Some Koans of Quantum Mechanics

After a two-week sesshin, and in deep meditation, a Zen disciple is tapped on the shoulder by a monk so the disciple can visit his Zen master about his assigned koan. He arises in the silent zendo, padding past others in lotus position, and enters a room for dokusan with his roshi. With a gassho to the Zen master, the disciple sits and waits for his teacher to speak. The roshi studies him silently. Then, rather than asking the student to show him Mu, the Roshi poses these to him, and they are all quantum puzzles:

The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled

The abbot asked, "You heard him say it?  'Pain's the only evil I know about.'  You heard that?"

The monk nodded solemnly.

"And that society is the only thing which determines an act is wrong or not? That too?"

"Yes."

"Dearest God, how did these two heresies get back into the world after all this time?"
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From  A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr

The post title is from the poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

Tired of your job?  Hate the daily commute?  Want to tell your boss what you think?  Has your life become insane and you just want to leave the rat race behind?

Back in 1953 at age 46 one man did it and he never looked back.  He found a life much more fulfilling. More

The Incredible Story of Phineas Gage

Photograph comparing Phineas Gage's skull to three foot seven inch tamping iron that went through it in 1848.  Gage lived and has become a medical legend. Read more here.

Love Within The Machines

Without the brain we would not have consciousness.  Does it follow that consciousness is a product of the brain?  (An "epiphenomenon of the brain.")  The epiphenomenalists would have it so.  The reason is clear.

Don't Forget This

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In ancient Rome, a general, many to become emperors, presided over The Triumph (Triumphus), a victory parade through the streets of the city with throngs watching him pass by.  In a chariot he lead the parade, and heard the ovations of the masses. He wore a purple tunic, for purple was a rare dye only the nobility and powerful could afford.  Behind him walked all his army, his men and women captives, soon to become slaves, followed by his other spoils of war.  A slave held his golden crown, but the main role of the slave was to occasionally whisper in his ear,

Memento mori, memento mori.

Translated it means, Remember, you will die.

I dedicate this story to all politicians of power and high station.

Winnie The Pooh on Free Will

"If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings,” said the Tralfamadorian, “I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by free will. I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse–Five)

"There's a very large question here." (Winnie The Pooh)

The Woman Who Fell To Earth: Juliane Koepcke

"On Christmas Eve 1971, German teenager Juliane Koepcke sat next to her mother in the window seat of a Lockheed Electra. She had just graduated from high school in Lima, Peru, and was on her way to Pucallpa, where she and her mother would rendezvous with her father, biologist Hans Koepcke. But the plane never made it. The Electra hit a freak storm, and the 17-year-old girl looked out the window to see the right wing aflame. She turned to her mother, who said, "This is the end of everything." The last thing Juliane remembers is feeling herself whirling in midair.

She awoke three hours later, still strapped into her seat, in the Amazon." Wearing a torn miniskirt and one sandal she walked out of the Amazon jungle alive with bad injuries and a maggot infested wound. More can be found here, here and here

A Little-Known Story: Maria Leontievna Bochkareva, Who Met President Wilson

Of peasant stock, beaten by her alcoholic father, working since age eight, she married at fifteen and left her husband when he began beating her and swore to kill her. She married again, followed her husband to exile in Siberia but left him when he tried to hang her. In 1914 she fought for the Czar as the only woman in the 25th Tomsk Reserve Battalion, where fellow soldiers taught her to read and write. She was wounded twice, decorated three times for bravery, fought with frost-bitten feet, bayoneted German soldiers, and pulled fallen comrades to safety.

Some Sh*t to Read on Language Taboos Now and Then

Because of my age, I found an article by John McWhorter engaging.  I offer it as one way to understand some of the dynamics of modern society. I think only people of a certain age, whose long memories compare past and present, can truly appreciate this article. The young think today's language is as it has always been or don't think about it at all.

When i was growing up, my parents taught me the difference between belly and stomach, or tummy. To say belly was crude. The same went for butt and damn. Four letter words s*, f*, and c* were wholly uncivilized. To say Get screwed was a very graphic reference to intercourse and This sucks could only refer to fellatio, both phrases unacceptable in polite society. When a boy, I read a headline that shocked the nation: Truman Calls MacArthur SOB.