Face Value

Someone who accepts anything at “face value” is considered naive and shallow. We have been taught from the cradle that everything is complex, nothing is exactly as it appears, and if you trust your first impressions you will be in trouble .

A certain amount of cynicism is probably healthy. “Face value” is often only one aspect of anything. But – and this is the most important fact – it is usually the most important and obvious facet of anything. In many cases face value is all we need to judge things. A healthy looking apple is probably a fruit that is good for you. Something that quacks and looks like a duck is probably a duck .

One reason that everyone is so worried and nervous could be that they cannot take anything for granted. Maybe that apple is poisoned, or is overpriced, or represents terrible labor practices or elimination of nature or … Maybe that duck is really a clever robotic bomb. There is no end to the fractal, increasingly minor and implausible qualifications and contradictions .

And yet – we mostly exist at the level of “face value”. Sometimes it is a good idea to simply accept things as they appear to be, to not dissect them too deeply. Life and consciousness after all, are limited. Pursuing below face value may cost us much of our precious time, our happiness, and our sanity.

Like Sleeping Beauty, I’ll probably take a big bite of that delicious looking apple while the duck looks on and the hell with it …

Scientist

Until recently, scientists were heroes of the age. Now they are often mocked or even reviled. Science, which used to be the jewel of our culture, is now disdainfully ignored by those who trust common sense and intuition. What happened ?

Many would say “hubris.” But that’s too simple. The definition of science enlarged to include – well – almost everything “good.” Products were “new and improved” by science. All of our problems would be solved by science. A true scientist, certified, by definition must always be right.

And, of course, that was all malarky. Science does depend on a lot of “real” things – observation, logic, experimentation, and – not least – sorting things into a useful and sensible pattern. As does – for example – common sense and personal experience. But nothing is infallible. And all human activities are complex probabilities in an unknowable future .

I accept the scientific structure of physical reality. Within reason, I try to behave as a scientist. I do not _ like many – reject this knowledge and the wonders it delivers. However, I also utilize common sense, personal observation, and probability calculation in navigating my enchanted conscious existence. The best of many worlds, mixed into grateful excitement .

Magic

When I was a boy, “magic” had been confined to church. After world war II, everyone assumed “Yankee ingenuity” could fix anything, often with little more than “string and bailing wire”. Farm boys were all mechanical geniuses, City kids knew how to outfox anybody. All was – or would soon be – knowable and under control .

As examples, we fixed our own flat tires, changed oil. When a TV or radio didn’t function, I’d take vacuum tubes out to test and buy at Radio Shack. Even later, I knew how transistor “gates” worked and could program in binary (zeros and ones) or assembly. TV or newspaper news was limited, trustworthy, opinion confined to editorial pages .

Now? It’s all magic. Even mechanics can’t fix new cars, God himself couldn’t repair a broken circuit board. I have no idea how quantum computers work, nor how AI is programmed. And all sources of “news” are slanted and suspect .

In fact, once again, we inhabit a world of magic as profound and (possibly) as dark as anything in the Middle Ages. We know how to (mostly) talk and provide services for money, shop, consume, and be entertained. A few “experts” know a lot – or claim they know a lot – about increasingly tiny bits of esoterica .

That makes the residual child in me quite uneasy. Without understanding I still believe real control is impossible .

Ripples

Our minds can do amazing acrobatics. They can weave complex stories out of anything. Today, for example, I am thinking about ripples and life .

Ripples are pretty gentle and meaningless variations on a water surface. I love watching them on a bay, or as a brook tumbles along. They may sparkle if sunlight hits correctly. Perhaps they indicate something underneath, or merely that a puff of wind is passing by. Impossible to predict, infinitely numerous, gone in an instant, and replaced by another ripple. Sometimes alone, often in sets. And …

But, wait, how does that relate to life? Well I realize how many of the events of our own lives are very like those ripples. Beautiful, constant, but often rapidly gone and meaningless as other events crowd in .

It is important, I think, to help keep events in perspective. We need to know when something is not simple and fleeting. That is one of the true tricks of success, and often very hard to realize. Is that pretty ripple just a delight, or does it disguise a huge wave or other danger ?

Fortunately, this morning it seems that everything I notice is simply of ripple nature. I can lean back and enjoy the patterns .

High Tide

Another “high tide advisory” has been issued. Sea levels are higher. Along the Northeast coast, where I’ve lived most of my life, the wide beaches are being swept away, towns on barrier Islands are facing destruction, coastal flooding is frequent. Although the rise has been incremental so far, melting glaciers could someday cause catastrophe .

Well, it’s one of many things I’ve seen change. Nasty weather patterns. Common insects, birds, animals vanishing. Open land privatized and restricted. Garbage and traffic and . . . The list is immense. I have no real complaints. I’ve experienced almost all that I could in what was – for me – the best of all possible worlds. And I know each generation must face a different time. I may regret that the younger people will never enjoy what I did, but surely there will be other pleasures.

Some predict a variety of horrible apocalypses. Some predict a geoengineered, AI-directed paradise of long life and sybaritic existence. I reserve judgment. But surely some innocence and freedom has been lost.

Although helpless in the grander scenarios, there are still daily joys. A niche of parks, food, friends. Enveloped frequently by nostalgic memories. For the most part, I can ignore worries about my shortened future. Pay little attention to all the many things that seem to be going wrong.

Including high tide .

I, Singularity

Computer buzz these days centers around artificial intelligence, and the possible looming “singularity”. Depending on who is talking, that either means when a computer becomes more intelligent than a human, or when that computer achieves consciousness. At that point they say, the universe is rebuilt just as it was at the big bang .

There seem to be two dueling expectations, both driven by greed. Some believe that the machine will then effectively be a kind of god, able to do anything. And controlled by the cybernetic priests who may discover they’ve created the devil instead. Others hope to be able to transmute their flesh into silicon and metal, thereby achieving the age old quest for immortality. Why their consciousness should survive the transition from flesh is never considered, for they like to think of themselves as purely creatures of logic. That is, of course, illogical .

As for the universe – well, there are already multiple universes – one for each person alive and anyone who has ever lived. “The” universe is largely a fantasy. There’s an old SF joke that any superintelligent machine that achieves consciousness would survey “everything” logically, decide it was all irrelevant or futile, and immediately turn itself off .

Each of those people working towards computer omniscience is already a singularity. You are a singularity. And, yes, singularity am I.

Fear of Flying

I can sort of understand people’s interest in night drones in New Jersey. Anything new and different provokes curiosity. Most people ignore the sky all the time in their hermetically sealed lives, so looking up is in itself provocative .

What I don’t get is the fear. “What are they doing?” But what do folks think they could do? These are, after all, just the tiny toy versions (for the most part) of vehicles. “But, but, but” say the frightened. Congress demands answers .

We have a hard time evaluating risk. Any bicycle, yard crew, scooter, delivery van, or neighbor’s car could easily deliver a “suitcase atomic bomb” to my neighborhood. I am very likely to be accidentally injured in thousands of ways. Any drunk driver or armed angry 15-year-old could end my life at any moment. Google has mapped every house, GPS shows every way to get there. What is a poor drone to do ?

As far as flying devices – well I may be atypical in that I’m under a flight path and huge jets fly over our house all the time. Helicopters rush to the hospital, help police, ferry the wealthy to resorts or New York City. Small aircraft buzz all over, presumably for pleasure. All of them are quite dangerous – the Avianca disaster happened a few miles away .

But as often in these manic times, novelty is far more interesting than logic. A fad driven culture, leaving little time and energy for more serious concerns .

Changing Leaves

Autumnal equinox has arrived once again. Maples and dogwood are tinged with red, some of the ornamental shrubs have gone even further. Not sure what this one will be like. I remember a brilliant flaming fall in New Hampshire in the 1970s, when foliage almost hurt the eye. And more recently a few here on Long Island had trees just turn brown and drop.

Variety is one of the enchantments. Not only the seasonal changes, but also what kind of season it will be. Most such memories, at my age, are soon lost, embedded in similar long-term remembrances, but living through another period of cool creeping darkness and the Earth’s responses is always fascinating .

I try to greet each day with enthusiasm, each moment with zest. But it is rewarding to recognize the long swell of differing patterns as a solar cycle goes by. Makes a year resemble a lifetime. The coloring of leaves here is a fine marker .

Most songs and poems characterize Autumn as sadness. Winter is coming, harsh and dreadful. The joys of Summer freedom and carefree existence are gone. I never felt that way, and now even less so. I welcome the reminder of impermanence, and the cycles that overcome it .

So I go out and admire the views. Long forest vista, individual masterpieces on a twig. All part of glorious, miraculous existence. And I still appreciate them in wonder .

Practical

We inhabit an age of miracles. “Impossible” has become a label only used by those ignorant of possibilities. There is no quicker way to be labeled a curmudgeon than to tell someone their dream or plan is “impossible”.

We also live in a society that dislikes absolutes. Most things are considered “relative.” “Impossible” has about as as much finality as can be expressed. It can only be used when politeness no longer matters. The “impractical” then becomes very useful. Since it only indicates “almost impossible”, “unlikely”, “probably a waste of time”, it is relative and less forbidding. Telling someone it is “impossible” that they saw a fairy flying in the garden is nasty. It is much less combative to say it is “impractical to believe that unless proof is offered .”

“Practical” thus would seem to indicate high praise. But it also has limitations. It works best with the short term, familiar, and local. It’s practical to plan what to do tomorrow, less so to schedule a year, decade, or century from now .

Used excessively, “practical” is also limiting. Visions narrow, often too much. It is sometimes healthy to venture into the unfamiliar. Out of the rut. Maybe not quite “impossible”, but dreams that let us stretch .

Too complicated? Ah yes, why it is hard to teach children or reform ourselves. Hard, but practical and never, thankfully, quite impossible .

Memories

How we encode memories is one of the great mysteries of biology. An even greater one is how we retrieve them. And of course you and I both know how hard it may be to use them well .

I admit I try to mostly live life in the present. But as I become more sedentary with age, memories become all the more important ways to pass time. Some are frozen, some are tarnished, some are golden. And I am very well aware of gaps and imperfections .

Any memory is an amazing thing. It might be sharp or foggy, include all senses or only a few. Might present itself as if I am reliving it, or might show up as if I were an observer of the scene. And for that matter, might be real or simply a deep recollection of something dreamed or encountered as a book or a movie .

We used to think that at least near term memories, very vivid, were nearly infallible. Now we distrust eyewitness accounts, not to mention our own impressions. Again, as I age, I find the older memories a lot more solid than yesterday’s. We can truly believe what never really happened .

I only hope I do not become like other elders I have known. They can – and do – repeat the same story often in the same words thinking it is fresh to the audience. But, honestly, in spite of the hyped drug advertisements, there is not much I can do except enjoy the weird ride wherever it goes .