everyone has infinite value

a piece of bread
with the potential energy
of 100 calories
has the value of a few cents

your mind
has the potential energy
of infinite ideas
of infinite words
of infinite power
of infinite value

why do you allow others
to treat you as less than infinite
why do you allow yourself
to treat you as less than infinite

I see your infinite value
it blinds me
this world of billions
of supernova

how different the world looks
when you see everyone’s value
like stars in daytime
as no one is worthless

do not let anyone give you
nothing for you
you are worth infinite value
you are worth living

you say, “how can we be
worth infinite value
we are common
like sand”

I say, “water is infinite value
in a desert
your mind has infinite value
in this universe”

you say, “what of the ones
who treat me as less
than infinite
what of them”

I say, “why believe them
they believe you are worthless
believe my infinity
as I believe in yours”

...

I Met Myself

...

I met myself and said, "Stop throwing myself around time.  The past and future are just fine without me.  Besides, I'm getting everything confused." 

Then I said, "I don't understand, what do I know, since I'm just a different version of myself."  I stopped to think about this, and as I did, every version of me merged into a we, and we knew only birth and death and triumph and despair and boredom, since there was nothing to separate this from that, and there was no time to be anything other than us, since we saw only the all of us together at last.

We thought, "This must be what it's like before or after a universe creates itself.  Before time stretches us out into different people, like an uncoiled rope.  Now we have tied ourselves back together.  We will always be we, forever and ever."

At least until the next kablooey, and we are blown across time into me and me and me.

...

Written for
dVerse Poets Pub

Why You Should Never Read a Blog

I'm watching Lost on Netflix streaming at the moment, and I've come to the conclusion that I hate television.

I really do, but not in the way you are thinking. Rotting my brain with all the crappy people doing crappy things thrills me, so that's not the issue. What bothers me about normal t.v. shows is that they go on and on and on and on and on, for season after season after season.

Now it's not so irritating after the show is over, and I have a definite timeline for how many hours of my life a specific show is going to devour. In this case, Lost has six seasons, so I realized when I started that I needed to set aside a certain number of brain cells to kill. (Twenty seven neurons burn out every time Jack talks, just like Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn in LotR when he exclaims, "You cannot wield it! Weenie man, away!")

The same thing applies to a blog. They have indefinite endings. Whoever you are following is just going to keep blathering on about crap, and never really get to a conclusion. At least until they are dead, which is the one crucial advantage that books and movies have over television and blogs.

So I beseech you. Please, do not read blogs, at least until they have an exact stopping point. That way you are truly certain that once you start, you can see the end in sight.

A Kind of Immortality

I get haunted by ghosts all the time.

Now before you call Ghost Hunters, I'm talking about the abstract kind. These are the empty husks of memories that follow me around and punch me in the gut when I'm doing something else. I'll be minding my own business, driving to breakfast while listening to my wife and kids, and I'll see a soccer field, and all of a sudden I'm possessed, and apparitions from when I was a scrawny kid with acne will bombard me. I'll be back in time when I was a wallflower, and I'd avoid the ball, until the coach told me to get more aggressive. With sweaty phantoms of blue and yellow all around me, I will growl, just like I did on that grass. I will be angry. I will be an animal, and I will kick that goddamn spiritual soccer ball in that goddamn ethereal goal.

Until with a jolt, I must stop the car, just like how the referee said, "Hey kid, you can't growl, that's a warning. You do it again I'll kick you off the field." I am no longer bewitched, and the ghosts have faded.

Though I can still feel them, as they swarm beneath the surface, and all of the people I've known, who are dead and gone to me now, who are just figments of my imagination, will continue to live on through me. Perhaps there is not a heaven. Perhaps there is not a hell. Perhaps there is no where we truly go when we die, and everything we've ever done will mean nothing in the far distant future.

For now, however, those who have passed on from my life exist in me, and one day, when my physical form is gone, just as I have been haunted, perhaps others will be haunted by me.

Love, Leads To

Love, leads to
sex, leads to
babies, leads to
overpopulation, leads to
scarcity, leads to
bickering, leads to
war, leads to
death, leads to
hate, leads to
exhaustion, leads to
reparation, leads to
forgiveness, leads to
peace, leads to
love, leads to

Fish and Religion

In Texas, there is a church on every street corner. I would even guess that there are more churches than schools. In neighborhoods where people live in shacks, the house of God is a mansion.

Now before I get too far into this post, I'd like to be clear about my intent. I'm not trying to be judgmental about this. I don't want to get into a war over religion, at least not with this particular thought. This is not a criticism on religion, but an observation and hypothesis of why I think Texas is overflowing with it.

It's really quite simple: Texas is a huge, flat place. The sky seems like it goes on forever and ever, and in any direction you look, all you see is land and more land, that goes on forever and ever and ever. I've now traveled up and down southeastern Texas and it is mile after mile after mile of horizontalness. It's exactly like living in Flatland. (Granted, south and east Texas isn't all of Texas, but it's where most of the people are. Also, west Texas looks pretty flat when you fly over it.)

Contrast this to where I live, Silicon Valley. The most obvious thing is that I am bounded by hills. I see limits, the sky is diminutive in comparison. If I want to, I can actually reach a mountain without much effort. I have the option to get somewhere, and I am never ever lost.

Just imagine the psychological ramifications of this:

• In one land, a person is insignificant, with no end in sight, with limitless surroundings, and where it is pointless to go anywhere because everything is exactly the same, no matter where you go. The smaller you are, the more likely you are to notice how colossal everything else is, and be more inclined to prioritize the observance of an infinite being.
  
• In the other, a person can easily reach landmarks, goals are achievable, and the sky does not intimidate. Horizons are varied, and thus things may change. The bigger you are, the more likely you believe that the heavens are in your grasp, and be more inclined to neglect the observance of an infinite being.
  

In essence, in Texas, you are a small fish in a big fish bowl, and in California, you are a big fish in a small fish bowl.

Where is All the Dark Matter/Energy?

I've been thinking about Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which is to say that I've been speculating possible reasons for why we have no idea where most of the matter and energy in our universe is. Just take a look at this graph:



This pretty much means that 96% of the mass/energy in the universe is not visible to us. Which is sort of confusing. I mean, we can see stars, we can see gas, we can see the rocks and matter all around us, but for some inexplicable reason we are unable to visibly see 80% of all matter, or even observe, let alone harness most of the energy in our universe.

Let me combine this idea with my previous post about a super advanced alien civilization:

For sake of an analogy, pretend we are fish. We are swimming up a river, and bam, out of the blue, we hit this barrier where we can't go upstream anymore. Our fishy senses are confused, because hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have programmed us to want to swim up this stream, but for some reason we are blocked. Something hard and impassible obstructs our way, and we are unable to continue, unable to advance up this river, all because of a dam.

Now imagine a super advanced civilization of aliens. Perhaps these aliens evolved in another universe, somewhere trillions or quadrillions of years in the past from our own universe. Maybe they developed a way to travel through space and time, and even between universes, and they have been skipping between universes, colonizing as they go. Perhaps these technologies require unthinkable amounts of energy, possibly the energy from many stars, from many galaxies, from many universes, all acquired by this supremely powerful species.

(Just like how we have dominated the resources on our own planet, and would absolutely ransack the resources of nearby planets, if we could only figure out a cheap way to get there.)

So imagine this alien species is here already. Perhaps they have already harnessed 95% of the matter/energy in our universe, possibly with a super advanced version of a Dyson Sphere, that blocks all outgoing radiation with a super thin mesh of nano-robot solar panels. They could place these megastructures on any star, at any point in time, at the exact moment of a star's birth, to maximize the efficiency of their consumption.

What if we can't see most of the matter and energy in the universe, for the simple explanation that they are already being harvested by someone else? What if there is a fifth level to the Kardashev scale, where an alien civilization has not only consumed all of the energy of their universe, but has moved on to dominate millions or billions of other universes, including our own?

If this is true, then I would alter the Zoo Hypothesis to something much more humbling, something more fitting of our proper place in the universe:

I'd call it the Fishbowl Hypothesis.

Alien Hippies

Where are all the aliens?

This is the fundamental question behind the Fermi paradox, which in essence states that we should see some evidence for extraterrestrial life, given the large number of stars in the observable universe (70 sextillion, woo!).

So I am going to flip the question around, and assume some possible scenario where an alien civilization might rise up out of the galactic muck and see our universe as its own plaything.

• Assumption #1: There is or will be a supremely advanced species. This civilization should do any of the following: spontaneously generate matter and energy, is immortal, and can perceive and travel through space, across dimensions, and even between universes.
• Assumption #2: Time travel is possible and has been mastered by the species in Assumption #1.
• Assumption #3: The species in Assumption #1 is aggressive. Not necessarily in the sense of being destructive or bloodthirsty, but willing to expand to fill other niches, like every form of life on Earth.

So if all three of these assumptions are true, then one of two options opens up: either this advanced population is an alien race, or is us at some point in the future.

If it's the former, then why are we still here? If a hostile alien race that has existed for many lifetimes of other universes can time travel, then it can surely jump to when we were defenseless single-celled organisms and destroy all life on Earth for the entire existence of this universe. Or perhaps they can foresee that we are not and never will be a threat, either because we mushroom cloud ourselves, or some natural disaster like a comet destroys all life on Earth, or at least all sentient life.

Let's look at the other option: the most advanced species in the entire history of all universes is us (or at least, an evolved version of us.) I find that rather difficult to believe. Not only are there untold numbers of stars and planets in our observable universe that are older than our sun and Earth, but we are just scratching the surface with our predictions for other possible universes, which could be nearing an infinite number that may have existed for near an infinite amount of time. The likelihood that we are or will be the most advanced species ever is pretty slim.

For sake of optimism, let's reject that we (or some other species on our planet) will blow ourselves up, and that we will not be able to foresee and avert possible natural disasters. Let's also assume the anthropic bias that lets us be the center of the known universe is also incorrect.

So therefore, if both options are unlikely (either aggressive aliens or us), I think that at least one of my three assumptions is invalid. So either:

• Counter-Assumption #1: There will never be a supremely advanced species.
  
• Counter-Assumption #2: Time travel is never possible.
  
• Counter-Assumption #3: The advanced species in Assumption #1 is not aggressive.

Of the above, I find that counter-assumption 1 and 2 are the most likely to be eliminated . If there are countless universes with countless galaxies with countless solar systems with countless ways to create sentient life in ways that we can only dream of, then the probability of at least one supremely advanced species that can master the laws of the universes becomes almost a certainty.

Also, the very idea that time travel is not possible is pretty silly, especially considering the idea that monkeys barely out of the jungle have theorized that space and time are perpendicular sides of the same coin.

So let's look at #3. Why are species on our planet aggressive? Why are they genetically programmed to reproduce, and fill an ecological niche at the expense of another species? Why do tigers have fangs and claws, rose bushes have thorns, and people kill each other in all sorts of creative ways?

Easy. Scarcity. Life on our planet evolved with limited resources. Every species on this rock fights tooth and nail for every scrap of food, which most likely is some other species that we happened to tooth and nail to death. We are bounded by our evolutionary heritage to kill or be killed, and either dominate our environment or have our environment dominate us.

However, what if the advanced civilization in Assumption #1 has already fixed their problem with limited resources? What if they have solved all hunger, have no need of land, can generate any sort of matter or energy at will, and have tinkered with their own genetic code to limit their own exponential population growth?

What if they are no longer aggressive, either because their evolutionary track was not as cutthroat as ours, or because their technology solved the problem of scarcity ages ago, and thus no longer need to dominate the universe, let alone us?

Notice, that I'm not saying that the species in Assumption #1 is benevolent. I don't imagine they would be particularly thrilled to have competition, at least not from us if we cannot conquer our version of scarcity. Though perhaps they would at least be interested to see our evolution from single celled organism to universe traveling civilization, if we can control our unchecked aggression first so we don't annihilate ourselves in the process.

So if there is an advanced civilization, and we want to meet them someday, then I suggest that the number one priority for our civilization--besides not blowing ourselves to smithereens--is to master our control of available resources without exceeding it, and figure out a way to transition ourselves from an aggressive dominating civilization to a non-aggressive, non-dominating one.

200,000 Years in the Future

It all started with prosthetics.

Once a person could completely replace an arm or leg (and eventually any organ) with a cybernetic lookalike that was in all ways superior to their original body part, people clamored for new and better ways to replace themselves.

We aren't talking bulky metallic machinery, but sleek nanotechnology that can mimic flesh, while having the strength of a superhuman. That was just the start, of course, because as soon as you could replace one limb, why not add another? And another? Why not have three or four or ten arms?

Heck, why not have remote arms? It was one additional step to remote bodies, and one more step to the brains in vats stage, where everyone controlled bits of things removed from themselves, while encased in their life support system.

What was the point of even having biological arms and limbs and digestive tracks and lungs and eyes and skulls? After all, eating and moving around and breathing became expensive with 100 trillion people crammed onto planet Earth. It was much more cost effective for everyone to live as brain and spines encased in giant neural networks.

The virtual melded with the real, as awareness shifted to peripheral perception devices. A "person" could "see" with computer video cameras, hear with microphones, and touch with robotic arms that could be anywhere in the world. Not to be outdone by natural selection, humans could also sense every other frequency with additional nanocomputerized instruments.

Banks upon banks of humans, stacked a billion to a square mile, neatly organized in rows and tended by automatic drones, thought and thought and thought, a mind of minds.

When Earth became metasentient, it decided to procreate. It made Mars and Venus and everything in the nearby solar system in its image. Now the Earth was a metaspecies. Its cells were people, and it metathought with a metabrain of brain-neurons.

Not to be limited to one solar system, Earth learned space travel, and dominated nearby systems. Each planet became a new host, filled with trillions of brain vats, and each new Earth could metathink, and metafeel. They could go on metadates, buy each other metadrinks, and eventually, if they metaliked each other, they could have metasex and make little Earth babies.

Though it evolved to be something unlike the original Earth (just as simple cells evolved to complex cells over 1.8 billion years) the metaspecies prospered. Having spread to the farthest reaches of the Milky Way, Earth was not content, and so decided to dominate nearby galaxies, so that Earth might spread to everywhere in the known universe.

It was at that point that the metaalien known as Universe-348 went to the doctor and got a prescription for antibiotics specifically designed to fight off an Earth infection.

Meditation is Boring

I've noticed that I tend not to write about things going on in my life on this blog. Sure, you see the occasional photo of my kids, or something tangentially related that deals with a comprehensive universal theme, however, I really try not to make these posts read something like:

9:05-9:16 The kids jumped on me until I got up.
9:16-9:45 I shaved and took a shower while the kids watched and Justin told me about insects.
9:45-10:35 I dressed myself and the kids. Justin wore a skeleton long sleeve shirt, and Harmony had a rainbow sweater.
10:35-11:25 I took the kids to Hawaiian BBQ as a treat. Justin ate noodles and Harmony had rice stuck up her nose.

And so on...

I'm assuming the reason why I don't write like that is because I'm by and large bored with reality. I tend to live in my head, and there is generally a disconnect between what I want to think about when given a blank canvas, and what I am forced react to when the tangible world is thrust upon me.

I've had an entire lifetime dealing with ennui. I take the kids to the playground, and my brain is idle as I stare at the branches of trees. I'm reminded of my youth, when I hid in the shelter of my room (or else my mom would make me do some tedious chore), lay back on my upper bunk bed, and stare at the asbestos on the ceiling.

It's not so much that I see visions and hallucinations as I'm dealing with the real world, it's more that I don't, and my brain gets grumpy. I would prefer to have something to think about that's like, "I wonder what rocket boots would look like," and less like, "Man, I'm wiping boogers off a kid's nose again."

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids. I find contentment in taking care of them the majority of the time, especially when we are on an adventure, or they do something relatively cute. However, they are not really what I'm talking about: I'm describing my global aversion to the cosmos of perception. I would much prefer to live inside my head, with a steady stream of new ideas and thoughts, while churning out my own conclusions.

Though if I ever got what I wanted, and found myself as a brain in a jar, I might reconsider, especially when one thinks of quadriplegics like Stephen Hawking that would give anything to go for a stroll. Perhaps I am being too hasty in dismissing this existence, particularly those spaces in time when I can stop and watch the breeze at the park.

A Self-Referential Post About Posts

Since I've been brooding over writing, I've been curious as to the nature of a blog. Will I ever run out of worthwhile things to say? Can I maintain the discipline required to compose something nearly every day? (There have been many days thus far where I exclaim, "Screw it! I've got nothing important in my brain," and then I come back the day after with some kernel of an idea and bang out a half decent paragraph or two.)

Certainly, eventually I'll decide that this isn't worth it. Either I'll die, or become an alcoholic, or colonize Mars, or invent some other half-baked excuse and this blog will fade from existence. Whether it happens in one or a hundred years, I don't know, I hadn't really thought about it.

I had started this exercise with the premise that there were an infinite different ideas to explore to begin with, so how could I ever run out of things to say? Besides, it forces me to write, even when I don't want to, the hungry maw of the internet remains ravenous regardless of my pitiful justifications. This rectangle simply must be fed with large quantities of words at regular intervals, until my fingers cramp up from arthritis, and I break my back shoveling phrases out of my skull.

However, I doubt that axiom at irregular intervals, especially when I am frantically searching my thoughts for something meaningful to share: there may be an infinite number of ideas in the universe, however, the number of good ideas is certainly fewer than that (though possibly still infinite) and the number of interpretations I can make is less than that, and most definitely finite.

Though all I am doing is linking writing with an unforeseeable end, and in theory, blogs have no end. This might carry on for all of eternity, until everything itself ceases, and the cosmos contracts to nothing, and we figure out once and for all if there really is an Oblivion, and whether it's as nice as we all had hoped, or it might end next week if I get hit by a bus.

That optimistic daydream is what compels me to write, that this might continue on after I kick the bucket, at least for a little while. Perhaps it's naive. Perhaps it's starry eyed to presuppose that other people give a damn about what I think about a myriad of topics. Though what is the alternative? To remain silent and twisted, as these images and visions conquer my mind? Such a fate seems worse than simply letting the horde gain entry into this world, one blog post at a time.

Inductive Evolution

I wonder if microbes know what they are doing when they get someone sick. Similarly, when we ravage the landscape, I ruminate whether humans are like microbes. Then I question if there are beings made up of solar systems and galaxies, who get sick whenever a star goes super nova.

And so on...

Multiple Me

I've had two friends from high school that are also INTPs join the Navy and prosper as officers. Now I may seem like a green hippie iconoclast, but in many ways I'm moderate, and it's only the internet that transforms me into something radical. I revel in my contradictions, and one of them is that I absolutely love games of all sorts, from board games to video games to card games to sports. Anything with rules, where people can compete, and where resources must be positioned for maximum effectiveness intrigues me.

Where this skill is useful is in any arena where I need to strategize about what the best possible course of action is to win any sort of engagement, be it science, war, business, or anywhere where it is necessary to not look at individual encounters, but the bigger picture. I tend to look in the long run at situations, theorize many different solutions, then plan accordingly.

I tend to spend my free time playing games where I can use this skill, like in games such as World of Warcraft (until recently), or Team Fortress 2 (where I can play whatever my team needs to win.)

What this means is that I could have flourished in the military. I can see that. I'm not going to use this space to disapprove of those that did. I'm not anti-military, any more than I'm anti-American. I love this country, and I respect the fact that someone else is putting their butt on the line every day for my benefit. I have the right to question where and when and how the military is being used, but it would be foolhardy of me to suggest that this country or any country does away with their armed forces entirely.

I think the one reason why I didn't enlist was the same reason why I didn't stay a Chemistry major when I first failed out of college: I just didn't like who I was surrounded by whenever I entered a math or science class. The lab professor for one particular class was a stodgy old guy who would stare, scrutinizing every time I wasn't absolutely perfect with a beaker and a Bunsen burner. I felt like every student in every class was a robot, and I was absolutely bored out of my wits.

The break came when I started taking radio classes, then creative writing, then art. That was it for me. Cute girls plus no right answer plus randomness appreciated? Sign me up for that!

I went back to community college, did theatre and a little photography and television and choir (which is where I met my wife). Did random jobs like pizza delivery driver and video game testing, I measured drainage ditches in Carmel by the Sea, and at some point my wife made me go back to school and eventually get my Creative Arts degree. I now do random art and take care of two kids.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like had I zigged instead of zagged. Maybe in a parallel universe there is another me on a submarine, wondering what it would have been like had he taken those art classes.

Madness...Where?

My wife has often commented that I get a lot of crazy people that decide they want to talk to me. Or at least, there is something about my aura that makes normal people momentarily nuts.

Conversely, she only ever catalyzes the polite side of people, so that whenever we are together, she acts as a lightning rod, grounding out the wackiness into banality. If we are ever separated though, the sparks fly as all of the eccentricities of the seemingly commonplace horde are set loose.

Maybe they can sniff out my frequent trips into the land of Chaos. Perhaps they want to soar like they used to, like Wendy, John and Michael, or maybe they have lost their marbles, and are looking for my secret stash of fairy dust. My better half will watch in awe as people she's described before as nice and caring will describe their prejudices and faults, their crackpot notions, every fanatical half-baked idea they've ever had, and zealously attempt to persuade me to meet them in Neverland.

I've had a grandma tell me that she's conservative, and worried about the Filipino women who have to leave their babies back in the Philippines, and that she could never understand how they could be so callous to do something like that. I've had people tell me that the recession is so bad that the rental units are empty because the Mexicans are fleeing the squalor here for the squalor of their home country. People invade my personal space in a frenzy of goodwill and malignancy, with their deepest thoughts suddenly exposed, and I can only suppose that they view me as a kind of soothsayer.

They give me their dreams and nightmares, and I'm unsure how I'm supposed to reciprocate. Should I be carrying around fortune cookies?

Kids flock to me, and I can see in their eyes that they want to poke me with a stick to see if I'll bite. The first thing a seven year old boy asked me was, "What do you believe in?" Not, "I like baseball," or, "My name is Fill-In-The-Blank." Nope, it was "What do you believe in?"

I said, "About what?"

He said, "What do you believe in?" As if the switch in tone made the question perfectly clear.

I wrinkled my brow, because these things are not to be taken lightly. Besides, I am not one to give trite answers to meaningful questions. I said, "What do you believe in?"

He said, "I believe in God."

I said, "Well, I believe in cheesecake."

Which, in a certain way, can be seen as dodging the question, but in another way, in all seriousness, is a perfectly acceptable answer, especially since I'm pretty certain that I've had more encounters with cheesecake than I have with God, thus the belief in a certain type of pastry outweighs the belief in a deity.

Though some would argue that the cheesecake is God, which, I absolutely agree with. Especially if we can all eat at the same table, at the feast of the Lost Boys, and gorge ourselves on spectacle and illusion and confusion. Where we can sing and dance and make love without abandon, a sustainable and holistic version of Burning Man, and the daytime terrors of choice and mind and heart can be unleashed without fear, and perhaps the madness can be infinite and contained in union.

Or perhaps not. Maybe I'm just imagining things.

Endless Wave

Here is my second music video, I hope you like it:

A Couple Questions About Particle Physics‏

Professor ------

I'm sorry to trouble you. My name is Matt Coughlan, and I have been looking for answers to these questions in articles and online, and have been unable to find answers for them. I read all of your "Research Related Postings" and you are far more of an expert about this stuff than I am. If you could either answer these, or put me in contact with someone else who would want to, it would be most appreciated.

Thank you for your time!


1) In quantum physics, if we can't know where a particle is and where it is going at the same time, then how can we know when a particle is and when it is going at the same time? Meaning, if a particle is a probability cloud in space, then could it also be a probability cloud in time? Would this be conceivably measurable?

2) If virtual pairs of particles and antiparticles are coming into existence all around us, and then immediately annihilating, then are there virtual photons (and virtual energy) too?

3) If Hawking radiation is proven right, and these virtual pairs of particles/antiparticles are spontaneously created as real particles, then where are they coming from? Is the energy used to create these particles coming from nowhere, or is the virtual energy a part of spacetime? If this virtual energy is taken away from spacetime, and this energy is somehow tied to the expansion of it, does that mean spacetime slows down around black holes?

4) Right now matter either moves a 1sec/sec through time, or it can slow down to 0sec/sec by being light, or by jumping into a black hole. Meaning that matter can accelerate and deaccelerate through time within definite boundaries. (All relative to each other, of course. We can't objectively measure this, so these numbers are flimsy, I know, since every point in spacetime has its own ruler, so we are all really moving at 1sec/sec.) Hypothetically speaking, if a particle were to be moving backwards in time (say -1sec/sec relative to us), could we even measure it? Causality is a two way street, and when A goes to B goes to C, then C can also go back to B and A. (At least for particles. Not living things, of course.)

If we can't tell the difference between particles moving forward in time, and particles moving backwards in time, then could some of the ones we already know be those particles? Namely, could antiparticles be moving backwards in time? Maybe they have a negative "time spin?" Maybe matter is t1, light is a t0, and antimatter is t-1?

Anyway, I have more questions, and if these are interesting to you, then please consider them, and let me know the answers. Thanks!

-Matt Coughlan

Can Trees Suffer?

Maybe it's my constant proximity to a three year old that forces me to reevaluate long held truths, and when my kid rips the bark off the tree I yell at him, "Stop hurting the tree!"

Obviously, I'm using the word "hurt" in a physical sense. Obviously, trees don't have feelings, since they lack the complex nervous systems that we possess, and so lack the capacity for self-awareness. Or do they necessarily need a knowledge of themselves to feel pain? Does an ant feel pain when I step on it? Does a bacterium feel bad when I kill it using an antibiotic?

Or do these creatures have a basic understanding of logic as well? Doesn't a microbe put one and one together, and alter its course toward a food source? Is that not A leads to B thinking, were B makes it happy?

Let's not stop there: didn't single cell organisms start off as a chain of molecules? Didn't they have a basic level of logic and feelings in order to shift their motion in such a way as to create life? Didn't their components, atoms, have some say in this? Do electrons and protons, hell, take it all the way to elementary particles like quarks, leptons, and bosons, do they all have a minute amount of logic and feeling, insignificant compared to us, and yet when added together, become meaningful?

Do the three quarks that make up a proton feel content together? Does light emitted from the sun have a logical track that it follows, sparkling radiant happiness all the while, then is bummed out when it hits my skin? (At least until it's emitted as heat energy.)

What if ripping the bark off a tree is the equivalent of picking on a deaf, blind, mute quadriplegic? We farm trees and cut down legions of blades of grass. We unthinkingly consume animals and plant matter alike, and divert nature to our whims.

To a certain extent, we are forced to do this. Actions that entirely negate our capacity for harm are unattainable.

My issue, I suppose, is not that we must compete with other lifeforms to survive. The problem is that I have a haphazard collection of experiences and half-truths, and nothing solid to explain to a kid. These values are vapor.

Inevitably the kid asks, "Why can't we hurt the tree?" and I don't have an answer.

Radial Thinking

Humans have evolved to think in straight lines. Our eyes, nose and mouth face forward, and the limit of our gaze at any one time is about 108 degrees, good enough to discover danger as we trundle along.

It's as if we take a funnel and attach it to our face, and filter out the majority of our immediate surroundings. This is even worse when we focus, and that funnel becomes a garden hose. Then we become one dimensional beings, traveling along a line from point A to B to C.

Even in my thoughts, I can't make the picture a panorama, or worse, a sphere. In the virtual space of my brain, my neurons seem limited by the physical boundaries of my eyes. I can't have all around picture-thoughts, any more than I can attach new eyes to the back of my head.

I wonder what an intelligent radial creature with all around vision would be able to think about. I'm curious what sort of philosophies they would have, and how they would be able to think in ways that we can only haphazard a guess. Just as humans tend to think in one, two, and many, with our monisms, dualisms, and our universalisms, these creatures might have skipped over the idea of one and two, and began their search for truth with infinity.

Do trees and jellyfish sense in this manner? Do they "think" in a way unique to themselves, in which the universe comes to them, from every direction, without having to chase meanings on endless and futile paths?

Is there an alien race with these characteristics, that sees our thoughts and giggles when humans have the nerve to talk about the universal truths derived from causal logic? They may chuckle and speed away in their space ships, and mock us, because after all, how can we be so blind as to not understand the truths in circular logic?

Memories as Ghosts

I live in my head often, where I am unanchored, aimless, purposeless, floating in the chaos of things that have been, might have been, and might come to pass. This jetsam reminds me of the Bermuda Triangle, where the ships and planes of my experience have crashed and sunk to the bottom of my subconscious sea.

If I pause, I can hear them. If I stare at the ceiling, I can see their faces mouthing words in the asbestos ocean. I've had a conversation with Abraham Lincoln as he strained in the plaster. Hundreds of faces coalesce into a caviar monstrosity, each wailing a soundless cry.

Sometimes they take on a reality again, with an email washed up on my shore, or a passing gossip from a friend of a friend of a friend. At this point, these ghosts are as real as Mars, which I have never been to, and yet pulls on me lightly from afar.

Sometimes these poltergeists can paralyze me, shackle me to the bed I have made, and again I am thrashing in a hurricane of my humiliations and embarrassments, the wreckage of my regret battering my psychic self. Nothing pierces my skin, and I am in such pain, these billions of ghosts, everyone who has ever lived and died, everyone who will ever think and feel becomes an infinite wave and I am so small, so insignificant, and I am lost, annihilated under their tragedies and triumphs.

Then a real life ghost appears, shrouded in a blanket. He smiles and growls, "I'm a monster!"

I say, "I love you kid," and I am exorcised.

Omnipotence

I've been thinking about what an all-powerful being would look like. My definition for omnipotence is the broadest possible. Meaning that such an entity would be able to do anything, including break any law of science or logic. This also includes omniscience, since the ability to perceive anything is necessarily within the abilities of an entity that can do anything.

(Our version of sight is to "catch" light and transform it into information, and any being that can do anything can certainly do this as well. Same goes for hearing, touch, smell, and taste.)

A truly omnipotent entity can defy logic. It can make a rock that is so big that even it can't lift it, and it can lift it. It can choose to not exist. (Kudos to all diehard atheists out there, any omnipotent being can choose to die, so technically, even if there is a God, He can be dead whenever He wants to be.)

So by my definition:

Omnipotence = an entity that can do anything

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Sometimes people toy with the idea that anything is possible. I will do the same here:

Existence (which includes our universe, and anything outside of that universe, plus thoughts, dreams, and the infinite infinities of everything) can either be a region in which everything is possible, or one where it can't. This is not a provable theory at the moment. Either a person believes that anything can happen, or they don't.

Let's assume for a moment that this existence is a region where anything can happen, then that statement becomes:

A region where anything can happen = Existence

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Let's put these two statements together:

Omnipotence = an entity that can do anything
A region where anything can happen = Existence

What exactly is an entity? What is a region? The difference between the two seems to be a matter of personification, where an entity is assumed to have some level of consciousness, whereas a region is a location only. However, in an omnipotent being, any part of that being can be a location without consciousness, and in existence, any region can be conscious (because anything can happen).

So we have:

Omnipotence =
an entity where anything can happen = Existence

---> Omnipotence = Existence

This means that if a person believes that we live in an existence where anything is possible, then they must also believe that there is an omnipotent being, which is exactly equal to all of existence.

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Now, that said, I have not proved that any specific version of God exists, or that He gives a crap about us, or that there is even a God to begin with (since we had to assume that this particular existence is one in which anything is possible). What I did show, however, is that in order to believe that anything is truly possible, one must also believe that our existence is an omnipotent being. Also, if you don't believe that an omnipotent being is possible, then you can't believe that anything is possible.