Holonomic Constraints

Thoughts on the meaning of life and other irrelevant matters. by Martin Lesser www.lessers.net

[holonomic]

Marvellous Metta Meditation

The books and online courses, that has been my guide to a meditation practice,  strongly advise the student to do Metta meditation. Metta is a word in Pali, the language used by the early Buddhists, that means something like loving kindness.  Other words for Metta are benevolence and goodwill. Not being a Pali scholar, I’ve taken these translations from the Wikipedia article on the subject. Also, each source I’ve come across provides slightly different versions of what might be called a Metta prayer. The one I personally like is from the book “The Mind Illuminated” by Culadasa (John Yates Ph.D.). It goes as follows:

May all beings be free from suffering.

May all beings be free of ill will.

May all beings be filled with loving kindness.

May all beings be truly happy.

My initial reaction to this was that it would be impossible to for me to be true to the feelings expressed in these statements, much less to include them in my meditation practice. So for the major part of the period, I have been meditating I just ignored the subject. Then I started using the Muse Headset that I have discussed in a previous posting. Considering what I felt was true about our species I suspected that if I tried to actually do a Metta meditation my insincerity would show up somehow in the signals generated by the headset. So I decided to give Metta a try and see if I could generate good feelings without being a total hypocrite that would be detected in the patterns of my brain waves. The book contained an appendix with instructions on how to start such a meditation, which I carefully read several times. I also committed the above statements to memory. As part of the instructions, I was to get into the usual meditative state with a concentration on the sensations caused by my breathing. Keeping some concentration on breathing I should then attempt to feel what it would be like if each of the statements were true, even though I did not believe this was indeed the case. The object was to raise the emotions I would experience in such a case. Thinking about this a bit I concluded that I could do this without having to actually believe what I considered to be the reality. So I spent an hour-long meditation going through this exercise with my headset active. Much to my surprise and amazement, the result was amazing, both from the subjective and objective point of view. Thus my headsets signal registered both strong concentration and calmness, much in excess of my usual result. So whatever my assessment of this type of meditation it truly made quite a difference in my practice. The instructions said that I should continue doing this by replacing “all beings” by those close to me followed by an ever-increasing set of persons and other entities. I doubt that I will ever get close to “all beings” but so far I have managed to include many more than I expected. Whatever the case may be I am now sold on at least trying to broaden the scope of my Metta awareness. 

Aside from my personal reaction to this type of meditation, I found it interesting to compare different versions of the statements used. For example in one of the online courses, the instructor put statement 4 first, as well as changing the overall wording. Some internet lookups revealed that almost every web page on the subject took a different approach. Perhaps because I had started with the above version I decided it was the best version. To me, it seems to have a built-in logic. For example, I can imagine someone to be free of suffering but not free of ill will, not possessing loving kindness or being truly happy. Thus I find the ordering to be significant, though I still have to work it out in a more formal manner. The author of the book I got this from is both a neural scientist and an ordained Buddhist practitioner. Perhaps the scientist part of his background plays a part in the particular version. 

In conclusion and as a former skeptic of Metta meditation I now highly recommend the practice, at least as I learned it from Culadasa’s book. So “May all readers try out some Metta meditation.”

With Loving Kindness,

Marty

[holonomic]

Mind Reading Meditation

Getting started with meditation can be tough. You really need a strong motivation, as at the beginning it is quite hard to see what the benefits may be. Sure, you hear and see a lot about how meditation will improve all sorts of aspects of physical and mental health but so does a diet of sugar pills and the placebo effect. For me, it was my curiosity aroused by books such as Robert Wright’s “Buddhism is True”. I had also gone through a Coursera course given by Wright when he was teaching at Princeton. So I was motivated enough to keep at it for long enough to feel it was something worth doing. After quite a long time I began to see that there was indeed something to all the claims. Now, after almost two years of working at it, I came across the Muse, a headset that supposedly could detect the state of your mind from sensors placed on your forehead. As you can see from the enclosed picture it was stated that this would make meditation easy.

 Meditation made easy after I had put in two years of effort, very hard to take seriously. So I searched the web to find reviews and comments on the device, which it turns out had been around for several years. Among other things I found favorable comments in an essay from Consumer’s Union magazine, I source which I had a lot of trust for. Given all the effort I had put into establishing a meditation practice it seemed reasonable to give the device a try. So I put down the money and within several days I received the headset. 

To use the device you need to download an app, which in my case was found on the ios app store. The app contained detailed instructions on how to set up the headset as well as a 10 lesson beginners course on getting started with meditation. Even though I did not feel any need for the course I decided to go through it if for no other reason but to get used to the device. So I put the headset on as instructed after pushing the start button.

Several of the reviews said it was tricky to get the blue tooth connection with the device working. They also complained about getting all the probe connections on the headset working properly. So I was a bit surprised to have no problem with this whatever. So I was connected and a pleasant and very calm voice instructed me to take a deep breath and close my eyes so the session could be calibrated. This took about 30 seconds. I was then given some elementary instructions about following my breath as a meditation object. The meditation that followed lasted about 3 minutes. During this, I could hear sounds of sea surf that varied from very peaceful to quite violent. These sounds were supposed to give me feedback about when my mind was calm and focused and when it was overly active with inattention. In addition, when I was sufficiently calm I was treated to the sounds of singing birds. All this was a little too much for my taste, being used to relatively silent meditation. However, I can see how this could be helpful to a newcomer, though I am somewhat doubtful if it would build up good meditation habits. In any case, I went through all 10 lessons. All in all, they were quite standard but far from what a new meditator would need for a reasonable practice. What was most interesting is that the evaluations correlated very well with my own sense of when my attention was focused and I experienced a sense of calmness. Normal EEG apparatus uses many more sensors and a skull cap that covers the entire head. It seems that the Muse designers had indeed produced a much sparser and of course cheaper device that at least gave seemingly accurate results for meditation. According to their publicity, the device was being used by universities engaged in psychological research. I did not check on this but did find the claim believable. The app provided did not give raw data, ie voltages taken by the sensors, though they did label the graphs of mental activity as raw. Older reviews were not happy about this, though the company did provide an SDK for developers. In searching the app store I did find that they have now provided a new app that gives raw data and does offer various analysis to produce readouts of typical brain waves. In addition, at least one developer produced a rather pricey app, which I suspect is now superseded by the new Muse app, which is free.

 Thus I was convinced that it indeed does something useful. After playing around I found it was quite easy to set the time for a session and to control sound levels. Thus I eliminated the bird sounds and set the feedback at a low level. With these settings, I have found the Muse to be a useful addition to my practice. It is encouraging to get a verification of how well one’s attention is focused and to be able to see the results of a particular session. While my motivation was quite strong,  I find that it provides an interesting challenge to improve. Still, I am glad that I did not begin with it as I am not convinced that dependence on auditory feedback is useful. This, of course, depends on the individual and for someone who finds it difficult to get started the Muse might be a great solution. 

To sum up I include the results of a recent session with the headset. 

Clearly, this was quite a good sitting, with over 90% of the time devoted to close attention to the breath. My subjective feelings coincided with these results. In conclusion, I am very pleased with the device. It is relatively expensive but considering all the time I spend on meditation I am pleased with the results. In the end, I feel that one should consider the pros and cons carefully before using Muse, particularly in the question of whether its use is intrusive or helpful to one’s meditation practice. 

[holonomic]

The Practical Aspects of Meditation

I have now been practicing meditation for almost two years. During that time I have gone through two online courses given by The Teaching Company (now using the name The Great Courses) and read five or six books. At times I have practiced for up to five hours in a day, though my daily practice averages out to about an hour. I have not attended any retreats or live courses. Thus anything I have to say should be taken with the view that I’m both new at the practice and have not followed the formal approach taken by serious meditators. I consider this both an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage is that I have not learned in detail the techniques taught by the professionals or have been able to discuss my experiences on a one to one basis with a teacher. The advantages are that I have not been inculcated with the expectations and rules that have been part of the subject for thousands of years. If we look at these we see that this includes numerous religious philosophies and ideas that arose in ages devoid of the scientific outlook that we now profit by. Also, as my profession has been as a researcher and teacher I have spent a large part of my life learning new things on my own. Many of these have been far from my basic training, eg knowledge of biology used for work in the area of biomechanics. 

The classic meditation practice is usually carried out on a cushion ( zafu), or a kneeling bench. The practitioner sits in an erect posture with a straight spine and ideally in a crossed leg lotus posture. In ancient times and in the places where meditation started this made sense in this is the way most people seated themselves. The advantages of this are definitely great. It allows good breathing habits, stable seating and a tendency not to fall asleep. Also assuming a standard position it also habituates the mind and enhances ones tendency to return to the proper mental state. Not to be scorned, it also associates one to the condition of other clearly successful meditators. For these reasons in my first attempts at meditation, I set out to emulate this classic approach. Unfortunately, possibly due to age and physical condition I rapidly found myself having considerable back pain. The meditation instructions I gleaned from courses and books did cover this situation and suggested the use of a straight back chair in which one sat forward so as not to use the backrest. Adapting to this stance was little help as I still experienced back pain. To do something about this I started using the McKinsey exercise program for back pain. This had helped me in the past and was popular with a number of people I know. Part of the program involves the use of a cylindrically shaped cushion which one places in the lumbar region of the back. Following this, I rapidly recovered and from that time on I practice not only in a straight back chair but on a couch or other convenient place to sit. I have to admit that occasionally I have fallen asleep, but in general, I have not found it to interfere with my meditation. All in all, I think it wise to adopt a position that is comfortable or to not lay victim to the need to follow any particular position just because it has been practiced for thousands of years. Above all what you want is stability, attentiveness and reasonable comfort that will not divert you from the task of meditation. Here is one of the reasons that I feel it has been better for me not to attend a formal live course in which I would be exposed to most of my classmates seated in a manner would not be possible for me. This would impart a psychological feeling that I would not be able to properly practice meditation and be at a disadvantage in learning a true practice. After two years I can now follow my breath with very little diversion in just about any posture, including laying down in bed. Robert Wright, the author of “Why Buddhism is True” claims that unless he attends a retreat he is unable to accomplish this.

Speaking of Wright’s book, his claims about Buddhism come with the caveat that he does not mean that he believes in many of the creed’s stipulations. Thus he rejects reincarnation and the concepts associated with this, such as that awakening will remove one from the wheel of continual and perhaps very unpleasant existence. Paraphrasing Woody Allen who said that by immortality he does not wish that his work lives on, but rather that he himself lives on. The goal of Buddhism appears to be to end ones continual reincarnation, while I prefer the probably unreachable goal of continuing to exist. Not being a Buddhist scholar I can not speak with the surety of its doctrines. However, I do know that it has been reported that only a small fraction of Buddhists actually meditate and most worship the Buddha as a deity. At the moment I consider Wright’s book to be one of the best background guides for those interested in meditation.

An excellent guide to the actual practice is “The Mind Illuminated” by Culadasa John Yates, Matthew Immergut, and Jeremy Graves. This provides a ten step program to the meditator. The books do adhere to much of the classical practice of Buddhism and follows one of the renowned teachings of the Buddha. However, in doing this it transfers these teachings into a modern context and uses everyday language. It does contain an appendix with translations of classical Buddhist texts, which as of now I have not read. The ten step program contains many practical details on such things as how to follow the breath and how to achieve mindfulness. I believe the novice meditator can greatly profit by reading both of these books. 

I will stop now and return later to further discuss these issues. At the moment I am experimenting with a device, the muse headset (https://eu-store.choosemuse.com/pages/home), that provides feedback from brain signals. I will review this in the near future. 

[holonomic]

My Tangled Path to Meditation

As a hard science academic while, I was aware of a seeming epidemic of meditators that had been loosed upon the western world, I carefully avoided my own contamination. As part of my cover of rationality, I was also a regular listener of a podcast celebrating such (http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/) The hosts were Massimo Pigliucci and Julia Galef, both possessing excellent scientific pedigrees. Then one day Pigliucci declared himself a stoic, eventually writing the best selling book, “How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life.” Over the course of several programs, he managed to arouse my interest to the point that I not only bought and read his book but also gifted it to a number of friends and relatives. The version of Stoicism that he promoted appealed to me as a philosophy of life free of superstition, which provided an ethical and pragmatic basis for conducting oneself through the high points and pitfalls of life. With my mind directed to this framework, I was attracted to a Coursera course from Princeton given by Robert Wright. I quite enjoyed the course, which distilled the techniques of Buddhism from its religious and ritualistic elements, such as reincarnation. The course was eventually followed by a book (http://whybuddhismistrue.net) which, also became a best seller. Eventually, I even came across a podcast in which Pigliucci and Wright discussed the similarities of Stoicism to Buddhism. Wright’s lectures and his book made a convincing case for meditation, convincing enough to get me to take one of the so-called great courses offered by the Teaching Company. The course was given by Mark W. Muesse and had the title “Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation.” While Muesse was a bit more wedded to some of the ritualistic aspects of Buddhism, he gave a splendid set of lectures on the practical aspects of establishing a meditation practice. So I started meditating on a regular basis. That was about a year and a half ago. To my surprise, I found meditation to be both practical and interesting. The result is that I now meditate regularly for two or even three half-hour sessions daily. In future posts, I intend to give more details about my experience, including some of the pitfalls I have met in my practice as well as comments I what I have learned about my own thought processes. 

Marty Lesser

[holonomic]

Finally

After some problems I finally managed to change my password. Maybe now I can sleep easily over the heart bleed problem. No such luck considering all the passwords that need changing. Thus is born a new national pass time!

[holonomic]

On The Search for Extra Territorial Islanders

There has been much discussion lately in our tribal council about the possibility that other technically minded tribes may exist somewhere out in the deep blue. As every intelligent person knows we have long suspected the existence of other islands in the deep blue. One reason of course is the relatively near satellite island of Muoon. The diligent work of the crafters guild has even allowed us to reach this island, overcoming the force of the breaking waves that prevent easy access to the Deep Blue. One of the surprises in this accomplishment was the constant communication we were able to have with the brave explorers as they first stepped on the shores of Muoon. This feat was entirely due to the recent discovery of the sound horn transmitters and receivers. Thus by blowing carefully into their sound horns the explorers were able to send a coded version of our alphabet to the giant sound receiver horns set up by our able tribal council. It has even been observed that with the use of this technology we could explore Muoon by using reflected sound. Considering the expense of an expedition to Muoon this could save considerable sums of money. 

But Muoon has no tribes and is not really useful for anything. However it does allow us to conclude that other islands are out there, beyond the reach of our current technology. Also it is well known that no Deep Blue Vehicle can exceed the speed of the waves that break on our shore without being destroyed. Thus actual physical travel well into the deep blue is not a realistic possibility, at least at present. However the success of our sound communicators with the Muoon expedition has led me to conclude that any intelligent inhabitants of other possible islands would also eventually develop sound communicators and that by construction of a sufficiently large and well designed sound horn we might be able to receive their communications. It is even possible that they are sending out intense directed sound beams designed to search and inform others. There may even be a large community of tribes on different islands sending such signals to one another. Happily the tribal council has agreed to the construction of an new test horn dedicated to the search for extra territorial islanders or SETI as some are now calling it. The whole project has received encouragement from the recent discovery of far distant islands, though this is the result of indirect evidence obtained from the study of bird droppings. Careful examination of the droppings show that they contain seedlings that do not exist on our island. Every day new droppings are found so that we have good reason to believe that untold islands exist in the Deep Blue. Even as I write this our craft guild develop more and more refined techniques to unravel the secrets of the bird droppings.

Of course there are some who feel that we are wasting time and resources in this project. At least one critic of SETI has claimed that the extra islanders may have some form of communication unknown to us. What this might be they are unable to say, but to my mind it is very unlikely that anything could replace sound horn technology. They say though that our technology has only been around for a hundred cycles and that we had no idea it was even possible before that time. This is a poor argument as our craft guild full well knows. It is inconceivable that any technology that is superior to SWT exists. So in conclusion I think it is highly likely that within the next 50 cycles, well within the life span of current younglings, we will find traces of Extra Island Intelligence. We can all look forward this exciting development, a development that will change the path of our culture.

[holonomic]

Easter Problems

The time of year has gotten me thinking about some problems with resurrection, which to be honest is not something I believe in. However suppose that somehow it is a possibility that at some future date we will all be resurrected and judged. It seems to me, and the Stanford Handbook of Philosophy, which I consulted, that there are a lot of similarities with the idea of resurrection and teleportation. From a materialist standpoint whatever we are is what we are made of, i.e. something material. Otherwise there is a somewhat difficult problem of understanding how the non-material and the material can interact. If we take the "Star Trek" model of teleportation, somehow you're copied and your "pattern" is transmitted to another location where you are resurrected. Personally I have two problems with this. The first is what happens to the original, me. The second is that though the copy is presumably a near perfect copy I find it hard to believe it is me. Therefore I would think twice before using this mode of transportation. Also why destroy the original? This leads to a lot of other problems that have been explored in Science Fiction. Pohl and Williamson did a great job of this in the novel "Farthest Star". Also Demon Knight wrote some stories where difficulties arise from too many copies. Getting back to the Easter theme, the question is it indeed you who will be resurrected and forced to undergo a "last judgement"! Of course the copy will think it is you, but all the same it is a copy. The word copyright seems to take on a new meaning.  

[holonomic]

Evolution, Newton and the World

Someone throws a ball at you. You catch it. No big deal, you don’t have to think about it. You move around the city, climb over things, jump off diving boards and drive your car. You do all this pretty much without thinking, you just do it. There is no need to solve equations, formulate problems or use computers. Despite this it takes tremendous effort for engineers to design a bipedal robot to even walk without falling, much less dive into a pool and swim. The physical laws that the engineer uses were first set down only a few hundred years ago by Isaac Newton. A reasonable ability to use these laws for the calculations required to “understand” and replicate the above actions has only recently become possible with the advent of modern computer technology. So what is going on here? Are you solving complex systems of differential equations with lightning speed and accuracy without being aware of it? How are each of us carrying out these activities that are so hard to calculate from our theoretical models of the world?

The answer of course is evolution! At the cost of numberless failures the environment has shaped mechanisms in our bodies, which allow us to move about in the world. Life that did this better than its rivals survived and reproduced. Just what the neural mechanisms are is of course a area of intense research. However it is quite unlikely that it consists of somehow setting up and solving huge systems of differential equations. More likely it is like approximating particular input-output requirements with adaptive neural nets. The Newtonian approach follows from a general theory of the world, however our biological solution, while quick and accurate, is limited to those activities that evolution has conditioned us for. Thus we expect to be moving in a world with the right amount of gravity,  air resistance and so forth. Put one of us in free fall in a space craft orbiting the earth and we must begin to think about what we are doing. To some extent we can learn to move in such environments, but it is far from automatic. Astronauts practice for many hours before they do actual work in free fall, and such work is very fatiguing. 

These considerations extend beyond our abilities to move around the world. Evolution has provided us with tools to survive and prosper in a relatively fixed environment. Our intuition is a product of that evolution and while it works very well for what we normally experience, it is not general in the way that Newton’s laws are. It is well to keep this in mind as our exploration of the world advances. Of course the same principles apply to our social behavior. That’s why we have conflict, racism and wars. The question is can we overcome this evolutionary baggage, which has served us well but which may now be a dangerous burden. 

Marty Lesser

[holonomic]

The Disappearing Universe

The facts of modern astronomy contradict the idea that, “it’s never too late”. Much to the surprise of astronomers and physicists it turns out that not only is our universe expanding, but the expansion is accelerating! Today the observable universe consists of a huge number of galaxies, the number being 1 followed by 11 zeros. Each galaxy contains about the same number of stars. The discovery of the accelerating expansion required among other things the observation of super nova at distances measured in billions of light years. No need to worry about this in the next few million years, however it does make clear a severe limit on what we can know. If an astronomer is around in the far enough future all those billions of galaxies will be beyond possibility of observation. I will not go into the reasons for it here, just look it up on wikipedia if you want the details. The point I want to make is that the current knowledge we have about the universe will be unattainable to astronomers in the far future. Even if they have some records from our time they might just appear as non confirmable facts or myths. This is bad enough, but what about the knowledge we have about the world around us? We have no way of knowing what might have vanished from possible observation. Of course we can use our knowledge of fundamental physics to gain knowledge about some events of the past, even some facts about the so called “big bang”. But this does not help us have any certainty about what we may be missing. No one has found traces of unicorns in the fossil record, but maybe there is non to find. Is it possible that many millions of years in the past a technical civilization populated by another “intelligent” species existed on the Earth. The surface of the Earth shifts and moves over geological time scales, and what may be under all that ice that covers Antarctica? Many thousands of languages have vanished along with those that spoke them, giving another store of lost knowledge. This all may be expected, however somehow the loss of knowledge about the physical universe is particularly upsetting. Surrounded by technical marvels we tend to think of ourselves as masters of the universe, at least as a species. But as has been often said, you can’t expect to teach a dog quantum mechanics, so why expect that our brains can unravel all the mysteries of the universe? The possibility that significant information is simply not available further limits what we can know. Still I take the attempt to understand the world from a rational view point to be a fulfilling purpose for our species. Maybe we can even figure out a way to pass on our knowledge on to any intelligence that may be found in that expanded universe of the far far future!

Marty Lesser

[holonomic]

A Dollop of Trollope

By chance I acquired a copy of the BBC video production of Anthony Trollope's novel, Barchester Towers. I was so taken by this excellent production describing the political and social life of clerics in mid 19th century England that I decided to actually read some of Trollope's works. Aside from being entertaining, all of Trollope's major novels are available free as Ipad downloads. To my surprise reading this author's stories from 150 years ago has become close to an obsession with me. While I like to read just about anything a major part of the fare that I partake of is in the realm of science fiction, something that seems somewhat removed from the world of Trollope. After some introspection I think I now have some understanding of what these stories of another time and place offer me. 

Barcetshire, the fictitious arena of the six Barchester novels, provides Trollope with means to write about the behavior of his characters without insulting the mores of any actual region or people. Entering this world is like time or space travel to a strange world with both similarities and differences from own. As the author himself is of that time and place the feeling of authenticity is complete, far better than in the world building of most if not all science fiction writers. Even specialists in historical fiction have only read of but not lived in the societies they write about. As Trollope, whose "day job" was as a post office official, wrote to gain an income, his emphasis was always on telling a good and entertaining story. Unlike Dickens, most of his characters were from the upper class, and if the reader is interested in the social ills of the period, these are only indirectly discernible. The prejudices characteristic of the period are present simply as part of the background. While Trollope provides his female characters with many positive attributes, the place of mid Victorian women is clearly subservient. Still one gets the feeling of irony and sarcasm, though this may simply be the modern readers projection of our current value system. 

In addition to his novels, Trollope also wrote travel books and an autobiography, also available as a free download. He visited the United States in 1861 right at the beginning of the Civil War, and his book on his travels there make for fascinating reading. He states in his autobiography that this is one of his worst books, however I found it both entertaining and well done. I suspect he disliked the work because of just how wrong many of his predictions about the course of the war were. 

His autobiography itself is very sparse about the emotional details of his life, concentrating mainly on his writing. Hardly anything is said about his marriage or his children, though he does make clear the problems he faced growing up in a very poor but upper class family. In fact he led quite an interesting life as his post office duties took him to many exotic places. Interestingly he also is the creator of the post letter box in the form of the pillar boxes placed all over England. One result of his autobiography, published after his death, was an attack by literary critics whom had previously praised his work. As he looked on writing as a means of earning an income he had developed a methodical approach, producing a given number of pages early each morning before going to his work at the post office. He even developed a mobile writing desk for use in his travels. Also, he kept careful accounts of his earnings and the distribution of his manuscripts. For some reason this offended the critics. They claimed that such a methodical approach was contrary to creativity! 

As to the main theme of this blog, the meaning of life, I feel that time travel by way of the printed word allows us to experience how those of another culture found purpose in their lives. Trollope's characters have different measures of duty and honor than are to be found in current western society, yet they are our precursors. However in the final analysis I recommend reading Trollope's work for plain enjoyment.

Cheers,

Marty Lesser

[holonomic]

All The Time In The World

In Euclidian Geometry the distance between two points is given by a simple formula. Points are defined by giving three numbers, represented by x, y and z, which are called "coordinates". If we have two points with coordinates (x1,y1,z1) and (x2,y2,z2) the coordinate differences are sx=x2-x1, sy=y2-y1 and sz=z2-z1. The distance between the points is the number obtained by taking the positive square root of the sum of squares of the coordinate differences, thus 

d = SquareRoot( Square(sx) + Square(sy) + Square(sz)).

If you rotate the coordinate system the coordinates of the points changes, but not "d" the distance. Thus "d" is an invariant, i.e. it is the same no matter how much we rotate the coordinates. Even shifting the coordinates does not change "d". The act of rotating and shifting coordinates can be visualized if axis are taken as the sides of a cube. Rotating and shifting the cubes position then results in a rotation and shifting of the coordinates.

All this is well known to practical people. No one doubts that the distance between two place settings on the dinner table remains the same if we rotate and move the table. Your height does not change when you lie down (ignoring biological adjustments). So what has all this to do with time?

In 1905 Einstein introduced the theory of special relativity and a few years later his former teacher, Minkowski, showed that this work implied an invariant for space-time. Space time simply adds a forth coordinate to our world, based on time. Actually to keep things straight we have to convert the time coordinate "t" to a distance. Einstein's work shows that the way to do this is to multiply "t" by the speed of light so that the forth coordinate is given by

w = c X t, where c is the speed of light. A point in space time is called "an event" by physicists. The new invariant is given by:

Square(D) = Square(sx)+Square(sy)+Square(Sz)-Square(Sw),

where Sw = w2-w1.

The minus sign makes for some interesting behaviors which we will not discuss here. The important point is the very existence of  D as an invariant. That D is indeed an invariant is one of the most tested and confirmed facts in science. If it were not true devices such as the Large Hadron Collider would simply not work! This in turn implies the reality of space-time. Space-time is as real as space itself. This completely upsets our common view of time. It says that the future is as real as the past and the idea of a moving present is simply an illusion. Given our subjective view of the world this is very very hard to believe and no one has satisfactorily shown why our personal view of the world is so different from what physics tells us.

One way of looking at this is to consider a movie film. Each frame can correspond to an instant of time. The film simply exists and contains all the "instants" in itself. The past and future relative to each frame is contained in the frames contents. An egg is dropped in one frame. Another frame shows a splattered egg on the floor, while a third frame shows the egg at rest on a table. Simply ask yourself, what is the future-past relationships of the three frames? One can postulate that presently unknown workings of what we call our conscience provides us with the feeling of times passage. In this view there is a "you" fixed in each frame carrying information about the "past" but not the "future". There is no passage of time, simply each of the fixed "you's" contains the information which gives it the feelings of a past, present and future. I find this almost impossible to realize myself but still the existence of the invariant D says this is the way the world works. 

So what has this to do with the "meaning" of life? I'm not sure, but it does seem like something we want to take account of when we consider such matters. Einstein comforted a friend who was suffering from the death of a loved one by pointing out that death was only the unavailability of the person to someone in the present. In the metaphor of the film strip the person was simply not in all the frames. It also has implications about free will (whatever that may be), but I'll get back to that in another frame, future to the one you're now reading.

Marty Lesser

[holonomic]

The Quilted Universe

Brian Green in his latest popularization of cosmological thinking, “The Hidden Reality”, discourses on the idea of “the quilted universe”. Both mind boggling and simple the idea is based on the universe being infinite, a situation considered possible by our current understanding of physics. As the number of quantum states possible is a finite though inconceivably large number, this implies a universe in which any given state must have an infinite number of replications! To see this consider two pennies. The possible states are: HT, TH, HH and TT. Therefore if I have more than four groups of two pennies there must be a repetition of states. The awesome implication is that “out there” there are an infinite number of exact replications of us and our world! In addition there are an infinite number of close replications of us and our world. Thus any possible results of any choices we may have made must also exist. In fact all possible worlds exist. That is possible with the constraint that they could have evolved from a primal state following the laws of physics. Thus dragons and wizards may or may not exist somewhere. Perhaps it is fortunate that we can have no contact with any of these possible replications, yet given an infinity of repeats even this may not be true. There could exist a possible world in which two or more exact copies are near each other. By the reasoning above there must be a case where an arbitrary number of exact replications are near enough to make contact and even must make contact. Somewhere in the quilted universe persons just like you can survey a number of worlds where those very much like themselves can see the results of making different life choices.

Given all this I find it quite hard to believe in the quilted universe or even of anything being really infinite. Still the idea might make some entertaining stories.

Marty Lesser

[holonomic]

The Meaning of Life, what is it?

At one time or another almost all of us ask themselves what is the meaning of life. Analytical philosophers may tell us that the question has no meaning. The more humorous may simply say that the meaning of life is to get through it. Perhaps the meaning is simply to find a meaning, but this may seem overly reflexive a solution. In this "blog" I intend to explore this question, if indeed it is a question, from the above and other points of view. Of course the last thing you can expect is a really useful answer other than Douglas Adam's 42. 

Marty Lesser