THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
09/18/09 -- Vol. 28, No. 12, Whole Number 1563
C3PO: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
R2D2: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Acknowledgement (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Correction: Christmas (tm) (letter of comment by Dan Cox)
Science Fiction Discussion Groups
Display of Fantastic Art
Younger and More Efficient (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The MT VOID Asks Its Readers (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Mirror Neurons May Explain Common Decency (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Free Will Versus Determinism (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon (Part 4) (convention report
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Corkage (letter of comment by Charles Harris)
Playing with Units in Physics (letter of comment
by Ian Gahan)
This Week's Reading (WHY YOU SHOULD READ KAFKA BEFORE YOU
WASTE YOUR LIFE and EAT MY GLOBE) (book comments
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Acknowledgement (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
This week's MT VOID is brought to you by the Pre-Owned-Humvee
Owners Exchange. Buy a used Humvee today. What has Mother Nature
done for you lately? [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Correction: Christmas(tm) (letter of comment by Dan Cox)
In response to Evelyn's comments on Christmas stories in the
09/04/09 issue of the MT VOID (where she wrote, "... all of these
things have been trademarked and so you can't have a Christmas
tree, you must have a Christmas Tree(tm) and pay a license fee for
it. The same with Holly(tm), Mistletoe(tm), and so on."), Dan
Cox writes:
Maybe that's where Bill Gates got the inspiration to file for such
trademarks as Windows(tm), Word(tm), Access(tm), Bookshelf(tm),
Arcade(tm), etc. [-dtc]
[Last week, I accidentally attributed this to the wrong person.
It was actually written by Dan Cox. Abject apologies to you,
Dan. The error was mine, not Mark's, and I will try not to do
this again. -ecl]
Dan adds:
In the interest of all mankind, how can I get the idea across to
you that every word I have submitted was actually written by me? I
have never copied any material from Dan Kimmel.
An idea occurred to me however. It's a truly weird theory, and one
that I probably wouldn't suggest to anyone but a science fiction
editor. But suppose--just suppose--that this Kimmel person, what
with his experiments in electronics and everything, had some way
managed to crack through the time-space barrier mentioned so often
in your magazine. And suppose--egotistical as it may sound--he had
singled out my work as being the type of material he had always
wanted to write.
Actually, most of the above words were written by Jack Lewis, so
who's cribbing now? [-dtc]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Science Fiction Discussion Groups
September 24: RED PLANET by Robert A. Heinlein, Old Bridge (NJ)
Public Library, 7PM
October 8: WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE by Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer,
Middletown (NJ) Public Library, film at 5:30PM, discussion
of film and book after film
==================================================================
TOPIC: Display of Fantastic Art
"Spectrum" is on display at the Museum of American Illustration at
the Society of Illustrators, featuring the best contemporary
"fantastic" art from renowned fantasy, science fiction, horror, and
surreal artists from around the world from September 1 through
October 17, 2009. The "Spectrum" exhibit features a selection of
over 120 works from both legendary artists and talented newcomers
from the last four annuals. Divided into seven categories, the
exhibit showcases multi-media works including original art in both
traditional and digital medium, video, 3D, comics and graphic
novels. Artists include Julie Bell, Kinuko Y. Craft, Eric Fortune,
William Basso, Brom, James Gurney, Tony DiTerlizzi, Terese Nielsen,
Yuko Shimizu, Michael Whelan, Donato Giancola, John Jude Palencar,
Phil Hale and many more. The artwork will be on display from
September 1 through October 17, 2009.
The Society of Illustrators is located at 128 East 63rd Street
(between Park and Lexington Avenues), New York, NY 10065. The
gallery hours are Tue 10AM-8PM, Wed-Fri 10AM-5PM, Sat 12N-4PM.
Admission is free.
More details at
http://societyillustrators.org/museum/spectrum.cms.
==================================================================
TOPIC: Younger and More Efficient (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I have to say that as I get older my body is actually getting more
efficient and is acting younger. I really can feel it happening.
It is getting really efficient. If I eat an extra scoop of ice
cream I feel my body saying, "Don't worry. It won't be wasted. I
will store the extra calories around you middle. Not to worry."
Lower down it is a lot younger. It tells me, "I think I have to
go. Hey, I have to go NOW. Now! NOW! NOWWW!!!! Gotta go. Gotta
go." [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: The MT VOID Asks Its Readers (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
As you have no doubt heard on the news (right!) the longest running
lightening storm ever observed is going on right now on Saturn. It
was first noted in January of this year and it has not let up yet.
*However*, the media is not calling it a "lightening storm" but a
"thunderstorm". Is it actually creating thunder? After all there
is nobody to on Saturn to hear any sound. It may be creating what
hear we would call thunder. But on Saturn there is nobody to hear
it. Is it really sound?
http://tinyurl.com/lightening-saturn
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Mirror Neurons May Explain Common Decency (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
In the film FANTASTIC VOYAGE (1966) there is a moment where the
submarine Proteus has been miniaturized and is exploring inside the
brain of the man on the operating table. As they are looking at a
sort of fanciful lightshow--well it was the 1960s--there is the
following exchange:
Dr. Duval: Yet all the suns that light the corridors of the
universe shine dim before the blazing of a single thought ...
Grant: ... proclaiming in incandescent glory the myriad mind of
Man...
Dr. Michaels: Very poetic, gentlemen. Let me know when we pass the
soul.
Dr. Duval: The soul? The finite mind cannot comprehend infinity--
and the soul, which comes from God, is infinite.
For me it is one of the low-points of the film. Michaels is making
statements that sound good, but for which he has no evidence, bad
form for a person of science. What you have there is some script-
writer making sure that religious groups know that even though this
is a story of science there is nothing anti-religious about this
film. No, sir.
(By the way, the quote sounds impressive, but I have a strong
suspicion it was made up for the film. It is not in my BARTLETT'S
FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS and a short search on the Internet finds no
references other than to the film. It is just an impressive-
sounding piece of humbuggery.)
In any case the film referred to the soul as if it were some sort
of a well-defined thing. But actually now there is something that
has a real structure not far from where the Proteus was that is has
some of the functions of what some people like to call "the soul."
The people in the film might have been able to see something they
would have labeled as a piece of the soul that it would have been
possible to see. They are something called "mirror neurons," and
they may well be the seat of our ability to feel empathy for
others.
In the 1980s Giacomo Rozzolatti and some other scientists at the
University of Parma were tracking neuron activity in the pre-motor
cortex of monkeys. These neurons were expected to fire when the
monkey saw something he wanted, a peanut, and reached for it. That
was what was anticipated and it was verified. So far there are no
surprises. Then one of the people performing the test himself
reached for the peanut. The monkey just watched the proceedings.
But his brain did not simply stand still. His "grasp" neuron fired
at the same time. This did not make sense. Why would grasp
neurons be firing in a monkey who is only observing the experiment?
The neuron was not just firing to say, "I ought to grab that
peanut." It was also firing to say, "*He* ought to grab that
peanut." The monkey's neuron activity mirrored the neuron activity
in someone else. These neurons that mirrored the neuron activity
of others were dubbed "mirror neurons." For a long time they had
been identified only in primates like macaque monkeys. In 2007 it
was demonstrated that humans also have mirror neurons that behave
in the same way.
It seems that certain brain regions behave in much the same way
when the brain's owner experiences emotions and when the owner sees
someone else experiencing emotions. It is thought now that this
may well be what causes people to have empathy. So when Bill
Clinton told an audience "I feel your pain," in fact that might
have been just what he was feeling. "We used to say,
metaphorically, that 'I can feel another's pain.' But now we know
that my mirror neurons can literally feel your pain." says
Vilayanur Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and
Cognition at UCSD. He also says, "Mirror neurons dissolve the
barrier between you and someone else."
In the 01/06/06 issue of the MT VOID I wrote about how there might
well be a genetic basis for empathy and altruism
http://tinyurl.com/mslu5h. Contrary to the frequent viewpoint
that people cannot be moral without the guiding hand of religion,
it is suggested that there might in fact be a genetic basis for
altruism and empathy. It seems to me that having empathy and
altruism is really a survival trait. Societies function better if
individuals' attitudes go beyond personal gain. The problem is
that it is not clear how there could be a link between genes and an
ethical philosophy. In fact it seems that a mechanism may now have
been established. Genes can create mirror neurons and mirror
neurons seem to actually make people more empathetic and
altruistic. It has been shown that sociopathic type seem to
actually have the mirror neurons firing less. I do not know
exactly what it would mean to find this thing people call the soul,
but the mirror neurons seem to be the seat of the conscience. That
may be close enough to satisfy the skeptic in FANTASTIC VOYAGE.
My original editorial is at:
http://www.fanac.org/fanzines/MT_Void/MT_Void-2428.html
One description of mirror neurons and empathy is at
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/05/mirror_neurons/
This was mostly prompted by the article "Mirror Neurons: Are We
Ethical by Nature?" by Christian Keysers in the book WHAT'S NEXT:
DISPATCHES ON THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE edited by Max Brockman.
[-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Free Will Versus Determinism (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
There are people who believe in determinism, that is, what we do is
strictly determined by the physical state of our body and brain,
and that "free will" is an illusion. Often they present arguments
as to why this is so. But if they are correct, than the
presentation of these arguments is futile, because their audience
is predetermined either to believe in determinism or not. On the
other hand, they can say that it doesn't matter, because it is also
predetermined that they will try to convince people. So I guess to
them the argument is both inevitable *and* futile. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon (Part 4) (convention report
by Evelyn C. Leeper)
This is the last part of my brief report on Anticipation, the
Worldcon held in Montreal August 6-10, 2009. My full report will
also include panel descriptions, but will probably not appear for
some time (though I hope before the next Worldcon!).
Parties
The parties (and the Con Suite) were in the Delta, which was about
a kilometer away from our hotel (and it was an uphill walk to our
hotel). We went to the Reno party on Wednesday night, and it was
very crowded, with a long walk back afterwards. So we decided to
skip the parties after that, and this was probably a wise decision.
One night the Delta shut down at least one party, and there were
reports of people having to stand in line in the lobby waiting for
people to *leave* the party floor before they could go up.
I also heard that while the Con Suite had a lot of good food
(including Montreal smoked meat), it was open only in the evenings.
This could well be true, given how far it was from programming (a
half a kilometer)--it was not possible to just "drop in" for a
while during programming breaks. (The woman who seemed to be
running the Green Room whenever I was there commented on how often
I dropped in there. Well, if there had been a Con Suite, or even
more chairs in the display hall, I might have used those instead.
There were a few sofas scattered around the centre, but they were
usually occupied.)
Miscellaneous
The Gaiman autographing could have been handled better. There were
two sessions, each in an afternoon slot, but you had to stand in
line for tickets which were given out at 9AM those mornings, and
then again for the autographs. And although they knew how many
tickets they had to give out, no one bothered to count the ticket
line and tell people past a certain point that they would almost
definitely not be getting tickets.
The major events were in a ballroom with flat seating (rather than
raked or stadium seating), which meant that a lot of people could
see things on the stage only on the screens. As a result we
decided to skip the masquerade, which seems to have been a wise
decision. First, there were more prizes given out than there were
costumes. And many people reported that most of the
costumes/presentations were recreations that depended on your being
familiar with the originals in anime or wherever.
At one point, I thought I had lost something, so went to Program
Ops to ask about it. They said that lost-and-found was in the
Delta! Well, it was not quite that bad--things were taken to the
Delta at the end of the day. Still, having the lost-and-found a
half a kilometer away from where items were lost makes no sense.
We met a lot of old (and new) friends, of course, including
J. J. Pierce, the son of the Bell Labs science fiction author
J. R. Pierce, who also wrote as J. J. Coupling. And a big thank-
you to Robert Anstett, who helped me figure out why my netbook was
not finding any wireless networks on day.
There were about 3000 pre-registered members; the actual attendance
was about 3921. The economy undoubtedly played a part, and high
airfares kept some away. (Dan Kimmel said that in the spring when
he checked airfares from Boston, they were in the $500-$700 range.
He took the bus, which was $68 round-trip!) [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Corkage (letter of comment by Charles Harris)
In response to Evelyn's Worldcon convention report in the 09/11/09
issue of the MT VOID, Charles Harris writes, "Please explain:
'There was no clock. I doubt the convention centre would have
insisted they pay a corkage fee if they had put one in.'"
Earlier I had talked about food being provided by the convention
center at inflated prices. I was referring to the fee convention
centres/restaurants charge for people to bring their own food (or
wine) in, usually referred to as a "corkage fee", but I guess I had
not actually used the term. What I was saying was that while the
convention center might have charged a lot for providing a clock,
they probably would not have cared if the convention staff brought
one in. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Playing with Units in Physics (letter of comment by Ian
Gahan)
In response to Mark's comments on the speed of light and units in
the 07/24/09 issue of the MT VOID, Ian Gahan writes, "[You] were
discussing the speed of light and you did not complete the mantra
with "in a vacuum". Because of course the speed of light depends
on the medium. Anything from 0 to 186,000 miles/sec. This got me
thinking, surely it is possible to travel faster than the speed of
light, even in the same medium. How to do it? (This does smack of
resublimated thiotimoline :-). Fill a swimming pool with
bacteriorhodopsin. You might need an aqualung and a dry suit
before jumping into the pool. Next shine a light at one end of the
pool and race the light beam by swimming to the other end. You
should comfortably arrive at the other end before the beam of
light. Light travels at 0.091 mm/sec in bacteriorhodopsin. Not
sure that this will provide a means of traversing the galaxy
though." [-ig]
==================================================================
TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
WHY YOU SHOULD READ KAFKA BEFORE YOU WASTE YOUR LIFE (British
title: EXCAVATING KAFKA) by James Hawes (ISBN-13
978-0-312-37651-2, ISBN-10 0-312-37651-0) could have been
interesting, as Hawes sets out to demolish all the things we think
we know about Kafka. It starts out in a promising way, including a
(possibly) unintentional joke. When Hawes is talking about the
fame of Kafka and how it extends even to those who have not read
Kafka, he says, "The brooding face of Kafka has become the icon of
that K.-myth and his name, typographically irresistible to anyone
from west of the Rhine ... has entered the languages of the world
in the term kafkaesque, used wherever guiltless people are trapped
in some nightmarish bureaucratic catch-22." [page 5] Everyone
understands that sentence--even those who have never read Joseph
Heller!
But then he drifts into a world of his own making, where he is so
against that idea that there might be any truth in the "Tide of
History" theory that he writes:
"So when a recent biographer of Kafka (Nicholas Murray) writes with
a straight face of 'the long-standing debate about whether Kafka
foresaw the fate of the Jews in Nazi Europe,' I throw his book
across the room. '*Foresaw?*' Sorry, what is he trying to say?
That history is prewritten? That it is all out there already, just
sitting and waiting? This is no *debate*, this is plain and simple
tripe that belongs in 'Star Trek' or 'Dr. Who'." [page 89]
He does get one thing right: "Star Trek" and "Dr. Who" have been
fairly loyal to the notion that a time traveler cannot change
history, so in that sense "history is prewritten." (Hawes wrote
before the latest "Star Trek" movie.)
But the argument that just because history is not absolutely
predetermined, nothing can be foreseen is clearly poppycock. I can
foresee the sun will rise tomorrow. Japan could foresee when they
attacked Pearl Harbor that they would end up in a war with the
United States. The generals in World War I should have foreseen
the results of attempting mass charges against machine gun
emplacements. We all think that we can foresee the results of
Candidate A being elected rather than Candidate B, or vice versa.
We may be mistaken in some aspects, but if we did not think we
could foresee the results, voting would be a completely meaningless
action.
But Hawes makes even more radical claims. He writes of the anti-
Semitism in Prague: "In fact, in 1910 Prague, what we now see as
anti-Semitism was really anti-*Germanism*. ... the Jews of Prague
were attacked not because they were Jews as such, not because of
*what they were*, but because of the *political/linguistic choice
they had made*." [page 101-102] This seems to suggest that what
had been anti-Semitism for the last couple of thousand years
suddenly changed into anti-Germanism for twenty-five years, and
then changed back. And for the short period, the anti-Semitism was
apparently really the Jews' fault.
Ptui.
Hawes spends a full chapter of the book discussing Kafka's
pornography collection--with illustrations. While I understand the
need to discuss this in a serious analysis of Kafka's works, Hawes
is writing something less academic and more "commercial", and it
looks like pure opportunism.
Hawes discusses Kafka's two notes to Max Brod directing that his
papers be burned, and then says, "There's no doubt at all that
Kafka didn't mean a word of it. ... There really no doubt: when
Kafka instructed Brod to destroy his work, he didn't for one moment
expect it to happen." First of all, this is proof by intimidation:
Hawes gives no evidence, just declares his conclusion is obvious.
And secondly, what is his conclusion? Why, that Kafka *foresaw*
what would happen!
EAT MY GLOBE: ONE YEAR TO GO EVERYWHERE AND EAT EVERYTHING by Simon
Majumdar (ISBN-13 978-1-4165-7602-0, ISBN-10 1-4165-7602-9) is
supposedly about food, but it is heavily laced with anecdotes and
comments about travel, and also about "Clan Majumdar" (the author's
family). Unfortunately, the combination did not work for me.
[-ecl]
==================================================================
Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
That which is hateful to you, do not do
To your fellow. That is the whole Torah;
the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
-- Hillel