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Thursday, January 24, 2019

10-Year-Old Repost. Why?

In 2009, when I was a boy of 59, I wrote a blog post that got NO comments. It was about the universe and time and I figured nobody cared very much --but I got to thinking, which sometimes helps. I thought the post hadn't enough visual aids to depict the birth and contraction of the universe. So, after a decade of research, I came up this evening with a highly detailed scientific graphic of reality: 

From 2009: Presque Vu

Deja Vu and Jamais Vu are words brought to us originally by cultural anthropologists who ventured into into places like darkest England to study temporal lore of tribes frequenting Ley Lines and menhirs like Stonehenge, then, for reasons unknown but on the tips of their tongues, report back exclusively in French. Their data was then seized by psychologists, who were seized in turn by physicists and astronomers, drugged, danced to exhaustion and a new tribe was formed.

Between the Big Bang and Big Crunch the universe goes thru cycles of expansion and contraction. During expansion, we remember a real past attending a variable and unseeable future. In contraction, because time is reversed, we remember a virtual past which, contrary to the entropic arrow of time, hasn't really happened yet. We percieve it as a normal, causal unfolding but accompanied by a crunchy noise and it just looks crinkly.

We don't remember the future in this direction either --backward from its beginning at the end of universal expansion-- for two reasons. Light is traveling backwards, out of our eyes and assembling all observables. Second reason is nobody liked the future very much and forgot it.

Because universe doesn't expand or contract quite evenly --less like a star-studded balloon than other stuff I shouldn't have machine-washed-- Bang and Crunch can coincide. Neither is time uniform --uniforms are dry-clean only. Time can constrict on an expanding field, which is how an acrylic sock can melt your turtleneck head hole shut in the dryer--creating an irreducible singularity. Thus do time and anti-time collide in brains and make deja vu.

Because the cycles throw us together from opposing ends of time, we get glimpses of ourselves coming back. Effect is more or less pronounced by what cycle predominates locally. My last planetarium visit suggests we are on spin. This also accounts for the disorienting experience of Jamais Vu.

Jamais Vu is the opposite of Deja Vu and consists of waking up in your pajamas --Jamais=french for jammies-- without knowing where or why. Sometimes Jamais Vu is inaccurately applied to waking up naked and painted jammy-like colors in the middle of a jungle with no clue where you are or how it happened. This is not Jamais Vu. It means you are a cultural anthropologist.



42 comments:

  1. I wasn't part of your blogosphere posse 10 years ago or I would have responded with at least a smile. Now that you have added visuals let me suggest that the sound of the big crunch might really be "moobak" for reasons that are obvious, to, at least, me. I tend to think of the big bang explosion and eventual implosion as cosmic inhales and exhales.

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    1. Thanks Tom, for my 1st response to this post in a decade! Much-intrigued by your "moobak" theory, but do not think it can be empirically tested on humans without getting them really 'knurd'.

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  2. I think my brain just went KABOOM! It couldn't grasp the thought of light traveling backwards out of my eyes. It could, however, grasp "irreducible singularity," as I have practical experience in unfortunate laundry events.

    Earlier this week I saw a grown man shuffling through Walmart in his slippers and his bright red pyjamas covered with cartoon characters. I had forgotten, so thanks for reminding me. Unfortunately I live in an expanding universe, so I can take no comfort in thinking it's a virtual memory, and not real.

    In an attempt to experience jamais vu, I just tried Chris Moulin's experiment of writing "door" 30 times in 60 seconds. It didn't work. I didn't for an instant forget what "door" means, and I was aghast at how much my handwriting has deteriorated ~ I who have taught cursive to hundreds of third graders.

    Your post reminded me of the time when my brother, sisters, and I were very young. My brother and my sister next-to-me talked my middle sister into impersonating a monster and running through the neighborhood and down the street ~ naked except for being drenched in molasses and ketchup to look bloody and scary. Unfortunately she met our parents driving up the street, and they were not scared. Barb has never forgotten her scrubbing in the tub with Ajax (like Comet), and the threesome in this misadventure has never forgotten the consequences that followed the bath. If only my brother and sisters had been creative enough to explain that three-year-old Barb was a precocious child with a passion for cultural anthropology.

    I really should not read your posts late in the evening after a long and exhausting day. I find myself doing and thinking unexpected things! LOL Have a good one, Geo, and thanks for the mind-bending.

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    1. Firstly, I too have seen some unusual fashion statements in our local Wal-Mart, but I have also acknowledged more courtesy and consideration, more smiles and people who don't know me asking "How're the kids?" than I have in other stores. If the gentleman was in pajamas, he's a cultural anthropologist. If he was in jammies, he is French.
      Poor Barb! Too young to be cajoled into such a syruppy exhibition. I was nearly 20 before I did anything like that.
      Have I mentioned I love your comments?

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  3. On further reflection, I think the precocious cultural anthropologist was just turned four.

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    1. Scandalous! I never even saw myself naked until last year.

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  4. Geo - many times your posts are so profound and awe-inspiring that your faithful readers (like myself) are humbled and consequentially tongue-tied.

    I sometimes prefer to sit back and let your knowledge shine - instead of daring to add a comment and look like a fool.

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    1. Dear Jon, thank you. I had to think hard to puzzle out what I was thinking 10 years back, which got me doodling and adding that over the text. Not sure it did any good but it threw me back into something I was thinking 50 years ago and I'll write that up by and by. Who knows what I'll forget next?

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  5. I'm trying not to focus on the past, friend Geo … but DejaVue happens … and it is not funny … U ever noticed that DejaVue is never funny? says this Alberta cat and cat Theo. https://youtu.be/T1IgHVvX2-0

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    1. It does indeed happen, an anomaly of the mind. We are no strangers to enigmas --their effect on emotion is understandably various.

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  6. Oh WOW...I found this post incredibly profound!
    I wasn't a blogger ten years ago, but if I had been, I would have found this post just as awe inspiring without the diagrams.
    You, Geo, never fail to expand my knowledge and awareness.
    My deepest, most heartfelt, thanks!😊😊

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  7. As space-time continuum scientists around the world are packing their offices into boxes.....
    Good one, Geo.

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    1. Thanks Mike, I believe they're migrating to continua south of here.

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  8. Your ability to explain your theories has immensely improved since 2009.

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    1. Good thing too, Emma. Otherwise, I'd be permanently confused if not already.

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  9. Mind boggling! Absolutely mind boggling! Why didn't I study science under you, when the universe was heading towards a big crunch?

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    1. Dear Tom, it surprises people to learn I never studied science. I just get nightmares and science catches up. Until then I demonstrate an astonishing degree of ignorance. Then again, that might be what science is.

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  10. For some unknown, at least to this "mind", your post threw me back . . way, way back . . to a time when Baseball Steve and I found ourselves on an assignment at the Grand Canyon. I posited a solution to the high unemployment rate of the day and the consequent malnutrition by those unemployed. I suggested that the Grand Canyon could be filled with lime Jello into which Vienna sausages had been embedded and the unemployed and hungry could then be provided with spear guns and invited to enjoy the Canyon and it's delectable contents for as long as it took for them to be fat and sassy and able to accept job offers once again.

    For some reason unknown to science and government (sometimes opposites do attract), this humanitarian solution was never acted upon.

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    1. Dear Bruce, My brother, Frankie, and I hiked the donkey trail down the Grand Canyon in 1962 --down past rocky strata that laid bare a billion years of Earth. Then, we hiked back up again because our lives were waiting for us up top. We never forgot the awe. Your proposition regarding Jello and sausage is most ambitious, but no more improbable than the vigorous citizens of Arizona digging the canyon in the first place.

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  11. Intrigued by Fundy Blue's comment on jamais vu, I realized I was translating jamais vu literally without knowing the exact meaning. (This is what happens when a person knows a little of the language and none of the psychology.) On looking it up, I realized this describes what happens to me when I happen to say the word "cake" more than once or twice - it has always seemed to morph into a word that can't be, an unfamiliar sound. Fascinating!

    I learn so much here - and for that, I thank you, Geo.

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    1. O_Jenny, I feel much the same intrigue when exploring the "vu"s. I figure psychological researchers took the lowest bidder for naming phenomenon. They bought "jamais vu", which just means "never seen", as nomenclature for something far more complex. France has got a lot to answer for or I miss my guess.

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  12. Thank you so much for the graphics, Geo; it is all clear to me now. When I was younger, I had times that I woke up in my jammies not knowing where I was. I expect that will happen again in a few years but I won’t care or even notice.

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    1. I'm glad it's all clear. I've already forgotten what I wrote. I have waking disorientation too, Arleen. I know where I am but WHEN I am kicks in later. Been retired 10 years but think I'm late for work. Let's cultivate a psychic message to each other:"Don't panic! We're WAY the hell in the future!" Deal?

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  13. Scratching my head... I think I'll stick to watching the Big Bang on TV and eating the Big Crunch that's promoted by the Captain in a cereal bowl. (but that would be a lie, because I do neither)

    www.thepulpitandthepen.com

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    1. Big Bang is a great show --excellent tv program too, dear Sage. However, the Big Crunch is a gravitational mechanism that compresses a distillate of all souls. I wonder if, in a few billion years, people will find a box of Cap'n Crunch and accord it some supernatural significance. We do stuff like that. Good thing too.

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  14. I'm going to have to come back and read this again after the kidlets have gone home tomorrow..right now there is only room in my head for cleaning and cooking and entertaining the lively ones....I may just go kaboom or moobla myself before tomorrow is over.

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    1. Understood, dear Delores, and acknowledged --or my name isn't Grampa. Hope you got lots of hugs!

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  15. What? WHAT? Okay, I did not understand much at all, altho I gave it my best shot.

    Einstein watching a train, maybe.

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    1. A good start there, in the train. If the speed of light was not constant, Maxwell’s equations would have to look different inside the railway carriage. And the lightning, well that nailed it. I don't understand either, most of the time, but sometimes --briefly--sometimes.

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  16. Thinking of you and Norma and wishing you both a good week!

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  17. Dude, your mind works in mysterious ways. (And I mean that as a compliment!)

    I've always rather enjoyed the feeling of deja vu. Then again, I've been fortunate. Most of my experiences with that were triggered by pleasant nostalgic feelings. If something bad were triggered and momentarily relived, I wouldn't enjoy that at all. I'd rather those things stay in the black hole of my mind where they jolly well belong.

    Jamais vu? That's another matter. I've had a couple of incidents of momentary panic because I suddenly didn't recognize my surroundings or know where I was. My sense of direction is lousy enough without my mind playing tricks on me.

    And as for those balloons covered with sequins? My powers of observation aren't all that keen, either, so I musta missed them. I was probably too busy watching a nifty bug or yakking with Smarticus.

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    1. Thanks, Susan! "Can't put me finger on what lies in store, / But I feel what's to happen all happened before." --Dick Van Dyke (Bert) in Mary Poppins. When it comes to deja vu, I always go straight to the dancing chimney sweep. Same with jamais vu.

      Presque vu --I just ask Norma.

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    2. She is a true fixed point in a chaotic universe. I recognize a similar quality in you.

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  18. In summary, then, jamais vu is the status quo of the average college kid?

    Fun stuff, Geo.
    And I see below why you instantly fell in love with that beauty.

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    1. Very close assessment, Robyn! But when I was college-aged, I often slept in my clothes to reach 8 a.m. classes in time. Now I'm retired and pleased to find there is no such hour. And yes, Norma doesn't say much but when she gives me a look, it's articulate and permanent.

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  19. Is there a word for experiencing both at the same time: I don't know where I am or why but I'm pretty sure I've been here before. Or is that just life? Typical Thursday. Jeudi vu.

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    1. It's just life, Squid. I like Jeudi vu...seems like I feel it every week!

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  20. I found your this post while searching for some related information on blog search...Its a good post..keep posting and update the information.
    10 year old

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    1. Becky, I'm not sure there IS an update to this information. We must wait for an hierophany.

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