all quiet here

It would seem to have been quiet here on my blog lately. Its not that I've forgotten or even that I've not had anything to say. Its more that the things I have to express have perhaps been all said here and I can see also from the activity some of my older works are providing useful reference / reading for others.

Its been three years since I buried Anita (anniversary just passed) and as one could expect there has been a lot on my mind, especially with respect to my relationship with her.

obvious paradoxes

She is with me every day, yet not here at all. I am finding that I am gradually developing the strength to carry her memory while not being overwhelmed by its 'weight' (and by the weight of her absence). My desire to learn to carry that and to train myself in carrying that has brought with it an awareness that (unlike physical training) I do not know how to train myself effectively. So I'm sort of like a kid in a gym playing with the machines and bars but not knowing how to do it - not having anyone to show me how.

I guess that I am accepting my load of doing things in the physical world (which I have been ignoring) but only in so far as it facilitates me getting away.

I feel a strong wish to be wandering, which I realise that I have done many times in the past. Japan, India, Korea, Finland ... each time brought with it changes. Sometimes it facilitated finding myself, sometimes it was just distraction.

I tire of being lonely but I do not (curiously) waver in my love for Anita. This makes it clear to me that for me to ever have any other relationships that person will need to be as aware, developed and patient as I am. So probably there can no further relationships in my life. Its not that such a person will not exist, but that I meet them at the time that they are ready to be met is so improbable that I'd call it as I just did.

Lets see where the road goes.

There remains much to do here, but then Finland first then probably to Ireland.

basking in the sun (as seen from different planets)

This image below was published by a fellow called Burton MacKenzie. He made this image and posted it onto his page in 2009 (http://www.burtonmackenzie.com/2009/02/sun-as-seen-from.html) however that server seems gone now, so only references are found today. So in a nod to his work I thought I'd publish it here.

So assuming that you know the size of the sun looking out the window, then it'll look bigger on Venus, huge on Mercury and by the time its out to Neptune it's but a bright star.

The New Horizons page reports:

The latest spectra from New Horizons Ralph instrument reveal an abundance of methane ice, but with striking differences from place to place across the frozen surface of Pluto. "We just learned that in the north polar cap, methane ice is diluted in a thick, transparent slab of nitrogen ice resulting in strong absorption of infrared light, said New Horizons co-investigator Will Grundy, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona. In one of the visually dark equatorial patches, the methane ice has shallower infrared absorptions indicative of a very different texture. "The spectrum appears as if the ice is less diluted in nitrogen," Grundy speculated or that it has a different texture in that area."

As Nitrogen melts at about -210°C it means that the surface there will be bloody cold.

So the sun which heats our world nicely (thank you very much) is shedding so little heat out there that as its size suggests, its not giving much more radiation than a star. Who knows, maybe Jupiter gives is something too...

reading into things

Sometimes in life little things happen to make one wonder if some sort of message is being sent. One of the things that Atheists like to point out is that the human mind is designed to see patterns where there may be none.

Of course there may be a pattern and what is dismissed by one is observed by another.

When I was in Alberta some years ago I was struck by the way people love to stack rocks on the shore. As it happens I never saw anyone stacking the rocks, but noone had to tell me that this was done by a person

It was obvious to me that this was not a natural formation. Yet to many animals who walked amid it I would doubt that they'd give it a second thought.

People have in the past recognized enough patterns to take us from whacking things with rocks to being able to deftly control electrons and make entirely new molecules.

Recently other creations of ours (machine learning) have begun to see patterns which have been ignored or missed by humans (in this case pathologists) for some time. These new observers (the AI machines) have seen things we missed or dismissed. This TED talk is an excellent example of this.

In this pathology case, the computer system actually discovered that the cells around the cancer are as important as the cancer cells themselves in making a diagnosis. This is the opposite of what pathologists had been taught for decades.

So when you feel something may be a message to you from your loved ones who are not in this universe anymore, perhaps it is something from them. Perhaps they did not alter the environment, perhaps tfhey are only able to touch at your mind to get you to observe something differently and see something in a new way. Perhaps they are more impartial but who knows?

The computers saw the same histology slides as people and recognised some new patterns, yet we don't call them crazy.

Perhaps there is no way to externally validate the feelings I've had and the small things which have come to my attention.

Perhaps they are just errant observations ... but if seeing them helps me to adjust to life with out Anita by my side then its only a good thing ...

I hope some good comes in your world too

reflecting on boundaries (of change)

Can we ever "see" into nothing?

As anyone who has a grounding in physics (or experience with photography) knows that when you cross a boundary (like the surface between water and air) that you get a reflection as well as transmission of light.

This image below is an example, its looking into a pond (turn your head upside down and its obvious) at the mountains in the distance (as if we were looking directly at them)

We don't see the dark depths of the water, but it is no less illuminated by the light that penetrates the surface.
I turned the image upside down to show two things:

• the pond surface so smooth, it was just like a mirror
• perspectives can alter what you think you see

If it can be said that we are living in a world where there is always something, then the idea of 'nothing' really doesn't exist. Even in deep space there is something (waves, gravity, subatomic particles, atoms of hydrogen...) and we really don't have anywhere where there is nothing.

In our minds we try to imagine nothing, but its hard to imagine something which is beyond our experience, perhaps outside our possibility of experience.  When I attempt to see into that "nothing" (by meditation or contemplation) there must be a boundary between the existence of my thoughts (something) and the nothing. Does such a boundary create a reflection?

Is what I see in that meditation just a reflection from the boundary into nothing?

Like looking out a window at night, we see the room reflected back at us. If there is not enough light outside we see nothing. If there was nothing (no light coming back from the moon or the stars) would we see something which we think is outside, but is actually inside the room?

So I struggle with the idea of death. Is Anita nothing now? Personally I just can't imagine this, but yet it may be true. Its easier for me to imagine that she has moved to somewhere (that fits within the scope of my experiences).

Are our thoughts about death just reflections from this boundary?

When I die do I just cease? Is there nothing? I myself no longer care ... because what bothers me most is that she is not here. Nothingness for me would just be a salve for my present pain.

If I knew there was nothing I would embrace it.

As usual I feel only discontent at this ... an urge (which I repress) to destroy things and walk away.

But I know there is no away while I remain here.