Nighthawks

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At first glance it doesn't holler Edward Hopper. 

But it whispers "Nighthawks" as I sit here having breakfast. 

It is a rare snowy morning in central North Carolina. 

For once it really does make sense to close the schools. 

The danger comes not from the snow itself, 

But from people unaccustomed to driving on slippery streets. 

Arcade "bumpercars" with real cars. 

I have made a steaming bowl of oatmeal with raisins and maple syrup. 

The breakfast nook has two walls of windows, and I raise the blinds. 

Now I sit in a bubble amidst the bluster. 

Snow covers the bushes, and the pampas grass sways in the wind. 

I am doing "other things." Reading, working on a lecture, 

Checking my email to see if my classes have been cancelled. 

But the whisper persists, drawing my attention again and again 

To the empty bird feeder at the edge of the "natural area" behind our home.  

It has apparently been empty for a while, since it attracts no hopefully patrons. 

And perhaps it is an unneeded adornment, here in a soft Southern lawn. 

But today, as the snow rattles against the window, I can almost see them. 

An early robin, a resident blue jay, and a marauding squirrel 

Sitting there together; yet glumly spaced. 

Wings and paws wrapped around the lonely comfort of a cup of coffee.
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Dreaming in the Seams

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In the spirit of full disclosure I should confess that this is really where the two previous posts began. The problem was that I kept hitting a point where I had to admit that "this won't make any sense unless I explain that." Hopefully the last two posts contained enough of this and that to make the current post less bizarre than might otherwise be the case. One final proviso: the last two posts argue that we really know so little about the nature of the cosmos that it would be foolish to rule anything out as impossible or absurd.

So, regarding the STEM idea that we can understand the nature of the universe via the graceful application of mathematics, alas it cannot be. Alfred Korzybski pointed out in Science and Sanity back in 1933, "the word is not the thing."  The word is but a representative of a deeper reality. General semantics would also assert that "the equation is not the universe" points that way as well. Furthermore, the hinky Heisenberg uncertainty principle, adds to the slippery slope of a purely STEM defined universe. To what extent are our "normal" dimensions simply the product of "convenient observations?" Front-to-back, side-to-side, up and down, now then tomorrow - those certainly seem to be the easily measurable spaces in which we live our lives.  But Heisenberg might well ask if our observations were themselves coloring our what we see. Does the act of observing change the universe we see? Still, as I ask in the previous posts, is it any wonder that the scientific method followed those seemingly precise pathways as we sought to measure and understand the world in which we live?  What were their options? And today their descriptions grow ever more precise. We get better and better at defining the "what" of where we live. But as Panek pointed out in The 4 Percent Universe, those definitions are somewhat a paper tiger. We can observe only 4 percent of our local universe, and nothing of any other universes that may lie beyond ours. Are we to trust universal conclusions based on our observations of that 4 percent? Please.

Think about it this way. Let's say you were conducting an experiment to determine the average height of all 4th graders. You go to the Middle School down the street that you can see from your mailbox. You walk into the front door and ask for the closest 4th grade classroom - the one under the most convenient lamppost. You go to that classroom. There are 25 students in the class. You take the student (1 is 4 percent of 25) closest to the door and measure his or her height. The student is 4 feet 7 inches tall. And on the basis of that observation you declare that the normal height for all fourth graders in the universe is 4’ 7".  There may be other 4th graders elsewhere in the building - or the universe - but we cannot see them, so we will call them "dark 4th graders," and leave it to other researchers to find and measure them. I know, I know, that is just so wrong. But the analogy is frighteningly apt for the declarations we make about the structure of the universe based on our observations of its closest observable 4 percent, the data which lies beneath the single bulb of the most convenient lamppost.

But even as we turn our energy to addressing the flaws apparent in our quest for understanding the “what” of the universe, we allow the question of “why” the universe exists at all to recede.  And I don't mean the "why" of how the physical elements evolve or come together, I mean the why of our existence.  If you believe we are simply an accidental by-product of the evolution of the "what" - well, that's fine, I suppose. But for me, it's a bit of a curiosity killer. No less a curiosity killer is the other extreme of the great existential debate - an acritical acceptance of ancient writs that place some prophet or another center stage as the mouthpiece for the existential Godfather; who is either open-minded, compassionate and forgiving or ruthless and vindictive, depending upon your prophet of preference.  Setting both those dogmatic "certainties” aside I prefer to reposition the "existential why” as a dominant, but frustratingly illusive, question that, while possibly illuminated by consideration of the STEM guided examinations of “what,” is quite worthy of consideration in its own right. 

I also argued in the previous post that harmony is the dimension that unifies the Multiverses, that unites the seemingly disparate and distant.  If that is true, could a perfectly resonant chord be a version of general relativity’s wormhole, linking all the manifestations of that resonance? I would argue that we touch these chords, these moments of significant harmony, these possible wormholes, all through our lives. They put us, however briefly, in touch with and in tune with, the harmonic dimension that defines and encompasses all existence. The tricky part is recognizing them, and remembering them as something special, and considering what they have in common. Some are fairly easy; the classic falling in love at first sight, the piece of music or art that stops you in your tracks, the feeling - mid-sentence, or mid-dance, or mid-brushstroke, or jump shot, or nine-iron, or flip turn, that you are “there, in the groove” - in tune with the universe. At those moments we rarely stop and take notes. The challenge is to recognize them, to remember them, to seek ways to recreate that harmony.

Theater has delivered more than its share of those special moments to me. I must acknowledge that it was my father who nudged me into the Wittenberg University  - then College - production of Mrs. McThing when I was perhaps 6 years old. I played, I presume, "the lonely and put upon lad" featured in the Playbill.  My memories of the event are vague at best. But I do remember the intense shifts between light and dark - between being "on" and watching from the darkened wings. Each perspective was equally powerful.

Ever since those early days, theater, some type of performance and observation has been woven into the experience of my life.  In those “pre-enriched everything for children” days there wasn't much organized theater to sample until high school, but once there I benefited from the fact that my high school's theater and music programs were far more advanced than our sports teams.  That was fine with me, as my athletic skills were merely average even in our less-than-championship seasons. Deep down, I really didn't care who won, and running into other people in pads and spikes held no attraction for me. But put me on a stage, and -  well, that was different.  There are those, I suppose, who must be taught to find their light, to gravitate to the place on the stage where the light is most intense.  I, on the other hand, was something of a human light meter. If there was a spotlight on the stage, I was in it.

When college rolled around, I never actually considered majoring in anything but theater.  Why would I? I was good at it, the women were on the wild and crazy side, it was the sixties, and I was captured by a feeling of belonging "out there" in the lights.  But here is something you may not realize if you haven't been "out there."  And the "out there" to which I refer is the traditional "fourth-wall, proscenium arch" type theater.  You are on the stage, and the audience lives beyond that invisible fourth wall.  But here’s an interesting tidbit - the invisibility is a one-way phenomenon.  The audience can see you, but you cannot see them.  Some actors will explain that with some Stanislavsky/Actor's Studio rhetoric: "When I truly merge with my character, the world outside the play vanishes." (Close eyes. Slight exhalation.)

Yeah, maybe so, but it sure doesn't hurt that the spotlights are shining in your eyes so you never really see the audience. For me, until I finally got contact lenses, I couldn't even see to the footlights, let alone beyond them. The point is that the center of a spotlight is a perfect hiding place.  William Purkey wrote it: "You've got to dance like there is nobody watching." Well, that is an easy fiction to maintain on stage; in the center of the light you can't see anyone, so it follows they cannot see you, right? So, go for it.

That then is one vital dimension in theater, "out there - hiding in the light."  The second vital dimension is the one most commonly experienced - the experience of the audience.  In this dimension the audience is looking in from beyond the fourth wall, observing and sharing in the illusion being created on the stage. The "success"'of most performances can be measured by the degree to which the audience accepts or shares the illusory reality created behind the fourth wall - on the stage. Did they believe, if only for a little while, that they were transported, sharing a slice of another life? Another existence?

The third dimension is one rarely encountered but equally, if not more important than the other two. It is the catwalk dimension.  There is a magical space in a theater from which one can see everything and yet not be seen - the catwalks and fly spaces above the stage. Famously popularized in The Phantom of The Opera, dramatists have been using the catwalk world for centuries - stretch back to the Deus Ex-machina characters of Greek drama, when an actor portraying a god would be lowered from the catwalk into the midst of the other players to set things right.  My idea of this third dimension, this catwalk world, is sort of like that - but not completely.  

When seen from the catwalks, the theater becomes a terrarium.  The actors are still caught on their side of the wall and the audience is still restrained in their seats. But you, up in the catwalks can silently glide across the barriers that compartmentalize the world below.  In Dicken's A Christmas Carol, the spirits of Christmas past, present and future - that narrative's version of the catwalk people - can mingle invisibly with the "on stage" players, and can share that ability with Scrooge, hence obliquely affecting plot and outcome. In Greek dramas deus ex-machina characters interact directly with the players, changing plots overtly.  So on one hand the elevated perspective of catwalk world seems a case of a harmless dramatic device - unless one considers this theatrical view of the world as something more than a metaphor, but rather as a wormhole; one of those rare intensely harmonic spaces elevating our perspective. 

OK, now I’m going to get a little weird on you. [I know, I know - just now?] Remember the cube we can see from the catwalk? The life that unfolds on the stage? Let us imagine that that cube is our real, everyday, walkabout job, kids, taxes, etc., etc., life. Now look beyond that cube - because up here in catwalk world we can gaze down into "cubes without number." The world of our everyday walkabout world on the stage below continues to unfold and a la the Stoppard play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead we can see beyond the exits and entrances, to the life that unfolds offstage. But as that reality continues to play out to, and other alternate existences, that you can see from the catwalk also reel out below you, spilling over into different versions of the drama.  Maybe one is the life that I would have lived if I had majored in Art instead of Theater, or stranger still, had I studied Physics.  What if I had gone to prom with Veronica instead of Betty? What if I had been an only child? From up here on the catwalk, all those optional versions of my existence play out in some cosmic multiplex. The dominant harmony remains the same, but the progression of chords vary infinitely.

Self-centered? Well, what in your life - or anyone's - is not?  Consider the most selfless person you know. Can we not assume that being selfless makes them feel good? So even a selfless existence is self-centered. We make choices that are ultimately in our own self interest. The choices that let us sleep at night. Even those choices that appear to be for the "greater good" advance the self. Mandela, Ghandi, King, good men all - who could not have chosen to behave venally, ignoring the world they knew to be flawed. They were compelled by their own chord to foster harmony. That does not lessen their accomplishments one whit - rather it makes their inherent goodness all the more exceptional. Those were finely tuned chords. But that is not the point here. The idea here is the possibility that the unknown 96 percent of universe can take any shape, employing any dimensions we can imagine.  

In my chosen dimensions, as I peer down from the catwalk watching all those dramas unfold, the metaphor shifts. Lurking in the wings of one unfolding drama, I catch a glimpse of the edge of "the universe of another consciousness."  It strikes me that each of those unfolding dramas is also the creation of each of the other players in the drama. So my father in his "Reality 47" also has limitless alternative dramas spinning out from his catwalk.  All those terrariums start bumping into one another. Sharp edges and corners collide. Ouch. A better metaphor seems to be soap bubbles.  Like an immense bubble bath, universe after universe slipping over each other in superconductive limitless space.  OK. Seems logical to me.  It also seems a potential invitation to the nut house. If there are uncountable multiverses out there, what makes this one I walk around in important? What makes me worthy of consideration in these brave new soap bubble worlds that have within them creatures without number?

Harmony. No surprise there, right? The multiverses are all manifestations of a singular harmony. Your chord, tuned as it is through both inheritance and experience, is unique in all the universes, and makes a singular contribution to, and in doing so becomes part of, that universal harmony. As those other manifestations of yourself play out their lives on other stages, they become variations on "themes from the transcendent you.”  Your current task in that cosmic tapestry is limited to manifesting the four tenets of Distilled Harmony in a way that embodies the best you of the moment.

But in all likelihood it doesn’t stop there.  To place ourselves, and our seemingly fleeing lives, at the center of existence is a quaintly “pre-Copernicus” view of things. In my mind, for any of this to make sense, the harmony that unifies the universe must be self-aware; it must be sentient, conscious. We, in our most fortunate moments, glance down the wormholes and glimpse that harmonic consciousness, and mysteriously name it God or Allah or Yahweh, etc., when, in reality, we have glimpsed the universal harmony of which we ourselves are an integral part. And we will move on until we do find transcendence enabling us to move consciously among our various existences, fitting our notes to that existential harmony. And in doing so we open our - being, soul, existence; you choose - to experiences of which we can now only dream.

And there it is, “dream,” the by now almost forgotten first word of the title of this post.  I would be amazed if you do not occasionally pause as you read these posts and wonder “Where does this stuff come from?” and "Is he seeking professional help?” Nothing so dramatic I assure you.  In large part these reflections arise from what we often call dreaming. Between meditation, Reike, drawing, listening to music, staring out the window, and various states of semi-sleeping, I spend perhaps half of my life in a state of, I believe the term currently in vogue is distraction. I prefer reflection.

And much dreaming lies therein.  I have read fairly widely in both the scientific and psychological literature on dreams. It is often entertaining. But is at odds with my unique experiences, and those, of course, are the ones that I seek to understand.  Forgive me if I occasionally revert to theatrical terms, as the dreams are, after all, visions from the catwalk. In my dreams I am always “at home.” By that I mean I never find myself wondering where I am. The setting, no matter how strange, always feels familiar. Similarly the individuals, while often bearing no resemblance to anyone I know in my waking world, never feel like strangers. Whether major intimate players or minor extras, they are “known to me.” The plots, I have come to assume, are instructive as opposed to representational, since they do not arise from my current existence. They are rather scenes from beyond the seams. Seams? What seams?

Good question. Remember the soap bubble universes? That immense bubble bath, "universe after universe slipping over each other in superconductive limitless space?" Go run a bubble bath or fill the sink with bubbles, or perhaps more conveniently, imagine the bubbles. Look at the places where they run together.  There, those are the seams. If you watch the bubbles break down you will occasionally see a larger bubble swallow up a smaller one, or move across some surface, pushing the smaller bubbles out of the way. At any rate the seams, are as much “seems” as “seams.” They are porous. The bubbles sliding over one another now joining, now discrete, but all part of the same unified entity.

Dreams, I would again assert, are scenes from beyond the seams. Our lives playing out in different manifestations of the universe. Then what good are they right? Perhaps a great deal. The bubbles, remember, are part of a greater entity joined by a common harmony. We, in our current state anyhow, are limited to creating our most harmonic self in our current “here and now.” Our eventual and larger task will be making a unique contribution to the larger entity. Scenes from across the seams give us more data. While the dreams themselves are playing out as lives in another bubble, they may well provide insight into our behavior in this one. Was I pleased with how “I” behaved in that last dream? Can the dream teach “here and now me” - through imitation or avoidance - to better Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity and Oppose Harm?  Hamlet ponders:

"To sleep - perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?"

I would counsel the Prince that perhaps it is not a sleep of death, but a sleep of life miraculous where, to turn his on words back upon himself, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

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Into Hidden Dimensions

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The third tenet of Distilled Harmony is “distill complexity,” or “keep it simple, stupid.”  And yes, I am aware that my last post strayed a bit from that path. So, before moving on to the other dimensions, let me try a brief distillation of that previous post.

First, it seems clear that our "best guess" as to the physical nature of the universe is not a very good one.  While our methods of observation continue to get better, most astrophysicists and cosmologists will admit that we get obtain reliable data from only 4 or 5 percent of the universe. That is the part we can "see," the part under the convenient lamppost. We call the other 95 - 96 percent “dark energy or dark matter” because while we are reasonable sure that something has to be out there, we don’t have a very good grasp on what it is.  

It is not terribly surprising that the scientific community, tied as it is to the notion that one must have data before one declares conclusions, has remained myopically married to the 4 or 5 percent of the universe that we can see; they keep their focus on that which lies below the most convenient lamppost. That is what "is." The rest remains guesswork, conjecture, our "best guess" of the moment - but seeming subject to radical revision by the latest data stream.

Perhaps it is the knowledge that so much remains unknown that keeps the STEMites so focused on the “what” of the universe. What is made of? How do the various elements - the unimaginable large forces of  black holes and galaxies, and the incredibly tiny bits of string theory - work together? Or do they? How do all the puzzle pieces fit together?  So much to learn and seemingly so little time. It really isn't surprising that, comparatively, precious little time and treasure has been spent on the question posed in the last post: what does it mean?

Another analogy: Let's say you have a 5000 piece jigsaw of a Jackson Pollock painting, a frightening thought in its own right, but further complicated by the fact that the picture on the front of the puzzle box shows you only 5 percent of the final image.  After a millennium or so of trying you manage to put 250 pieces together, revealing the 5 percent of the picture depicted on the box cover - or something pretty close to it.  You now slave feverishly over strategies, theories and algorithms that will allow you get the remaining 4,750 pieces put together. 

An uninvited stranger walks over to the table and looks at the 250 piece fragment.  You step back and smile with pride. 

"What is it?" asks the stranger.

"It is 5% of the whole," you reply humbly.

"The whole what?"

"The whole universe."

The stranger gazes at the fragment for awhile.

"What is it about?" the stranger asks.

"What do you mean?"

“Exactly - what does it mean? What's its story? Why should I care?"

"But it's the Universe!" you sputter.

"So you say. (Pause) Anything else to look at?"

"No. This is what we do. We try to figure out the structure of the universe.”  The stranger walks away and you turn back to the table looking for a corner piece, or at least an edge.

So the STEM community continues to try to figure out how the rest of the pieces fit together.  I fear we are trapped by the unspoken assumption that the remaining  4,750 pieces necessary to complete the picture should fit into a pleasant rectangle illuminated beneath a convenient lamppost. But couldn't the lamppost be a bit more baroque?  Multiple armatures supporting clusters of lamps? String theory, a recent darling of parts of the STEM community, demands as many as eleven dimensions, some tiny, some rewrites of our notion of time. Ah, now there is a lamppost worthy of consideration. But how do we design such a consideration? How do we multiply the paths we might follow? Paths suggested by these baroque clusters of potential illumination?

A pure STEM approach suggests one option. The December 12th, 2014 edition of New Scientist magazine has an interesting article that considers taking a STEM perspective to thinking about these higher dimensions - that stuff we cannot see. We are most comfortable thinking about "reality" in three dimensions length, width, and height - and then we toss in time. The New Scientist article acknowledges that most people have trouble imagining a reality beyond those dimension. But not, it seems, if you are a mathematician: "simply add extra dimensions to your equations, supplementing the standard x, y, z and t with extra coordinates, say w or s. 'In the end there is always mathematics.'"  So according to that model we can "create" new dimensions at will by slapping on extra coordinates and keeping the equations balanced.

Despite the allure of that “fun with numbers” approach to defining the universe, it just feels so wrong.  You can't, it seems, keep pumping the the universe up with abstract coordinates without at least considering the what those additional dimension mean.  Eventually we need to define those "dark dimensions." What mysteries might they measure? What is there beyond length, width, height and time that we may have overlooked simply because they are so hard - seemingly impossible -  to measure? Excellent question and you will hardly be surprised at my initial response: harmony is the dominant dimension.

Remember, Distilled Harmony, this theory of everything I bandy about, has its roots in the very STEMy notion of string theory; in the assertion that the smallest unit of existence is a tiny vibrating string. Those strings, Distilled Harmony goes on to assert, either cluster or repel depending upon their degree of harmony or discord. Everything in the universe then takes all its characteristics from relative states of harmony or discord. Could there be a dimension of greater importance? And, assuming there is not, why have we spent so little time investigating it? I would assert that it remains untouched because it is, at the moment, invisible beneath STEM’s single lamppost. The strings themselves are simply too small for any type of direct observation and strategies for indirect observation lean strongly in the direction of music, art and philosophy. Last time I looked, there were not many calls for research proposals out there that echoed those chords.

The next dimension I would add to this expanded view of the universe is something I call “vitavis” a nicely alliterative Latin compound for "life force." It has intrigued philosophers and physicians for ages, and is there any wonder why?  Leaving belief out of it as much as possible, at one stage of life we have a large cluster of cells, that left alone, will die and decay.  But with assistance - either from the mother in a "normal birth" or from some helper in any variety of c-sections or less invasive assisted deliveries - a breath is drawn and the cluster of cells "lives" and we sigh "Welcome to the world little one.” At the other end of the spectrum. Something stops. Heart, brain, whatever. Something, along the spectrum of physical function and cultural norms, is no longer present, and the large collection of cells "dies." And hopefully there is someone there to murmur "good-bye."

Yet, while medicine can define a series of measurable points that, in theory, distinguish between life and death - brain activity, the ability to “live” unaided, etc., - that proposed line is anything but clear.  Modern medicine can reach beyond the intuitive “beginning" and the apparent “end" of life, sustaining in both "ultra-premies" and those adults in "vegetative states" the potential - however slight - of life.  So what is that “thing" that marks the difference between alive and not? Ah, there is one of those topics that you don't want to bring up when the extended family gathers for a holiday meal. Plainly "the answer" currently lies beyond “just the facts," living much more comfortably in the realm of belief. The medical field has, to its credit, struggled with this issue, bringing in ethicists and religious leaders to advise the healthcare community on the complex issues of both sustaining and terminating entities that possess the potential for life, but exist on the fuzzy edges of what we can recognize as “alive." The conversations go on, but unanimity still lies somewhere far, far away.

Still it is undeniable that differences in vitavis exist.  Stephen Hawking should, according to most medical models, have died decades ago. Yet he lives on, probing the very edges of the dimensions we currently acknowledge. Babies with no discernible maladies “fail to thrive” and die. In my mind, the explanation of those seeming anomalies lie not in the impressive world of modern medicine but rather along the largely unexplored dimension of vitavis. I am enchanted by the notion of “work left to be done” along the vitavis - the life force dimension.  Hawking has work left to be done, as do artists and musicians who seem to expire only after the completion of great works - Beethoven’s works in the face of encroaching deafness, the arthritis-ridden Renoir’s assertion that he continued to paint because “The pain passes, but the beauty remains.” 

These are the echoes of the why dimensions of the universe. They do not argue for a suspension of the STEM-based exploration of the what dimensions of the universe. Rather they ask us to consider what other dimensions may lie beneath the illumination of a more baroque lamppost, and to expend greater time and treasure in the exploration of why.

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