Francis Mont's Blog, page 9
June 4, 2017
Time Scope - Averting Disaster
I have published a novella on Kindle, called "Time Scope".
It is about a Sci-Fi TV Set that can be tuned to any space and time coordinate and observe events, without sound, as they took place in the past. It has control buttons and dials for ‘Power’, ‘Time’, ‘Space’, ‘Zoom’, ‘Speed’, ‘Scan’ and ‘Track’.
It is used, among other things, by an American Senator to find out if his party’s presidential nominee, a retired general is, in fact, a power-mad maniac with dictatorial ambitions. He wants to save his country from a rogue president who could cause immense harm to both the USA and to the rest of the world.
See at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071ZXZH24
It is about a Sci-Fi TV Set that can be tuned to any space and time coordinate and observe events, without sound, as they took place in the past. It has control buttons and dials for ‘Power’, ‘Time’, ‘Space’, ‘Zoom’, ‘Speed’, ‘Scan’ and ‘Track’.
It is used, among other things, by an American Senator to find out if his party’s presidential nominee, a retired general is, in fact, a power-mad maniac with dictatorial ambitions. He wants to save his country from a rogue president who could cause immense harm to both the USA and to the rest of the world.
See at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071ZXZH24
April 15, 2017
First Contact
by Francis Mont
We have only one TV set in the lounge of the hospital’s closed ward and, usually, we bicker about what to watch. The last few weeks, however, we had no arguments; everyone was glued to CNN, watching the alien spaceship over one city or another.
It appeared one day, hovered over New York, hung motionless in the air for a week. Nobody saw or heard it coming; it just appeared suddenly and obscured quite a lot of the sky. It resembled nothing science fiction writers had ever invented. It had a rectangular shape, like a floating breadbox, not something built for speed.
It did not land, did not respond to hundreds of attempts at communication by private and military agencies. Then, one day, it simply disappeared from the New York sky, only to appear at the same moment over Rio de Janeiro, then Cairo, Moscow, Berlin, Tokyo. At each place, it spent a few days and then moved on.
It seemed to enjoy the spectacle of a bull fight, hovering over Spain, it visited all the famous walls on the planet: the Great Wall of China; the wall between the Gaza Strip and Israel; the new wall under construction between the US and Mexico; the remnants of the Berlin wall.
It appeared fascinated with the Tokyo night, with the city ablaze with light. Then we watched it as it made a visit to the oil extraction sites in the northern Alberta tar sands, then hopped over to the calving Childs Glacier in Alaska where some thrill-seekers were surfing the huge waves created by the melting and collapsing ice blocks.
We laughed our heads off, watching it over Vatican City, where the terrified Easter Sunday pilgrims threw themselves on the ground in a frenzy of prayer. It was a different scene over Jerusalem, where pilgrims at the Wailing Wall greeted it as the long awaited Messiah.
I have always heard voices in my head, random thoughts from people around me, but there was nothing menacing in the glimpses I experienced of these alien minds, nothing suggesting evil intentions. My fellow inmates guessed wildly about the purpose of the visit. Some thought it was a survey mission for possible invasion, others were convinced that it meant to unite humanity by drawing fire against a potential common enemy.
That idea gained some credence when we observed the spaceship hovering over Kashmir, above the raging war between India and Pakistan. It did not interfere with the barrage of missile and artillery fire the two armies were raining down on each other’s heads. Some frightened idiots from both armies tried to shoot it down, but the missiles simply disappeared halfway along their trajectory. The aliens did not retaliate or respond; they stayed a few more hours and then resumed hopping from continent to continent, metropolis to metropolis.
They never revealed themselves, nobody discovered what they looked like; nobody had any idea what they wanted. And then, one day it was gone without a trace, without any attempt to communicate.
This last statement is not entirely true.
I heard their farewell telepathic message, apologizing for the intrusion and thanking us for our matchless entertainment value. They said they would be back to get more video footage for The Galactic Comedy Show, which specializes in irrational species and their hilarious behaviour.
================================
This is a companion story to the one I posted earlier, taking a different view of the same subject. If you like it, take a look at the short story collection, "Meandering", Vera and I published recently. Now available both in Kindle and in paperback edition.
See at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/099...
We have only one TV set in the lounge of the hospital’s closed ward and, usually, we bicker about what to watch. The last few weeks, however, we had no arguments; everyone was glued to CNN, watching the alien spaceship over one city or another.
It appeared one day, hovered over New York, hung motionless in the air for a week. Nobody saw or heard it coming; it just appeared suddenly and obscured quite a lot of the sky. It resembled nothing science fiction writers had ever invented. It had a rectangular shape, like a floating breadbox, not something built for speed.
It did not land, did not respond to hundreds of attempts at communication by private and military agencies. Then, one day, it simply disappeared from the New York sky, only to appear at the same moment over Rio de Janeiro, then Cairo, Moscow, Berlin, Tokyo. At each place, it spent a few days and then moved on.
It seemed to enjoy the spectacle of a bull fight, hovering over Spain, it visited all the famous walls on the planet: the Great Wall of China; the wall between the Gaza Strip and Israel; the new wall under construction between the US and Mexico; the remnants of the Berlin wall.
It appeared fascinated with the Tokyo night, with the city ablaze with light. Then we watched it as it made a visit to the oil extraction sites in the northern Alberta tar sands, then hopped over to the calving Childs Glacier in Alaska where some thrill-seekers were surfing the huge waves created by the melting and collapsing ice blocks.
We laughed our heads off, watching it over Vatican City, where the terrified Easter Sunday pilgrims threw themselves on the ground in a frenzy of prayer. It was a different scene over Jerusalem, where pilgrims at the Wailing Wall greeted it as the long awaited Messiah.
I have always heard voices in my head, random thoughts from people around me, but there was nothing menacing in the glimpses I experienced of these alien minds, nothing suggesting evil intentions. My fellow inmates guessed wildly about the purpose of the visit. Some thought it was a survey mission for possible invasion, others were convinced that it meant to unite humanity by drawing fire against a potential common enemy.
That idea gained some credence when we observed the spaceship hovering over Kashmir, above the raging war between India and Pakistan. It did not interfere with the barrage of missile and artillery fire the two armies were raining down on each other’s heads. Some frightened idiots from both armies tried to shoot it down, but the missiles simply disappeared halfway along their trajectory. The aliens did not retaliate or respond; they stayed a few more hours and then resumed hopping from continent to continent, metropolis to metropolis.
They never revealed themselves, nobody discovered what they looked like; nobody had any idea what they wanted. And then, one day it was gone without a trace, without any attempt to communicate.
This last statement is not entirely true.
I heard their farewell telepathic message, apologizing for the intrusion and thanking us for our matchless entertainment value. They said they would be back to get more video footage for The Galactic Comedy Show, which specializes in irrational species and their hilarious behaviour.
================================
This is a companion story to the one I posted earlier, taking a different view of the same subject. If you like it, take a look at the short story collection, "Meandering", Vera and I published recently. Now available both in Kindle and in paperback edition.
See at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/099...
SETI
Excerpt from our new book: "Meandering"
Search for Intelligence
by Francis Mont
The old man lived alone. He hadn’t had a human companion for a long time - his children grown and gone, his wife bailed out years ago. He seldom talked to human beings, his once a week trip to Loblaws for food and sundries was the only contact he had with bipeds.
He wasn’t lonely though, he had animated conversations with himself, mostly about aliens. He knew that they were out there and was determined to find them. His house was full of computer equipment, and the little money he could save from his pension was all eaten up by his several broadband internet accounts - his lifeline to the outside world. More precisely, to the off-planet world.
He was a passionate SETI-at-home member, downloading data twenty four hours a day, onto his eight high speed computers, processing the packets he was given from the big Arecibo radio telescope that had been searching the sky for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence.
In 1999 SETI-at-home was started, distributing the collected data to millions of voluntary home computer users, so their number-crunching power could be added to the supercomputer’s at Berkley. When he discovered SETI, the old man changed. He spent all their savings on computers, internet connection, network equipment. He locked himself into his basement workshop for most of the day, stopped talking to his wife of 47 years, coming up only for infrequent meals.
When every effort Sandra made to reach him had failed, she disappeared from the house one day, the old man hardly noticed. He kept going from one computer to the other, hoping for confirmation from Berkley that he had made contact.
There had to be intelligence somewhere in the universe, because he had given up, long ago, trying to find any on Earth. When his youngest son was blown up in Afghanistan, the old man was finished with the human race. He continued watching the news for a while still, and every day he was more and more convinced that his decision was justified.
He saw a species that was fast destroying the planet with its toxic waste, had thousands of nuclear warheads on hair trigger alert aimed at each other’s cities, each other’s wives and children, tolerated mass hunger and disease on large areas of the planet while their rich wallowed in ostentatious luxury. Their leaders were corrupt and power mad, they warped their citizens’ minds with irrational religious dogma and racial hatred.
After a while he had had enough, stopped watching the news, stopped talking to his friends, stopped even thinking about humans. His eyes were glued to the dance of pulsating multicolour signals across the screens, waiting, waiting, waiting.
The postman who delivered the telegram from Berkley, found the front door open and, getting no answer to his knocks, walked in for the required signature.
He found the old man’s body slumped forward in his chair, his hand still holding a pen over the last scrawled message on his notepad.
It said: “they are out there, intelligence must exist somewhere!”
Search for Intelligence
by Francis Mont
The old man lived alone. He hadn’t had a human companion for a long time - his children grown and gone, his wife bailed out years ago. He seldom talked to human beings, his once a week trip to Loblaws for food and sundries was the only contact he had with bipeds.
He wasn’t lonely though, he had animated conversations with himself, mostly about aliens. He knew that they were out there and was determined to find them. His house was full of computer equipment, and the little money he could save from his pension was all eaten up by his several broadband internet accounts - his lifeline to the outside world. More precisely, to the off-planet world.
He was a passionate SETI-at-home member, downloading data twenty four hours a day, onto his eight high speed computers, processing the packets he was given from the big Arecibo radio telescope that had been searching the sky for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence.
In 1999 SETI-at-home was started, distributing the collected data to millions of voluntary home computer users, so their number-crunching power could be added to the supercomputer’s at Berkley. When he discovered SETI, the old man changed. He spent all their savings on computers, internet connection, network equipment. He locked himself into his basement workshop for most of the day, stopped talking to his wife of 47 years, coming up only for infrequent meals.
When every effort Sandra made to reach him had failed, she disappeared from the house one day, the old man hardly noticed. He kept going from one computer to the other, hoping for confirmation from Berkley that he had made contact.
There had to be intelligence somewhere in the universe, because he had given up, long ago, trying to find any on Earth. When his youngest son was blown up in Afghanistan, the old man was finished with the human race. He continued watching the news for a while still, and every day he was more and more convinced that his decision was justified.
He saw a species that was fast destroying the planet with its toxic waste, had thousands of nuclear warheads on hair trigger alert aimed at each other’s cities, each other’s wives and children, tolerated mass hunger and disease on large areas of the planet while their rich wallowed in ostentatious luxury. Their leaders were corrupt and power mad, they warped their citizens’ minds with irrational religious dogma and racial hatred.
After a while he had had enough, stopped watching the news, stopped talking to his friends, stopped even thinking about humans. His eyes were glued to the dance of pulsating multicolour signals across the screens, waiting, waiting, waiting.
The postman who delivered the telegram from Berkley, found the front door open and, getting no answer to his knocks, walked in for the required signature.
He found the old man’s body slumped forward in his chair, his hand still holding a pen over the last scrawled message on his notepad.
It said: “they are out there, intelligence must exist somewhere!”
February 26, 2017
We published a new book
Vera and I collected our short stories and a novella I wrote and are in the process of publishing it both in print and on Kindle. The Kindle version can be pre-ordered now, to be downloaded on March 15th. The printed version will show up on Amazon a couple of weeks later.
The stories in this book will introduce you to:
- Visit from aliens with an unusual agenda
- A Guardian Angel with a peculiar bent
- A hightech trap catching an innocent
- Obsessing with jealousy can backfire
- A time travel villain becoming his own victim
- An old man talking to his cat about danger
- A driver fretting about safety
- Mind before the creation
- An unusual TV set saving humanity
- A whole town locked down by robots
- Secret meeting by star crossed lovers
- Terrorist on cherry street
- Young woman with a troubled past escapes
- Middle aged woman decides on her life
- Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence
These stories are a collection of musings by the authors about the human condition. They are short and long; funny and tragic; sad and optimistic. The stuff life is made of. We hope you will enjoy our meandering minds.
The link to the Kindle version on Amazon is as follows:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X3YLYM4?...
The stories in this book will introduce you to:
- Visit from aliens with an unusual agenda
- A Guardian Angel with a peculiar bent
- A hightech trap catching an innocent
- Obsessing with jealousy can backfire
- A time travel villain becoming his own victim
- An old man talking to his cat about danger
- A driver fretting about safety
- Mind before the creation
- An unusual TV set saving humanity
- A whole town locked down by robots
- Secret meeting by star crossed lovers
- Terrorist on cherry street
- Young woman with a troubled past escapes
- Middle aged woman decides on her life
- Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence
These stories are a collection of musings by the authors about the human condition. They are short and long; funny and tragic; sad and optimistic. The stuff life is made of. We hope you will enjoy our meandering minds.
The link to the Kindle version on Amazon is as follows:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X3YLYM4?...
January 7, 2017
New adventure
After having written mostly poetry and science during the last 30 years, I started experimenting with fiction: so far 3 short stories and a novella.
I submitted them to different magazines and one of them was recently accepted for publication by "Bewildering Stories" - an online magazine.
It is a science fiction story illustrating how obsessive jealousy can be its worth enemy.
Here is a link:
http://www.bewilderingstories.com/iss...
I submitted them to different magazines and one of them was recently accepted for publication by "Bewildering Stories" - an online magazine.
It is a science fiction story illustrating how obsessive jealousy can be its worth enemy.
Here is a link:
http://www.bewilderingstories.com/iss...
November 27, 2016
What Trump's Core-Supporters have just done.
They declared war on reason.
Consciously, deliberately, defiantly, in the face of all the intellectuals and eggheads and the scientists and the experts. They know that they are stupid and ignorant and they are throwing their defiance in our faces, even if it kills us all. I should have seen it coming, because after Obama was first elected they declared war on him as well, blocking and obstructing every move he tried to make to channel the country in a sane, progressive direction. They were mostly successful and they suffered the consequences. They did not care, because for once they won. Now, they got a champion who gave them permission to go berserk and gave them the marching order for irrational rampage. And they love every minute of it. There is nothing more intoxicating than being allowed to spit in the face of your betters. The dumbing-down process finally reached its logical conclusion.
Added explanation (after one of my readers yesterday called it 'cynical'.)
Please note that I was not talking about ALL of Trump’s supporters, but only his CORE supporters.
The mob you could see at his rallies, tens of thousands each time, chanting in almost religious ecstasy: “Lock her up!” and “Build the Wall!” and “Drain the swamp!” while he was walking up and down the stage, beaming, soaking it up.
The same mob that attacked the democratic senators in Obama’s first term, who tried to inform their constituents about the intended health care.
It is shocking to realize that in today’s America there are millions of them and they are running the show by sheer volume and intimidation.
Yes, I know that many people have very complex motivations, but if you examine and analyze them carefully, you will see a few dominant ones.
The most important one is what I call: "Willful Ignorance" or "Selective Blindness". Of not wanting to know, even though they do.
It is impossible not to know that the candidate they voted for:
- approved of and wished to escalate torture
- suggested to execute family members of suspected terrorists (Hitler's Gestapo comes to mind)
- intended to tear millions of American families apart and destroy their lives
- Suggested to disregard and dismiss thousands of top level environmental scientists
- Planned to greatly increase coal production leading to runaway environmental catastrophe for the whole planet
- Planned to appoint judges to the supreme court who would ban abortion and prenatal planning
- Planned to severely curtail free press.
- Declared his intention of spreading nuclear weapons to more countries around the globe
-Planned to rip up economic treaties that could benefit all of the US instead of only the super rich as it is now.
- Planned to give massive tax breaks to the super rich by gutting social and environmental programs and increasing the national debt.
- Slashing most of the remaining regulations that protect the country from the piranhas of industry and wall street
- Triggered and encouraged escalation of racial and religious hatred that could lead to civil war
- etc., etc., etc.
This is what his supporters voted for.
I wonder how many would have, if this rap sheet I compiled above was attached to the ballot under his name with the question: "Are you sure you want to vote for this?" like warning of toxic content on bottles of chemicals.
These are just the highlights of his platform, repeated over and over, for anyone to hear.
And if you are tempted to excuse him by saying that he didn't mean any of this, that "it was only locker room talk" then take a look at the list of those he appointed to high positions so far. Environmental morons, Nazi sympathizers, racist bastards, white supremacist advocates. The list will go on.
If someone voted for him, in view of all this, it can be because the person was unbelievably stupid, or an unethical bastard who didn’t care about the morality of it, as long as s/he could cash in on the crumbs. Probably a bit of both.
NONE of it could be due to lack of information. They could not help knowing this and they did not care, did not want to think about it.
I have a neighbour who once told me that she did not know whom to trust in the news, because everybody lies. I lent her a small Chomsky book and she returned it unread a few days later. She said it is too depressing to read.
She did not want to know, because if she did, her conscience would have urged her to do something and it would have been ‘inconvenient’.
You see, in every system there are the defining structural elements that determine whether the system is sound, functional or not.
The TITANIC was an extremely complex machine. However, it was one structural failure that doomed the ship after it hit the iceberg. The bulkheads in the ship’s hold, separating it to water tight compartments did not reach the top as they were supposed to. They saved money by going up only three quarter the way. When one compartment was filled with seawater, it spilled over the top into the next one and the next, and the next, until the ship could not stay afloat. All the magnificent and complex machine the rest of the ship was became irrelevant at that point.
You see, I am a theoretical Physicist, always looking to identify these structural elements that define the behaviour of a system: be it physical or human.
In case of the Trump supporters, it is a mixture of fear, moral blindness, willful ignorance, greed and, in the case of his core supporters that I was writing about: undeniable hatred and malice.
It was, as I wrote, a war declared on reason itself.
People often mix up two concepts and use them interchangeably: these are ‘cynical’ and ‘realistic’.
Stating facts bluntly is often called ‘cynical’ even though the word implies self serving manipulation of the truth.
By one definition “concerned only with one's own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards in order to achieve them.”
I hope you will see the difference.
Consciously, deliberately, defiantly, in the face of all the intellectuals and eggheads and the scientists and the experts. They know that they are stupid and ignorant and they are throwing their defiance in our faces, even if it kills us all. I should have seen it coming, because after Obama was first elected they declared war on him as well, blocking and obstructing every move he tried to make to channel the country in a sane, progressive direction. They were mostly successful and they suffered the consequences. They did not care, because for once they won. Now, they got a champion who gave them permission to go berserk and gave them the marching order for irrational rampage. And they love every minute of it. There is nothing more intoxicating than being allowed to spit in the face of your betters. The dumbing-down process finally reached its logical conclusion.
Added explanation (after one of my readers yesterday called it 'cynical'.)
Please note that I was not talking about ALL of Trump’s supporters, but only his CORE supporters.
The mob you could see at his rallies, tens of thousands each time, chanting in almost religious ecstasy: “Lock her up!” and “Build the Wall!” and “Drain the swamp!” while he was walking up and down the stage, beaming, soaking it up.
The same mob that attacked the democratic senators in Obama’s first term, who tried to inform their constituents about the intended health care.
It is shocking to realize that in today’s America there are millions of them and they are running the show by sheer volume and intimidation.
Yes, I know that many people have very complex motivations, but if you examine and analyze them carefully, you will see a few dominant ones.
The most important one is what I call: "Willful Ignorance" or "Selective Blindness". Of not wanting to know, even though they do.
It is impossible not to know that the candidate they voted for:
- approved of and wished to escalate torture
- suggested to execute family members of suspected terrorists (Hitler's Gestapo comes to mind)
- intended to tear millions of American families apart and destroy their lives
- Suggested to disregard and dismiss thousands of top level environmental scientists
- Planned to greatly increase coal production leading to runaway environmental catastrophe for the whole planet
- Planned to appoint judges to the supreme court who would ban abortion and prenatal planning
- Planned to severely curtail free press.
- Declared his intention of spreading nuclear weapons to more countries around the globe
-Planned to rip up economic treaties that could benefit all of the US instead of only the super rich as it is now.
- Planned to give massive tax breaks to the super rich by gutting social and environmental programs and increasing the national debt.
- Slashing most of the remaining regulations that protect the country from the piranhas of industry and wall street
- Triggered and encouraged escalation of racial and religious hatred that could lead to civil war
- etc., etc., etc.
This is what his supporters voted for.
I wonder how many would have, if this rap sheet I compiled above was attached to the ballot under his name with the question: "Are you sure you want to vote for this?" like warning of toxic content on bottles of chemicals.
These are just the highlights of his platform, repeated over and over, for anyone to hear.
And if you are tempted to excuse him by saying that he didn't mean any of this, that "it was only locker room talk" then take a look at the list of those he appointed to high positions so far. Environmental morons, Nazi sympathizers, racist bastards, white supremacist advocates. The list will go on.
If someone voted for him, in view of all this, it can be because the person was unbelievably stupid, or an unethical bastard who didn’t care about the morality of it, as long as s/he could cash in on the crumbs. Probably a bit of both.
NONE of it could be due to lack of information. They could not help knowing this and they did not care, did not want to think about it.
I have a neighbour who once told me that she did not know whom to trust in the news, because everybody lies. I lent her a small Chomsky book and she returned it unread a few days later. She said it is too depressing to read.
She did not want to know, because if she did, her conscience would have urged her to do something and it would have been ‘inconvenient’.
You see, in every system there are the defining structural elements that determine whether the system is sound, functional or not.
The TITANIC was an extremely complex machine. However, it was one structural failure that doomed the ship after it hit the iceberg. The bulkheads in the ship’s hold, separating it to water tight compartments did not reach the top as they were supposed to. They saved money by going up only three quarter the way. When one compartment was filled with seawater, it spilled over the top into the next one and the next, and the next, until the ship could not stay afloat. All the magnificent and complex machine the rest of the ship was became irrelevant at that point.
You see, I am a theoretical Physicist, always looking to identify these structural elements that define the behaviour of a system: be it physical or human.
In case of the Trump supporters, it is a mixture of fear, moral blindness, willful ignorance, greed and, in the case of his core supporters that I was writing about: undeniable hatred and malice.
It was, as I wrote, a war declared on reason itself.
People often mix up two concepts and use them interchangeably: these are ‘cynical’ and ‘realistic’.
Stating facts bluntly is often called ‘cynical’ even though the word implies self serving manipulation of the truth.
By one definition “concerned only with one's own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards in order to achieve them.”
I hope you will see the difference.
November 25, 2016
What is, and how to find, Truth?
Truth is an observation or a plausible theory that has not [yet] been contradicted by the accumulated knowledge available to us. The very instant an irrefutable contradiction is demonstrated, the theory becomes false and needs to be modified or discarded.
So Newton’s equation: “force equals mass times acceleration, where mass is an unchangeable constant attribute of material bodies”, was a truth until Einstein, by his special theory of relativity, suggested experiments that produced results contradicting Newton. At that point Newton’s ‘truth’ became ‘false’ and required modification.
Truth can apply to physical observation, directly with our senses or indirectly with instruments, or to a theory (which is usually a statement about cause-and-effect relationships). Physical observations have to be repeatable and consistent at ever-increasing accuracy, to be considered true; theories have to produce predictions verifiable by observation.
The only intolerable state is contradiction.
Life is not different from science - only more complicated. Basic principles still apply. A while ago, telling my students how to find truth, I used the example of Hercule Poirot. Imagine that you are a detective. A murder has been committed and you need to find out the truth. You question suspects and witnesses. Some tell the truth, some lie; you have no idea which. You collect all the evidence, all the statements from those interviewed, and build a model in your head. At that point “the little grey cells” ought to do their job.
You arrange the known facts and statements in such a way as to have a minimum number of contradictions in the model. You discard those that cannot be used without contradicting most of the other facts. Then you try to come up with a theory that agrees with the largest number of ‘facts’ and is supported by your personal experience, the experience of those you trust, and discard as ‘untrue’, all the rest. Then you think you know what the truth is. You draw logical conclusions and test these in real life. If they check out, you can be reasonably sure. You will never be absolutely sure -- truth is still only those theories that have not yet been contradicted.
Applying this method to our understanding of the human condition is no different. The keys to a reasonable confidence in knowing truth are to
• have extensive personal life experience (needs observation)
• learn as many facts as you can (needs a lot of reading)
• keep all of these facts in mind (needs a good memory)
• try to form a theoretical model (needs pattern recognition ability)
• be completely open minded (needs intellectual integrity)
Then you can be reasonably sure, in the relative sense. In the absolute sense you can be only 50% sure. Either you are right, or you are wrong. However, we can only do the best we can do. For all practical purposes, I can call it truth: 'my truth'. And it stays true until someone proves it false.
Unfortunately, when the topic of truth comes up, most people assume we are talking about metaphysics or quantum theory and the conversation becomes highly philosophical and highly impractical. To consider Heisenberg for my modest purpose of learning the truth about the reason we are unhappy and the changes we have to make to set it right is like considering Einstein to plan a car trip to Florida.
We also have to deal with another misconception of our age: it basically claims that no one has a by definition superior value system or opinion; that my opinion is just as good as someone else’s. While I understand the necessity of devaluing arguments based solely on authority, I find that we managed to swing to the opposite extreme (as usual) and tried to be completely egalitarian when evaluating competence and ability.
There are more and less intelligent people, more and less educated, experienced, knowledgeable, wise, honest, etc. people in the world. It is still true that some younger people could learn something from some of their elders, some experts still know more about their fields than some laymen.
Convictions are not entirely relative with identical weighing factors. Before I evaluate it, I like to know how a person arrived at his opinion, what it is based on, how many factors were considered, how much factual knowledge it incorporated.
So Newton’s equation: “force equals mass times acceleration, where mass is an unchangeable constant attribute of material bodies”, was a truth until Einstein, by his special theory of relativity, suggested experiments that produced results contradicting Newton. At that point Newton’s ‘truth’ became ‘false’ and required modification.
Truth can apply to physical observation, directly with our senses or indirectly with instruments, or to a theory (which is usually a statement about cause-and-effect relationships). Physical observations have to be repeatable and consistent at ever-increasing accuracy, to be considered true; theories have to produce predictions verifiable by observation.
The only intolerable state is contradiction.
Life is not different from science - only more complicated. Basic principles still apply. A while ago, telling my students how to find truth, I used the example of Hercule Poirot. Imagine that you are a detective. A murder has been committed and you need to find out the truth. You question suspects and witnesses. Some tell the truth, some lie; you have no idea which. You collect all the evidence, all the statements from those interviewed, and build a model in your head. At that point “the little grey cells” ought to do their job.
You arrange the known facts and statements in such a way as to have a minimum number of contradictions in the model. You discard those that cannot be used without contradicting most of the other facts. Then you try to come up with a theory that agrees with the largest number of ‘facts’ and is supported by your personal experience, the experience of those you trust, and discard as ‘untrue’, all the rest. Then you think you know what the truth is. You draw logical conclusions and test these in real life. If they check out, you can be reasonably sure. You will never be absolutely sure -- truth is still only those theories that have not yet been contradicted.
Applying this method to our understanding of the human condition is no different. The keys to a reasonable confidence in knowing truth are to
• have extensive personal life experience (needs observation)
• learn as many facts as you can (needs a lot of reading)
• keep all of these facts in mind (needs a good memory)
• try to form a theoretical model (needs pattern recognition ability)
• be completely open minded (needs intellectual integrity)
Then you can be reasonably sure, in the relative sense. In the absolute sense you can be only 50% sure. Either you are right, or you are wrong. However, we can only do the best we can do. For all practical purposes, I can call it truth: 'my truth'. And it stays true until someone proves it false.
Unfortunately, when the topic of truth comes up, most people assume we are talking about metaphysics or quantum theory and the conversation becomes highly philosophical and highly impractical. To consider Heisenberg for my modest purpose of learning the truth about the reason we are unhappy and the changes we have to make to set it right is like considering Einstein to plan a car trip to Florida.
We also have to deal with another misconception of our age: it basically claims that no one has a by definition superior value system or opinion; that my opinion is just as good as someone else’s. While I understand the necessity of devaluing arguments based solely on authority, I find that we managed to swing to the opposite extreme (as usual) and tried to be completely egalitarian when evaluating competence and ability.
There are more and less intelligent people, more and less educated, experienced, knowledgeable, wise, honest, etc. people in the world. It is still true that some younger people could learn something from some of their elders, some experts still know more about their fields than some laymen.
Convictions are not entirely relative with identical weighing factors. Before I evaluate it, I like to know how a person arrived at his opinion, what it is based on, how many factors were considered, how much factual knowledge it incorporated.
November 11, 2016
Devastation
The symptoms were alarming
but there was cause for hope.
Things had looked frightening before
but, at the end, your health returned.
The verdict, this time, is heartbreaking,
and I know I can not survive without you.
I stand here, happy memories
shattered to shards inside my mind.
All the fights we fought together,
all the sacrifices we made,
all the promises we pledged
for a heroic bright future
aren’t going to rescue you,
not this time.
...........
What do you do
when your beloved country
is diagnosed
with a deadly disease?
…………….
This poem is dedicated to all the sane and decent Americans
who must be heartbroken at this moment, with the recent tragedy
throwing their beloved country onto a path, back to the middle ages.
but there was cause for hope.
Things had looked frightening before
but, at the end, your health returned.
The verdict, this time, is heartbreaking,
and I know I can not survive without you.
I stand here, happy memories
shattered to shards inside my mind.
All the fights we fought together,
all the sacrifices we made,
all the promises we pledged
for a heroic bright future
aren’t going to rescue you,
not this time.
...........
What do you do
when your beloved country
is diagnosed
with a deadly disease?
…………….
This poem is dedicated to all the sane and decent Americans
who must be heartbroken at this moment, with the recent tragedy
throwing their beloved country onto a path, back to the middle ages.
Wild bull outside
Haiku is an ancient Japanese poetry form. Three lines, 5-7-5 pattern. I have written many, but not yet a whole poem with Haiku stanzas, so I though why not? I was inspired by the recent display of human stupidity and my firm determination of not letting it poison my mind. So here it comes:
Wild bull outside.
Crystal forest in my mind.
I won’t let it in.
I’m the gate keeper
If I don’t open the door
It can rage and roar.
It needs my consent
to let it poison my mind.
I will close my eyes,
stop watching the news,
refuse to acknowledge it.
Look at butterflies,
look at the sunsets,
chickadees on the feeder,
deer sauntering bye
kittens cavorting,
lovely people everywhere
all I want to see.
And the bull will die
if I just wait long enough.
Open the shutters,
let the sunshine in.
Fresh and fragrant summer breeze
will embrace my world.
Wild bull outside,
crystal forest in my mind.
I won’t let it in.
Wild bull outside.
Crystal forest in my mind.
I won’t let it in.
I’m the gate keeper
If I don’t open the door
It can rage and roar.
It needs my consent
to let it poison my mind.
I will close my eyes,
stop watching the news,
refuse to acknowledge it.
Look at butterflies,
look at the sunsets,
chickadees on the feeder,
deer sauntering bye
kittens cavorting,
lovely people everywhere
all I want to see.
And the bull will die
if I just wait long enough.
Open the shutters,
let the sunshine in.
Fresh and fragrant summer breeze
will embrace my world.
Wild bull outside,
crystal forest in my mind.
I won’t let it in.
November 10, 2016
Here we go again...
When evil triumphs,
there is always gloating
from the victors -
who don’t know yet they lost,
because evil’s always self defeating,
and the price to pay will come a bit later,
during another crusade
unrelated to the victory
now celebrated.
And yes, there is always sadness,
and dumbfounded puzzlement
from the vanquished,
who wonder why knowledge,
intelligence, vision
must always lose to stupidity
over and over and over …
…why non-malignant people
never fail to protect evil,
destroying our hope
for an unshattered future.
there is always gloating
from the victors -
who don’t know yet they lost,
because evil’s always self defeating,
and the price to pay will come a bit later,
during another crusade
unrelated to the victory
now celebrated.
And yes, there is always sadness,
and dumbfounded puzzlement
from the vanquished,
who wonder why knowledge,
intelligence, vision
must always lose to stupidity
over and over and over …
…why non-malignant people
never fail to protect evil,
destroying our hope
for an unshattered future.
