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As long as we are doing spooky physics – here’s another thought that shoulders its way into my consciousness occasionally. In much of what I read out there in “Spookyphysicsland” I encounter the notion that in the grand [and modest] scheme of things, size is unimportant. Thresholds seem to be germane - the event horizon of a supermassive black hole, the vibration rate of a string – thresholds, yes, important; size, not so much so.
OK, so consider yourself as a fixed vantage point. With telescopes of all stripes we can peer into the vastness of space – a “zoom out” of inconceivable proportions. Massive structures, millions of light years across, and billions of light years “away.” Now, come back to yourself and turn the observation inward, “zoom in” – looking within toward the incredible tininess of strings perhaps eventually observable with Hogan’s Noise [I’m still not sure how something that has been around since the birth of the universe gets named for one guy – that’s always bothered me – but I digress, again.] Still, looking inward, at structures possibly as small as the outward view is huge; who is to say that we are encountering a different reality? Physics should be physics everywhere right? Symmetry?
If it is all one continuum, and "human-sized" sits toward the middle of the scale, that’s when things could get really spooky. If one explanation for nothing coming out of black holes is that everything is being funneled out the “other side” into another universe, could that not be happening on our inward journey as well? Maybe tiny black holes in the brain through which little grains of consciousness slip into different or parallel universes? Are dreams fantasies about this universe or fractured glimpses of another? And can we imagine the exportation of our internal maladies? Supernovae as cosmic heartburn? Colic in the star-birthing regions of space? Can a galaxy get the swine flu? Hallucinate?
Ah, weirdness – ya gotta love it!
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Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Entangled Poetics
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I thrashed around most of last night in a state of vague fascination. I was, for the most part, asleep. I think. Anyhow, I had been reading an article on quantum computing in Science News. Seems as if folks at Harvard University and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia are actually making strides towards building such a beast. That is certainly enough to engender intrigue, but it isn’t what got my sheets in a twist. It was the whole idea of entanglement.
Entanglement is that part of spooky quantum physics that says that that two or more particles can become "entangled." When that happens the particles “know” what is happening to their “entangled others” even if they are separated in space. You do one thing to one of the entangled particles and all the others immediately react as if they had been acted upon – no matter where they are. I know, I know – why do you think Einstein called it “spooky”?
Naturally, that got me thinking about poetry. I wondered if emotions, sensations, experiences – all that good grist for the poet’s mill, get entangled with clusters of words and phrases. Obviously that kind of phenomenon lies at the center of literary clichés – I mean where would “night” be without “dark” and “stormy”? But could it play a role in good writing as well?
There is another physics thought – supersymmetry. Fortunately, or un-, depending on your perspective, supersymmetry remains illusive in the lab. But essentially it asserts that everything has a partner; that every “one” is balanced by an “other.” Yeah, I agree, very Zen science. The question is this: Is “one” experience balanced by a specific “other” expression?
Painting with the palette of entanglement and supersymmetry, is it not logical to assume that a natural and powerful relationship exists between experiences and their expression? And wouldn’t that relationship be dependent upon the individual expressing the experience? Aren’t writers always agonizing about finding “their voice”? And once they find that “voice” don’t they keep singing the same song? And isn’t it our attraction to that “voice” that brings us back to their music, novels, paintings, poetry? And don’t we have “issues” when they change?
Does all that, then, make our creative task determining, acquiring and utilizing the expressive symbols and constructions that best balance our experiences? If so, then there is no one perfect sonnet, sketch or solo – but there is a perfectly harmonic expression of every experience for each individual. Seeking them seems a daunting challenge – but then so is building a quantum computer.
.
I thrashed around most of last night in a state of vague fascination. I was, for the most part, asleep. I think. Anyhow, I had been reading an article on quantum computing in Science News. Seems as if folks at Harvard University and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia are actually making strides towards building such a beast. That is certainly enough to engender intrigue, but it isn’t what got my sheets in a twist. It was the whole idea of entanglement.
Entanglement is that part of spooky quantum physics that says that that two or more particles can become "entangled." When that happens the particles “know” what is happening to their “entangled others” even if they are separated in space. You do one thing to one of the entangled particles and all the others immediately react as if they had been acted upon – no matter where they are. I know, I know – why do you think Einstein called it “spooky”?
Naturally, that got me thinking about poetry. I wondered if emotions, sensations, experiences – all that good grist for the poet’s mill, get entangled with clusters of words and phrases. Obviously that kind of phenomenon lies at the center of literary clichés – I mean where would “night” be without “dark” and “stormy”? But could it play a role in good writing as well?
There is another physics thought – supersymmetry. Fortunately, or un-, depending on your perspective, supersymmetry remains illusive in the lab. But essentially it asserts that everything has a partner; that every “one” is balanced by an “other.” Yeah, I agree, very Zen science. The question is this: Is “one” experience balanced by a specific “other” expression?
Painting with the palette of entanglement and supersymmetry, is it not logical to assume that a natural and powerful relationship exists between experiences and their expression? And wouldn’t that relationship be dependent upon the individual expressing the experience? Aren’t writers always agonizing about finding “their voice”? And once they find that “voice” don’t they keep singing the same song? And isn’t it our attraction to that “voice” that brings us back to their music, novels, paintings, poetry? And don’t we have “issues” when they change?
Does all that, then, make our creative task determining, acquiring and utilizing the expressive symbols and constructions that best balance our experiences? If so, then there is no one perfect sonnet, sketch or solo – but there is a perfectly harmonic expression of every experience for each individual. Seeking them seems a daunting challenge – but then so is building a quantum computer.
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