THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
10/26/12 -- Vol. 31, No. 17, Whole Number 1725
Ozzie: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Harriet: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Layout (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
The Trouble with One-Way (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
My Picks For Turner Classic Movies in November (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Extrapolation (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Return of the Vampire Blood Types (comments by Tom Russell)
DIGITAL RAPTURE: THE SINGULARITY ANTHOLOGY edited
by John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly (book review
by Joe Karpierz)
WHY THE WEST RULES--FOR NOW (book review
by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
Duck and Cover (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
What Is Science? (letter of comment by Greg Benford)
This Week's Reading (THE DREAM OF HEROES and THE DRAGON
WAITING) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
==================================================================
TOPIC: Layout (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I have been told that to be a true fanzine, one must have
illustrations and layout.
Okay, here's an illustration of the Loch Ness monster (courtesy
of Skidoo):
_mmmP
Is everyone happy now? [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: The Trouble with One-Way (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I never did like one-way streets. Up until their invention you
could always leave some place the way you came. With one-way
streets they can trap you. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: My Picks For Turner Classic Movies in November (comments by
Mark R. Leeper)
So, what am I recommending for November on TCM that others might
have missed? (All times are Eastern Daylight/Standard Times.)
BURN, WITCH, BURN (1962) is going to be shown Saturday, November
10, at 3:15 AM. I would hope this film is not all that obscure,
but not everybody seems to know it. Horror greats Richard Matheson
and Charles Beaumont adapt the novel CONJURE WIFE by another superb
fantasy writer, Fritz Leiber. The original tile of the film NIGHT
OF THE EAGLE was perhaps an allusion to NIGHT OF THE DEMON (a.k.a.
CURSE OF THE DEMON). And the two films have very nearly the same
stature. A college professor who rails against superstitious
beliefs discovers all of the faculty wives are witches and worse,
the witchcraft seems to work for them. The novel was adapted to
film at least two other times (albeit poorly). It was adapted as a
Universal Inner Sanctum mystery WEIRD WOMAN (1944) and uncredited
it was the basis for WITCHES' BREW (1980). But this is the version
to see. [Saturday, November 10, 3:15 AM]
One of Hammer Films's most under-appreciated films is a nifty
little cat and mouse game, THE SNORKEL (1958). Candy Brown's
mother dies unexpectedly, apparently of suicide. But Candy (Mandy
Miller) suspects what the viewer already knows--that her mother's
new husband murdered her. We know how the husband Paul (Peter Van
Eyck) made it look like her mother was alone in a locked room at
the time of the death. He finds clever ways of using a swimming
snorkel to fool the police and get away with murder. Candy has to
do her own detective work before Paul kills her too. This is a
very cleverly written thriller, quite different from other Hammer
crime films. [Wednesday, November 7, 7:30 AM]
Every once in a while a film comes out that clicks with people. It
will have little known actors who a few years later will all be
stars. A nothing cast given a few years will be an all-star cast.
In Britain such a film was TRAINSPOTTING. That will not be on TCM.
TCM will have DINER (1982). I am not sure this is still an obscure
film, but if you have not seen it you should. It is the first of
Barry Levinson's Baltimore films. It features very strong
character writing with people you think you know. Actors featured
in the film include Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke,
Kevin Bacon, Tim Daly, Ellen Barkin, and Paul Reiser. [Friday,
November 8, 3:45 AM and again Friday, December 21, 4:15 AM]
I have saved your brush with great literature for the last.
Thursday, November 8 at 3:30 AM TCM is running the great cinematic
triumph MOBY DICK (1930). What follows is a true and accurate
synopsis of the 1930 film MOBY DICK, starring John Barrymore (as
Ahab) and Joan Bennett. Noble Johnson plays Queequeg. It is based
on Herman Melville's classic of men and the sea.
The film opens with the camera moving in for a look at the book
Moby Dick, or The White Whale. The novel begins, "There never was,
nor ever will be, a braver life than the life of the whaler.
Compared to the game they hunted the mightiest land beast was but a
poodle dog." [Boy, that Melville! He sure can write!]
Fade to the harbor of the New Bedford seaport. The Mary Anne is
pulling into harbor; all eyes are on the callow young seaman doing
acrobatics on top of the mast. Why, it's handsome young Ahab
showing off again! Ahab comes ashore and flirts with some of the
girls and hilariously insults others. ("If they cut into you
they'd certainly get plenty of blubber.") Ahab sees his brother
Derek escorting a new girl in town--Faith, the parson's daughter--
to church. Ahab is struck with Faith's beauty but decides to go to
the grog shop instead of church. There Ahab meets Queequeg, a
primitive man who carries an idol he talks to. Queequeg becomes
Ahab's sidekick. Eventually Ahab does go to church and flirts with
Faith.
Before long Faith is losing interest in Derek's courting because,
like all the girls, she is intrigued by the handsome Ahab. As Ahab
is setting sail again Faith tells him that it is he, not Derek,
that she loves. They agree to marry when Ahab returns.
Ahab and the Mary Anne are at sea when Ahab sights Moby Dick, the
black whale with a white hump and forehead. [This allows the use
of stock footage.] As Ahab and his cronies chase the whale in the
long boat, Ahab takes one risk too many. The whale turns on Ahab
and bites him. Ahab loses a leg and it is replaced by a peg.
When Faith sees Ahab is returning she is overjoyed. But when she
sees the peg leg she is momentarily shocked and runs away. Weeks
later, we see Ahab unable to get work as a whaler. Faith asks
Derek to tell Ahab that she still loves Ahab. Derek twists the
message so Ahab thinks Faith does not really love him. Derek then
tells Faith that Ahab has cursed her.
Ahab goes to sea for seven years, but not as a whaler. Faith
realizes too late that she should not have trusted Derek. Eagerly
she awaits Ahab's return. Eventually Ahab manages to buy his own
whaling ship, the Shanghai Lady. He sails it back to New Bedford
to get a crew to go after Moby Dick.
[It should be noted that we are now fifty minutes into a seventy-
five-minute movie and are ready to start telling Melville's story.
Melville tells only the last third of the story, which, of course,
is why Moby Dick is such a thin book.]
Ahab is unable to get a crew so must shanghai one from the brothels
and grog shops. The meaner and nastier the crew, the better, he
decided since he really wants revenge on Moby Dick. Once at sea,
however, the shanghaied crew is surly and unmanageable. They are
cutthroats one and all. There is one exception. It is Derek who
was shanghaied onto the Shanghai Lady with the rest. Derek finds
out his brother Ahab is the captain, but the mates don't believe it
and will not let him see Ahab.
During a storm Derek decides to break out of the hold to confront
Ahab. The rest of the crew take this opportunity to mutiny. With
storm and mutiny raging, Derek finds Ahab at the wheel and accuses
him of intentionally shanghaiing him. The two fight and Ahab is
winning when Derek throws a knife into Ahab's back. Queequeg--
Ahab's old friend--picks up Derek and breaks his back. There is no
explanation about what happened to the mutiny, but it seems to have
ended by the next scene.
Fair weather returns, but Ahab is depressed. He decides Moby Dick
has beaten him. "He's licked me, Mr. Stubbs," he says. Just then
Moby Dick is sighted. The longboats hit the water. Moby Dick
turns on Ahab's longboat but Ahab swims to the whale and,
demoniacally laughing, repeatedly stabs the whale with a harpoon.
Moby Dick dies. We last see pieces of Moby Dick being cut up on
the deck of the Shanghai Lady.
Ahab and the Shanghai Lady return to New Bedford. There Ahab
discovers that Faith has waited for him. The two fall into each
other's arms.
Boy, that Herman Melville! He sure can write! [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Extrapolation (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
In one country we went to we discovered that getting lunch was very
confusing. First of all, there were no prices on the menu. We
asked how much the hamburger combination was and were told it was
$10. But when the bill came, it totaled $30. In addition to the
$10 for the food, then was a charge of $5 for the use of the plate,
$1 for the use of the silverware, $3 for the server, and $2 for the
busboy, as well as a $2 water charge, a $3 electricity charge, and
a $4 gas charge. When we pulled out our credit card the waiter
looked at it and said that they had a 10% discount for that card.
(We discovered later that a different card had a 50% discount.)
After we left, they sent a supplementary $20 bill to our hotel for
a table charge, a ketchup charge, and a chef's charge.
And the name of this country? HealthInsuranceLand. [-ecl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Return of the Vampire Blood Types (comments by Tom Russell)
It would be very boring if all humans were clones of each other.
And if it were not possible to breed and cultivate animals and
plants for characteristics we want, life as we know it wouldn't be
possible. There would be no edible potatoes, not to mention no
french fries.
New variations come about when a cosmic ray interferes with
copulation. Well, not exactly. Variations persist and come to
dominate due to what is called "natural selection" if humans have
nothing to do with it and "science" if we do. Well, not exactly.
Blue eyes are more common in people than in horses. Copulation.
We have a "natural selection" for blue eyes but horses don't.
One intriguing variation in humans is in our sense of taste: some
people have several times as many taste buds as usual--the so-
called "super tasters"--while other people have only a small
fraction of the "normal" complement of taste buds--the "hot pepper
eaters." One explanation for this variation: When the only
alternative is starvation the super tasters have protected us from
eating poisons while the poor tasters experimented with Thai food.
Another interesting variation in Homo sapiens concerns our color
vision: some people's eyes have receptor cells tuned to one red
wavelength while most people's eyes are tuned to a different red
wavelength. The explanation for the persistence of this human
variation is more speculative--perhaps it's why you like medium-
well and your spouse likes medium-rare.
Now to "reprise" the mystery I enjoyed writing about for MT VOID a
while back: human blood types. Certainly variations in blood cells
are to be expected just as variations in all other human
characteristics. And the variations would persist, and perhaps
become dominant, if there is a natural--or unnatural--selection
process. How could the "universal donor" blood type become a
common variation? Think about it--the only possibility is
vampires. [-tlr]
Mark responds:
Everybody's taste diminishes with time. This has made it harder to
tell, but I just read a science article saying that spicy food does
not decrease sensitivity.
http://tinyurl.com/void-taste-buds
It could be that the secret is of enjoying piquancy (to quote the
film LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) not minding that it hurts. That is not
the same thing as decreased sensitivity. So hot pepper eaters may
be no less sensitive than others. I do know that Evelyn and I pick
up on very different flavors in food.
I suspect that on the red wavelength question you would find that
there are more than just two. It probably is a continuum of
wavelengths and different people would pick up on different
wavelengths in that continuum.
I am not so sure if you get down to the blood cell level there is
still variation from one person to the next. That would have to be
shown. And going further I think we are all made of the same
electrons, protons, and neutrons. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: DIGITAL RAPTURE: THE SINGULARITY ANTHOLOGY edited by John
Kessel and James Patrick Kelly (book review by Joe Karpierz)
(copyright 2012, Tachyon Publications, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-616-
96070-4) (book review by Joe Karpierz)
[In response to Dale Skran's book review of SINGULARITY RISING in
the 10/19/12 issue of the MT VOID, Joe Karpierz wrote:
I read with much interest the review by Dale L. Skran, Jr., of
SINGULARITY RISING. My plan for the weekend is to write my review
of DIGITAL RAPTURE: THE SINGULARITY ANTHOLOGY, edited by John
Kessel and James Patrick Kelly, from Tachyon Publications. The
pair of these books might serve as a nice set of volumes to have
for those folks who are interested in the Singularity. It's also
weirdly coincidental that the two reviews will be appearing in the
MT VOID in potentially back to back issues. [-jk]
And here it is.]
The concept of the Singularity has fascinated many a science
fiction writer for the last twenty years or so, roughly since
Vernor Vinge wrote his now famous paper on the subject. The
singularity is, for the uninitiated and more or less in my own
words, that point in time where rate of technological change will
be greater than our human mind can comprehend, at which point the
human race may become obsolete, possibly enslaved by the Artificial
Intelligence that we ourselves created. It is suggested, for
example, that at some point the human race will create a machine
with intelligence equal to its own, which will in turn create more
intelligent machines itself until at some point the human race
becomes obsolete--at least in its current form.
The Singularity is the subject of a new anthology published by
Tachyon Publications, DIGITAL RAPTURE: THE SINGULARITY ANTHOLOGY,
edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel. This isn't the kind
of anthology where an editor or two put together a bunch of stories
about something and called it a book. This is almost a scholarly
work, a study of the subject of the Singularity. True, there's a
bunch of fiction here, a lot of stories by some pretty big names in
the field, but there is an insightful introduction by the editors,
wherein they discuss what follows, as well as some essays about the
subject, including the aforementioned paper by Vinge. The book is
divided into four thematic sections, each of which includes fiction
and an essay related to the particular theme of that section.
Kelly and Kessel group stories and essays together in order to make
a particular point about the Singularity, and it feels to me that
they succeeded in that endeavor.
Lest you think that Singularity stories are only a recent
phenomenon, the first story in the book is "The Last Question", by
Isaac Asimov, which I'd read in my youth but haven't returned to
since then. Also included from back in the day is Frederik Pohl's
"Day Million". Asimov's story takes humanity into the far future
in which we are no longer corporeal, and the final question leads
to, in my mind, what could be interpreted as the existence of God
as created by humans, which is a very odd twist indeed. The Pohl
starts out as a love story, but really is much more than that as we
learn about the future in which our two "protagonists" live. The
first section, "The End of the Human Era", also has a non-fiction
piece by J.D. Bernal from 1929, which discusses his view of what
the human body could become in the future.
The next section, "The Posthumans", contains fiction by Olaf
Stapledon (in this case, a chapter from his novel ODD JOHN), Bruce
Sterling, and Rudy Rucker & Eileen Gunn. All of these stories
involve posthumans living alongside "regular" humans, both trying
to find their way through the situation they are in. This section
also contains what is the non-fiction centerpiece of the book,
Vernor Vinge's famous paper on the Singularity. My favorite here
is Rucker and Gunn's "Hive Mind Man", a love story that ends with
humanity being just a bit different than it was before the story
started.
The section "Across the Event Horizon" deals with what happens on
the other side of the Singularity. The section leads off with a
piece by Ray Kurzweil entitled "The Six Epochs", and contains
stories by Greg Egan, David D. Levine, Vernor Vinge, and Justina
Robson. The strongest stories here, and my favorites in the
section, are Levine's "Firewall", in which once things start
getting out of control, the Singularity gets here in no time, and
the world joins in the fun at the end; and Vinge's "The Cookie
Monster", which won the Hugo award and just starts making your head
spin a bit before it's all over.
"The Others", the final section of the book, is where things get a
bit difficult and weird, which is to say mostly interesting and
somewhat mind boggling. We have stories here by Charles Stross,
Robert Reed, Hannu Rajaniemi, Elizabeth Bear, and the team of Cory
Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum. Rudy Rucker makes a return
appearance with the non-fiction piece "The Awakening", in which
Rucker lets his imagination run wild about the future, yet still
grounds his speculation about the future in some sensibility as to
let the reader think that "hey yeah, this *could* happen". The
stories in this section of the book are probably the most
difficult. I'd read the Stross before as part of the novel
ACCELERANDO, and I still, to this day, love the image of
intelligent entities flying around in a spaceship the size of a
Coke can. The most straightforward story is the Rajaniemi, "The
Server and the Dragon", an abstract piece about a network router
and the enemy it encounters, and one which I liked nearly as much
as I liked the Stross. Bear's "The Inevitable Heat Death of the
Universe" is almost so weird that my brain had a hard time wrapping
itself around what was going on, but perversely enough I enjoyed
the story anyway. The centerpiece of the section is Doctorow and
Rosenbaum's "True Names", which is so abstract yet for me, so
compelling, that I still am having a difficult time figuring out
what it is I read. "Coelacanths", by Robert Reed, just did not
work for me.
I still haven't decided, as I write this, whether Kelly and Kessel
are trying to say anything in particular about the state of
Singularity fiction in science fiction today, or whether they're
just giving us a thematic presentation about how *they* see the
field today. In either case, the stories in this anthology are
certainly not for everyone. Let me make it clear that some of
these stories are difficult to read and difficult in concept, and
"True Names" trumps the rest of the fiction in this book in that
regard. I guess it's also a question of whether the reader
believes in the concept of the Singularity, that the reader
believes the Singularity will come to pass. And I don't much think
we need to know or care whether Kelly and Kessel believe it--
they've presented an excellent sampling of Singularity fiction and
non-fiction, and they've left it up to the reader to decide
whatever they want about the subject. Let me repeat that this is
not light reading, but I'm dertainly not trying to scare you away.
I want you to be aware that there is little light banter here that
will make you laugh out loud, that in fact this material will keep
your brain on overload for days after you finish it.
But really, don't hold that against it. While I admit to being
predisposed to liking the book because I am fascinated by the
concept of the Singularity, I was certainly not disappointed at all
in the stories and essays that were presented here. This is a
terrific anthology, and I highly recommend it. Kelly and Kessel
have edited some other anthologies for Tachyon Publications. Based
on this one, I'll have to look at some of the others. If they are
as good as this one, I'm in for a treat. [-jak]
==================================================================
TOPIC: WHY THE WEST RULES--FOR NOW: THE PATTERNS OF HISTORY, AND
WHAT THEY REVEAL ABOUT THE FUTURE by Ian Morris (book review by
Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
As a bit of an introduction, I'd like to explain why this book
might be of interest to SF fans. First, I have never read a history
book that made such large usage of the thinking of SF writers such
as Heinlein and Asimov. In fact, the axis of the entire book is a
quote from Heinlein, "Progress is made by lazy men looking for
easier ways to do things," and he refers to Heinlein as "the great
science fiction writer ..." Ideas from Asimov's FOUNDATION and
NIGHTFALL are given considerable time on stage as well. Secondly,
Morris loves to write historical counterfactuals that will be of
immense interest to the serious fan of alternative history SF.
Finally, Morris concludes by driving the book write off the edge of
history into SF land, by concluding that sometime in the next forty
years either NIGHTFALL or the Singularity will come to pass, and in
either case the question of whether the West rules and why will be
moot. In the case of NIGHTFALL, because no one will be alive to
rule anyone else, and in the case of the Singularity the concept of
the East and West will cease to have any meaning.
By now you may be thinking that this is some kind of light-weight
pop-sci book, but as can be quickly told from the jacket blurbs,
WHY THE WEST RULES is a "New York Times Book Review" Editors Choice
and an "Economist" best book of the year. No less than the famous
Jared Diamond, author of GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL and COLLAPSE heaps
high praise as well. This is a serious book, 750 pages long, with
extensive footnotes and bibliography. However, Morris is quite
readable, and any repetitious patterns derive from history itself
rather than his prose.
I hope by now you have some idea why I might have found this book
interesting. Morris deserves a lot of credit for his efforts to
create an index of social development that can be used to compare
the East with the West, and also each civilization over time.
There is an enormous amount of stuff in WHY THE WEST RULES that
strikes me as very close to the real truth. Morris disposes quite
handily of so-called long-term lock-in theories based on ideas of
European racial superiority. It is also hard to attribute the
success of the West to one brilliant person or a stroke of luck.
Morris also makes a good case that although the success of the West
has never been "locked in" once we passed A.D. 1500 the odds were
on the side of the West and they got better with every passing
year.
Morris finally concludes that the fundamental reason for the
success of the West lies in accidents of geography, mainly that the
Atlantic Ocean is smaller than the Pacific. I found this less than
totally convincing, but there are several other areas where I think
Morris goes astray. One major flaw in Morris's approach is his
definition of the West. From the viewpoint of Morris, the "West"
is a core civilization that started in Egypt and Sumeria, and
gradually moved westward, first to Greece, then to Rome, next to
England and France, and finally across the Atlantic to the United
States. Although this allows for the comparison of "Western" with
"Eastern" civilization over a long period of time, what these
comparisons really reveal is that the "West" and "East" were quite
similar, and had similar levels of social development and
technology for a long period of time, i.e., 10,000 years. It is
really only with the scientific Renaissance and then the Industrial
Revolution that the West gained any kind of meaningful lead.
Morris's telling of the story is rather tortured, as he first tries
to explain that the Islamic Caliphate was the "western core" rather
than an Oriental empire of the old sort, and then explain why if
the Islamic Empire was successful for a while why then did it fail
so badly later on. This is the worst part of book and at times
seems more of an apology for Islamic government than an objective
evaluation of how it might have impeded economic progress. The
simplistic explanation is that neither the Islamic Empire nor
Byzantium should be considered part of the "West" although clearly
they were influenced by Western ideas.
It seems obvious to me that in spite of all the efforts Morris goes
to attribute the success of the West to geography, it is due
instead to a combination of necessary historical progress combined
with several key ideas that became dominant in the West and not in
China (this is really what Morris means by the "East"). The
necessary historical step is the closing of the Asian steppe to
migration and disease using gunpowder armies on both sides of Asia.
This allowed both China and Western Europe to develop without any
new Genghis Khans disrupting civilization. Although this was
necessary, it was not sufficient. I think that some combined
critical mass of ideas were required, including religions with one
god running a clock work universe, a belief in the idea of
progress, a failing of the power of kings and the rise of the
merchants, a turning away from religion as the main focus of life
to commerce, competition between political bodies, a willingness to
take significant risks, and most importantly, a national focus on
colonization. Colonization is important since it creates a
periphery that shares values with the core, but at the same time is
open to new ideas and ways of doing things, allowing for rapid
adoption of advantageous technologies and ideas. Morris well
understands how growth often comes in less developed areas, but his
analysis of colonization is superficial. By colonization, I mean,
of course, a permanent and large-scale movement of population. By
this standard, England colonized America, but certainly not India.
In spite of the size of the Pacific, China could have used its
large ships to create a trading empire including Japan, Australia,
the Philippines and other Pacific islands if the Chinese were less
inward and backward focused. Morris presents all the facts, but
dismisses the role of values and behavior.
Morris also dismisses the role of biology, and this may be
appropriate because biology played little role the competition
between East and West he describes. However, both Western
Europeans and the Chinese had significant genetic advantages over
other civilizational cores, especially those in the Americas. Both
the Western Europeans and the Chinese had developed strong immune
systems from long periods of being crowded together and also from
exchanging germs with each other. Whichever civilization (West or
East) reached America first, Native Americans were dead from the
first handshake. Also, both the Western Europeans and the Chinese
had developed a substantial tolerance of alcohol that gave them (or
would have given them) an advantage in the Americas. Finally,
Western Europeans were also mainly able to digest milk. My point
here is that biology did have a big impact on history (see THE
10,000 YEAR EXPLOSION), just not on the East/West competition
Morris focuses on.
Along about page 617 Morris says "If, as I suspect will happen, we
are still holding Nightfall at bay in the mid twenty-first century
and social development is soaring past two thousand points, the
emerging Singularity will not so much end the race as transform the
race--and above all, transform the human race." Such thoughts are
commonplace in SF, from Stapledon to Sterling to Stross, but
hearing them in a "New York Times Book Review" Editors Choice book
makes me think that something is afoot. You may disagree with many
of Morris's points but it is hard to ignore the fundamental message
of his book--there is a tide in the affairs of men, and it is
sweeping us faster and faster toward a Singularity or utter
disaster. For further thought on this topic, check out my review
of SINGULARITY RISING by James D. Miller. Alternatively, just wait
forty years and observe current events. [-dls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Duck and Cover (letter of comment by Fred Lerner)
In response to Mark's comments on duck-and-cover drills in the
10/19/12 issue of the MT VOID, Fred Lerner writes:
There was a recent nationwide earthquake drill--and the procedure
that participants were urged to follow sounded very much like that
old "duck and cover" from our schooldays! [-fl]
Mark responds:
For a certain range of destructive power it is a very sensible
defense. [-mrl]
==================================================================
TOPIC: Wednesday's Child (letter of comment by John Sloan)
In response to Mark's comments on birthdays in the 10/19/12 issue
of the MT VOID ("Most people my age were born on a Wednesday."),
John Sloan writes:
How weird! ME TOO! With our sample of two, I think we're on to
something here. [-jls]
==================================================================
TOPIC: What Is Science? (letter of comment by Greg Benford)
In response to Mark's comments on mathematics in "my flange" in the
10/12/12 issue of the MT VOID, Gregory Benford writes:
Mathematics is a not science since it cannot be falsified by
observation, my friend. It does not predict, it proves by logic.
Useful, true--but more like music, thus their similar locations in
the brain. [-gb]
Mark responds:
Well, you are more of an expert on science than I am, but I
disagree. Don't physics and mathematics both deal in conjectures
that that can be falsified by observation?
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disproved_mathematical_ideas
Further I predict that if I sat down and added up natural numbers
from 1 to 1000 I would get 500500 as the sum. But I agree that
mathematics has a beauty not unlike good music. [-mrl]
Greg says:
Maybe it's a definition difference: by observation you mean logic;
I mean experiment.
Logic has no error bars... [-gb]
Mark replies:
It is a question of what we want the words to mean. But there are
sciences that make observations but without error bars. Psychology
has no error bars. Of course, psychology is an inexact science and
mathematics is a very exact discipline. [-mrl]
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TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
I find myself at a bit of a loss this week. I am still reading THE
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE by Edward Gibbon and am now in
volume two of the three volumes. I am also still working through
MOBY DICK by Herman Melville for annotations. I started THE DREAM
OF HEROES by Adolfo Bioy-Casares but found it totally un-engaging,
even though it was described as mysterious and phantasmagorical. I
was going to re-read THE DRAGON WAITING by John M. Ford, hoping for
some speculation on a world in which Julian the Apostate lived long
enough to have a lasting effect on the religious make-up of the
Roman Empire, but there did not seem to be much of that. (Indeed,
when I first read it, I was stuck by how "un-alternate" it seemed.)
Actually, it is disappointing to see how few alternate histories
have been written based on a longer reign for Julian (and
presumably a shorter one for Theodosius). In English, in addition
to THE DRAGON WAITING, there is John Christopher's "Fireball"
trilogy and Robert Reginald's "Nova Europa" trilogy, and that's it.
The mid-4th century was critical to the character of Western
civilization. Had Julian not died in 363, but lived on for another
twenty years, Theodosius would not have become emperor in 379, and
by the time someone did succeed Julian, the equal treatment Julian
gave to all Christians would have left them divided into many rival
groups, none of which would have been powerful enough to seize
control. (The major dispute was between the Arians and the
Catholics. Theodosius backed the Catholics and ruthlessly
suppressed the Arians. Under Julian neither would have been able
to gain ascendency. [-ecl]
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Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Your manuscript is both good and original.
However, that which is good is not original,
and that which is original is not good.
--Samuel Johnson