Monday, October 26, 2009

Wave dynamics.

It always feels like a new beginning when you are faced with the prospects of meeting a new person. The terse introductory phase is done away with in a matter of moments and before you notice there you are, finding yourself constructing an image, a history, an entire alternate reality out of whatever new consciousness is spilling into your limited existence. What can only be described as a bifurcation of what one perceives as the general scheme of a life undisturbed and perhaps even somewhat resigned at times presents itself in the form of strange attractors. A pendulum, when swung, despite its rabidity, and for all its rebellious undulations will always fall to rest on the same position, this is the point attractor, this is where the system converges, this is where, perhaps, symmetry may be resolved.
I've only known of one molecule in my entire life and all too many atoms, and it is perhaps for this reason that I feel inadequacy when two strangers meet and bend like curves on a fractal structure, the redolence is none other than the temptation to believe in the chaos of it all, the sensitivity of the initial conditions, a word spills like the atmosphere, a letter splits like an atom, causality empties itself for our sake like a savior.

The truth of the matter is, if you, kind spectator would be as generous as to forgive such a serious assertion, that as much as I'd like to say that these things no longer excite me, they do, quite terribly, they do.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.

"I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins."
-Paul Dirac