"We are surrounded by curtains. We only perceive the world behind a curtain of semblance. At the same time, an object needs to be covered in order to be recognized at all."

The theory of quantum electrodynamics has now lasted for more than fifty years, and has been tested more and more accurately over a wider and wider range of conditions...

...

To give you a feeling for the accuracy of [this theory], it comes out something like this: If you were to measure the distance from Los Angeles to New York to this accuracy, it would be exact to the thickness of a human hair.

The Bible is a book. It's a good book. But it is not the only book.

And as the credits role,
Tristan turned to Iseult,
said, “What did ya think?”
“It was okay, I guess.
That story’s pretty old.
It’s a bit clichéd and hackneyed, I thought; I thought.”

...

So, today, we live with the disastrous results of the ego, which, according to nineteenth-century common sense, feels that it is a fluke in nature and that if it does not fight nature it will not be able to maintain its status as an intelligent fluke.

Therefore the geneticists and many others are now saying that man must take the course of his evolution into his own hands. He can no longer trust the wiggly, random, unintelligable processes of nature to develop him any further; he must intercede with his own intelligence...This, I submit, is a ghasltly error, because human intelligence has a very serious limitation.

It is a scanning system of conscious attention that is linear, and it examines the world in lines, rather as you would pass the beam of a flashlight or a spotlight across the room.

...

However, the universe does not come at us in lines. Instead it comes at us in a multidimensional continuum in which everything is happening altogether everywhere at once...The computer may greatly speed up linear scanning, but it is still linear scanning.

i'm on (meta)physics kick. the likelihood of metaphysics quotes from charming hippie alan watts and disarming physicist dick feynman has increased.

...

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
   Of my darling— my darling— my life and my bride,
   In her sepulchre there by the sea—
   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well...You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine.

my favorite dylan song and lyric.

there have always been two bob dylans: the poet and the musician-- and this song represent the former at full fire power. the lyrics do not let up. masterful.

my favorite of dylan the musician's work is "Don't Think Twice It's All Right".

that they both have the "It's Alright" (sp?) in them is coincidental. i think.

I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí.

The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth.

Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbors for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get to some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his own flame, his own intellect, but is happy to sit entranced by the lecture, and the words trigger only associative thinking and bring, as it were, only a flush to his cheeks and a glow to his limbs; but he has not dispelled or dispersed, in the warm light of philosophy, the internal dank gloom of his mind.

After the earthquake had destroyed three-fourths of Lisbon, the sages of that country could think of no means more effectual to prevent utter ruin than to give the people a beautiful auto-da-fé; for it had been decided...that the burning of a few people alive by a slow fire, and with great ceremony, is an infallible secret to hinder the earth from quaking.

the great lisbon earthquake of 1755 plays a role in voltaire's "candide", setting the backdrop of a devastated city at the edge of madness, burning men at the stakes to avoid another cataclysmic natural disaster. that earthquake is mostly forgotten these days but it took the lives of hundreds. interestingly enough, most of those deaths occurred about fourteen minutes after the earthquake first hit.

lisbon, a port city in portgual, was hit by a tremendous earthquake. the result of the massive tectonic shift was that the tides receded, pulling back from the shore an unprecedented level.

people gathered at the city's docks and saw, for the first time ever, the muddy ocean floor that went out a kilometer or so from the shoreline. among the items they could see treasure's long forgotten: gold, weapons, skeletons, and more. many ventured out not knowing of the incoming tsunami that would soon hit.

and hit it did. fourteen minutes later to be exact. the tides that had receded returned and washed not only the treasure but the curious living.

"Would you do something for me now?"

"I'd do anything for you."

"Would you please please please please please please please stop talking."

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,lady)
                          i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

"and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart."

bertrand rusell, philosopher and mathematician, is asked what advice he has for the future. relevant and pithy.

PS. my favorite work of his is "marriage and morals", a beautiful well-thought out treaty on relationships and gender roles. it touches on the ethical constructs that guide relationships beyond religious traditions and ultimately the importance of seeing a partner for who they are and can be-- and not erasing their identity for who you wish they (or you) were.

or in the words of one of my favorite musicians...

Don't you cherish me to sleep.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

it took me five years to finish this one book. and i still don't understand half of it.

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window

god damn.

If you've got a spare half-a-million
You could knock it down
and start rebuildin'

Well, nobody's perfect!

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.