Last month The Guardian presented an interesting article on the timeline of the universe. How about the micro-universe? Our inner, tiny world is still full of mysteries. Have you ever wondered how the fetus' heart starts? The heart forms and then what? Bang, it just starts to beat or what? What switch starts that 'life engine"? As long as we can't create life, we are not entitled to take life. I'll tell you what Mr. Darwin, the probability that life appeared from void had the same chances as a hurricane that stormed a wrecking yard and gave birth to an assembled car.
'Non-communication is impossible', says one of the communication theory's postulates. However, considering that the fourth most important element of the communication process is (can you believe it?) the noise, let's try to apply the Shannon-Hartley theorem to the almighty Internet. The entropy of English text is between 1.0 and 1.5 bits per letter,[1] or as low as 0.6 to 1.3 bits per letter, according to estimates by Shannon based on human experiments[2](one bit being equal with a fair coin). If we take into account the fact that the channel codes appear to multiply following (say) geometric progression, then we will soon (50 years) face a "deafening" entropy. In other words, we will move from a directory centric communication to a user centric one. Just think of the millions of blogs with less then 5-10 readers. You start to feel the frozen breath of the Big Crunch on your back?...
Twenty years ago a Romanian sci-fi author came with the idea that humans might very well be extras left behind a gigantic production "filmed" millenniums ago. Other writers, such as Heinlein, Frank Herbert or even Asimov (in "The End of Eternity") flirted with the same concept in one way or another. But there were the Wachowskis who put that subject in the spotlight, using America's ultimate propaganda weapon, the Hollywood. However, there was nothing new under the sun, as The Matrix was inspired by other films, books, myths and philosophy including Messianism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Existentialism, Nihilism, Vedanta, Advaita Hinduism, Yoga Vashishta Hinduism and Sikhism. As Wikipedia mentioned, the film's premise resembled Plato's Allegory of the cave, René Descartes's evil genius, Kant's reflections on the Phenomenon versus the Ding an sich, and the brain in a vat thought experiment, while Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation. After all, the question still remains... How can you tell how real is your world?
David Lynch's masterpiece Twin Peaks was all about symbols. The first of them, shown right from the opening credits was the wheel. His daughter, Jennifer, a movie director as well, recalled that the Vedic mythology inspired Lynch on most of the symbols (including the Wheel of Life). Other symbols could be found here and thanks to Mr. Eco anyone could find an explanation for them. And speaking of Vedas and sanskrit, Coppola just launched his latest movie based on a novella by Mircea Eliade, a.k.a. the Godfather of the history of religions. Anyway, getting back to the graphic...how many wheels can you see there?
The reminiscences of a dull afternoon, ironed by the silver sun of the Black Sea. What was that book next to me? Proust, maybe... I forgot. But was it Debussy's Faun rumbling in the back of my ear? I'm flat...
What's worse than a wave-less morning?... What's bluer than homesickness?... Maybe the moment you start to wake up and see the rednecks...
The white wolf used to wander around most nights, ruminating on his own reflection in the Raven's Lake, and sometimes even indulging in optimistic thoughts about his mortality...
One morning, you'll have to have my little Earth as breakfast... on an optimistically-pink plate, next to a greenly-fresh mug. Laid on a Renaissance table. The rest of the temple is silenced...
When was the last time you dreamed you played God? Or was it... golf? What would be the par for putting the Sun into a space-station hole...
