Hours

No need for dread;
the clock is by the bed
and it counts the quiet hours.
The dark is of a piece
with peace, a blessing and release
from daytime's brutal power,
and in it my rescued respiration's deep:
breathe in silence,
breathe out sleep.

June 19 2014

Unprovable and Intractable Hypotheses

The following is an incomplete list.

• Time loops occur with great frequency. A time loop is an phenomenon in which the "forward" flow of time and events is interrupted and restarts at an "earlier" point. Time loops are undetectable because the "original" event stream is overwritten by the the second event stream.
• Reality is digital. Everything we can detect exists in bits, not in an unbroken continuum. We cannot perceive the digital nature of our reality because we are confined to it. Likewise, we cannot detect the larger reality in which our local reality bits exist.
• There is only one consciousness in the universe. It jumps from one "conscious" organism, such as a human or a dog, to the next at unimaginably great speed, animating each organism and its thoughts, emotions, and memories. Each organism is animated so frequently that individuals perceive no interruption in the behavior of other organisms. No objective means exist for detecting the existence of a consciousness, making this hypothesis extremely difficult to test. We cannot prove or disprove that the process applies to us, because by definition we have no awareness during the instants when we are not animated. However, a breakdown in the consciousness switching process might afford proof, by allowing the detection of otherwise unexplainable lapses of consciousness in individuals other than ourselves.
• God does not exist. Conceivably provable, but requires elimination of every possible locus in which God might exist.
• God exists. Not inherently unprovable, but no universally accepted proof has yet been advanced.

June 11 2014

The Lighthouse

I have now become A. A. Milne.

Shall we climb the lighthouse
And look down
At all the tiny people going
Round the tiny town?
You can spy the ice cream man;
I will guard the railing;
Out upon the ocean
We will see the boats a-sailing.

June 1 2014