Thursday, March 08, 2007

The Age of Tumbling Dice

"God does not play dice."
--Einstein



1. Little did Einstein know his Theory of Relatitivity would be abused
to the point where Statistics has supplanted Science. Much like Darwin
was bastardized by English Social Theorists into Social Darwinism,
Einstein has been bastardized to the point where the Dice are God.

2. Ethics, thusly, have become 'Whatever". Climate Theory and Medical
Science has become a calculated crap shoot.

3. Un Coup De Des by Stephane Mallarme is the Sacred Scripture of our Age.

4. As the Rolling Stones sing--"Got to roll 'em, keep on rolling"---life as a
continuous dice roll.

5. Middle Ages--He knows(God) Renaissance--We know(humanism)
Enlightenment--I know(Cogito--structures of consciousness)
Modernity(Who knows? Let's do a poll.)

6. The Lottery is Providence.

7. Lack of Historical Sense is pandemic. (Cf. Iraq)

8. Statistical Theory has no conscience. It hedges its bets. Science has a
piety, an ethos, Statistics dispenses with.

9. Metaphysics are now a timorous "could be". Quackery in all "Sciences"
runs amuck.

10. Dostoyevsky is laughing as Einstein weeps--"Without God life is senseless,
chaos."--Dostoyevsky.

11. Each roll builds certainty through choice. Free Market epistemology has
won the day--Make your choice and, voila--existence become imbued with
meaning!

3 comments:

nagual4a said...

If I remember correctly the source of that quote was a conversation between Neils Bohr and Einstein who held opposing views on what has since gestated into "string theory" (a load of hogwash). The actual quote was "because I don't believe that God plays dice with the universe". If it wasnt Boehrs it was Schroedinger (who incidentally coined Einsteins favorite quote....and mine "A man can get what he wants ...but he cannot want what he wants")

As per usual you have missed the point in your post. The real villain of physics is/was Heisenberg. He was a cocky child with a parlor trick argument that "you cant ever REALLY know anything". This has mutated over the decades into what is now the national crisis of Moral Relativism. Public schools lunged at this like vampires and then spread the tainted blood to generations of halfwits.

Heisenberg was a punk....but I do respect him for always APPEARING to be a punk in the old photos. If you look closely at any of them he always has the expression and posture that says "Man, am I messing with these guys".

But then I might be wrong about my original claim.....I seem to recall it was an ongoing dispute about what has since become the "electron cloud" concept... ie...Due to Heisenbergs Uncertainty you can never 'REALLY know' the location and direction of any particle at the same instant in time...So Boehrs revised the old logical Boehr Orbit theory to the wildly vague "electron cloud" which has today brought us such gems as "up quarks", "down quarks", "neutrinos" and a plethora of other absurdities that dont actually exist.

The end result of all this....diaper wearing astronauts now prowl the highways of america like extras from Monty Pythons "Psycho".

Anatole David said...

nags,


I know about Heisenberg and my blog stands as an acute analysis of present day science and ethics vis a vis American culture--If one really wants to get persnickety one could go back to the Epicurean Swerve---to bring in chance--But I digress--Einstein has been abused and misused--much like the Mother Church....

nagual4a said...

Wow.

I just accidentally saw The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus on georgias PBS station. This was filmed in dec 1968 for BBC but never aired....lost for decades, some hippy girl went around the world to find it and finally located a copy in a trash bag in the Who's vault.

The Lineup:
Jethro Tull:...very young but still pure Tull.

The Who: Just off a world tour...the Stones later felt the Who upstaged them. Their ill fated drumer (was it Bonham?)was just incredible.

Marianne Faithful : Looking good ....contributing little.

Taj Mahal: There and sounded good...but had no business on stage with this talent.

A thrown together group comprised of JOHN LENNON, KEITH RICHARDS, ERIC CLAPTON, and Hendrix drummer MITCH MITCHELL who is basically john bonham on speed. They played Yer Blues..... then Yoko Ono crawled out of the black fabric bag she had crawled into during Yer Blues and spent about 4 minutes wailing dissonantly while backed up by Lennon Richards Clapton and Mitchell as well as an idiot with a violin.

Then The Stones took the stage. Jumpin Jack Flash....You cant't Always Get What You Want...A slow obscure blues piece...SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL....and closed the circus at 6am after 24 hours with "sing a song for the common people".

Imagine....RFK was shot in may of 68....this was december when Mick is singing "I shouted out who killed the kennedys.....when after all it was you and me". He caps off this marathon version of Sympathy by taking off his shirt to show massive tatoos of demons and devils on his chest and arms. This may be why BBC never aired it. The guy playing bongos for this marathon was literally covered in sweat....This was footage of the Stones playing their greatest music at their absolute prime. Jimmy Paige wasnt on lead as in the recorded version but Keith covered the lead all most as well as Jimmy would have. Mick clearly owned the whole show.

No decent human being can live without having seen this film.