THREE GUYS LOOKING FOR SOME DIRECTION

Sometimes I reach an epiphany.

A great light shows in the universe of my mind and I exclaim:

Eureka!!!

Socrates came to an important conclusion that was counter productive as far as selling his place in the universe as a great professor:

As for me all I know is that I know nothing!

I mean there must have been a plethora of Sophists who would have exclaimed:

See, we told ya that old curmudgeon was an idiot!!

But, as with most politicians, Socrates might protest that his statement was taken out of context because the line goes on to say:

…for when I don't know what justice is, I'll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Socrates

I might spend some time just offering my views on this quote but today I came across an article that has led me in a different direction:

In his 1977 film "Annie Hall," Woody Allen depicted his autobiographical avatar, Alvy Singer, at age 9, in the office of a child psychologist. The kid has stopped doing his homework, his mother complains, because of something he read. "The universe is expanding," Alvy moans to the shrink. "The universe is everything, and if it's expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything ... What's the point?" ("Brooklyn is not expanding!" his mother shrieks back.)…

As Richard Panek explains in his lively new account of 20th-century (plus a little 21st-century) cosmology, "The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality," 85 percent of everything consists of stuff that's undetectable to the human senses and profoundly mysterious. And we're not talking about Staten Island.

The 4 Percent Universe" is largely an account of the uneasy alliance between astronomers and particle physicists in the quest to grasp what the astronomer Alan Sandage called "the only two numbers to measure in cosmology," that is, how fast the universe is expanding right now and at what rate that expansion is changing over time -- otherwise known as the deceleration parameter. These two figures can tell you how old the universe is and when it will come to an end. But figuring out what those numbers are and above all why they are what they are has been no easy task. .salon.com/books/laura_miller

There is always some humor when the unwashed read statements such as this. I get into moods where I will look to explanations from the ‘experts’ but it is as if I am gathering information after it has gone through a sieve. Most of the answers I receive must be gleaned from starchy water without even a glimpse of the pasta that had remained in the sieve.

The first thing that crossed my mind while reading this gem was that if scientists seem to agree that they only understand 4% of the factors guiding our universe, how could Laura Miller come to the conclusion that 85% of the universe’s remaining factors need to be explained. I mean that is only 89% and…

Twain liked to pontificate about how stupid paleontologists were in the 19^th century. Whenever he wrote about this subject following a trip to the dinosaur museum, he would note that there was more manufactured material incorporated into the reconstructed monsters than actual bone.

His conclusion was that paleontologists of his day had absolutely no idea what they were talking about; although he bought into the concept of dinosaurs and that they once walked the earth a long time ago because he would say things like this:

The less said about the pterodactyl the better. It was a spectacle, that beast! a mixture of buzzard and alligator, a sarcasm, an affront to all animated nature, a butt for the ribald jests of an unfeeling world.

We have come a much longer way in our research concerning our understanding of how the T-Rex looked, especially with the discovery of more complete skeletons.

I have read about this 4% solution before. And frankly, I have no idea what they are talking about. It is inconceivable to me that astrophysicists can spend their entire lives writing long formulae that contain symbols more foreign to me than those contained in ancient Chinese scripts, and conclude that those formulae just don’t work as far as understanding 96% of the secrets of the universe.

So these scientists just make up shite. Well our formulae would work if there was dark matter; dark matter being stuff that we cannot see, or touch or even comprehend.

Dark energy is stuff we cannot see or touch or comprehend, and our formulae cannot work without positing that dark energy exists.

Scientists supposedly work with anti-matter. What in the hell is anti-matter. How can you be against matter? I mean, what is the matter with matter that you would have to be anti-matter?

If you were a mechanic and told me that you only really understand 4% of the variables involved in making a car work, you are not working on my car.

If you only understand 4% of your weekly budget, you are in a lot of trouble.

See, I have no problem whatsoever at seeing 96% of the universe as GOD.

That does not mean that GOD will provide the creatures of this planet with daily bread or justice or anything.

I get a kick out of Ducky sometimes. He has written long posts on health care and he likes to fill those posts with direct quotes from important documents.

His point, as far as I could tell, was that we should look at what certain sections of the bill actually says and pay less attention to the detractor’s take on those sections.

And Ducky usually refrained from dissing the dems or the WH.

It is like Ducky was telling me personally that:

Look, there are over 300 million folks in this country and our representatives are doing the best they can in coming up with a new health care structure and this new structure is going to have to be implemented in steps.

And I could only conclude after reading these posts that the problem addressed was complicated indeed and that there were only possible results and more probable results as far as the effects on the health of our population. As with anything else, nothing is certain with regard to the number of people who will be helped or hurt by this new legislation.

I simply concluded that something must be done. And when I looked at the politics involved in all of this, I concluded that the new legislation was better than nothing and it will be interesting to see how people are actually helped.

With any political issue, I must admit that I usually know something about it.

I don’t have ‘all’ the answers about how best to handle these assassination problems.

I do not have a clue.

You know, one of the heroes who subdued the prick who shot Gabby was on Ed Shultz. He was carrying and he still thinks we should all carry guns no matter where we go and it will make us safer.

Guns will always be with us. The NRA has won the big battles.

Wyatt Earp wishes that we would check in our arms as we enter Dodge City or Tombstone.

It all seems so ridiculous.

I recall when I could enter a Federal Courthouse and just walk right in. I do not even recall a guard let alone scanning devices. I recall chatting with great, great members of the judiciary in the damn elevator; like it was no big deal.

I had a friend who went into a county jail and when he had finally met with his client, he opened up a brief case and remembered that he had a couple joints right in his case.

He promptly shut his case and continued his conversation with his client; sweating a blue streak of course! Ha

Those days are over.

And I do not have the faintest idea how our relations with our representatives will become over the next decade, let alone the next year.

All of our representatives will be running around in pope-mobiles and we shall see them at rallies on huge computer screens.

Our airports and our courthouses and most of our office buildings are now all securitized. Great word is it not? Securitized is a great word is it not?

But what do I know? I doubt I know more than 4% about what is going on out there.

A previous version of this @ http://onceuponaparadigm.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/the-4-solution/