The Illusion of Human Time and Space

I'm changing the focus of this blog. Starting with this entry, I will be exploring the nature of truth and reality and the limited human capacity to perceive and understand them. The desire to comprehend reality as it truly exists, and to grasp its implication on our own existence, is something I call "veridicality".

Humans evolved to adapt to certain conditions. Regardless of how we may live or may want to live in the world today, we are still creatures that adapted to a specific set of conditions. Educated, intelligent people accept this, and most of these adaptations are obvious. We have long legs for walking long distances, as our nomadic ancestors did. We're the only primate that sweats, which is also an adaptation for a nomadic existence in hot, dry climates. Even standing and walking upright go back to our hunter-gatherer roots, since we had to be able to reach fruits in trees that we no longer live in. The other alternative would have been to evolve long necks, like a giraffe.

Our consistent habit of standing and walking upright is part of what makes us unique.

But those are environments within our universe. We don't often think of what the very nature of our universe might mean for our adaptation. Here are some examples of how the physical nature of the universe, not our local environment affected our evolution.

1. Our perception of scale. We know, intellectually and from scientific inquiry, that the visible universe is about 28 billion light-years across, but that being able to know that and understand it are two different things. We have an innate understanding of distance at human levels. To say that the universe is 28 billion light-years in diameter, or about 1.64597995 × 10^14 miles, means nothing to most of us. We can understand numbers that large mathematically, but not emotionally. Explore this page to get an idea of how quickly human understanding crumbles in the face of very big or very small scales.

Similarly, we can't perceive things much smaller than a grain of sand, even though we have plenty of evidence that they exist, and can even take pictures of them.

2. Our perception of the shape of space. Similarly, space, on a human scale, is 3-dimensional. Not including time (which I'll get to later), space as it is understood by modern physics has a larger number of dimensions. We don't perceive those additional dimensions because they are "small" - a particle moving in one of those dimensions can't go very far, in fact such a small distance that we can't perceive it, though evidence of their existence can be found in quantum effects.

3. Our perception of time. Just like space, we can't emotionally understand time on scales much longer than a few human lifetimes, and we can't even perceive anything shorter than a few milliseconds in duration.

Our inability to experience the true nature of time goes beyond a poor grasp on scale, though. Albert Einstein is best known for discovering that time and space are related, and that both are relative to acceleration. This is general relativity. He also showed that acceleration and gravity are equivalent. This is called special relativity. 

The curvature of spacetime, depicted as usual in two dimensions, because we can't even picture three dimensions being warped - let alone four dimensions being warped.

To say that time and space are related, however, is an understatement. It would be more accurate to say that they are the same. We don't have to believe that we live in a universe with multiple tiny dimensions that only affect us on the quantum level to believe that we live in a universe with more than three dimensions. We know beyond a doubt now that we live in a universe with at least four - the three physical dimensions that we perceive and time, which we experience as the passage of events.

The three physical dimensions are symmetrical - we can move forward and back, up and down, left and right. The fourth dimension, time, is simply another physical dimension, but it is asymmetrical. We experience it in only one direction, and we don't control our movement through it. It is because of this way that we experience time that we think it is essentially different than the other three dimensions. Our experience is that only the present actually exists - the past is only memory, and the future is something that may or may not occur. 

Because relativity has been experimentally demonstrated, however, we know this is not true. Time is a spatial dimension, and it exists on a continuum. We think it "moves" in one direction because we only remember the past, not the future, but in reality there is no fundamental difference between the future and the past. Einstein himself recognized this conclusion, saying, "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." 

The "persistent illusion" of time leads to a whole cascade of assumptions about the nature of reality that are, in fact, illusions. That cause precedes effect is an illusion, for instance. Causes are associated with effects, and because the dimension of time is asymmetrical causes orient toward the past while effects orient toward the future, but causes do not "happen" then make effects "happen", because time does not "pass". Rather, causes and effects are linked, but one can just as accurately say that effects lead to causes as much as causes lead to effects.

Dali's Persistence of Memory

These are just a few examples of how our scientific understanding of reality has far outstripped our innate ability to perceive reality. When we realize how fundamental our own built-in assumptions are, it shouldn't come as a surprise that these examples are just a scratch of the surface of how reality differs from our human perceptions of it. In the coming entries in this blog, I will explore more of these disparities between truth and human reality.

How to Confuse a Conservative: Trayvon Martin Edition

This post was going to be about the Trayvon Martin shooting, but everyone's already talking about it, even Fox News since the story got so big they couldn't ignore it. So, instead of talking about the case itself, since it's getting so much coverage, I'd like to analyze what I think is the very schizophrenic response from the right.

Most notably, there are the GOP presidential candidates. In the beginning, there was silence, then candidates weighed in. Mitt Romney, being the most sane of the remaining candidates (which isn't saying much), had the most rational response, saying in a written statement that there should be a "thorough investigation" and justice should be carried out with "impartiality and integrity". Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, however, called attention to the real victim of the shooting: Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. While being careful not to say that Zimmerman is potentially guilty of a crime, they both declared that his actions on the night of the shooting were not protected and were not meant to be protected by the Stand Your Ground law, which is essentially the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes for the common man. Ron Paul has apparently said next to nothing about it, other than to tell a pro-gun news site that the case would not be a "slam dunk" for either side. The talking heads on the right are going further, defending Zimmerman and casting aspersions on Trayvon, or to make ridiculous statements about how the hoodie is to blame.

Fair and balanced.

Compare this to President Obama's response. He could have, but didn't, take the opportunity to criticize Florida's ridiculous "I feel nervous so I can shoot you" law. He has too much class to score political points off of such a tragedy. Instead, he called for a thorough investigation and expressed sympathy for the Martin family, as any decent human being would do. This, of course, drew scorn from the GOP candidates.

Any decent human being, however, can't help but be horrified at the fact that a fourteen-year-old boy armed with nothing but a can of iced tea and a bag of skittles was gunned down in a quiet neighborhood. Most swing voters, though woefully uninformed, are decent human beings. So why are conservatives letting liberals take the field on this story? It's because they have no idea how to respond. Here's why:

1. Put in simple terms, here's one way to look at attitudes about racism in America:

The racists will be turned off by any candidate who doesn't stick up for Zimmerman. Individuals who think racism is wrong and aren't racist will either see this case as a racially-motivated attack or at least something that should be investigated further and possibly prosecuted. Those individuals will be turned off by any candidate who does stand up for Zimmerman. Those who are seriously conflicted will feel a strong desire to stand up for Zimmerman, but may not know why, and may look with hope to a candidate that defends Zimmerman, but won't like any defense of Zimmerman that looks too much like racism because they're in denial about their own prejudice. The fact is most Republicans, like most Americans, "think racism is wrong", at least in public, but racists and the seriously conflicted make up a large part of the GOP electorate. Therefore, the candidates are stuck. If they call for further investigations into the shooting, they risk losing their racist base. If they call for the case to be dropped and support Zimmerman, they risk losing their moderate majority and swing voters.

2. Gun rights are more important to them than justice for Trayvon. If a GOP candidate calls for further investigation and/or prosecution of Zimmerman, they're taking a gamble with Florida's stand-your-ground law. Zimmerman will use the law as his defense. If he loses, no harm done. In that case, the law didn't protect him, therefore the law didn't contribute to Trayvon's death (or so the argument will go). If he wins, then the law itself looks like the culprit, and a strong push will be made to get rid of it and block similar laws in other states. This would be a disaster for the GOP, which believes that guns should be given to children on the first day of kindergarten and shooting someone is the best way to cure hiccups. The GOP would be much happier if the case just went away.

3. The left wants justice for Trayvon. Therefore, justice for Trayvon is bad. It's as simple as that. It's the same reason why "Obamacare" is terrible, now, even though the individual mandate in the bill was originally a Republican idea. It's why cap and trade is bad, even though it was originally a Republican idea. It's why anything that comes out of the mouth of the President, the Democratic leadership, or MSNBC is presumed to be bad, no matter how logical or irrefutable it sounds. The left has been very vocal on the issue, and the right, by pure contrariness, can't help but to oppose them. Yet, again, they don't want to turn off swing voters. Thus, brain freeze.

Disproving Your Leprechaun Is Not My Job

Recently, I unwittingly stumbled into a debate with a religious person who is a friend of a friend on Facebook. I put a fair amount of time into my writing in this little back and forth, so I decided to memorialize my comments here. Keep in mind that this is all happening in the comments field of a friend whose status line was questioning whether the purpose of pro-Mormon billboards in Denver were intended to get us used to the idea of a Mormon U.S. President.

Note: At one point below, I refer to the Mormon Church opposing California's Prop 8. I mean supporting, forgetting the Prop 8 was amendment to abolish same-sex marriage rather than allow it.

Me: The Mormon Church is trying to undo some negative stereotypes. I'm not sure how much it has to do with Romney, but I'm sure that's part of it. If they really want to undo negative stereotypes, though, they should try harder to not live up to them.

Friend of Friend (FoF): Yeah, negative stereotypes like a strong sense of community, serving in church, eschewing alcoholic beverages, tobacco and other addictive substances, being very family-oriented, and believing in strict fidelity within marriage. WE CERTAINLY WOULDN'T WANT ANY OF THAT NEGATIVITY TO CATCH ON IN OUR WONDERFUL SOCIETY, WOULD WE????? 

Maybe the REST of us should try to live up to THEIR "stereotypes"; our so-called "positive" examples don't seem to be working so good!

Me: Little sensitive about it, are we? Not everyone agrees that the values that the Church promotes - including homophobia (such as actively opposing Prop 8 in California), misogyny (documented well here - http://www.exmormon.org/mormwomn.htm), disrespect for other religious traditions (such as the Church posthumously baptizing holocaust victims without the consent of surviving family members), racism (such as not allowing black priests in the Church as recently as 1978 and the refusal of the Church to this day to issue a statement condemning racism) - are values that they would approve of. Couple this with the Church's secretive finances and recent history of fundamentalist, polygamous, child-molesting splinter groups, I'm not sure that billboards are going to change most people's minds about the Church. If the Church took official actions to show that it's not a dogmatic, anti-woman, anti-science, racist, secretive organization, that would probably go a lot further than a few billboards.

As with almost any religion, Mormonism promotes some values that are undeniably positive (strong sense of community, being a Good Samaritan, etc.), but when I speak of stereotypes, I'm of course referring to negative stereotypes, which the Church has a long way to go to dispel for most Americans.

But, in the end, you should probably just ignore what I say. As an atheist, I belong to a group with an even lower public approval rating than Mormons, so who am I to talk? It might also be noted that if advertising didn't work we wouldn't spend billions of dollars on it every year as a country, so maybe the billboards will do the trick.

FoF: Really, my point is ALL religions have enough of their own hypocrisies to focus on, without condemning any other. As an Atheist, all you have to do is explain how we got here. :) Let me know when that happens....

Of course advertisng works! That's why the candidates cater it, and their money, towards special interest groups (i.e. religion) because they care enough to vote, and send money!

Me: All I have to do is explain how we got here? I could say that I'll explain how we got here when you can explain where God came from... but that's beside the point. It's not my job to prove a negative or to convince you of anything. I've been an atheist for about twenty years now, and if there's one thing I've learned it's that arguing with people about religion rarely if ever accomplishes anything.

FoF:  I see. You don't know how you got here, but you know it wasn't from "a" (g)God(s). Not your job, but it'd be nice if you had facts to back up your views. Sounds more Agnostic than Atheist. I don't know where God came from, but then, I didn't express a belief here one way or the other. You did, so I just figured you'd be able to defend it.

Me: Well, I didn't know we were turning poor L.'s Facebook page into an existential debate on the origins of reality. In science you start with a null hypothesis, and attempt to disprove it. The null hypothesis is that there is no God or gods, and I've never been shown evidence that there is. This is why I say it's not my job to prove the non-existence of God. If you told me there was an invisible leprechaun living in your garage, it wouldn't be up to me to prove it wasn't there. If you want me to believe in your leprechaun, you have to prove it to me, not the other way around.

We have a pretty good idea where humans came from, and have for a long time, but many religious people refuse to believe in evolution on grounds of their faith, so there's no point in arguing about it. Evidence, reason, and the scientific method don't prove anything to someone who bases their beliefs on faith.

The science on where the universe came from is a little fuzzier, but you don't solve anything by just saying "God made it," because then all you've done is change the question from "Where did the Universe come from" to "Where did God come from". Is there a SuperGod that made God? And an UberSuperGod that made SuperGod?

This is my last post here. L. doesn't need her Facebook page to be hijacked by us, so I'm un-following the post. If you really want to explore the issue further, there are several authors I could recommend, probably starting with Carl Sagan's "The Dragons of Eden".

English: I Will Survive

A friend of mine on Facebook recently posted a link to a rant on Gizmodo claiming that Twitterspeak would be the downfall of the English language.  Read the rant.

I suppose it's possible, but let's consider the history of the English language, shall we?  It has survived, among other things...

1. a Roman invasion
2. a Viking invasion
3. a French invasion
4. Shakespeare, who liked making up new words
5. British imperialism, which resulted in words being stolen from a dozen or so subject languages
6. the creation of numerous trade pidgins
7. the scientific revolution, which continues to this day to make up new words
8. Esperantists
9. Alabama, the state. Also, the band.
10. military jargon
11. geek jargon
12. 70's gender and ethno-deconstructionists
13. Cindy Lauper
14. Valley Girls
15. LSD
16. Hip-hop
17. Joss Whedon
18. text messaging
19. George W. Bush
20. Jersey Shore, the show. Also, the place.
21. LOLcats

My English language looks your Twitter in the eye and says, "Bring it on, punk."

Further edification:

Recipe: Pork-Fried Rice

I had one of those "let's use up some of these leftovers" moments that turned out so good the other day, this is my attempt to write it down. Since I was making it up as I went along, some of the amounts might not be right, but you can adjust it as necessary.

It's sort of a Thai dish since it uses Thai fish sauce, but it's also totally non-Asian since it includes cheese.  It's fusion cooking - my favorite. In case you're not familiar with Thai fish sauce, it's not nearly as disgusting as it sounds. It's like soy sauce. Just don't look up how it's made.

Available in fine groceries stores near you. And in ones not near you. And probably some crappy grocery stores, too.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound thick bacon

2 cups white rice, cooked (start with 1 cup dry rice)

3/4 cup red onion, chopped

1/2 cup Thai fish sauce

1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro

1/3 cup fresh chopped flat leaf parsley

1/2 tomato, diced

1/2 cup bleu cheese crumbles

1. Dice the bacon. Fry in a large pan it until not-quite crispy. Remove from pan and pat with paper towels to remove excess grease. Drain grease from pan and discard (or set aside for use in other recipes). Clarification: discard the grease, not the pan. Pans are expensive.

2. In the pan (with residual bacon grease), fry the red onion until tender and slightly browned.

3. Add the cooked rice to the pan with the onions. Add the bacon back to the pan. Stir fry for about a minute to blend the flavors. Add the fish sauce, then stir fry for another minute.

4. Add the cilantro, parsley, and tomato.  Stir fry for another minute to heat through.

5. Remove from heat.  Add the bleu cheese and stir to blend.  Serve. 

And as a special bonus, your house will smell like bacon for at least two days.

Colorado 9News: Burying the Headline

A recent story written by 9News writer Blair Shiff touts the fact that Colorado was recently listed as the ninth healthiest state in the country.  To be sure, Colorado has a lot going for it.  To start, we have the lowest rate of obesity in the country.  We also have low levels of pollution (although you might not know it looking at the brown haze over Denver on a cold morning).

In many categories, Colorado has lost ground - we're fatter, more of us are diabetic, our immunization rates are low, prenatal care is lacking, and to some extent how healthy you are depends on what part of the state you live in.  Luckily for us, the rest of the country is also losing ground in these areas, keeping our rank nice and high.  As always, thank God for Mississippi.

But all of this information pales in comparison to one little statistic tossed into the middle of the story like it's nothing.  Children in poverty in Colorado rose from 10.9% ten years ago to 18.5% today.  The percentage of children living in poverty in our state nearly doubled.  Almost one out of five children in Colorado are now living in poverty, and that's not the story?

Seriously, what does it take to get people's attention about what's going on?  Where are our priorities?

The Politics of Infidelity

Ginger White, the woman who recently came forward and announced that she had had a 13-year affair with presidential candidate Herman Cain, said (according to one source that I can't find now) that she did so to support the other women who had come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and assault by Mr. Cain. It's an odd reason, considering they're totally different things. Having an affair is legal. Sexually harassing a woman (at least, continuing to do so after she says no) is illegal. Grabbing for a woman's genitals and forcing her head toward your crotch, as one of the women has claimed, is definitely illegal. So why did Ginger White really come forward? If what she says is true and she did have an affair with Mr. Cain, that doesn't prove or even support the claims of the other women.

In a recent interview with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, when asked if she had anything at all to say to Mrs. Cain, she just said "No, I have no comment."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

After the commercial break, with her lawyer sitting next to her, she apparently had changed or mind, or had her mind changed for her by her lawyer.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

So, she's deeply sorry, apparently sorrier than she's been in the last 13 years while she was helping a married man cheat on his wife.  It's a sentiment that I've heard before, though, that women who sleep with married men often don't feel remorse for their actions because they're not the one cheating on a spouse.

What is most troubling about Cain's rapid-fire sex scandal machine, however, is that this is apparently the scandal that will sink his candidacy.  He's now suspending his campaign.  Being accused of sexual harassment, coercion, and outright assault phased him, to be sure, but didn't make him quit.  He just denied the allegations and moved on.  Being accused of a consensual affair, however, turned out to be more than he could handle. What does this say about his priorities? Worse, what does it say about the priorities of the Republican primary voters?

Finally, if a consensual sexual affair is enough to derail a political campaign, why is Newt Gingrich still in the running? He cheated on his first wife with the woman who eventually became his second wife, and cheated on his second wife with the woman who became his third wife, divorcing his second while she was undergoing treatment for cancer. Gingrich's many other personality faults notwithstanding, he's certainly not alone in being a male politician who is also an adulterer. And beyond Newt Gingrich, being an adulterer seems to go with the territory of being a male politician. The list of American politicians caught cheating in just the last few years is far too extensive to list here.

It's a strange world we live in, and an even stranger country, but it seems that there are certain things we should be able to agree upon. For instance, committing sexual assault is a greater wrong than cheating on your wife. Anyone disagree?