Reality at a Distance

The curious thing about our universe/reality is that anything that is extremely far away from us does not make sense like for instance the fact that scientists think that the Universe is missing matter and light, to fix these discrepancies in the theory of everything they created bodge factors called Dark Matter & Dark Light. There was Dark Energy as well but they seem have spotted Gravity waves so the Dark Energy must exist.  If you leave our macro-verse and travel down to the very very small you eventually arrive at the Quantum level where surprise surprise nothing makes sense either.

Atomic particles appear and disappear seemingly randomly and if you observe a particle it changes its position I can only assume particles are particularly shy of any external observers.  Particles can also be entangled with one another which apparently allows for instantaneous communication between the two.  It has been referred to as spooky action at a distance.

Classical physics all works nicely at the human level of perception but once you observe the very distant or the very small reality falls apart, why is that?  Are there holes in the make-up of this reality?  Is Reality perhaps nothing more than a vastly complex computer model and what we are seeing are the edges of the model whereby the designers of Reality did not think they needed to code for the Quantum level or the larger workings of the Universe.  If we are part of a computer system how could we ever prove a negative or positive.

Another possibility although I suppose somewhat similar to a computer model would be what Creationists believe (no facts just belief) based upon on the literal truth of the Bible.  Where supposedly God created the Heaven and Earth in six days, I suppose it could be argued that since the Bible does not fully defined the length of a day those six days could have encompassed four billion years which is roughly the age of the Earth.  Humans have only been around for the last 200,000 years and in the last 6000 years civilisation started.

Creationists have fallen out of fashion in many religious circles over the last decade and have been replaced with a new philosophy called Intelligent Design whereby they do not believe in the literal truth of the Bible however they still maintain their belief despite all evidence to contrary:

“certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

It is somewhat curious that Intelligent Design has evolved from Creationism by a process of natural selection.

What are the chances to discovering the real truth in my life time probably very unlikely unless someone invents a Interstellar drive or an Ant-Man suit which allows us to find the sign which says:

Abandon all hope all that enter here.
And an exit sign that says: Yeah! Right!

The Hindsight Bubble

Bet Fair were offering 8 to 1 odds for Trump winning the election, normally the only gambling I do is low stakes poker but looking back upon his campaign I have realised that it was a forgone conclusion that he would win despite what everyone else thought.

The campaign itself was pure theatre and at no point did you think he was going to win, he however ripped up the rule book of political campaigning.  At no point did you know what was going to happen next, many of his speeches were completely unscripted.

It was not until towards the end of the campaign trail that the Obama/Clinton partnership realised that it was impossible to predict what Trump was going to do next.  Everything Trump did or said was designed to create controversy and it did not matter whether it was true and false.

It would not surprise me if many of the sexual allegations made against him were hoaxed by his own campaign.

This article from Vox shows Trump's ability to speak to the voters as opposed to speaking at them as most politicians do.

I read Trump's policies after he had won to see what what we were in for and what effect he would have on the world, to say I was surprised would be a somewhat understatement.  Zero evidence of a southern wall and in fact very little of what was said in sound bytes throughout the campaign appeared in his official policies.  His policies are heavily watered down versions of his rhetoric, unfortunately his ideas on huge tax cuts, deregulation and massive public spending looks like a recipe for disaster.  Although since he is a successful businessman I would like to think he has a better understanding of managing money and running a country than Hilary Clinton.  As Mae West said

"Between the lesser of two evils, I always pick the one I have not tried before."

Clinton had decided to stick with The Obama administration's failed policies which gave the voters an impossible choice.  The voter turn out was just over 50% a big drop from the last election, in one of his more understandable speeches Trump advised the voters not to vote which effectively took votes from the Democrats.  If the turn out had been higher it is possible that Trump would not have won.

This film from the BBC about HyperNormalisation shows how Trump's win occurred because of the way society and those that manage it have effectively placed us into mirrored bubbles of what we as a group or individuals wish to see.  The film is nearly 3 hours long but it is definitely worth watching.

Our perception of reality is controlled you only have to look at Amazon adverts to see that.

Genre Locked

During my teens the first book I ever read that was more than 50 pages was War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells which is about 200 pages.  It was also mostly likely the book that got me hooked on Sci-Fi but I digress, this particular novel took me several months to read not due to the length but it was down to the way it was written.  Basically it was hard to read, as I read more of Well’s books I discovered he had different styles of writing,  The Time Machine for instance was much easier to read than War of the Worlds.  Similarly C.S Lewis’s Sci-Fi novels which were only 200 pages each are heavy on philosophies and little on the action where as his Narnia Chronicles (written for kids) were a doddle to read admittedly a more extreme example of style of writing.

The problem I have had with books like these and I have read quite a few over the years is that they are locked into their specific genres there is no link to real life I suppose you might say ‘Duh!’ its fiction why should it do so.  To be clear I have read number of horror books by Clive Barker and James Herbert none these contained any humour which happens in real life all the time even in the most dire circumstances it is integral to way humans are wired although James Herbert’s Domain did contain some black humour.

Moving on from books to movies, until perhaps in the Die Hard films action movies contained very little humour similarly horrors contained zero humour whatsoever.  The more recent Marvel movies do contain limited amounts of humour whereas DC movies are quite dark and detached.

Apparently if the genre is of a serious nature there seems to be unwritten rule that no humour is allowed.

Should war films for instance been limited to only serious scenes to avoid detracting from the horrors of war.  I think it dehumanizes the fiction and makes it easier for people to watch that being said a film like Saving Private Ryan brought back some very bad memories for veterans of WWII.

Heroes are not allowed to laugh otherwise they would seem like everyone else in the minds of the readers/viewers.

Is this a purposeful detachment for fiction from reality?  Perhaps fiction should never be too real, I am aware totally aware this opening big can worms.

I have always found book/movies that contain humour far easy to read/watch, some of the more recent TV series have added humour into single episodes to offset this possible of loss viewers, to name a couple X-Files and Supernatural and curiously enough The Simpsons managed to do a wonderful Halloween special using Edge Allen Poe’s poem The Raven which reversed the humour beautifully.

These unwritten rules are slowly being broken however creators of fiction love to go retro, Crimson Peak for instance was a return to the Gothic Romance which had almost died out in the movies but still exists in books.

My own stories always contain an element of humour in order to anchor it and keep my readers awake or interested.

Perhaps people just cannot cope with multiple genres, ironic considering what is in the News everyday.

Flotsam #1

Eew hardcopy?!?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/02/flash-the-plastic-bank-of-england-unveils-untearable-plastic-5-note

The Thirteen Floor (well before the Matrix existed)

http://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-were-probably-living-in-a-video-game-1780049652

Green bug eyed spare rock turned short sword

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/02/king_tut_dagger/

What immortal hand or eye…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3621549/Priest-caught-trying-flee-Thailand-s-tiger-temple-skins-fangs-police-reveal-monks-sleep-surrounded-animal-body-parts.htm

Alien litter bugs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36416880

Bottle Recycling

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36424863

Low Gear, so far…

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/may/30/top-gear-readers-review-the-revamped-show

Smoke and Mirrors is Stranger than Fiction

I have recently read an article on Scott Adam's blog (creator of the Dilbert cartoon) about how science is an illusion using quantum mechanics as its base along with a cognitive scientist called Donald Hoffman who explains it (The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality) so much better than Mr Adams but not simpler.

I decided to post a comment on the article based upon both articles as I saw it, a more simplistic view:

Basically this is quantum theory taken to the nth degree. Atomic particles pop in and out of existence when we "observe" them or not as the case maybe. The cat is either dead or alive or most probably scratched its way out of the box having a night on the tiles leaving the radium wishing it had decayed sooner then at least it would have a dead cat as company.

Thinking this through does stuff at a quantum level fail to meet up to classical physics because it is for most part unobserved by conscious organisms whereas in the macro-verse that we live matter is under constant eyes whether they be human or otherwise.

Donald Hoffman suggests that there is consciousnesses all the way down that they create the reality we see and feel. Taking this theory to its logical conclusion (I could be wrong) if all of reality does not exist then these consciousnesses must exist outside of this reality otherwise the consciousnesses could not exist either.

Have I taken a complex idea and simplified it too much probably. I'm not a scientist just a part time unpaid out of the box thinker.

I post also second additional comment:

 ...however if you allow for Brane-World Scenarios then these consciousnesses could exist in a different Brane and if the consciousness were made up of particles (Idtrons perhaps) that were without mass with a spin of 2 like the hypothetical particle Graviton then they could pass between Branes or affect them. 

A whole Brane (Idverse) reality consisting of consciousnesses that create our physical world by observation alone.  Each of consciousness connects to a living organism whether it be human or not.

This reminds me of Philip Jose Farmer's series Riverworld (1971-83) whereby artificial souls (wathans) were created by an ancient alien race.

Logic is not a illusion if the consciousnesses are connected to us.

Then the whole of Donald Hoffman's ideas was refuted in this article by one of the world's best theoretical physicists Lubos Motl (never heard of him myself but I don't travel those circles).  I realised however this would potentially make an interesting baseline for new Alternate Reality Game so I set about writing the basics down.

The title for my game was Apex Ids:

Consciousnesses made up of Idtrons inhabiting a Brane world (Idverse), they grow by connections to living organisms in other brane worlds, starting from the microbe to intelligent life and beyond.  What is evolutionary best route for the Ids?

The basic idea is that at the beginning of the multiverse Idverses only contained one consciousness (Id), this first one grew so large that it no longer could interact with living organisms of our type of reality but it could still influence our reality through nature and whispering into the minds of the rich and powerful.  The first Id spawned other Ids as per Donald Hoffman's theory, now the question is how would these Ids grow (well used plot devices):

• Love/Peace/Harmony - speed growth in a Id
• Chaos - slows growth in a Id

The Apex Ids would have grown slow large that their best route for staying alive would be to control the growth of the Ids below them therefore I decided to go for a revolution of lower Ids against the Apex Ids, revolutions are all about taking control from the ones in power.

My revolutionaries were called The Church of Eon that on surface were all about peace and harmony but at the deepest levels intended to topple all the major governments of the world using people given super powers by use of drug therapies to enhance their physic abilities.  The basic goal of the Church was to stop all wars and get everyone to live in peace thereby starving out the Apex Ids.

Youtube is always an excellent resource for writing and ideas, my intent was to point the players at links to do with creating super powers which was fine until I came across this one:

Mind Science Kept Hidden - Documentary

This sounds fine until 4:50 minutes in at which point we are in conspiracy theory territory, I suppose it not be surprising that my fiction should mirror this "documentary" since I had recycled the usual suspects of any revolution.

Original thought doh!

Upon reflection I decided to drop the game and post it here instead, I still like its concept from a fictional perspective but it has lost its appeal for me.