancient piece of art from Egypt depicting Anubis weighing a man's heart - if he lived a good life, his heart will be light, and he will pass on through to the next life; if his life was bad, his heart will be heavy, and he will be given to the monster, Ammut, who will devour him. Toth, the weird looking dude to the right, records it all. Jacob - MiB - Richard, perhaps?

Anways, last night's episode was a doozy in many different ways. I'm a bit shell shocked at this time, and need to gather my thoughts. Is Sayid really evil? Infected? He's clearly bought into Flocke's message, at least for now. Will Kate die? It was hilarious last night as they set up a scene for Sayid to kill the first person he meets in the jungle, which was Kate - the Internet was a'quiver with anticipation. But alas - not yet!

Flocke went all Biblical on the Temple last night, which for me invoked a long standing story in the history of mankind: The destruction of an "other" religion. Time and time immemorial records one tribe conquering another, and in so doing, wiping their religion from the face of the earth as best they could. We pay the price for this destruction, but we also can reap the benefits, a la Shiva's Dance, yeah?

Anways, to conclude for now, in honor of some righteous, old school vengence:

'The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides with the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will shepherd the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon those with great vengeance and with furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know that my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.'

It is indeed a trap

If you recall, Season 1 featured Locke playing a lot of games. He was a gamer. This was "Mouse Trap", and right after we see this game, Locke is conned by his Momma/evil Daddy to give up his kidney. Make of it what you will. Oh yeah: New Lost on tonight! No idea what it is about or anything. Ignorance is bliss.

Relentless Ackbar

As conflicted as I am about the concept of a Rebel college, I feel compelled to support their quest to make Admiral Ackbar as their new mascot. Hard to go wrong with the good Admiral. I  assume Lucas would eventually block this or charge them for use, so, until then, enjoy the dream of an ever more Ackbar filled world. Ah.....

Ewokie

A fascinating new book from the author of one of my favorite pieces of nonfiction, Ewok Apocalpyse, Chuckha Trok.

4 Yub-Nubs out of 5!

Enjoying the ride

Even if we are all plummeting towards our doom, better to laugh than quake in terror, yeah? Also, bread and circuses, or, updated for modern times, frozen cheesecake and a marathon of Gossip Girls.

Always Falling

Gravity could be described as "the perpetual state of falling". As you see above, the Relativistic concept of Space-Time is an actual medium which is bent by mass, causing distortions in space. These distortions are what we call gravity - Jupiter creates a much, much larger indentation in space than Earth, and thus has much, much higher gravity.

The Sun is well off the chart here, but the sun too orbits something - and to orbit something is simply to be falling towards it. Our sun orbits the supermassive black hole in the galactic center of the good old Milky Way; our supermassive black hole and thus our galaxy orbits around a central gravitational spot we share with the Andromeda galaxy, or in fact the supermassive black hole at the center of Andromeda; together, along with dozens of small galaxies, we all orbit a far, far larger central gravitational spot along with clusters of other galaxies; and so on and such until we are talking about vast mists, spider webs of millions and billions of galaxies swept along the ever expanding bubble which is our reality.

And everything that is not in the center of that bubble - which is everything - is falling, always falling. And spinning.

Defined by Nothing (and Everything)

This is a brand spanking new simulation of how scientists think quasar jets behave. First, some definitions: It's now believed that quasars, blazars, and radio galaxies are all actually the same phenomena: Jets of matter streaming away from the active black hole at the center of the galaxy (as pictured above). We give this phenomena different names due to where in relation we are to this jet - head on, and it's a blazar; at an angle, it's a quasar; at 90 degrees, it's a radio galaxy. A nice analogy is the old saw about blind men describing an elephant - each will have a different description for the same thing.

Anyways, black holes are no longer thought of as simple engines of destruction - as shown above, not only do they spit out a great deal of matter, but they are active agents in the creation of not only stars, but galaxies of stars. Come back with me, to the beginning of time.....

It's a little bit after the Big Bang. Shit is hot, and dense, but uniformly blah. Stuff keeps spreading out and cooling down bit by bit, until the first atoms form (hydrogen and helium). Cooling and spreading continues, and now we have incredibly large clouds of hydrogen and helium, which begin to form denser pockets. These dense pockets continue to get denser as gravity draws matter to matter, until POOF! A star is born (consider: There was a 1st star), and another, and another, and so on. But these early stars lived fast and hot, and died young. Not long after they started forming, we enter the era of the Supernova, which must have been extreme. All these young stars exploded, creating all kinds of new elements in the process, but also, and most critically, creating the first black holes.

This is still not long after the moment of creation. Black holes start doing their thing - sucking down matter and energy. In so doing, many, many, many more stars are created, and some of these explode, forming more black holes, which merge with other black holes, and so on and so on until we have a supermassive black hole, and with this, we have our first Galaxy, which is really nothing but a collection of stars in orbit around a central black hole.


So, in conclusion for now, everything about our reality was formed in large part during this era of black hole creation. We owe our existence to this phenomena of apparent absolute destruction, which has "nothing" lurking at its core.

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Also, more spirals.

By Orion's Sword

 

This may be obvious to many of you - and I would actually be encouraged if it were - but I had a bit of a shocking discovery a couple of weekends ago. As you might be able to tell, I love astronomy, cosmology, all of science in fact, but especially space. So vast, so profound, so mysterious and beautiful - it really is the only "god" we need - and yet, I've had few opportunities to really look at stars in any meaningful way. For, I've lived in cities now for far, far too long, and due to light pollution, you can't see many stars in the city!

So, it was with some joy I found myself in Maine, in the country, with a dark, star laden sky above me. A friend had some high-powered binoculars and I pointed them at the above constellation, Orion. I was shocked to discover that you can actually see the Orion Nebula through binoculars, as indicated above. It was magnificent - you could see the fuzzy outlines of the nebula with some color; it was so different than all the stars around it. It took my breath away!

I encourage any and all to do the same if you have the chance. I suspect any old binoculars would work - point em at the "sword" in the Orion constellation, and focus on the second "star", which is the nebula.

You won't see any Stars in the City

A great idea, in principle! This is NYC, 1933.

No Standing

Brooklyn, 1976.

I have come to the firm realization recently that indeed, the 1970's were the best. Miss ya seventies! We won't see anything like you again in my lifetime.

You'll make a great dystopia

On the big scale, any desert city has to be considered fragile and vulnerable - they exist in defiance of nature, kept alive only by constant (and expensive) efforts to fight back nature. Water is the obvious weakness. This is the Burj Tower in Dubai, just a fantastic building - tallest in the world, for now. But like most/many skyscrapers, it was built more because of ego and status than actual need. Thus, as soon as the underlying reasons for Dubai begin to buckle - and you can bank that this will be related to the Oil Economy - then buildings like the Burj, and so much more, will suddenly be very vulnerable to the economic winds of change. Once the economy falls, the house of cards collapses, and we have what should be an awesome dystopia in the wings - imagine being part of some post-apocalyptic caravan, trekking through the Wastelands, and you come upon Dubai, still gleaming amid the sand-dunes and wreckage. Awesome!

Future in the High Tower

Now this is a Tower! 

If we survive, it seems likely that, with ever greater populations, we're going to go ever more vertical in our living spaces, culminating in ideas like this: Tower Cities. I've seen several versions of this concept, and they're all spectacular. Highly fictionalized and no where near real, but still, incredible. It makes tons of sense to concentrate urban environments vertically, rather than horizontally, which we do now, of course. Just not to this degree. As with most cool things these days, it will be the Japanese or Chinese who try it first. Good luck!

The Tower

Spoilers for latest episode of Lost and The Dark Tower series by Stephen King!



Last night's episode, The Lighthouse, really could have been called "The Tower", in my mind, since it made the connection to King's Dark Tower series pretty explicit. Now, in the books, getting to the Dark Tower is the goal of everything - that's what the gunslinger thinks he has to do throughout, and every other adventure is subservient to this goal. I can't imagine that's the case with Lost, as I'm betting this Tower will only be featured briefly again, if at all.

But, apart from the fact that it was a Tower, the main parallel is striking: In the DT, when Roland is walking up the Tower, at each level he's given visions of his past life, and the key choices and events in it which led him directly to the Tower.

In Lost, Jack sees flashes from the "Candidate's" lives, including his own (but also at least the Kwons, and maybe others). Also, as per Flocke last week and which seems clear, Jacob has been guiding these candidates to the island for their entire lives.

As I's said before, the writers have long acknowledged a deep influence on Lost by The DT; the DT deals with tons of time travel, the issues of fate v. free will, black v. white, good v. evil, chaos v. order, etc v. etc. Now, of course, none of these issues are exclusive to any author or book. But these two sweeping stories - Lost and the DT - have enough similarities, and the writers have stated this connection, that it seems reasonable to assume that Lost will be leaning towards similar conclusions as the DT. Which many fans won't like, because of one word:


LOOP

When Irony Attacks

This must have been awkward all around.

Many Minions

THE MAN has so many minions, different levels of minions, all not necessarily in harmony with one another. In fact, a good trick would be to have some minions constitutionally opposed to other minions, to keep them all on their toes. Divide and Conquer - it's not just for invading a country anymore!

Goin' in cold

We are legion.

Goin' in hot!

This war's a disco inferno!

Why So Serious?

Y'all go ahead and debate the ins and outs of the vacuum. Ima rock n' roll and check out some bitches, know what I'm sayin'?

On Vacuums

I do say, the fact of the matter is quite clear, sir: The Vacuum is punishment for our sins, sent down upon us from the hands of our angry God.

I must respectfully disagree. As Asimov said, science at a certain level is indistinguishable from magic. The vacuum is some sort of loud sound device used by the humans to keep us in fear, and under their control.

Richard Hardy, Coroner at Large

It's a nice day today, don't ya think?

Klingon Smoove

I would ask you Worf, how are you going to pay for a fancy yacht? Federation Officers make exactly nada. Try the High Council if you're looking for some bling.

Smoove

It's all class from here on out.

Real World Winnah

Fret not though, dear readers! It's all fiction! Look, here's the real guy, all happy and wearing a bold pink shirt!


But, to ponder: Is not everything we experience a fiction? That is, an artificial story constructed by an author (in this case, our brains)?

Also, given recent research into the brain, and dreaming specifically (which is, dreaming is the way the brain can more efficiently process new information, AND run through simulations of possible future situations), art as a whole serves many of the same functions: It allows us, the audience, to live through situations we may never experience, and learn from these simulations (for instance, I already know I don't want to be buried alive. No need for me to have to actually go through that process to know this). 

DLocke

 

  

  

  

  

Man, what a story. I've become more and more impressed with the technical details of Lost - specifically, how they've fractured the story into so many different facets, and presented these facets out of order, backwards, repeated, etc. It's all quite challenging.

Consider the last episode - we saw three different versions of Locke: Dead Locke (DLocke), Fake Locke (FLocke), and Alternate Locke (XLocke). Each had different motivations and invoked different feelings in the viewer, simultaneously. I'm hard pressed to see how this same technique could be used in a book without massive confusion. Regardless, how strange to feel the loss of a character, to root for the same character, and to fear the same character in a different form.

All the pictures above are from one and the same Locke, who's now DLocke: He died as he lived, pathetic, humiliated, and used. Very sad, and powerful.