2010.03.13 19:00 - Flickering Lights and Fallen Trees

The Guardian for this meeting was Pema. The comments are by Pema.

Pila Mulligan: hi Pema
Pema Pera: hi there, Pila!
Pila Mulligan: hi Eos
Pema Pera: Good to see you again!
Eos Amaterasu: HI Pila, Pema
Pema Pera: and hi Eos!
Pila Mulligan: I just finished doing taxes and felt a need to air out my brain
Pema Pera: Pila, I had been trying to email you back, but we have had a power outage in Princeton throughout the last ten hours or so -- and no way of knowing when the servers will be up again
Pema Pera: I'm glad to live in New York -- but I run my email through my work computer in Princeton :)
Pila Mulligan: a few weeks ago, Eos, I finally grapsed the idea tha E=MC2 involves a constant, and so I wrote Pema about some thoughts related thereto
Pila Mulligan: no worries Pema, no hurry
Pema Pera: hi Arch
Pila Mulligan: Urban Life
Pila Mulligan: hi Arch
Eos Amaterasu: HI Arch
Pila Mulligan: hi Paradise
Pema Pera: Hi Paradise!
Pila Mulligan: nice outfit :)
Eos Amaterasu: Nice flight
Pila Mulligan: swimming about :)
Archmage Atlantis: Einstein was correct......but to think there is a constant in the multi-verse....is to say that it is possible to have an absolute asumption
Paradise Tennant: hiya pema eos pila arch :) lol I know I have a "the littlest mermaid " fixation
Pema Pera: :)
Pila Mulligan: well, it took me 64 years to grasp the simple part, so I am a little hopeless for grapsing the rest
Eos Amaterasu: simplicity is the hardest to grasp
Pila Mulligan: thenks, Esoe -- encouraging
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Pila Mulligan: mermaids are something of an archtype Paradise
Pila Mulligan: archetype*
Paradise Tennant: yes they are :)
Paradise Tennant: an interesting myth
Archmage Atlantis: Funny that
Pema Pera: Hi Steve!
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Stevenaia
Pila Mulligan: hi Steve
Archmage Atlantis: Myth is based in past reality
stevenaia Michinaga: hello
Pema Pera: Glad to see that you at least have power! Much of NJ seems to be still without, at least around Princeton
Paradise Tennant: hiya steve :)
Archmage Atlantis: That may or may not come to apply again
Archmage Atlantis: And hello Steve
--BELL--
Paradise Tennant: so sorry to hear that pema do you have power?

stevenaia Michinaga: We have had out moments of "flickering lights" and fallen trees
Pila Mulligan: it this electric problem weather related (seems Sharon had no electiricty recently also)
stevenaia Michinaga: *our
Archmage Atlantis: Pema has great power, just not tied to the electrical grid
Pema Pera: I do, Paradise; I live in New York -- but all my email goes through my work computer, so I have extra leisure today :-)
stevenaia Michinaga: yes, heavy rains and winds
Pila Mulligan: ahh
Paradise Tennant: hmmm we have heavy winds here and very high high winds .. dog stuck his nose out the door just now and promptly turned around to come back in :)
Pema Pera: I understand that -- I behaved the same today :)
Paradise Tennant: smiles
Eos Amaterasu: ain't a fit night out for man or beast :-)
Paradise Tennant: smiles
Pila Mulligan: I still have the small photvoltaic system I used before the house was finished, it would work okay for an emeregency (I hope)
Archmage Atlantis: We had our first monsoon the last day ad 1/2
Paradise Tennant: thought just that thought eos
Pema Pera: plants have no choice . . . .
Paradise Tennant: smiles at pila :) always good to be prepared
Pila Mulligan: yes, they must endure it
Pema Pera: or in case of trees they may decide to fall on power lines
Pema Pera: bringing long awaited breaks for frantic email users :)
Archmage Atlantis: The land around us became swamp land again
stevenaia Michinaga: never thought of email being stuck in a storm

Pila Mulligan: if I may digress, please, what exactly is the 'It' that expands away from the Big Bang singularity/starting point?
stevenaia Michinaga: does it jsut dissappear of there is no place to deliver it?
Pema Pera: that depends on your interpretation
Pila Mulligan: I, fortunately, habve nomne :0
Pila Mulligan: have none*
Pema Pera: from a space time point of view, nothing "moves" there is a just a spacetime continuum
Pila Mulligan: how does it expand?
Pila Mulligan: or does it?
Pema Pera: from a space point of view, space expands
Pila Mulligan: ok
Pema Pera: a simple way to give a bit of an idea is to say:
Archmage Atlantis: WE are small bits of flotsum in spacetime
Pema Pera: "the big bang was not an explosion in space, but an explosion of space"
Pema Pera: but those metaphorical ideas only capture part of the physics
Pila Mulligan: space expands but space-time does not ...
Pema Pera: space could be said to expand, in the course of time, with time passing
Pila Mulligan: ok
Pema Pera: given that "time passing" is our normal reference way of looking at things
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pema Pera: it's all compromise :)
Pila Mulligan: is there a non-photon correalte in terms of dark
Paradise Tennant: what would be the no compromise version :)
Pila Mulligan: assuming photon is a unit of light
Archmage Atlantis: Or relative :)
Pema Pera: dark energy is not related to photons
Pila Mulligan: thanks
Pema Pera: and we simply don't know what it is made out of
Pila Mulligan: is there a 'no compromise' version?
Pema Pera: and ultimately everything is "made out of" some kind of building blocks at the tiniest of scales, at the Planck length, we expect -- but we don't have an agreed-upon complete theory for that scale yet
Pila Mulligan: this is like quarks?
Pema Pera: so we only have approximate theories (like general relativity and quantum field theories), and the uncompromised form of those theories are the mathematical equations -- not the words used to try to make a bit of flamoyant sense of it
Archmage Atlantis: All things are infinitely expandable, and infinitely divideable
Pila Mulligan: ahh

Pema Pera: so the words are twice removed from (physical) reality: approximations to what are already approximate theories
Pema Pera: quarks are given in terms of quantum field theories (specifically, chromodynamics)
stevenaia Michinaga: is time a "part" of any of this make-up, or just a sequential measuring device
Pema Pera: and so are photons (electrodynamics)
Paradise Tennant: even the math is an approximate interpretation of premises :) observations :)
Pema Pera: the latter, Steve
Pema Pera: but observations are also approximate :)
Pema Pera: the math is the presentation of attempts at extrapolating observations
Paradise Tennant: smiles all guesses :)
Archmage Atlantis: yes, well said Paradise
stevenaia Michinaga: so all of this energy or and things that things are made out of are defined w/o regard of time?
Pema Pera: so words are approximate ways to characterize approximating attempts at extrapolations of observations :-)
Pila Mulligan: hi Widget
Widget Whiteberry: good evening
Pema Pera: time and space are in first approximation the stage on which everything else takes place
Pema Pera: but in general relativity, the stage itself takes part in the dynamic dance
stevenaia Michinaga: hello widget
Pema Pera: hi Widget!
Widget Whiteberry smiles and settles in
Pema Pera: but not (yet) in our best quantum field theories
Pema Pera: where time is still a parameter
Paradise Tennant: with lots of numbers ... reminds me of the scene from brian greene's elegant universe series where he was trying to teach .. quantum physics to a black lab ..makes me feell distinctly . like a puppy :)
Pema Pera: spacetime is, to be more precise
--BELL--
Pema Pera: a black lab whose belly you can scratch, or a room without lights on?
Paradise Tennant: hiya widget :) gtsy
Pila Mulligan: :)
Paradise Tennant: smiles
Pila Mulligan: I have this imagined ideal of seeking an integrated understanding of reality that accommodates, as far as possible, both physics and metaphysics -- without getting caught up too much in fantasy
Paradise Tennant: lol thinks it is all fantasy :)
Pema Pera: physics may be still far to young to try and do that, Pila

Pila Mulligan: it could be
Pila Mulligan: but it is fun to imagine
Widget Whiteberry: physics and metaphysics sound like really borad categories to me
Pila Mulligan: indeed, Widget
Widget Whiteberry: um, broad
Widget Whiteberry: which physics, which metaphysics do you want to accommodate
Archmage Atlantis: To image is to grow........to list imagination as real?
stevenaia Michinaga: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/
Pila Mulligan: as much as can be grokked, I suppose
Archmage Atlantis: Stealing from Heinleing :)
Pema Pera: every half century or so, philosophers, psychologists, etc, have used the physics of their day to make pictures for their own kind of insight . . . clockwork, levers and pullies, electric fields, hydrolic devices, quantum mechanics, etc
Pema Pera: so yes, Widget, physics is very much a moving target
Widget Whiteberry nods
Widget Whiteberry: all those pattern seeking minds at work
Pila Mulligan: Pema, are you familair with Ted Palmer?
Pila Mulligan: speakingof patterns
Pila Mulligan: http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/03/theory-of-space-time-with-quantum-scale.html
Pema Pera: no, Pila
Pila Mulligan: he has written about fractals as a birdge between relativity and quantum physics
Pila Mulligan: needless to say, wayy over my head
Pila Mulligan: but interesting to sepculate about
Pila Mulligan: the New York Times ahd an article about his theory last year
Pila Mulligan: or some such news source
Archmage Atlantis: Yet you read it Pila, and chose to quote it here
Pila Mulligan: yes, I find it interesting, Arch -- the concept of patterns in building blocks
Pema Pera: that web site seems like yet another way to deny the quantum mechanical "spontaneity" of nature by postpulating some hidden causality underneath -- which seems to me like going backwards
Pila Mulligan: dig
Pila Mulligan: causation is king
Pema Pera: most philosophers, and quite a few physicists don't like to give up classical causality
Pila Mulligan: yes, there is an attachment
Pila Mulligan: after all, we like logic
Pema Pera: the kind of metaphysics that I am interested in relates to physics like a movie projector relates to a movie, roughly speaking, so there is not much overlap in equal terms . . . . .
Pila Mulligan: nice analogy
Pila Mulligan: but they are amde for each other -- film and projector
Pema Pera: physics is the story of our realm -- and then there is the question of how any realm arises
Pema Pera: or does it?
Pema Pera: does anything ever arise?
Pema Pera: or are there only appearances?
Pema Pera: or just the presence of appearance
Pema Pera: in a non-appearaing non-arising timeless way?
Pema Pera: that's more the metaphysics I am interested in :-)
Pila Mulligan: ur cultural spectrum of perception (thinks Aldus Huxley) also limimts our sceince
Pila Mulligan: our*
Paradise Tennant: hmm the movie projector version of reality reminds me of some of the buddhist explanations of samsara
Pema Pera: yes
Pila Mulligan: we have ouor attention directed by our social environment
Pila Mulligan: or even PLato's Cave explanaiton
Pema Pera: the practical challenge is to dare to turn our gaze around, so to speak -- there is a kind of decisiveness that is needed, yes, like getting out of the cave
Pema Pera: the topic that Eos suggested for the next theme meeting on 3/28 !

Eos Amaterasu: (sorry, must go)
Pila Mulligan: but rememeber the final admonition in the allegory ... :)
Pila Mulligan: bye Eos
Pema Pera: oops, I mean 3/30
Pema Pera: bye Eos!
Pema Pera: haha, he decisively left!!
Widget Whiteberry: what topic?
Archmage Atlantis: I recommend a DVD, also a Netflix instant view, called "Examined Life"
Pema Pera: 2010.03.30 19:00 - Be Decisive, Know What Is, See Clearly : Eliza/Eos
Pema Pera: on http://playasbeing.wik.is/PaB_Theme_Sessions
Widget Whiteberry: ^^
Widget Whiteberry: ty
Pila Mulligan: thanks Arch
Pema Pera: normally we would read that sentence the other way around
Archmage Atlantis: Tht and another called "Beer Wars" :}
Pema Pera: so it's interesting to start with "decisive"
Pila Mulligan: oooh, and 2010.03.28 13:00 - Time, Space, Knowledge : Maxine/Pema
Pila Mulligan: nice to see these, thanks
Pema Pera: they are also on the bulletin board behind us!
Pila Mulligan: thanks
Pema Pera: near the entrance here
--BELL--

Pila Mulligan: by the way the daylight savings time change is coming up -- it is this weekend for the Americas but at the end of the month for Europe (a gap that can cause confusion with SLT sometimes)
Pema Pera: Hawaii does not change, right?
Archmage Atlantis: AS if being on West Coast time wasn't confuring enough
stevenaia Michinaga: seem strange of there to be a daylight savings time in SL
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: daylight is being saved here every four hours . . . .
Pila Mulligan: true, Pema, unchaginng here
Archmage Atlantis: Especially when one has friends in Europe and Asia were not already confusing
Archmage Atlantis: My Dad worked for the railroads when time was standarized accross the US
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: was he an engineer?
Archmage Atlantis: I still have his pocket watch
Archmage Atlantis: No, a Railroad Detective
Pila Mulligan: I did a brief stint as a brakeman for the Chicago Northwestern
Paradise Tennant: smiles at arch he must have had many many stories :)
Pila Mulligan: it was like living in the 19th Century
Paradise Tennant: smiles at pila and noisy no ?
Archmage Atlantis: They sent him in when things went wrong
Pila Mulligan: it was not so noisy actually, Paradise
Pila Mulligan: being outside
Pila Mulligan: was he with Pinkerton's Arch
Pila Mulligan: they did a lot of that type work
Archmage Atlantis: No, at that time the Railroad
Archmage Atlantis: had their own
Pila Mulligan: social rhetoric is a function of technology -- a lot of it came from the railroad times (being on the right track, etc.)
Widget Whiteberry: interesting Pila
Pila Mulligan: the high tech of the 1800's :)
Widget Whiteberry: have you looked for any non tech sources
Pila Mulligan: fortunately there are many -- poetry, etc
Widget Whiteberry smiles
Pila Mulligan: but the techie ones seem to get a kind of elevated status
Archmage Atlantis: Another recommendation then ... the music of "Woody Guthrie"
Pila Mulligan: :) and his son, too
Paradise Tennant: smiles at arch :) love woody guthrie :)
Widget Whiteberry: rec for what Archmage - I really* like their music
Widget Whiteberry: ack, brb
Archmage Atlantis: Yes, Arlo's songs were song by talented ppl at my freshmen college class
Pila Mulligan: did you see Willie Nelson's band got busted in a small town in North Carolina just before concert? they left town wihtout doing the show -- Willie said he had a sore hand :) (probably meaning an angry stage hand)
Pila Mulligan: http://www.komonews.com/news/enterta.../83045787.html
Pema Pera: :)
--BELL--
Archmage Atlantis: Artists are tempermental......it is their job.......just as it ours to be
Pema Pera: see you all next time!
Widget Whiteberry: nice seeing all of you
Pila Mulligan: nice to see you
Paradise Tennant: smiels take care pema widget :)
Widget Whiteberry: g'nite
Pema Pera: sleep well, short as the night may be . . . .
stevenaia Michinaga: night, stay dry
Pila Mulligan: hope the weather gives you guys a break soon
Paradise Tennant: smiles take care steve :)
stevenaia Michinaga: thx
Pila Mulligan: bye Steve
Pila Mulligan departs also -- nice to see you Paradise and Arch
Archmage Atlantis: Paradise......you have been quiet.....
Paradise Tennant: well I think I will scoot too arch .. hope you have a great nite hon :)
Paradise Tennant: yes ..sometimes it is good to be quiet :)
Paradise Tennant: big wave from toronto :)
Archmage Atlantis: I wish for women like my mom that take a stand
Archmage Atlantis: Bye
Paradise Tennant: byeeeeeee