Month: February 2011

The Physics And Philosophy Of Falling Trees

Jim Baggott explores how quantum theory mirrors the question, "If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s nobody around to hear, does it make a sound?":

Philosophers have long argued that sound, colour, taste, smell and touch are all secondary qualities which exist only in our minds. We have no basis for our common-sense assumption that these secondary qualities reflect or represent reality as it really is. So, if we interpret the word ‘sound’ to mean a human experience rather than a physical phenomenon, then when there is nobody around there is a sense in which the falling tree makes no sound at all.

This business about the distinction between ‘things-in-themselves’ and ‘things-as-they-appear’ has troubled philosophers for as long as the subject has existed, but what does it have to do with modern physics, specifically the story of quantum theory? In fact, such questions have dogged the theory almost from the moment of its inception in the 1920s. Ever since it was discovered that atomic and sub-atomic particles exhibit both localised, particle-like properties and delocalised, wave-like properties physicists have become ravelled in a debate about what we can and can’t know about the ‘true’ nature of physical reality.

He concludes:

[W]e can no longer assume that the properties we measure necessarily reflect or represent the properties of the particles as they really are. These properties are like secondary qualities – they exist only in relation to our measuring devices. This does not mean that quantum particles are not real. What it does mean is that we can ascribe to them only an empirical reality, a reality that depends on our method of questioning.

Following Our Mythologies

Frank Wilson defends the idea:

Shortly before his death, J.R.R. Tolkien took his private secretary, Joy Hill, for a walk, during which he introduced her to all his favorite trees, and even showed her how he communicated with them (if memory serves, he did this by placing his hands on them and leaning forward until his brow touched their bark, after which some sort of silent colloquy ensued).

… Unfortunately, we tend to run from our own mythologies, or to bury them away, afraid that if others learn of them they will think us eccentric at best or else flat-out nuts. But such a personal mythology is actually the record of our profoundest self’s encounter with the world. My own, of course, is grounded in my Catholic faith. But one’s faith needs to be lived as a musical score is played — not with metronomic monotony, but with a generous dash of rubato. As Jesus said, the law was made for man, not man for the law.

Nature: East vs West

In a review of Mary Oliver's poetry, Alice Gregory explores the seasons on each coast:

Refusing to acknowledge the immensity of your surroundings in California amounts to blasphemy, and don’t think there aren’t higher powers waiting to punish you. There are earthquakes; and mudslides; and for about three months of the year, entire regions of the state threaten to spontaneously combust. You wouldn’t dare sleep naked in California—you might need to run outside in the middle of the night, awakened to a rattling house and a mile-deep fissure in your front lawn.

But I’ve learned that what the East Coast lacks in menacing spectacle it makes up for in a sort of scaled-down obedience. East Coast nature yields to us. With its lapping, Amagansett waves and sweet sugar maples, the wild here, such as it is, seems to be ours for the sculpting. Perceiving nature’s rhythms feels less daunting, and our observations can be quieter, more microscopic. There are no incisor-like mountains or blazing forest fires to blast your sense of self. It’s a place where a poetic feeling can be maintained in relative peace, where the flora, fauna, and mild geology make space for introspective rumination and a notion of society. You can nurture a private sense of romance. The East Coast does not demand that you bow down before it in awe, nor does it require constant, humble apology for being tiny and human. You can be surrounded by the quaint prettiness of nature, not terrorized by its beauty as you are in California.

Mapping Memory

Jen Percy interviews author Anthony Doerr:

Everything intrigues me about memory: its fallibility, its fragility, its utter importance in our lives. Take away our memories and we are nobodies; we don’t exist. I watched that happen with my grandmother as she descended into Alzheimer’s: the disease stripped her of her self.

I’m interested in collective memory, too, and how collective memories are determined. No one is alive right now who knew, say, Ben Franklin. And yet his name is circulated ten thousand times a day. He’s imprinted somehow in the memory of every American I know. Why? How? Partially because, as you say, words are a kind of memory. He wrote thousands of them; millions have been written about him. So the dead live on in sentences. Look at Anne Frank. Look at Melville. Look at Saul Bellow.

The Power Of Words

Amitava Kumar interviews Arundhati Roy on writing:

To be able to express yourself, to be able to close the gap—inasmuch as it is possible—between thought and expression is just such a relief. It’s like having the ability to draw or paint what you see, the way you see it. Behind the speed and confidence of a beautiful line in a line drawing there’s years of—usually—discipline, obsession, practice that builds on a foundation of natural talent or inclination of course. It’s like sport. A sentence can be like that. Language is like that. It takes a while to become yours, to listen to you, to obey you, and for you to obey it. I have a clear memory of language swimming towards me. Of my willing it out of the water. Of it being blurred, inaccessible, inchoate… and then of it emerging. Sharply outlined, custom-made.

Worst Movie Of All Time Nominee

I Am Here….Now (trailer) from Cinefamily on Vimeo.

Xeni Jardin reacts:

I'm getting a The Room meets Birdemic vibe here. But with more chicks and messianic aliens.

Hadrian Belove of the Los Angeles-based cult cinema society Cinefamily explains:

One of our in-house guys cut a really hilarious trailer for Neil Breen's latest crazy fucking masterpiece of accidental weirdness. The trailer itself is hilarious. If you don't know him, writer/director/actor/caterer Neil Breen is a real estate agent in Las Vegas who self produces these indescribable movies, casting his friends from the biz…total outsider madness. This guy is so different he has four dots in his ellipses.

Sex With T-Rex

Brian Switek reveals the latest science on dinosaur mating:

Figuring out how Stegosaurus even could have mated is a prickly subject. Females were just as well-armored as males, and it is unlikely that males mounted the females from the back. A different technique was necessary. Perhaps they angled so that they faced belly to belly, some have guessed, or maybe, as suggested by Timothy Isles in a recent paper, males faced away from standing females and backed up (a rather tricky maneuver!). The simplest technique yet proposed is that the female lay down on her side and the male approached standing up, thereby avoiding all those plates and spikes. However the Stegosaurus pair accomplished the feat, though, it was most likely brief—only as long as was needed for the exchange of genetic material. All that energy and effort, from growing ornaments to impressing a prospective mate, just for a few fleeting moments to continue the life of the species.