Staring at my collection of hardbound books on the shelves in my basement, I'm struck by the thought of their place in the overall electrochemical balancing equation that we call the passage of our lives. The idea may be approximated over several separate viewpoints later stitched together to represent a cohesive whole. We will examine these bit by bit in this essay [it will be necessary to withhold judgement from any independent portion of these viewpoints, because they merely pave the way toward the scaling of the whole.]
The first notion which struck my mind was the identity and nature of the books themselves insofar as how they relate to us. Just what is a book, when you get right down to it? Well, for starters, it's either something which sits on your shelf taking up space and which you will never during your lifetime read; or it's a book you have already read but which you may never again actually get around to re-reading; or it's a book that indeed sometime in the future you will actually read whether it be for the first time or repeatedly. Let's face it, for every library and personal collection of old hardcover or paperback books, there remains a great untraveled portion--a desolate landscape, shall we say--of untread upon paper, scorned pages whose particular arrangement of typed out lettering merely reside for the edification of no one.
One can be easily swayed into thinking "this mass of dead trees" represents all that fine and proper mother nature razed and hacked to pieces and pulped into paper to satiate our own taste for pulpy adventure and topical headlines (so long as they suit our sense of expectation). But seriously, there's an equal argument which maintains that if mankind didn't at least destroy a certain portion of this majestic wild kingdom we're surrounded by--and which helped spawn us into fruition--the relentless drive of nature would continue growing unheeded until it consumed everything in its path (including ourselves and our civilization) swallowed back into itself.
It should go without saying that a certain balance being achieved should necessarily be the goal of anyone or anything trying to get by in the wild empire of this world, be it on this or that side of the divide between industrialized urban civilization and the largely untouched and unseen shuttling empire of the wild crossing constantly between day and night, uninterrupted by millenia, while processing the evolutionary movements of an exploding cultural chain of predation among all the glittering and hissing conquerors and profiteers scavenging for the survival of the fittest among them.
Just as I believe it should be re-stated that the spirit of the problem should always be consciously addressed for every challenging incident one should come to examine and understand in its proper context. The spirit of the problem may be different for each case, yet if addressed with the transparent and open understanding of any committee of individuals concerned, it goes without a doubt that the spirit of the problem being addressed will always be of benefit to everyone involved. Only in the abject and mutual ignoring of the spirit of any problem will technicalities be introduced which may allow guilty parties to get away with their false version of the truth, causing innocent human beings to continue suffering from it.
Civilization must keep a strange balance of not merely cultivating the wild dominions surrounding in order that the overall equilibrium of life on earth be allowed to maintain itself, but also in hacking our way partially into it's sacred domain, by razing just the correct amount of trees in order to situate ourselves comfortably within it. Keeping in mind the argument which asserts with no bones about it that were humankind to stand negligently by and allow nature to take its own course without our interfering in any way, it would literally drown us in a tsunami of creeping, crawling and stinging carnivorous vines feasting upon our species and burying us into the rotting compost heap of their stink-fueled mass grave.
Go ahead and stare nature in the face, I dare you. Do it at night in a remote portion of the woods under moonlight with nobody else around except you and the wind and the towering trees and whatever wolves may happen to be roaming about that particular evening. Never mind the peace you will surely find in the blessing of moon-rays (just the Sun's peering glance, watching over while we sleep) and the softer subtle susurrations of the star's echoing songs like lullabies relaxing you while far away furtive sounds in the forest become closer. Sticks snapping in the distance now appear to be breaking nearer, as some remote nocturnal wanderer approaches. Resting in the mountains late at night far from cities and most humans becomes a holy experience when gazing deep inside to where the stars' old light still burns upon our retinas. What was it we were saying? Oh yes: balance our equation, or perish.
That's right. Remember the Balance when considering whether or not all print material such as books should be banished from our practices upon this earth. Imagine a near well-intentioned future which simply considered the production of print material (such as books) a crime of the very highest order possible, because it is a "crime against nature". Imagine being considered a terrorist because, after all, you have enough print material (such as books) to immolate your entire neighborhood; never mind the rest of the details, for they are unnecessary and rendered moot in the cold scope of the Technical Eye.
What is the Technical Eye? Why that very Highest Ordinance which in a dystopian alternate possible future timeline of our very own, could come about easily just so long as we don't make the spirit of the problem a Mandate to be applied in all cases--in particular those brought before a court of law--considering the spirit of any problem is something to be applied to all possible human cases which may warrant it, and not just those which have made it to court.
Beware the Technical Eye and it's Judgement failing to consider and implement anomalous facts which may or may not make the case exceptionable. Innocence and Justice are served together, they complement each other well. As we begin moving forward through yet another phase of our ever developing digital technology, preparing to arm not just ourselves with recording devices but also making it mandatory for police officers to film their official proceedings, the spirit of the problem will need to be acknowledged, addressed, and represented in all future legal dealings. [My only question to any decent lawyer or judge, should they happen to be reading this, would be to ask if there isn't already such a motion on the books, that of having to necessarily follow the "spirit of the problem" in any given case, which in some odd cases may become necessary to stipulate in order to successfully avoid incrimination on a technical charge. If you know the answer to the legal term for this, please leave a comment below.]
What I'm getting at is that we wouldn't want to erroneously (for example) come to the conclusion that all print material (such as books) would have to necessarily be "outlawed" or banished in favor of going up on the internet or otherwise having been alternately available in electronic format, because just in case we were to lose everything from an EMP or otherwise, it would be good to have a certain modicum of baseline print material (such as books) around from which we could continue to rebuild the course of our lives.
This has been another random, public announcement on [scratchYpost] by yours truly, just exercising my right to practice typing on a keyboard in the language of my choice, here on the blogger domain because it just so happens that was the one I was introduced to, and if it ain't broke, I'll never fix it.
4/2/14
Mysterium...
for Jhon Longshaw
...the root of the word mystery lies in a secret
or hidden meaning, from the Old French mistere
and the Latin mysterium, "A secret rite, a secret
worship, or secret thing," and Greek mysterion,
a secret rite or doctrine, and deeper to mystes,
"one who has been initiated," in other words
a mystic, where the sense goes back to the Old
French mistique and to the Latin mysticus
One who has been initiated into being connected
with the mysteries, associated with sacraments,
exhibiting outward signs of an inward spiritual
grace, like the eucharist, being a consecration
and a mystery itself, in other words sacred,
which is to be made holy, in other words to be
kept intact, a thing that could not be transgressed
or violated, but kept whole, from Old English hal
"Entire, unhurt, healthy," where health is equated
to being whole, sound, or well, from Old English
willan, "to wish" arising from will, from Gothic
wiljan, "to will, wish, or desire," from Latin
desiderare "to long for, demand, or wait in
expectation for what the stars will bring,"
(de sidere), to consider (from Latin considerare)
the stars, what we now refer to as sidereal,
from Latin siderius, meaning "starry or astral,
of the constellations," from Latin astrum, star
Old English steorra, Old Norse stjarna, Greek
aster, Latin stella, performing the lead part,
the starring role, a part or character one takes,
the symbol or imprint on the soul, from Old English
sawol, "the spiritual and emotional part of a person;
animate existence, of uncertain origin, ancestry,
or race; from Old French origine, and Latin originem,
"a rise, commencement, beginning, or source through
descent, lineage, or birth, from Old Norse byrdr
"Birth, descent, race; offspring; nature; fate,"
from Latin fata "a prophetic declaration, oracle,
or prediction," the sentence of the gods, from Old
English wyrd, "fate, destiny", literally "that which
comes", Old Saxon wurd, which is also to turn,
and bend, from Old English weordan, to become,
and weirder yet from the root -wer, or versus,
from Latin versus, "turned toward or against"
Weorthan, what befalls one should he dare, from
Old English durran, "to brave danger; to venture,
presume," to risk the loss of a thing about to happen
by chance, fortune, or luck; once upon a time, all
these things described were one and the same,
and the weird thing today remains, that by turns
of phrase, they've slowly been flowering back into
secrecy turning once again into hidden mystery...
...the root of the word mystery lies in a secret
or hidden meaning, from the Old French mistere
and the Latin mysterium, "A secret rite, a secret
worship, or secret thing," and Greek mysterion,
a secret rite or doctrine, and deeper to mystes,
"one who has been initiated," in other words
a mystic, where the sense goes back to the Old
French mistique and to the Latin mysticus
One who has been initiated into being connected
with the mysteries, associated with sacraments,
exhibiting outward signs of an inward spiritual
grace, like the eucharist, being a consecration
and a mystery itself, in other words sacred,
which is to be made holy, in other words to be
kept intact, a thing that could not be transgressed
or violated, but kept whole, from Old English hal
"Entire, unhurt, healthy," where health is equated
to being whole, sound, or well, from Old English
willan, "to wish" arising from will, from Gothic
wiljan, "to will, wish, or desire," from Latin
desiderare "to long for, demand, or wait in
expectation for what the stars will bring,"
(de sidere), to consider (from Latin considerare)
the stars, what we now refer to as sidereal,
from Latin siderius, meaning "starry or astral,
of the constellations," from Latin astrum, star
Old English steorra, Old Norse stjarna, Greek
aster, Latin stella, performing the lead part,
the starring role, a part or character one takes,
the symbol or imprint on the soul, from Old English
sawol, "the spiritual and emotional part of a person;
animate existence, of uncertain origin, ancestry,
or race; from Old French origine, and Latin originem,
"a rise, commencement, beginning, or source through
descent, lineage, or birth, from Old Norse byrdr
"Birth, descent, race; offspring; nature; fate,"
from Latin fata "a prophetic declaration, oracle,
or prediction," the sentence of the gods, from Old
English wyrd, "fate, destiny", literally "that which
comes", Old Saxon wurd, which is also to turn,
and bend, from Old English weordan, to become,
and weirder yet from the root -wer, or versus,
from Latin versus, "turned toward or against"
Weorthan, what befalls one should he dare, from
Old English durran, "to brave danger; to venture,
presume," to risk the loss of a thing about to happen
by chance, fortune, or luck; once upon a time, all
these things described were one and the same,
and the weird thing today remains, that by turns
of phrase, they've slowly been flowering back into
secrecy turning once again into hidden mystery...
1/31/14
Notes Toward a Better Understanding of Our
Solar System
Sedna, discovered a decade ago, is a trans-Neptunian object (most likely a Dwarf planet) which may turn out to be "the first known member of the Inner Oort Cloud". The red oval below depicts Sedna's extreme orbit about our Sun.
Planetary bodies which orbit the Sun farther away than Neptune are known as Trans-Neptunian Objects, or TNOs. I wrote about them last year in my Science & Speculation blog, Dark Side of the Wild.
Eris is a Trans-Neptunian object classified as a dwarf planet, dwelling in the scattered disc. It's moon is named Dysnomia.
One may begin the exercise of visualizing our solar system from the Outside going inwards, or they may start from the Inside, going outwards from our Sun. I think doing both is best, starting from the inner core of our solar system, the Sun. But before we do that, we must remember that the star we revolve about daily itself was formulated back during that mysterious event of our solar system's birth.
Stars are formed from molecular clouds. Our Sun is about 8.5 kiloparsecs from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. A parsec is 3.26 light years. A kiloparsec (kpc) is one thousand times that, so three-thousand two-hundred and sixty-two light years. To give us a better idea, our galaxy is measured as being somewhere in between 31 and 37 kiloparsecs in diameter, while being only one-third of a kiloparsec thick. Here's a rough diagram (appropriated courtesy of the GNU Free Documentation License under Creative Commons):
They exist within the galactic halo, that spherical region surrounding a galaxy which extends past the more visible and flattened disc-like portion more immediate to it. There is both an inner halo and an outer halo; our Sun appears to be situated roughly where the inner halo ends and the outer halo begins.
It's best to think of the cosmos as a nested set of spheres within spheres. Our Milky Way Galaxy is a gigantic sphere of stars, wherein each star is nested, in turn, within a great spherical area of planetary bodies, such as our own Oort Cloud, for example. At the core of which burns a single star.
TNO's: Trans-Neptunian Objects
Planetary bodies which orbit the Sun farther away than Neptune are known as Trans-Neptunian Objects, or TNOs. I wrote about them last year in my Science & Speculation blog, Dark Side of the Wild.
Eris & Dysnomia
Eris is a Trans-Neptunian object classified as a dwarf planet, dwelling in the scattered disc. It's moon is named Dysnomia.
Oort Cloud > Scattered Field > Kuiper Belt > Solar System > (SUN) < Solar System < Kuiper Belt < Scattered Field < Oort Cloud
It's important for us to try harder to visualize our solar system as it really is. In order to do that, one must discard our old preconception of the "flat pancake of nine planets" orbiting our Sun, and get prepared to have your mind blown, because the real thing is far more staggering than any of us previously imagined. Before we even begin trying to visualize what a galaxy is, we need to scale it down a bit, and focus on being able to correctly visualize a solar system, first.
Parallax is used to gain depth-perception. It is a displacement in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight. Stellar parallax is the effect of parallax on distant stars in astronomy. Astronomy is the natural science that studies celestial objects and their evolution outside the atmosphere of Earth.
Earth is the planet that we human beings all happen to reside upon. There are five branches of natural science: astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, and the Earth sciences, which include ecology and geology. Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole, and in that regard, may be seen as a larger aspect of astronomy itself, one of the oldest sciences; the Egyptian monuments, for instance, are examples of some of the oldest astronomical artifacts.
One may begin the exercise of visualizing our solar system from the Outside going inwards, or they may start from the Inside, going outwards from our Sun. I think doing both is best, starting from the inner core of our solar system, the Sun. But before we do that, we must remember that the star we revolve about daily itself was formulated back during that mysterious event of our solar system's birth.
Stars are formed from molecular clouds. Our Sun is about 8.5 kiloparsecs from the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. A parsec is 3.26 light years. A kiloparsec (kpc) is one thousand times that, so three-thousand two-hundred and sixty-two light years. To give us a better idea, our galaxy is measured as being somewhere in between 31 and 37 kiloparsecs in diameter, while being only one-third of a kiloparsec thick. Here's a rough diagram (appropriated courtesy of the GNU Free Documentation License under Creative Commons):
The Globular clusters are spherical collections of stars which orbit a galactic core as a satellite.
They exist within the galactic halo, that spherical region surrounding a galaxy which extends past the more visible and flattened disc-like portion more immediate to it. There is both an inner halo and an outer halo; our Sun appears to be situated roughly where the inner halo ends and the outer halo begins.
a 360 degree view of our galaxy
The Shrinking Zone
I'd like to advance a theory on the likelihood that our planet's Habitable Zone was once upon a time during the earlier stages of our Solar System's formation actually much larger than it is today; which is to say, its distance from our Sun's location was greater than it is today, therefore it may have applied to the area in which Mars or the asteroid belt now resides.
50 million years ago, when it is theorized a Mars-sized planetoid may have collided with the Earth to form our moon, was the heat coming from the Sun's region then greater than it is today?
In the past, astronomers wondered at the much larger gap between Mars and Jupiter, theorizing there may have been a planet there, once. (Astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers dubbed this hypothetical planet "Phaeton".) It's not hard to imagine a planet formerly between Mars and Jupiter having been slammed into by a giant asteroid, nor is it it hard to imagine, perhaps, many such-sized planets having existed in this region, perhaps all of which were destroyed from chaotic collisions. Whatever occurred during these formative stages of our solar system, the results are plain to observe today with telescopes: the asteroid belt remains, trapped in orbit about our Sun. Ceres appears to be the largest remaining chunk of whatever destructive collisions occurred way back then. Perhaps certain chunks went ricocheting out towards Mars - two of which became captured by it's gravity, and are today known as Phobos and Deimos.
But what about our Goldilocks Zone? It's not hard to imagine that perhaps, back then--the heat from our developing Sun may have reached farther out. For all we know, the Goldilocks Habitable Zone extended as far as where that missing fifth planet may have been located (referred to as either Phaeton and/or also Theia, today).
In my raw theorizing, I have developed this idea that perhaps homo sapiens sapiens are descended from the Phaetons or the Theians, presuming either of these hypothetical planetoids were occupied by an advanced civilization. Maybe they even surpassed our own level of technology, and figured out that their own Habitable Zone was shrinking, and would eventually encompass Mars. Perhaps they devised a rudimentary form of space travel--a solar ark, so to speak--sufficient enough to carry a core group of them across safely to Mars.
Perhaps they did this to escape the asteroid they observed headed straight towards them. Whatever the case may be, it's interesting to speculate on the possibilities surrounding the notion that the Habitable Zone may have once had a greater circumference.
Perhaps Mars once held life, as has been pointed out many times before by scientists speculating. Maybe the Goldilocks Zone shrank, from having accommodated Phaeton or Theia, to having accommodated Mars, for a new period lasting millennia. And maybe (just maybe), this Shrinking Zone continued to get smaller...until it finally reached the Earth.
Maybe our ancestors were prepared for this, and successfully transferred themselves, once again, by planet hopping from Mars to Earth . . . just in time to benefit from the next, smaller Habitable Zone--which we find ourselves in today.
It makes sense if, indeed, the heat being generated from our Sun was greater, back then. It would explain a lot about the water currently being observed on Ceres. It would help corroborate the new theory that perhaps life on Earth was seeded from Theia or Phaeton. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that this "seeding" may have something to do with the impact which rendered the asteroid belt and possibly our Moon.
The thing to keep in mind, is we must never underestimate the outlandish magnificence or grandeur of nature. We tend to think of it as being mechanistic, that is, accidental collisions resulting in life. But what if some of what occurred was orchestrated by advanced beings: our forefathers? It's easy to scoff at such notions, today. Yet beware of scoffing away the proverbial baby with our tossed-out bathwater. It's what keeping an open mind is all about.
So, what if our Moon was placed here by design? Maybe architects placed the Moon as a sort of "plumb bob" to intentionally rectify its axis to 23 degrees, just so, in order to fine-tune this third planet from the Sun to accommodate life?
The mystery of the formation of our Solar System has been studied with closer scrutiny since the invention of the telescope and continues to this day with the advent of modern science. Today, scientists continue to make new and startling discoveries about the real nature of our solar system. We should all be paying more close attention. If we all think this through together, we might get somewhere.
We are drawing closer towards more clues that will help provide the answers we are seeking. Answers to the questions of our origin, and its true nature. We must continue to exercise our thinking muscles and remember to speculate wildly! For the actual answers may be far more shocking than we are currently prepared for.
50 million years ago, when it is theorized a Mars-sized planetoid may have collided with the Earth to form our moon, was the heat coming from the Sun's region then greater than it is today?
In the past, astronomers wondered at the much larger gap between Mars and Jupiter, theorizing there may have been a planet there, once. (Astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers dubbed this hypothetical planet "Phaeton".) It's not hard to imagine a planet formerly between Mars and Jupiter having been slammed into by a giant asteroid, nor is it it hard to imagine, perhaps, many such-sized planets having existed in this region, perhaps all of which were destroyed from chaotic collisions. Whatever occurred during these formative stages of our solar system, the results are plain to observe today with telescopes: the asteroid belt remains, trapped in orbit about our Sun. Ceres appears to be the largest remaining chunk of whatever destructive collisions occurred way back then. Perhaps certain chunks went ricocheting out towards Mars - two of which became captured by it's gravity, and are today known as Phobos and Deimos.
But what about our Goldilocks Zone? It's not hard to imagine that perhaps, back then--the heat from our developing Sun may have reached farther out. For all we know, the Goldilocks Habitable Zone extended as far as where that missing fifth planet may have been located (referred to as either Phaeton and/or also Theia, today).
In my raw theorizing, I have developed this idea that perhaps homo sapiens sapiens are descended from the Phaetons or the Theians, presuming either of these hypothetical planetoids were occupied by an advanced civilization. Maybe they even surpassed our own level of technology, and figured out that their own Habitable Zone was shrinking, and would eventually encompass Mars. Perhaps they devised a rudimentary form of space travel--a solar ark, so to speak--sufficient enough to carry a core group of them across safely to Mars.
Perhaps they did this to escape the asteroid they observed headed straight towards them. Whatever the case may be, it's interesting to speculate on the possibilities surrounding the notion that the Habitable Zone may have once had a greater circumference.
Perhaps Mars once held life, as has been pointed out many times before by scientists speculating. Maybe the Goldilocks Zone shrank, from having accommodated Phaeton or Theia, to having accommodated Mars, for a new period lasting millennia. And maybe (just maybe), this Shrinking Zone continued to get smaller...until it finally reached the Earth.
Maybe our ancestors were prepared for this, and successfully transferred themselves, once again, by planet hopping from Mars to Earth . . . just in time to benefit from the next, smaller Habitable Zone--which we find ourselves in today.
It makes sense if, indeed, the heat being generated from our Sun was greater, back then. It would explain a lot about the water currently being observed on Ceres. It would help corroborate the new theory that perhaps life on Earth was seeded from Theia or Phaeton. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that this "seeding" may have something to do with the impact which rendered the asteroid belt and possibly our Moon.
The thing to keep in mind, is we must never underestimate the outlandish magnificence or grandeur of nature. We tend to think of it as being mechanistic, that is, accidental collisions resulting in life. But what if some of what occurred was orchestrated by advanced beings: our forefathers? It's easy to scoff at such notions, today. Yet beware of scoffing away the proverbial baby with our tossed-out bathwater. It's what keeping an open mind is all about.
So, what if our Moon was placed here by design? Maybe architects placed the Moon as a sort of "plumb bob" to intentionally rectify its axis to 23 degrees, just so, in order to fine-tune this third planet from the Sun to accommodate life?
The mystery of the formation of our Solar System has been studied with closer scrutiny since the invention of the telescope and continues to this day with the advent of modern science. Today, scientists continue to make new and startling discoveries about the real nature of our solar system. We should all be paying more close attention. If we all think this through together, we might get somewhere.
We are drawing closer towards more clues that will help provide the answers we are seeking. Answers to the questions of our origin, and its true nature. We must continue to exercise our thinking muscles and remember to speculate wildly! For the actual answers may be far more shocking than we are currently prepared for.
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