Was there a Beginning?

Musings. 

Sometimes the yearning for an understanding of the full expanse of existence, the Sein, almost hurts. 

The sense of the immensity of what there is hurts in all it's infinite aspects: The earth, the universe, the presence, past and future. The own existence, whose beginning is nothing but fog to all but the parents who now vanish with this, their unique knowledge of my first days. Even the tiny splinter in the grand scheme of things, of our own history is largely unexplored. So many paths not taken, so much love not given, so much not seen, even though it was in plain sight, so much not understood in spite of all efforts. 

All this comes into focus here in the cabin's own forest, my forest as it were, here where the silence is so loud that the ears are ringing from the voices of the past and the choir of desires. Only the sudden stillness allows these to be heard. 

Subconsciously the eyes rise to see the distance, the deep blue sky, or, later in the evening, the stars that shine here as bright as they shone everywhere before industrialization. In German the word for heaven and sky is the same. Makes so much sense when the eyes drift up to gauge scale. 

Humans do this, stare at the moon and conjure up deep thoughts or even deeper longings. Think of love, a lover and the heart becomes heavy. This is never fully explained anywhere but the heart is always heavier with the moon in sight, no matter what cardiologists may think or why dogs howl at the moon. 

For perspective I like to look at the stars. While the moon makes one feel heavy, the stars give the thoughts wings. They make earthly heaviness appear so laughably small to become  ridiculous. Of course in the month of darkness, in December, we string stars to trees and to rooftops to ensure ourselves their enjoyment even when it is cloudy.  

Stars open the view into the past, so far beyond the own small fog of birth that, with a stiff neck from staring straight up, the enormity of what is in view of the bare eye escapes any grasp. All this is supposed to  once have come out of a singularity smaller than an atom? And  has been expanding ever since and getting colder with stars and galaxies being swallowed and others born? The upheaval is so slow, though, that seafarers even now could  use celestial maps from Columbus' time and would still find their route through the night with reasonable accuracy. 

At the cabin I am torn between contemplation and basic direct action: Chopping wood, making a fire in the stove, cooking, love, clearing trails or hiking. Sitting on the porch or on a stump observing the sun rise or set, gazing at the mountain ridge barely visible through the trees. Both, contemplation and action, elevate the urge to read, to understand and to write.  Act, contemplate and report, a trifecta so hard to bring into the right balance. 

Writing is the art of taming wildly tumbling thoughts, emotions and yearnings into an abstract of symbols, domesticating them to being words, nailing down what resists grounding. Making permanent what is fleeting. Giving order to what is chaos, making communicable what is locked deep inside. All that is what it means to find words, to write them down and to string them together.  

But that act is also a terrible reduction, an injustice to reality, words are not even a shadow of the real things; furthermore, writing stops or slows the onslaught of new thoughts and turns treacherous torrents into tame trickles and placid and navigable waters. 

The letters, whether on a screen or on paper, are incarnations of failure. But the failure to match reality also spells success because the reduction of complexity is a condition of understanding, a necessity for finding patterns, laws and meaning in the chaos. 

Maybe that is what is meant with the famous opening statement in the gospel of John "in the beginning was the word". He continues, "The word became flesh" per the King James Bible and per Luther's German translation,  flesh instead of Theon, god, an interesting choice of words. 

This puts the symbol and the abstract in front of and before the objects that they describe: idealism in pure form. God, then, is a principle that humans derive from the overwhelming complexity that surrounds them and of which they are part. God as logos and logos as god. No god without logos and no logos without god, which, of course makes an anthroprocentric god who cannot be thought without humans who think. This is a tautological trap but the concept of the word first makes it eternal, timeless and god-like. It is easier to think of mathematics that way, since they don't need or describe objects. The word is harder to see as the beginning than numbers, unless we say that numbers are words. And why not?  Was the word or math there  before the Big Bang, before singularity? Physicists would not object, they wouldn't allow the question of what there was before the Big Bang, for there was no time before the beginning. 

Free Will, Determinism and Neurology - The Chicken and the Egg all over again

The following musing is based on a mail dialogue with a Suebian theologian whom I met on the occasion of my mother's death. He sent me recently a particular (English) sentence describing instructions in the Libet experiment with the request for help in interpreting and translating it to see if it could have a second or hidden meaning. This as part of his preparations for a talk about freedom, will and religion. At the same time I had received Sam Harris' book "Free Will" as a present. So, the topic was clearly on the table.

Please allow that I write in English today in regards to your preparations for a talk about freedom and free will in conjunction with the Libet experiment. The Libet conundrum has moved ethicists, philosophers and neurologists for some time and you reminded me of something I had been dimly aware of and brought it back to light just after my wife gave me the little book Free Will (by Sam Harris. I have not read it yet). For that I want to thank you.

Like you I feel that the mechanistic causality conclusion (that there is no free will if the brain “knows” about our decision before we do) is unsatisfactory. It may interest you that Neuroscience seems to have confirmed the Libet experiment as far as the time sequence. I found a nice little video on this. But even this much larger time span between neural firings and awareness of a decision or the act does not prove anything, I think. Namely the separation between neurons, awareness and physical action (pressing a button) is suspect since all of it is part of one and the same system, a human.

For one thing, I am not very unsettled by this as physics has already told me that time is relative and that causation isn’t always what it appears to be. Quantum physics, for example has the nice little “Entanglement” problem from which the concept of Quantum Computers is not only derived but even already realized on a very small scale.  The puzzle of cause and effect also reminds me of Schroedinger’s cat which is alive and dead at the same time, a thought experiment with this astonishing conclusion. In short, mechanistic logic (Newtonian logic) is by far not able to describe the physical world on the very small scale nor on the very large scale (of Black Holes, for example). So why should the brain be an exception?

But maybe one doesn’t have to go as far as quantum mechanics to question the simple cause and effect conclusion that seems to be inevitable from the experiments. One could put this into the realm of the dualisms that have governed thinking for eons, namely idealism and materialism (Hegel/Marx). Or the popular term of nature and nurture. Whether Hegel or Marx, we should have learned about dialectic relationships. The relations of the material brain, external factors that made the brain the way it is (genetics and experience) and awareness of what the brain does could be described as dialectic. And that even before one introduces the terms free and will. The issue, then, is where will resides in this dialectic relation or in the time sequence. The problem with the Libet experiment or with the brain scans is that it doesn’t measure will but the lag between neural firings and the awareness of them.

This lag isn’t unknown. Similarly we may already see ourselves running from the tiger before our brain is finished reporting what it just saw and that it was, in fact, a tiger. This would introduce the spheres of the conscious and the subconscious. It is well known from recent neuroscience that there is a lag between those spheres as well and that the conscious mind is terribly slow and often unreliable.

I can’t put any of this into the context of Erasmus and Luther but I think that this is generally just another case of the search for the Prima Causa where science and religion find each other in a pseudo conflict that goes away upon further thought, just as you suggest.  Going back to physics, the prima causa question reminds me of the creation versus Big Bang debate. Was there a creator that made the Big Bang happen, or did it happen on its own or in a multiverse (Hawkins)  where Big bangs happen regularly in a kind of cyclic pattern. The classic chicken and egg question. Anytime we expand our thought model we can internalize what was previously an external factor. This has been the history of physics but it never answered the question of god or the prima causa. It just moved it to a different sphere much in the same way as the Libet test moves “free will” to another level.

Not sure that any of this contributes to your talks about freedom. But I think the question cannot be “are we free” but can we wrestle any degree of freedom from the materiality of our existence. That, indeed, is a matter of degree and the kind of work we put into it. I see religion or ethics as imperatives for us to try and free ourselves from determinism as much as possible, a herculean effort but one that is worth it, for it makes us human.

It was the bite in the apple that expelled us from paradise, created awareness and began the struggle away from the determinism of the rest of creation for the apple came from the tree of knowledge and knowledge allowed humans to follow the dictum Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Freedom and knowledge come from the same tree in my opinion.

Klaus

Now and Then, Why the Present is Very Different from the Past

It has become common to define ourselves as a Knowledge Society, usually in contrast to the Industrial Society. Or before that the Agricultural Society. These are sloppy definitions, for sure, for they immediately beg the question how we can have industry without knowledge or live with knowledge without making stuff, let alone growing food. I suppose the point is, how many of us are engaged in these necessities. Today more people than ever are part of the "creative class", the folks that simply research, study, teach, write or create while a smaller and smaller portion of the population is needed for production or food.

While this is pretty well understood, the focus on these definitions is on the material aspects of society rather than what is going on in us, the people in society, human minds and their thinking.
Outwardly it would seem people grow older on average and they are taller as well, they can run faster and operate complicated stuff with ease, but generally it is assumed that human needs and abilities and the great drivers that makes us tick, remained pretty constant throughout history. Love, competition, aggression, fear, the desire to socialize, get recognition. We assume that caveman was subjected by pretty much those same forces and, indeed, pictures, narratives, books and music suggest as much. While technology changed, the human remained much the same.

What if this is assumption dramatically wrong? What if a medieval farmer who could magically be transported into  our life would not just be hopelessly overwhelmed by our technology and would have no clue what to do with I phones, TV's or cars, he would also be aghast about how women and children live and behave, about the multitude of races, about the pace with which we race through the day? About the fact that so many different things are all considered "right" at the same time, our way of questioning things and allowing new ideas very hour of our lives? Did we ever consider that he, who lived in the middle ages would have lived in a time where things at his birth were exactly the same as things were when he died and then the same again for his children and children's children?

In spite of all the technological progress of the last two hundred years, knowledge about knowledge itself has been slow in coming. We have decoded DNA and know how genes program our bodies but we know very little what ideas are, how knowledge manifests itself or what consciousness is. Of course, these questions have been asked throughout history, typically known as the "meaning of life", yet it is fascinating how much these remain still questions with no answer. We still struggle with the concepts of  the "soul" or the crudely mechanical constructs of the Id, the Ego and the Super-Ego invented by Freud and Jung to explain the forces that form our mind and consciousness. Neurologists are feverishly tracking the electric currents fired off by neurons trying to find what thought and emotions are what or what may make the two different. While we know that society certainly creates common patterns in thinking and emotion we still like to think of ourselves as singularities, one of a kind prototypes, somehow driven by a mix of nurture and nature but also "free will".

While we are conscious of the fact that technological and social change have accelerated, few have a concept for logarithmic or exponential developments and many of us are, in spite of two and a half centuries of enlightenment, still deeply influenced by the cyclical world concepts of eastern philosophy in which things turn in cycles and circles without actual progress. These cyclical philosophies, actually even had a renaissance in recent decades, driven by all those who where frightened by the fast speed in which we moved away from "paradise" and our place in nature. Indeed, critical thought would have to admit that the possibilities created by technology exceed knowledge, morale and ethics, the very foundations and faculties to exert some control. Hippies and tea-partiers are united in their attempt to slow things down. The ones preach unity with nature over progress the other "the America they know and grew up in" over the change they think is brought about by sinister forces.

But nature as our model is tricky. It isn't a paradise and it sure isn't static and also not cyclical. It has entropy and it appears to have a clear arrow of time. It can't be fully symmetrical since matter somehow won out over anti-matter. The universe is getting colder and is expanding in an ever accelerating fashion. This, after all, may be an appropriate analogy for the human condition.

Some philosophers and scientists are trying to apply the methods to explain genes and their reproduction to ideas as well. They call those memes. Memes as societal formations of ideas, patterns that mutate and procreate and hop from person to person and from generation to generation. But while genes are quite slow in their adaptions to the change, memes are exploding just like the universe into wider and wider horizons of knowledge and understanding. This journey into infinity might just have begun. While our imaginary medieval surprise guest would be quite confused in our world, his puzzlement would be nothing compared to the ours if we could see the very world in which our very own children will live when they will be old. The change that will sweep through this century would make us utter strangers in it.

Reference literature: David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity, Penguin Books 2011
Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos

Juror #13

On November 13, after three hours of waiting and being processed in various ways, I stood in Judge Barney’s courtroom on the third floor of the county court house in front of the two prosecutors, the defendant and the two defense lawyers. They all looked me briefly up and down and then both sides agreed:“Acceptable”.

Thus I became juror #13. I took a seat in the jury box.

It was a surprise to me that more than twelve jurors would be selected and that “alternates” were a normal and reasonable occurrence injury selection. I should soon see why. But when I sat down I thought being the spare tire was the worst fate, for I would have to listen to everything while I would not get to deliberate or vote.

Eventually fifteen of us were jammed into the jury box. The judge, the defense and the “State” had taken their places as well, the defendant in his light blue shirt was well in my sight-line. #13 was a good seat for that, also close to the audience where some family seems to sit. The judge,a middle aged black female gave us general instructions, sort of what they had already told us all morning but only now, after actually being selected, were my ears open.

Then she sent us to our jury room where we were released for lunch. We received our phones back which we had just surrendered and could go our merry way, but just for 45 minutes. It seemed so implausible now after we were told to speak to nobody about anything related to this case.  But there I was outside the court house back in the world I knew. This freedom felt already sweet after only the briefest of interruptions.

After this interlude, we freedom and electronic devices alike were locked away while we lined up in the order of our seats to walk collision-free into the courtroom and the jury box, now in full and official function. We learned that “all rise” not only for the judge but for the entering jury as well.

Proceedings started with the opening statements. The defense laid out the case for us from their perspective, trying to explain the complicated events and what we had to expect.  As if to confuse us, the prosecution immediately followed with a very different story.

While the case was still an entirely blank sheet for us, we hungrily took the brush strokes with which the defense painted the picture,after all, this was the first information we received about the case. Right before us unfolded bits and pieces of the type court room drama we know from TV, enacted only for us jurors, it seemed. The attorneys marched up and down the jury box, trying to make eye contact.

The judge had explained that these opening statements were not evidence and should not be considered when we deliberated guilt or innocence.

 It became immediately clear that we had a tough case: Murder and attempted murder in one crime act.State and defense warned us that we would get to see “shady characters” that we would “our daughters not want to go out with”. A statement that I as father of five daughters could easily relate to,even though the State used it for the defendant while the defense characterized witnesses which we had yet to see the same way.

I peered over to the defendant who sat small, and quiet, his head lowered.  Rarely daring a glance sideways to the jury he appeared already somewhat defeated. If one can say such a thing at all, he didn’t look like a murderer. Rather, just sitting there silently,in his slender shape and blue dress shirt, he reminded me of a well connected up and coming Washington developer I had met a few times.

The opening statements quickly conveyed a rough outline of the crime and what had preceded it. Four people who all know each other had gotten together in a car, drove around for a while, left the vehicle in a dark forlorn cul de sac of a yet to be completed subdivision. Shortly afterwards,the only girl in the group is dead, her boyfriend has been shot and left behind for dead, the two others have fled. People who hear the gunshots call police which eventually find the victims. The surviving boyfriend immediately sets police on the track of his friends. Both will be arrested within 24 hours after the shooting.

One of the alleged perpetrators sits in front of us, the other has already had his day in court, although we won’t be told the verdict.The wounded victim has recovered and will be the prosecutions key witness.

Many names and nicknames swirl around in our heads and notes. (All names have been altered). Shacky, the other perpetrator, his real name Bryan McLod. Cornell Hull, the other victim, was also called Coco. Andthen, of course, the defendant, Emrich Altona Smith, now 19 years old and the murder victim Catelyn Dresser, 17 years young when her life was taken. A somewhat interesting detail is that the victim is not only the only female, she is also the only white. At the early stage of this trial, no plausible motive emerges why these four friends would have trained guns on each other. Neither does it appear obvious to us jurors who shot whom or if anybody other than the four occupants of the car may be involved.

Back in my home for the night I realize how close these events were to my life, geographically and because of the age of my children.  Yet, language, culture and circumstances of this world of drugs, gangs and violence were worlds away from my experiences.  Crime can bring it all together, as was not only demonstrated by my presence here in the courtroom but also by the mother of the killed daughter sitting next to the mother of the injured but recovered shooting victim although the killed girl apparently never has had a run-in with the law while CoCo ad just been released from prison at the time of the crime.

 Over the next two days  the prosecution will line up witness after witness and expert after expert to prove that a gun, retrieved in a hiding place, was the murder weapon and that DNA clearly links the defendant to the crime scene. Gang experts explain gang culture to us, the prosecution is trying to distill motives out of that culture. Murder as admission test to a gang, or retribution for going with a girl that a gang leader may have laid claim to. Maybe snitching since the surviving victim had just been released from prison before that hot July night, that brought him into a helicopter and the shock trauma center. It is one of the great revelations from ballistics tests and forensic evidence that two guns were fired at Catelyn and that shots from either one could have killed her. The second weapon never found.

Obviously, the most interesting witness is the shooting victim, Coco. After all, he was clearly there when Catelyn was shot. The defense does what they can to render him not credible, and indeed, some of his statements are contradicting themselves, especially the story about the defendant’s cellphone, whether it was lost (as he says it was in the lonely dark court and caused everybody to get out of the car to search for it) or if it was clearly sitting on the dashboard as he had also testified. It remains murky, why he would have encouraged his girlfriend to get out of the car as he admitted he did. The defense points out that Coco was once again in prison and had a motive to lie so he would be released early. The defense attorneys also pointed out that one of the investigators bought Coco lunch while he transported him to an interview and could have told him the details that CoCo now spits out as his own experience in the case. The defense, in their closing argument, went as far as describing him as one of the shooters, potentially even the murderer. They described in vivid colors a possible shootout between rivaling gangs in which the girl just happened to get caught up.

When four days of arguments, witness testimony and cross examinations had passed, the hard evidence, indeed, allowed a number of scenarios even though it was indisputable that two potentially deadly bullets retrieved from Catelyn’s body came from two different weapons, one from the weapon that had been found. DNA linked all participants to the crime scene or the vehicle. Still no direct evidence was found on the weapon or on the perpetrators that clearly proved who shot whom.

What was the jury to do? Isn’t guilt beyond any reasonable doubt the condition for a guilty verdict as well as the “innocent until proven guilty” maxim that is the hallmark of any real justice system?

By the time closing arguments had wrapped up, the jury consisted of only the necessary twelve members. Already on the morning of the second day two jurors were eliminated due to whatever legal concerns brought forth by either defense or prosecution and I advanced from being substitute juror #13 to actual juror #5. On day three another juror was dismissed, thus even juror #15 was now a regular.

It was Friday evening and the prospect of a reconvening after the weekend became increasingly likely. But the judge sent us into deliberations after reading to us the charges again which included first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and two counts of use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. All seemed to hinge around the key question, did the defendant kill Catelyn?

The jury would have been hopelessly stuck, if that, indeed,would have been the main question because it wasn’t even proven that Emrich Smith had fired a weapon at all.

 But, alas, it would be simpler than that. As the judge explained, if two people premeditate murder,both are on the scene and a person is, in fact, killed, it is sufficient to be present and not intervene to be guilty of first degree murder. This is the legal principle of “accomplice liability”. CoCo’s witness testimony that Emrich called out “kill him” when he tried to flee after the first shots rang out would be a key ingredient in establishing that Emrich would not have been just a passive bystander in the commission of the crimes.

It was Friday after 6pm when the jury gathered in the always too hot or too cold jury room with its drafty windows. Finally we were not only allowed but required to discuss the case with each other. To date we had barely talked, afraid to say something non permissible. Our dozen was a diverse group,by age, gender, race and background. Although juror #1 was technically the jury foreperson, she was rather unsure how to go about the deliberation while the youngest, a white male took several successful attempts to guide the deliberations.  As often in cases of severe emotional stress, people need comic relief and there was laughter and banter that felt somehow inappropriate in light of the gravity of the case with one young person’s life already gruesomely ended out and a second now in our hands.

We had learned very little about the defendant. His history was not brought up and he never took the stand. What we knew about him was from tapes of recorded phone calls he had made from prison. Those stood in stark contrast to his appearance; the two hour recordings were throughout a barely understandable foul mouthed rant about a mix of trivia and items possibly relevant to the case. It turned out that a few in the jury had been able to follow those tapes well, but most of us did not comprehend much other than that he was frustrated that his friends didn’t do more to help him out, at least with some phone money. There was no clarity if he had, as the prosecutors maintained, alluded to his gun. His elaborations used code words and extreme street slang that had only been partly decoded by the gang expert from the County police.

Several on the jury wanted to discuss the behavior of the crown witness in order to find out how credible he was. I thought, though, that with the newly learned principle of accomplice liability, that it didn’t matter if CoCo had lied or not. That even if the defense’s scenario would have been true, namely that there was, in fact, a shootout and that the missing second gun may have belonged to him, this would not change the fact that the defendant was in cahoots with the already earlier convicted  Bryan and that they together drove the victims into the cul de sac and that together they assaulted them. Whether two guns were used, one by each of them, or if one of them shot both victims with one gun or possibly with two, is ultimately non material under the accomplice principle.  

An hourly later, we were not anywhere near a consensus. We had spent almost all the time to explain the case and available evidence to one juror who simply hadn’t followed the proceedings with enough care. He kept saying that the case is too grave to rush it and I assume, that secretly every single juror was glad for the added review time, even if we had now run against the time the judge had given for a postponement until Monday. After we sent a message that we may be close, though,  the judge ordered pizza and we got some more time. I can only imagine how high the tension runs in the courtroom where the defendant, his lawyers, the state attorneys, the judge and the families wait for the verdict. Back in the jury room we finally determined that we all felt comfortable being asked the big question. Do we find the defendant guilty of premeditated murder or not.  Twelve times the answer was: Guilty. That eliminated the also possible second degree murder charge and made the weapon charges basically inevitable.

It was after eight on that Friday evening, when we marched back into the court room and took our seats in the jury box for the last act:To listen to our forewoman how she responded to each of the three judge’s questions with a low voice “guilty” and then confirm that she had spoken for all of us. 

Catelyn’s mother cried. The defendant did not show any emotion, the young state attorneys looked pleased with themselves, the defense lawyers less so.

Leaving the courthouse into the cold crisp evening, free to go wherever I pleased, I thought of the young defendant who was heading back to prison, whatever hope he might have had for a release, completely dashed. One more young black male in prison, for a very long time. I did not feel accomplished, neither as juror #13 nor as #5.

The experience haunted me for days. I went on the internet and tried to find whatever news that had been published about this case which somehow had kept a pretty low profile in the media both when the crime happened and also now, during the trial. I found that Emrich Smith and his father had been mentioned in the local paper when he was only four years old in a little story about his father moving his hair cutting business outside on Monument Street so he could keep an eye on his son.

It was only at the sentencing hearing that I learned more about Elrich. Almost three months had passed since the trial, Christmas had been celebrated,  a brand new year had begun when I settled back in the same courtroom where time seemed to have stood still. Emrich was the only one who had changed, he had gained weight so it seemed to me. Maybe it was only that he wore two T shirts on top of each other instead of the blue dress shirt. Defense and State attorneys looked like they never had left the courtroom at all, each one of them wore the exact same clothes, hairstyles and facial expressions as back in November and Catelyn’sfamily members sat in the same places as in November.

As at the trial, the defense got to talk first with a somewhat impassioned but not very well performed plea for mercy. I learned that Elrich had been born to a drug addict and had drugs in his blood at birth. That his parents didn’t care for him and he lived with an ant. Then at 4, as I had found out already, he lived with his father; but it was only for one year. When he was nine the mother tried to be a parent but didn’t last any longer than the father and then left her son once more. Thus, Emrich had jumped from place to place all his young life. The mother’swhereabouts were unknown today, the defense lawyer pointed out and that neither parent ever contacted court or defense during the entire time between the crime and now. We learned that Emrich had his first contact with the Department for Juvenile Services at the age of 12. "Emrich never had a chance. Temper justice with mercy" pleaded the defense in closing. Naturally the State prosecutors didn’t see it that way, they presented the young man as one thatcouldn’t be reformed, that had been accused of robbery, arson, assault and violation of probation even before Catelyn died. As a son whose father was on record as having said on occasion of the arson case: "Emrich has a demon in him". That even now in prison he is alleged to have associations with BGF (black gorilla family) gang  and was involved with assault. That he had tested positive for a certain drug even during the trial. "He is beyond rehabilitation". 

The prosecution called on Catelyn’s father who appeared with his “lady friend” and then the mother for testimony on the emotional harm their daughter’s death had inflicted on them.  Finally, the defendant got one more chance to address the court. He did not use it.

The verdict came swiftly. The judge pointed out that it was impossible to undo what had been done or do now what should have been done then. Then she read her sentences: Life without parole and 20 years each for the each of the firearm and assault charges. The defense noted that they will appeal.

Handcuffs clicked around both of Emrich’s wrists. Then he was guided out of the courtroom, I detected what looked like defiance in his eyes. He would not agree that justice had been served here or anywhere in his life. Catelyn’s mother and father went their separate ways: Parents who lost a child. They will never find closure.

As the judge said, it isn’t for the justice system to fix the past. But true justice cannot exist, if the society continues to fail so many children.

Optimistic Predictions. Liam 2080

In 2080 when Liam will have to celebrate his 83^rd birthday he will be still younger than my father is today. When my father was born in 1923 his father tended the field with horses. Tractors, cars, radios, telephones were invented but just began to become common goods. Europe had just finished a horrible war and although everybody had resolved that no such war should ever occur again, the second world war was only 16 years away.

When Liam will be great grandfather, what will the world look like then? It is common knowledge that the rate of change accelerates almost exponentially, predictions over 79 years seem a very bold and presumptuous undertaking. But watching Liam keeping a close eyes on his cars and trucks while he eats breakfast, I couldn’t resist to wonder, if there still will be cars and buses in 2080.

So here we go:

In 2080 the world will finally have transformed entirely to renewable energies, mostly solar. But energy also comes from transformations of waste, foremost human waste. Except for the big cities people live off the grid and create electricity from hydrogen cells which are fueled by the sun. There will be 18 billion people populating the earth, almost 2.5 times what it was when Liam was born. There is little hunger but water had first become a precious commodity before desalination was used so widespread that the water crisis had been overcome.

Nobody seems to eat animals anymore; killing animals for food or even raising animals for food seems barbaric now. Meat like processed food is generated with cell cultures and genetic engineering. Most countries have dissolved and instead large metropolitan conglomerations are governed on their own not so much by parliaments, kings, presidents or mayors but by task forces, councils and numerous ad-hoc assemblies of people that solve a problem and the dissolve. There are few elections but many procedures to vote issues up and down on an almost daily basis.

Most people live in large metro areas but good transportation has become less important since many products can be produced locally or even on the premises with 3D printing, genetic cultures and virtual depictions of faraway places and experiences. Places and people can be encountered as holographic images including touch and smell sensations making distant travel an exotic undertaking for the privileged or very adventurous. There is still fascination with mobility, for sure and car like vehicles are still sought after. They are propelled with solar fuel cells and small electric motors directly in the wheels or small air jets. However, control of these vehicles is almost entirely coordinated by electronic systems that couple individual trips to a kind of train with very high speeds, the orchestration of the movements follows the principles of emergence which is now very well understood and has substituted all mechanical and linear thinking and science. The uncertainty principle just discovered after my father had been born has become the modus operandi of all science, multiverses have been proven to exist and it is generally assumed that universes expand, then contract and then expand again in an endless cycle. Many problems are analysed in far more than four dimensions and each child can understand the idea of nested dimensions and the holographic principle.

Along with these scientific changes religion underwent substantial transformation from teleological and theocratic models to an adoration of phase changes, transformations and emergence, a kind of natural religion in which science and religion are very close and not at odds.

Medicine has entirely changed from the plumbing and cutting approach of the 19^th and 20^th century to one of programming and renewal. Any damaged tissue can be grown back in any part of the body except the brain, but here progress is on the horizon as well. Most babies are not naturally conceived nor are they born by mothers. Women became fully equal to men by having the gestation occur in devices that allow interaction with the growing fetus almost as well as in the woman’s body, except the interaction is now available also to men. The main reason for this development had been less the liberation aspect as more the fact that the heads of the newborns had become larger and larger until birth has become too risky for too many women.  There are always new diseases appearing that have not found a counter program yet, but generally embryos will be genetically coded so that they are immunized against all known defects and with the most desirable features that parents like to see. Worldwide a hybrid race of part Asian, part Indian part African has been most popular, medium dark skin, brown or blue eyes, smooth dark hair. Humans can direct all kinds of devices and tools with their brainwaves without lifting a finger. The attempt to run computers this way as well failed since the humans seem to never be able to concentrate long enough to exact complicated commands via brainwaves, only short and simple ones. But in the reverse, computers can instill brainwaves and initiate direct action this way. Humans seem to be omniscient this way since they have full access to almost all available data in their thought processes to a point that one would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between human and device intelligence. Still, there are huge differences how adept people are with their tools and differences in intelligence and success are still as noticeable as ever.

People still die of old age in spite of all attempts to prolong life. Somehow the average life expectancy stalled out around the age of 90 and seems to be stuck there, no matter all scientific progress.

The division of life into childhood, adolescence, adulthood, of learning, working, retirement has entirely been transformed into a continuum of work, research, learning and enjoyment that begins as young as 10 and ends often only near death.  Very young people often have the best ideas and are fully integrated into the cycle of life including decision making and production of things. Little time is spent on basic sustenance, most issues and problems pertain to organizational matters. Almost everybody enjoys and practices the arts, creative writing and various forms of music. The materialism of the early 21^st century seems very uneducated now and so does the simple pursuit of money. In fact, real money is absent from daily life and even in virtual form it is  rarely used. Instead there is a virtual bartering system in which desirable items are directly obtained as payment.

The creation of alternative realities out of whole cloth in which an individual can readily transpose him or herself is a favorite pastime and reduces the need for travel which is limited to the well to do and the privileged because it is difficult to obtain the necessary mobility tickets for the surface or the air passages, even though large airships transport up to 1000 people at a time in nuclear propelled air vehicles that travel in higher altitudes utilizing gravitational forces once they have reached travel altitudes.

The earth climate had shifted drastically and what appeared to be apocalyptic around the time when Liam was 25 years old. The gulf stream had suddenly tipped and whole climate zones abruptly shifted with terrible flooding in some areas, aridity and freezing conditions in others that had just gotten used to mild climates. But then engineers received the green light to use methods to capture large amounts of carbon and other greenhouse gases in huge ocean algae sinks and a series of large underground graviton accelerations that shifted the earth axis slightly. Thus the climate was finally corrected and now almost resembles conditions in the 18^th century before the industrial revolution.

Due to the failure of making devices write directly from men’s thoughts (due to the lack of concentration already mentioned) pens like the old fashioned pencils became again the standard mode of writing. Just that there is no need for paper and that the pens can complete words and sentences as soon as the writer has established some key words and store the entire message instantly in whatever places are designated including communication receivers in far away places even as far away as Mars where several colonies have been erected for those who are bored by living on earth.

And as so often before, history seems to repeat itself. On Mars unfettered materialism is reported to have led to degradation of the environment and human settlements push ever further west on that planet.

 Liam looks out of the 60^th floor of his New York apartment. Sheer nostalgia brought him back to the place of his childhood. The East River glimmers in the red glow of the sinking sun. The bio-mimicry skin of the building will soon turn the transparent windows into a solid for the night for better insulation. He looks at his wife who is already asleep. Sleep and love are still the two best things in life, even in 2080.

(Initially written on March 15, 2011, slightly modified on 12/8/11)

Philip Andrew Duff. Life's Fragility.

3.12.2012	12-3-11
Das Auto als tödliche Falle, das musste Jasons Famile erleben, als Jasons Bruder Jeremy nicht mal einen Kilometer vom Elternhaus gegen einen Baum raste und aus dreiwöchigem Koma nicht mehr erwachte. Und das muss nun die Frau von Naynas verstorbenem Bruder Geoffrey erleben. Die Zwillinge, Phillip und John, deren   Vater an Herzversagen starb als sie noch ganz klein waren, und die nun beide stattliche und erfolgreiche junge Studenten sind, waren mit dem Auto unterwegs, John auf dem Beifahrersitz. Auf regennasser Straße verlor Philip die Kontrolle, kam auf die Gegenfahrbahn und prallte auf ein entgegenkommendes Fahrzeug. Nun liegt er schon seit über zwei Wochen auf der Intensivstation und wird künstlich beatmet. Er ist noch immer nicht zu sich gekommen. Nachdem alle betäubenden Medikamente abgesetzt wurden, hat er zwar die Augen geöffnet und wendet sich dem Licht zu, aber Augenkontakt, sprechen, Bewegung oder andere Reaktionen sind nicht möglich.	The car as death trap, an experience Jason’s family had to live through after Jason’s brother Jeremy crashed against a tree only a short distance from his home. He didn’t wake from a three week coma. And now the wife of Nayna’s late brother Geoffrey has to experience this very worst nightmare of a parent as well. Her twins Phillip and John, Philip at the wheel, John in the passenger seat, travelled on Lexington's outer bypass ManO’War   Boulevard. The road was wet and Phillip lost control and veered into   oncoming traffic. While John could get out and call 911 his brother was unconscious and trapped in the car. He has not woken since. He is still in the ICU with all kinds of tubes and a respirator. Even after all sedatives were eliminated, he cannot do much more than open his eyes and turn his head towards the light. Eye contact or any other reaction remain elusive.
Da liegt nun ein sportlicher, intelligenter junger Mann, mitten aus seinem Leben gerissen, und alles was ihn zu einer Person macht, fehlt. Einundzwanzig Jahre Zuwendung, Fürsorge und Entwicklung, alles dahin innerhalb von ein paar Sekunden. Das Wissen um diesen Unfall hat sich lähmend in unser Haus eingeschlichen, selbst wenn der Neffe entfernt von uns in Lexington aufwuchs und relativ wenig Kontakt mit uns hatte. Die Gedanken können sich dieser Tragödie nicht entziehen, haben wir doch selber sechs Kinder.   Diese Unsinnigkeit, die auch soviel über die menschliche Bedingtheit aussagt.  Die Zerbrechlichkeit, Verletzlichkeit und die Vernetzung, die den Rest so unnütz macht wenn der Kopf nicht mehr funktioniert. Philips Familie ist sehr christlich religiös und betet viel, aber Gott hat bisher nichts gehört und was man nun schon als ein Wunder betrachten muss, eine Art von Heilung, es ist noch nicht geschehen. Dann, wie die Hand vom heissen Pfannengriff, schrecken die Gedanken zurück, es ist undenkbar sich in die Trauer der Mutter hereinzuversetzen, die nun erneut vom Schicksal geschlagen wurde. Der ältere Bruder Steven hat sich ein Haus gekauft in Lexington. Heute ist seine Einweihungsfeier. Die wird stattfinden, Nayna ist dort und wird auch daran teilnehmen. Das Leben geht unaufhaltsam weiter, auch dies erscheint undenkbar, und ist doch so unabwendbar.	In the ICU one can see a fit and good looking young man in his best years who was an academic and athletic star up to the second that took everything away that made him a person. Twenty one years of care, affection, raring and development, all gone. The knowledge of this situation has creeped into our house like a dark cloud, no matter the distance and the fact that we had only occasional contact. For parents of six this tragedy is close to home. For humans it sheds a glaring light on our fragility and vulnerability, the whole human condition. A  robust body that is useless if the head doesn’t function well. Philip’s family is very religious and there is much praying. But God did not listen yet and any kind of healing would have to be a miracle at this point. Yet, like hands from a hot skillet do our thoughts shy away. Unthinkable is the morning of the mother, struck once again by cruel fate. Steven, Philip’s older brother recently bought his first house. Today is the house warming party. It will take place. Nayna drove to Lexington and will be there for it. Life keeps going, this, too seems unthinkable yet it is unavoidable.
Wie ich ja selber weiss, im Auge des Sturms ist es seltsam ruhig. Trotz der Turbulenz in unmittelbarer Sichtweite, trotz der unendlich vielen Dinge, die getan werden müssen, trotz ders Alltags, der wie auf einem Bildschirm weiter abläuft. Die unmittelbar Betroffenen sind weitgehend ausgeklinkt, betäubt reihen sie sich  von Zeit zu Zeit als Akteure wieder ein, sich mitbewegend als ob nichts geschehen sei. Auf der Fahrt vom Krankenhaus nach Hause zum Beispiel, inmitten der anderen, die nichts wissen. Aber diese Augenblicke sind kurz, denn schon zu Hause angekommen, ist die klaffende Lücke unübersehbar, die Erschöpfung unleugbar und ein paar Stunden Schlaf sind die einzige Flucht und Rettung. Der winzige Funken Hoffnung erlaubt es den neuen Tag zu beginnen, bis Gewissheit einsetzt. Doch soweit ist es noch nicht, und so bleibt uns nichts als weiter zu hoffen.	As I know from my own experience, it is strangely quiet in the eye of the storm. In spite of the frantic activities which are in clear view. The people directly affected are numb, only occasionally hooked into life that otherwise appears distant like on a TV screen. Only for short moments can they pretend things are normal, like on the drive home from the hospital among all the anonymous people who don’t know. But those moments are short, already upon arrival at home is the gap once again overwhelming, so is the fatigue and a few hours of sleep are the only possible refuge. And the small glimmer of hope fuels another day. Until there is the unwanted certainty. But that day has not come yet and so we all keep hoping.
Philip Andrew Duff.. Geboren am 3.Juli  1990. Verunglückt am 15. November 2011.	Philip Andrew Duff, born 7/3/1990. Crashed on 11/15/2011

  

Man and Nature

If a well nurtured and protected citizen of the East Coast of the United States of America experiences an earthquake and a hurricane in one week, it is time to ponder some bigger questions, such as the relationship of “man” and nature.

·         The universe is supposedly 13.75 billion years old

·         The earth is only about 4.5 billion years old.

·         Humans are 2.5 million years around and in their current edition only 200,000 years

Only in the last 50 years or so are we talking about nature being threatened by humans. Before it was always humans threatened by nature. So when we consider our relationship to nature and our desire to conquer rather than nurture, we better keep in mind how deeply ingrained our instinct is to see nature as a threat. Of course, one might object that different cultures had quite different approaches to nature and that the conquest notion is occidental and Christian in particular. True, but this western view unfortunately holds sway over most of the world now.

So when nature comes through and rattles your burg, your nerves get rattled quite a bit. The whole place shaking? Didn’t I just hear a rumbling. Too? Everybody is out of their seats in an instant, staring at each other in disbelief the brain quickly scanning through all available and plausible options that might have caused everything to rattle like this. The thoughts were still tumbling through the frontal lobe when the senses picked up on that rumbling noise and more and stronger shaking. Now the brain shifted and activated flight response: Sequences of nerve cell firings and release of chemicals like adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol into our bloodstream. Our bodies underwent a series of very dramatic changes. We breathed faster, our blood was shunted away from our digestive tracts and directed into our muscles and limbs for running. Our pupils dilated. Our awareness intensified. Our sight sharpened. My employees saw the fire escape I saw the interior stairway as the best flightpath. When we met out in the street and all was calm, we felt stupid.

Within seconds we green people who want to protect nature from human damage turned into fleeing mammals who were terrified by nature. And then, not quite as fast, we calmed down and checked out humanities greatest accomplishment, the internet to find out what happened. Alarmingly, the quickest and most comprehensive confirmation that, indeed, we had just experienced a 5.8 Richter scale earthquake came from the good old office radio and not from the computer.

Very few would say that an earthquake is the result of human action (except some Christian fundamentalists who see it as god’s penalty for specific sins). For the immediately following calamity, the hurricane deceivingly peacefully named Irene, this could not be said. Many speculated about how these type storms get more frequent, stronger and larger because of global warming. Yet, when the rain pours like from buckets and the winds blow over longstanding trees, the sense of powerlessness is here yet again. Nature out there, still a threat. While the tremors underfoot challenge deeply ingrained notions of the terra firma and stir up quite deep seated fears, the darkness from power outage and the floods following the rains still threaten our sense of security and our expectation of control and predictability.

A week later the last power lines got reconnected and our sense of “can do” is heightened again while we cut up the remaining fallen trees. Left is a tangle of feelings about nature, the 21^st century confusion between awe, condescendence and impotence. From it, one might hope, eventually arises an adequate response that combines both the urgency for prot