Yesterday became an amazing original day of new experience at the end of which I went to bed believing that I had written my most significant piece of writing, the most important of all 500 plus Blogs published on My Space and 1000 published on AOL, during the past four years of writing. It could indeed have been the most important writing of the six years since deciding to try and become a creative artist and five and a quarter years since becoming one, and faced the reality of myself day and night. Now in the cold but sharp sunlight of a new day, I am eager to learn if this was an illusion, a self deception or if what I thought and then wrote down matches my immediate memory.
I am fascinated by situations which are unexpected and yet timely in terms of what I believe, think and do and some times when an event occurs there is a sense destiny, some form of external intervention or just spooky, just as when I write, there is the knowledge of a beginning and an end and the words flow with a certainty and a clarity to an extent that I seem to have unlocked some force within and yet external to me.
The precipitating cause was the arrival of a request to be a friend of a film, the first time this has happened. I want to believe that the request came from someone who chanced upon my profile because of some index matching about my interest in film, or was referred by someone who I already knew, rather than randomness, thus stating the two scientific based explanations of the universe with nothing at random and everything every major and minor aspect of life having a cause and effect, and with the other explanation of a chaos and where all is chance.
The film in question I have not seen but will make it is now my priority to do so, although seeing the film is not necessarily to confirming what I said or leading to a radical revision. The film becomes not just a main friend but one of the four myspace friends which represent by beingness-distant past, past, the present and my future. Much of the range of music sound background of the film is included on the profile and provides an envelope for this letter to tomorrow from what is now yesterday.
According to the available four reviews, the Fourth Dimension is about someone who looks back into his life through his head, and a film about "parallel universes, obsessive compulsive behaviour, sad memories of childhood loss and death, and dream like encounters with quirky characters" (DVD Talk review)
My understanding, and I frequently misunderstand as well as bringing a different perspective to something, is that the fourth dimension brings time into breadth, length and depth, the three dimensions which we see with two eyes and touch with our hands.
There are those who claim experience, together with those who attempt to show the evidence, and in addition those who believe with direct experience or evidence that there are more than these four dimensions to our existence and that of all matter. My mind allows for this possibility given the infinite nature of time and space outside of my self awareness and the limitations of my particular set of ten million neurons which make up my brain and the particular way in which the thousands of excitatory and inhibitory connections which each make with internal and external stimuli. I understand the computer to be an extension of the brain, created by others but controlled by me, to some a extent, in which its programmes resemble my connectors, using the data already stored and that which I input, in order to provide a visual and audio screen of information to match that which is continuously playing inside my head and which as with last night and during the early hours I resisted going up to bed in case I missed something important that was projected while I slept. And so it is time for a hot drink and then to going over what was written.
I have had a good break enjoying grilled tomatoes and toast bread, tea, Sunday Supplement and the Adam Bolton news magazine programme and playing some game against the computer. So where was I?
Place a sold object, an oblong box for example, on a table in front of a group of people and ask them to describe the form and nature of the box and they will say it is made of wood, or metal with various assessments on the nature of the wood or metal, there will be agreement that it has six sides and agreement over its overall proportions. The box is being perceived by separate human beings who all agree that it exists before them at the same moment of time, but what they feel about the box, do they like it or not, its value in terms of what they would be willing to pay for the box or give up to own the box will depend on their previous experience and their intentions and hopes for the future. In this sense the box exists differently for each individuals although it is the same box.
If everyone leaves the room we believe that the box continues to exist although it disappears from our immediate vision, and some who were in the room will recall the box immediately and their description of what they can see through their mind will be identical to what they described before. The only way to prove that the box continues to exist in much the same way as before, for all object are in a state of change however imperceptible, is for someone else to see the box while the original viewers are away. It is also possible for others to see box at almost the same time as those in the room see it through the medium of a camera which projects pictures through terrestrial or digital broadcast using television, computer and mobile phone receivers, or continuously showing what happens and which if recorded using video or digital tapes and digital disks, hard drives and other storage devices, these can be repeatedly played back endlessly, anywhere, anytime by anyone with the technology, thus recreating the reality of previous time. When I see such a box in my head, when I believe I hold and touch it in my dreams or when someone sees the box because of a transmission within the seconds of the camera filming. or in millions of year's time, the box can be said to exist, to be real, yet it may have long since destructed through natural decay or have been destroyed.
For the majority of known human existence on earth, the planet was considered to have a spatial length and width, height and depth although for a time it was believed that heaven was a place above and hell below, and then that the earth was stationary with everything seen in the sky revolving around it. We now know collectively that the earth planet is constantly moving in relation to other planets in the same solar system and that in turn the solar system is moving in relation to other solar systems and planets and objects of gas and mass endlessly around earth in space which is infinite.
I have some understanding of the nature of matter, its particle and sub particle structures and of the work to understand matter through experimentation mathematics and computer modelling.
I also have some understanding of the nature of time and how we perceive time so that the length of time appears to vary although the rate of measured movement is constant. An article in the Journal of Neuroscience on a symposium How Subjective Time relates to Neural Time was published on November 9th, 2005. " Most of the actions, our brains perform on a daily basis, such as perceiving, speaking, driving a car, require timing on the scale of tens of hundreds of milliseconds. New discoveries in psychophysics, electrophysiology, imagining, and computational modelling are contributing to an emerging picture of how the brain processes, learns and perceives time. (I want to reread the article and think more before writing father, I wrote yesterday evening).
During the evening I watched last week's Merlin before this week's Merlin, the Strictly Come Dancing and then the X factor, then Match of the Day and the X factor results show simultaneously and then the Ipcress File, again, having concentrated at lunchtime on Sunderland's home derby with Newcastle, where my loyalties are first with Sunderland but also with the hopes and aspirations of Newcastle fans.
The day, as has become regular, started with waking myself up playing games against the computer (and I write this immediately after to preparing lunch before the match).
It was quickly one week and now nearly two weeks since my last mini trip and I fritter away time playing games against the computer, persuading myself that I need to do to maintain an equilibrium just as I make excuses about putting off exercise. (I had yesterday or the day before written that the first week since my last mini trip had passed quickly and the second was passing even quicker). So the passage of time was already in mind before switching to the dimension of Myspace and finding the friend request from the film the Fourth dimension
Having reached 1000 game of Spider of which 925 have been won, a rate of 92%, raising this higher will take a lot more playtime. I also got back to 98% at Freecell with 357 games won from 364 so I will continue until 500, although the intention is a more leisurely pace( however I ended a game before going bed which put me back to 97%). At Hearts I am playing at a more leisurely rate and having achieved 45% it is a good step in the task of reaching 51%, the target after the start when the rate went as low as 11% and never went higher than 18% with now 684 games won from 1518. Only level 4 chess has been abandoned after several failures due to not spending the time, the level requires or giving the appropriate attention.
I had an marked woollen jacket on when the doorbell rang, deciding not to change until shaving and doing the clothes wash for the week. It was the postman with a package, a box of the size and shape which contained another box. It was my Newcastle United membership box held over because of the debacle from the treatment of Kevin Keegan and subsequent events. It is an attractive presentation box with a photograph of Alan Shearer alongside Peter Beardsley with other forwards, including Any Cole, Mickey Quinn, Malcolm McDonald, Kevin Keegan and Les Ferdinand and wor Jackie Milburn. Inside there is a DVD of the Legends, yet to view, and a hard cover large pocket size book about them. There is also a 32 playing card size pack of legends and a very useful credit card size holder which will be used for my travel documents. I invested in this Membership shortly after the season commenced, having decided not to take out a Sunderland Season ticket and attend matches at either club, according to their interest and importance, and according to the weather conditions and location of available seat and its price. So far I have only been to one live game when I got soaked. I have watched half a dozen live on TV, including one on my visit to Docklands on the last trip to London, and hour long highlights of the others.
The derby today was excellent viewing from the warmth and comfort of the settee and large widescreen TV. Sunderland scored first from a Newcastle defensive lapse which allowed a ball to travel across the width of field to the other side of the penalty box where Cisse instinctively connected and kicked the ball into the back of the net. Newcastle also scored before half time from a similar defensive mistake although the play for both goal was of good quality. Both sides has opportunities to take the lead which were missed but a free kick on the edge of the box was an unstoppable curling scorcher into the far corner of the goal which no ordinary goal keeper could stop. There was a little crowd trouble inside the ground which was disappointing and unusual. (Today I learn 29 supporters from both sets of fans were arrested).
There was some continuity between the two episodes of Merlin is that in the first Lancelot a commoner saves the life of Arthur against a magic created mythological beast, a Griffin; Merlin then saves the lives of Prince Arthur and Lancelot through use of magic which enables Lancelot to kill the magic Dragon after fist helping Lancelot to become a knight by faking a document proving the noble birth of the recruit, who was banished when the deception is discovered, and then offered reinstatement when he saves the Prince from the Griffin. This he declines preferring to go off and prove himself to be worthy to be a knight of Camelot.
In the following episode, the King is tricked to employing a new court physician by the use of magic, and after Merlin has disclosed that he is also able to use magic following his success in the previous episode. This disclosure enables the young physician to neutralise the threat from the old physician to his plan to kill the King in horrible circumstances as revenge for the King burning his parents at the stake because of the practice of sorcery for evil purposes. Merlin is able to use his growing powers to defeat the new arrival and save the man who befriended and protected him. He in turn is also reinstated by the King for saving his life and made a freeman of the city state. It is good early Saturday evening fare at the same level as Dr Who.
Strictly Come dancing claims to be the best watched show of the night and is the best watched show of the BBC at the present time, with nightly programmes Monday to Friday on the aftermath and then build up to the competitive performances on the Saturday and then the result show on the Sunday. In this series are some bad dancers, one John Sargeant the political commentator is embarrassing to watch but is saved so far from the dance off because of public support, I watch to marvel at what others do where I was hopeless. The X Factor was a an extraordinary show because there are six world class acts, five females and one male including two under eighteen. Both Geordie girl groups have departed and I cannot see the remaining group lasting although it would end the direct involvement of Louis Walsh in the programme. Its impossible to predict which three of the six will reach the final.
I wanted to remind myself of aspects of the Ipcress file which is about affecting the psycho physicality of the brain with the help of a machine and drugs to brainwash, using disorientation and stress. The film was made in 1965 from the 1962 Len Deighton novel. I also enjoyed Funeral in Berlin and have Close Up in hard cover. Our understanding of how the mind works has improved since.
The brain receives many signals which it processes at different speeds and priorities, coding and encoding to its component parts from sight, smell, sounds and touch storing and apparently matching with previous experiences or previous similar experiences. The article explains that much that we know about time in the brain comes from psychophysical experiments with one class of these involving perceived time distortions during dangerous events however brief, such as motor accident or a robbery, Returning to Oxford from a weekend trip to Manchester one Sunday evening in my new Triumph Herald I accidentally switched my headlights off instead of moving back to full beam as I approached a country lane corner and I can remember now just as vividly a I did forty years ago deciding to turn the car round so I stopped facing in the opposite direction in complete darkness, waiting to hit something, waited to feel pain having the sensation of time stopping and aspects of my previous experience remembered. Although I damaged the suspension of the car discovered on my way into the office the following morning, I hit nothing and therefore felt no physical pain.
Is this sense of time slowly down the consequence of psychological emotional focussing, creating a distorted sense of time, or has the brain changed the rate at which it receives and processes information? Does the brain recalibrate its motor sensory recognition of time? From the studies the article concludes that the brain exploits knowledge of elapsed time to anticipate sensory events and to prepare appropriate actions. The research is shedding light on the features of time perceptions and its neural bases. "Further more, over the past decade, we have come to view certain disorders, such as asphasias and dyslexias, as potentially being disorders of timing rather than disorders of language. Other deficits of time perception are found in a number of diseases including schizophrenia."
"In physics the treatment of time is a central issue," thus begins the Wikipedia article. Time is measured and treated like length, mass and charge as a fundamental quantity and when combined mathematically with the other fundamental quantities it derives concepts such as motion, energy and fields. Time is therefore defined by its measurement with its standard unit 1 second which is technically the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of ground state of caesium 133 atom. "
Physicists who believe in the big bang theory of universe creation also believe their calculations show that it commenced 13.7 billion years ago, and presumably that eventually all life, as we presently describe life will cease. Isaac Newton laid down the basis for the understanding and measurement of time, and in 1905, that just only 100 years ago Einstein challenged the notion of absolute time arguing that we can only formulate a definition of synchronization for clocks that mark a flow of time.
Einstein originally assumed that the universe was in terms of its overall size static, although he and others later realised that the equations of general relativity predicted a non static universe. In 1929 Edwin Hubble announced his discovery that the universe was expanding and subsequently others came to the view that it was an accelerating expanding universe within the infinite totality of space. I argue that people similar to me only engage in four dimensional thinking, because it is an observable and presently calculable motion of matter in time within the known universe.
Philosophers have also tended to support theories which involve one set of propositions at the exclusions of others. Presentism involves the belief that only the present time exists and the future and the past are unreal. I am inclined to Eternalism in that things in the past and in the future exist eternally but I do not agree with the growing block theory which only accepts that the past and the present exist but not the future. The Wikipedia article on Eternalism raises some questions which it does not attempt to answer or explain further.
"We apparently fear death because we believe we will no longer exist after we die. But if Eternalism is correct, death is just one of our temporal borders and should be no more worrisome than birth."
I do not know who wrote this but they are only correct in aspects. I do not know if death is only one of our temporal borders. I have no evidence at present that I will exist in some form after my death in a self aware form of having been me. I will exist in part through my children and their children as I exist at present with memories of all my ancestors, their behaviour thoughts and feelings and awareness of the times in which they live and in my view this explains why some people have the genuine belief and experience of having lived in other lives in past times and is how the belief in reincarnation developed. I do not fear death in the sense of losing self aware consciousness as when I go to sleep but I fear the process and potential pain and discomfort of dying and I am sad at not completing the tasks I have set myself before reaching that moment.
The second issue raised in this Wikipedia article is that regarding dental visits commonsense is that you prefer to have been rather than about to go and the according to Eternalism it should not matter which situation are in. This proposition is also related to the third issue raised that generally we feel glad when some unpleasant experience is behind us (I would add this is why the confessional is so effective because it wipes away our guilt over our sins), The writer goes on to assert that if Eternalism is correct, there is no such property as being over or no longer happening now- it continues to exist timeless.
I have been certain for some two decades that everything we do and say and think lives with us and those we interact with timelessly and no matter anyone else says or you say or do can change what has past and what you have done, said and thought. This remains so even if we are able to travel back in time and therefore alter that earlier experience of time we do not eliminate or erase that original action. thought, series of events, they will continue to exist, just as the new events and interactions. They will exist in parallel and this is my understanding of parallel universes.
The writer of Wikipedia has made the classic fundamental error which arises from confusing the description of something with the implications of something. My individual going to the dentist and my perception of that experience is unique to me, except in so far as it shared, by the receptionist at the dentist, the dentist and his assistant and anyone else present at the same time, and subsequently by all those who speak or write about that experience. If it was unpleasant it remains unpleasant, and this does not alter because I have an enjoyable experience afterwards or intentionally overload that experience with layers of others. It may become important to re-examine that experience and learn how to change my perception of the experience if it affects my own future being or affects the experience of others in a negative or harmful way. Much of social work, counselling, psychological and psychiatric medicine is about helping individual to re-examine the past experience in a different and more positive way, to learn from that experience, to place it in perspective or learn how to move away from it as a negative and harmful one. It does not matter how they, a priest, faith healer or anyone else achieves changing a painful, negative or harmful experience into a positive one. as long as it is effective, and similarly some experience which are enjoyable or bring great satisfaction to an individual need to be radically changed because of the harm involved to others, and achieving that change may involve an individual constantly remembering the harm they did, especially if there are evident victims.
Because I believe everything exists eternally both at the time it happens and in terms of its consequences I do also believe that everything is predetermined. Because it is theoretically possible to work out why everything happens and why it happens in one and not another, it does not mean that everything that happens is predetermined. I am writing this because of the arrival of a request to be a friend from a particular film. I would not have written this piece had that request not been made. Now would I have written the piece if I had something of greater priority for me to do been the situation. If I had written this piece later it have become similar but more likely would have been different.
This brings me to the substantive Wikipedia article about the Philosophy of space and time and which involves questions such as do space and time exist independently of the mind and whether they exist independently of each other. And to questions of dimensions about time other than the time we are individually aware of existing, and about individual identity especially the nature of identity over time. This will form the second part.
I am fascinated by situations which are unexpected and yet timely in terms of what I believe, think and do and some times when an event occurs there is a sense destiny, some form of external intervention or just spooky, just as when I write, there is the knowledge of a beginning and an end and the words flow with a certainty and a clarity to an extent that I seem to have unlocked some force within and yet external to me.
The precipitating cause was the arrival of a request to be a friend of a film, the first time this has happened. I want to believe that the request came from someone who chanced upon my profile because of some index matching about my interest in film, or was referred by someone who I already knew, rather than randomness, thus stating the two scientific based explanations of the universe with nothing at random and everything every major and minor aspect of life having a cause and effect, and with the other explanation of a chaos and where all is chance.
The film in question I have not seen but will make it is now my priority to do so, although seeing the film is not necessarily to confirming what I said or leading to a radical revision. The film becomes not just a main friend but one of the four myspace friends which represent by beingness-distant past, past, the present and my future. Much of the range of music sound background of the film is included on the profile and provides an envelope for this letter to tomorrow from what is now yesterday.
According to the available four reviews, the Fourth Dimension is about someone who looks back into his life through his head, and a film about "parallel universes, obsessive compulsive behaviour, sad memories of childhood loss and death, and dream like encounters with quirky characters" (DVD Talk review)
My understanding, and I frequently misunderstand as well as bringing a different perspective to something, is that the fourth dimension brings time into breadth, length and depth, the three dimensions which we see with two eyes and touch with our hands.
There are those who claim experience, together with those who attempt to show the evidence, and in addition those who believe with direct experience or evidence that there are more than these four dimensions to our existence and that of all matter. My mind allows for this possibility given the infinite nature of time and space outside of my self awareness and the limitations of my particular set of ten million neurons which make up my brain and the particular way in which the thousands of excitatory and inhibitory connections which each make with internal and external stimuli. I understand the computer to be an extension of the brain, created by others but controlled by me, to some a extent, in which its programmes resemble my connectors, using the data already stored and that which I input, in order to provide a visual and audio screen of information to match that which is continuously playing inside my head and which as with last night and during the early hours I resisted going up to bed in case I missed something important that was projected while I slept. And so it is time for a hot drink and then to going over what was written.
I have had a good break enjoying grilled tomatoes and toast bread, tea, Sunday Supplement and the Adam Bolton news magazine programme and playing some game against the computer. So where was I?
Place a sold object, an oblong box for example, on a table in front of a group of people and ask them to describe the form and nature of the box and they will say it is made of wood, or metal with various assessments on the nature of the wood or metal, there will be agreement that it has six sides and agreement over its overall proportions. The box is being perceived by separate human beings who all agree that it exists before them at the same moment of time, but what they feel about the box, do they like it or not, its value in terms of what they would be willing to pay for the box or give up to own the box will depend on their previous experience and their intentions and hopes for the future. In this sense the box exists differently for each individuals although it is the same box.
If everyone leaves the room we believe that the box continues to exist although it disappears from our immediate vision, and some who were in the room will recall the box immediately and their description of what they can see through their mind will be identical to what they described before. The only way to prove that the box continues to exist in much the same way as before, for all object are in a state of change however imperceptible, is for someone else to see the box while the original viewers are away. It is also possible for others to see box at almost the same time as those in the room see it through the medium of a camera which projects pictures through terrestrial or digital broadcast using television, computer and mobile phone receivers, or continuously showing what happens and which if recorded using video or digital tapes and digital disks, hard drives and other storage devices, these can be repeatedly played back endlessly, anywhere, anytime by anyone with the technology, thus recreating the reality of previous time. When I see such a box in my head, when I believe I hold and touch it in my dreams or when someone sees the box because of a transmission within the seconds of the camera filming. or in millions of year's time, the box can be said to exist, to be real, yet it may have long since destructed through natural decay or have been destroyed.
For the majority of known human existence on earth, the planet was considered to have a spatial length and width, height and depth although for a time it was believed that heaven was a place above and hell below, and then that the earth was stationary with everything seen in the sky revolving around it. We now know collectively that the earth planet is constantly moving in relation to other planets in the same solar system and that in turn the solar system is moving in relation to other solar systems and planets and objects of gas and mass endlessly around earth in space which is infinite.
I have some understanding of the nature of matter, its particle and sub particle structures and of the work to understand matter through experimentation mathematics and computer modelling.
I also have some understanding of the nature of time and how we perceive time so that the length of time appears to vary although the rate of measured movement is constant. An article in the Journal of Neuroscience on a symposium How Subjective Time relates to Neural Time was published on November 9th, 2005. " Most of the actions, our brains perform on a daily basis, such as perceiving, speaking, driving a car, require timing on the scale of tens of hundreds of milliseconds. New discoveries in psychophysics, electrophysiology, imagining, and computational modelling are contributing to an emerging picture of how the brain processes, learns and perceives time. (I want to reread the article and think more before writing father, I wrote yesterday evening).
During the evening I watched last week's Merlin before this week's Merlin, the Strictly Come Dancing and then the X factor, then Match of the Day and the X factor results show simultaneously and then the Ipcress File, again, having concentrated at lunchtime on Sunderland's home derby with Newcastle, where my loyalties are first with Sunderland but also with the hopes and aspirations of Newcastle fans.
The day, as has become regular, started with waking myself up playing games against the computer (and I write this immediately after to preparing lunch before the match).
It was quickly one week and now nearly two weeks since my last mini trip and I fritter away time playing games against the computer, persuading myself that I need to do to maintain an equilibrium just as I make excuses about putting off exercise. (I had yesterday or the day before written that the first week since my last mini trip had passed quickly and the second was passing even quicker). So the passage of time was already in mind before switching to the dimension of Myspace and finding the friend request from the film the Fourth dimension
Having reached 1000 game of Spider of which 925 have been won, a rate of 92%, raising this higher will take a lot more playtime. I also got back to 98% at Freecell with 357 games won from 364 so I will continue until 500, although the intention is a more leisurely pace( however I ended a game before going bed which put me back to 97%). At Hearts I am playing at a more leisurely rate and having achieved 45% it is a good step in the task of reaching 51%, the target after the start when the rate went as low as 11% and never went higher than 18% with now 684 games won from 1518. Only level 4 chess has been abandoned after several failures due to not spending the time, the level requires or giving the appropriate attention.
I had an marked woollen jacket on when the doorbell rang, deciding not to change until shaving and doing the clothes wash for the week. It was the postman with a package, a box of the size and shape which contained another box. It was my Newcastle United membership box held over because of the debacle from the treatment of Kevin Keegan and subsequent events. It is an attractive presentation box with a photograph of Alan Shearer alongside Peter Beardsley with other forwards, including Any Cole, Mickey Quinn, Malcolm McDonald, Kevin Keegan and Les Ferdinand and wor Jackie Milburn. Inside there is a DVD of the Legends, yet to view, and a hard cover large pocket size book about them. There is also a 32 playing card size pack of legends and a very useful credit card size holder which will be used for my travel documents. I invested in this Membership shortly after the season commenced, having decided not to take out a Sunderland Season ticket and attend matches at either club, according to their interest and importance, and according to the weather conditions and location of available seat and its price. So far I have only been to one live game when I got soaked. I have watched half a dozen live on TV, including one on my visit to Docklands on the last trip to London, and hour long highlights of the others.
The derby today was excellent viewing from the warmth and comfort of the settee and large widescreen TV. Sunderland scored first from a Newcastle defensive lapse which allowed a ball to travel across the width of field to the other side of the penalty box where Cisse instinctively connected and kicked the ball into the back of the net. Newcastle also scored before half time from a similar defensive mistake although the play for both goal was of good quality. Both sides has opportunities to take the lead which were missed but a free kick on the edge of the box was an unstoppable curling scorcher into the far corner of the goal which no ordinary goal keeper could stop. There was a little crowd trouble inside the ground which was disappointing and unusual. (Today I learn 29 supporters from both sets of fans were arrested).
There was some continuity between the two episodes of Merlin is that in the first Lancelot a commoner saves the life of Arthur against a magic created mythological beast, a Griffin; Merlin then saves the lives of Prince Arthur and Lancelot through use of magic which enables Lancelot to kill the magic Dragon after fist helping Lancelot to become a knight by faking a document proving the noble birth of the recruit, who was banished when the deception is discovered, and then offered reinstatement when he saves the Prince from the Griffin. This he declines preferring to go off and prove himself to be worthy to be a knight of Camelot.
In the following episode, the King is tricked to employing a new court physician by the use of magic, and after Merlin has disclosed that he is also able to use magic following his success in the previous episode. This disclosure enables the young physician to neutralise the threat from the old physician to his plan to kill the King in horrible circumstances as revenge for the King burning his parents at the stake because of the practice of sorcery for evil purposes. Merlin is able to use his growing powers to defeat the new arrival and save the man who befriended and protected him. He in turn is also reinstated by the King for saving his life and made a freeman of the city state. It is good early Saturday evening fare at the same level as Dr Who.
Strictly Come dancing claims to be the best watched show of the night and is the best watched show of the BBC at the present time, with nightly programmes Monday to Friday on the aftermath and then build up to the competitive performances on the Saturday and then the result show on the Sunday. In this series are some bad dancers, one John Sargeant the political commentator is embarrassing to watch but is saved so far from the dance off because of public support, I watch to marvel at what others do where I was hopeless. The X Factor was a an extraordinary show because there are six world class acts, five females and one male including two under eighteen. Both Geordie girl groups have departed and I cannot see the remaining group lasting although it would end the direct involvement of Louis Walsh in the programme. Its impossible to predict which three of the six will reach the final.
I wanted to remind myself of aspects of the Ipcress file which is about affecting the psycho physicality of the brain with the help of a machine and drugs to brainwash, using disorientation and stress. The film was made in 1965 from the 1962 Len Deighton novel. I also enjoyed Funeral in Berlin and have Close Up in hard cover. Our understanding of how the mind works has improved since.
The brain receives many signals which it processes at different speeds and priorities, coding and encoding to its component parts from sight, smell, sounds and touch storing and apparently matching with previous experiences or previous similar experiences. The article explains that much that we know about time in the brain comes from psychophysical experiments with one class of these involving perceived time distortions during dangerous events however brief, such as motor accident or a robbery, Returning to Oxford from a weekend trip to Manchester one Sunday evening in my new Triumph Herald I accidentally switched my headlights off instead of moving back to full beam as I approached a country lane corner and I can remember now just as vividly a I did forty years ago deciding to turn the car round so I stopped facing in the opposite direction in complete darkness, waiting to hit something, waited to feel pain having the sensation of time stopping and aspects of my previous experience remembered. Although I damaged the suspension of the car discovered on my way into the office the following morning, I hit nothing and therefore felt no physical pain.
Is this sense of time slowly down the consequence of psychological emotional focussing, creating a distorted sense of time, or has the brain changed the rate at which it receives and processes information? Does the brain recalibrate its motor sensory recognition of time? From the studies the article concludes that the brain exploits knowledge of elapsed time to anticipate sensory events and to prepare appropriate actions. The research is shedding light on the features of time perceptions and its neural bases. "Further more, over the past decade, we have come to view certain disorders, such as asphasias and dyslexias, as potentially being disorders of timing rather than disorders of language. Other deficits of time perception are found in a number of diseases including schizophrenia."
"In physics the treatment of time is a central issue," thus begins the Wikipedia article. Time is measured and treated like length, mass and charge as a fundamental quantity and when combined mathematically with the other fundamental quantities it derives concepts such as motion, energy and fields. Time is therefore defined by its measurement with its standard unit 1 second which is technically the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of ground state of caesium 133 atom. "
Physicists who believe in the big bang theory of universe creation also believe their calculations show that it commenced 13.7 billion years ago, and presumably that eventually all life, as we presently describe life will cease. Isaac Newton laid down the basis for the understanding and measurement of time, and in 1905, that just only 100 years ago Einstein challenged the notion of absolute time arguing that we can only formulate a definition of synchronization for clocks that mark a flow of time.
Einstein originally assumed that the universe was in terms of its overall size static, although he and others later realised that the equations of general relativity predicted a non static universe. In 1929 Edwin Hubble announced his discovery that the universe was expanding and subsequently others came to the view that it was an accelerating expanding universe within the infinite totality of space. I argue that people similar to me only engage in four dimensional thinking, because it is an observable and presently calculable motion of matter in time within the known universe.
Philosophers have also tended to support theories which involve one set of propositions at the exclusions of others. Presentism involves the belief that only the present time exists and the future and the past are unreal. I am inclined to Eternalism in that things in the past and in the future exist eternally but I do not agree with the growing block theory which only accepts that the past and the present exist but not the future. The Wikipedia article on Eternalism raises some questions which it does not attempt to answer or explain further.
"We apparently fear death because we believe we will no longer exist after we die. But if Eternalism is correct, death is just one of our temporal borders and should be no more worrisome than birth."
I do not know who wrote this but they are only correct in aspects. I do not know if death is only one of our temporal borders. I have no evidence at present that I will exist in some form after my death in a self aware form of having been me. I will exist in part through my children and their children as I exist at present with memories of all my ancestors, their behaviour thoughts and feelings and awareness of the times in which they live and in my view this explains why some people have the genuine belief and experience of having lived in other lives in past times and is how the belief in reincarnation developed. I do not fear death in the sense of losing self aware consciousness as when I go to sleep but I fear the process and potential pain and discomfort of dying and I am sad at not completing the tasks I have set myself before reaching that moment.
The second issue raised in this Wikipedia article is that regarding dental visits commonsense is that you prefer to have been rather than about to go and the according to Eternalism it should not matter which situation are in. This proposition is also related to the third issue raised that generally we feel glad when some unpleasant experience is behind us (I would add this is why the confessional is so effective because it wipes away our guilt over our sins), The writer goes on to assert that if Eternalism is correct, there is no such property as being over or no longer happening now- it continues to exist timeless.
I have been certain for some two decades that everything we do and say and think lives with us and those we interact with timelessly and no matter anyone else says or you say or do can change what has past and what you have done, said and thought. This remains so even if we are able to travel back in time and therefore alter that earlier experience of time we do not eliminate or erase that original action. thought, series of events, they will continue to exist, just as the new events and interactions. They will exist in parallel and this is my understanding of parallel universes.
The writer of Wikipedia has made the classic fundamental error which arises from confusing the description of something with the implications of something. My individual going to the dentist and my perception of that experience is unique to me, except in so far as it shared, by the receptionist at the dentist, the dentist and his assistant and anyone else present at the same time, and subsequently by all those who speak or write about that experience. If it was unpleasant it remains unpleasant, and this does not alter because I have an enjoyable experience afterwards or intentionally overload that experience with layers of others. It may become important to re-examine that experience and learn how to change my perception of the experience if it affects my own future being or affects the experience of others in a negative or harmful way. Much of social work, counselling, psychological and psychiatric medicine is about helping individual to re-examine the past experience in a different and more positive way, to learn from that experience, to place it in perspective or learn how to move away from it as a negative and harmful one. It does not matter how they, a priest, faith healer or anyone else achieves changing a painful, negative or harmful experience into a positive one. as long as it is effective, and similarly some experience which are enjoyable or bring great satisfaction to an individual need to be radically changed because of the harm involved to others, and achieving that change may involve an individual constantly remembering the harm they did, especially if there are evident victims.
Because I believe everything exists eternally both at the time it happens and in terms of its consequences I do also believe that everything is predetermined. Because it is theoretically possible to work out why everything happens and why it happens in one and not another, it does not mean that everything that happens is predetermined. I am writing this because of the arrival of a request to be a friend from a particular film. I would not have written this piece had that request not been made. Now would I have written the piece if I had something of greater priority for me to do been the situation. If I had written this piece later it have become similar but more likely would have been different.
This brings me to the substantive Wikipedia article about the Philosophy of space and time and which involves questions such as do space and time exist independently of the mind and whether they exist independently of each other. And to questions of dimensions about time other than the time we are individually aware of existing, and about individual identity especially the nature of identity over time. This will form the second part.
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