Masopher’s Mind

On the morning of April 1st 2008 Masopher was on crack and decided to tell me the secret to how the universe was born. And he isn’t talking about any bullshit creation story with some guy parting the firmament, he’s talking the real deal. Einstein and Edison, Newton and Hawking stuff.

He’s not a mathematician or a physicist so how did he know this? Because:
A) He’s was on crack even though I wasn’t
B) He’s a fully developed independent figment of my imagination
C) He’s a demon and in touch with the peoples who know
D) He was there
E) He’s not a mathematician or a physicist

So here it goes I relate it as he did to me:
It all starts in a universe consisting of a single particle of matter. Before that was null. Less than nothing, not a negative but not nothing either…just not.

And then there was. But not light, or maybe it was light whatever it was it was part particle part wave. It wasn’t like no monster, not like a chimera, it just acted like both particle and wave. And there was also its opposite: The anti-light anti-particle anti-wave. They had to be born together because that’s the way it works see, there has to be a balance because in before the beginning at the beginning all through and at the end and after the end it all balances out like a mathematical equation.

It’s like this see…
+1 +(-1) = 0
Look here a second…notice I have to use plus one plus minus one because if it was plus one minus minus one you get 2…that’s maybe one of the reasons that antimatter don’t act like matter.
See +1- (-1) =0
+1+1=0
+2 = 0
See its wrong…

Back on track now:
1-1 = 0
1 = 1
1×800 = 1×800
Universe = Universe
Universe –Universe = 0

But don’t let the zero fool you, null was a real zero not the pansy that’s in mathematics nowadays.
So in the very center of the null which could be anywhere because its nowhere there is this pair of things (the thing and its nullifier) but because they are wave/particles in the way that physicists know them they have a chance of being anywhere in the null void with the strongest chance of being right there in the center. It’s like gravity, dig, it all streams towards the middle the chance of anything being anywhere is in the middle with a good chance of it being somewhere else but the chance gets stronger the closer one gets to where the 2 particles were born in the first place.
But maybe you are like: hold up there crack smoking Masopher, they had an equal chance of being born anywhere in null, and He’d tell you yep, but once they were there the chance of them being there increased a whole hell of a lot in the locality where they first occurred.
And it was the chance of things being there that was the beginning of gravity. Far away, chances small, near chances great..sound familiar? Far away gravity small nearer gravity great… so gravity also was derived from…mathematical probability.
So now we not only have particles and anti particles but we have forces and that just really fucks up all of the null void. The null void likes being null so it tries to compensate dig. It tries to get rid of the particles and the force by creating opposite particles and opposite forces. Its not a concious decision like a dude, its like an equation, or a computer program or a robot.
It’s like those big weird multiline equations that end up to be zero and you add or do a hell of a lot of work just to get all those x’s and ys and numbers back to zero…and back at school the teacher wasn’t on crack so even though Masopher is on crack, he’s a demon who knows his shit.
And it just gets worse. The more particles created the more things get all fucked up. And the anti particles don’t behave like particles I dunno why man that’s just the way it is, ask a real mathematician or physicist. See up the page and you see why antimatter don’t act like matter because two antimatters act like matter maybe? maybe half the matter in teh universe isnt matter at all just antimatter disguised….I dunno.
So all these particles are being born (and antiparticles too, but they fuck off out of my story) and they are all fixed around this point, the beginning of the universe point cuz they got nowhere else to go and they are being pushed and pulled away to make room for the new particles being born and its getting tight because these particles are being born and born and born because the equation is trying to balance until they just start say, fuck it, this place is crowded, statistically you and I can’t be at the same place at the same time and statistically I can be somewhere else quite comfortably. So matter starts buggering off too. Maybe some antimatter buggered off as well in the same way because statistically if matter and antimatter are same place same time they would be null but I already told you that null is no more didn’t I?
So this matter, these particles waves are still trying to nullify because that’s what the equation is always trying to do balance, so positive matter and negative matter start trying to hook up, but positive matter and negative matter aren’t the real partners see, photons are supposed to hook up with anti-photons and electrons are supposed to hook up with positrons but they can’t really nullify see because anti-photons and positrons are all buggering off. they form neutral charges but not neutral mass. So its love the one you are with, (dig?), and Hydrogen ions and atoms start forming. And the hydrogen ions start smashing into one another and they fuck things up even more because they become helium atoms and it just gets worse and worse until you got like atoms that are giganormous with some major mass and electric charge and low inertia cuz they so big and fat, dig? And Hydrogen still trying to get together to try nullify but they start creating more energy in the form of heat and light which wasn’t around before but now it is, all the other elements that are being born and that gives some elements enough energy to form even bigger and crazier atoms and elements. And now even though everyone wants to get back to null it’s just fucked up because even if the matter meets antimatter, antimatter is only made up of anti photons and positrons, ain’t no anti gold or anti carbon to handle all these new matter that hydrogen done made, and there ain’t no anti light and anti heat to counteract this new energy that is being created. Lawd and we don’t even talk about the lack of anti radiation and anti energy to counteract the radiation from those unstable elements and them suns that are spinning. And the rest is history.
It all makes perfect sense to a crack smoking demonic figure of my imagination so why shouldn’t it make sense to you?

Contrary to my belief when I bought the ticket to see “Lars and the real girl”, it is not a movie about a geeky perv with a blow up doll and the hijinks that ensue. Why I would buy a ticket under this impression is another story and beside the point. This story is about a man under a psychological delusion and a love story. Not between the hero and the object of his affection but between a community and one of their own who has somehow fallen out of step with the normal. It is a story about a psychologist’s role not only with people who think or believe differently but with us all. What the movie also illustrates to me is that there are delusions that we all live with. Delusions help us to cope and function. Delusions are rather benign when compared to the other psychological “illnesses” that professionals must deal with such as schizophrenia, psychosis and psychopathy. The psychologist in this story operates under no delusion that she is this man’s savior of that she is anything but a facilitator as he sorts out his own problems. She serves to educate Lars’ family about his condition rather than Lars himself.

The story is sweet and funny, emphasizing on family, community and individuals as they handle this disorder. But as the story progresses we start to see how normal this abnormality is. Lars hands a bouquet of plastic flowers to his woman saying, “They aren’t real so they last forever” and one remembers the sweet words that one whispered to another in the days of naivety. Did we all not think that love was like that? That it lasted forever? Is that not what we hoped vainly, as we embarked on new relationships; that the feelings would last? Similarly we capture moments on celluloid and in digital, so that reality is transposed onto facsimile forever, capturing something that cannot be captured. We also encourage our children to partake in delusions where stuffed toys and plastic figure become real life princesses, soldiers and tea party guests. Many of our young and older men and women are enthralled in fictional yet extremely complex worlds which really only exist once the computer or console is switched on. Even more adult games, like bowling, darts, athletics, competitive sports, are they not allegory for things that men and women do? The soap operas about non-existent characters, the fictional books and rumors and speculations which affect our financial markets: Is it then our place to destroy another’s delusion when we labor under so many delusions of our own?
I was not altogether surprised to note a few tears onscreen and even in the audience for the plastic ladies fate. Is this any more ludicrous that tears when a real life actor “dies” on screen? Is it any more ludicrous that we take up prime real estate and erect gravestones and to place over the heads of cadavers and corpses who decay away back to the earth? The gravestones aren’t there for them, funerals aren’t for the dead. They are for people to express feeling for people that no longer exist.

I end with a brief word on the most popular opponent of delusions, Dr. Richard Dawkins. I hope he would agree with me that feelings, like love and community spirit, for temporarily animated flesh is also a delusion, tricks of a selfish gene just trying to reproduce and improve itself. Lines start getting fuzzy when the flesh is no longer animated. They start to disappear if the flesh was never animated and confusion may begin to reign once matter and the laws of physics are ignored. Yet it is the delusions that helped Lars to make the developmental progress he needed to become a functioning member of his community. Delusions are helpful if not integral to the mind’s machinery and one may argue quite successfully that delusions are the basis of successful societies. Even professor Dawkins seems to labor under the delusion that it is a “God delusion” and not a complex matrix of human greed, population expansion and development, mis-education ignorance, poverty, politics and power seeking by almost all the parties that is the reason for almost any “religious” war he may care to mention. The Kenyan born, Berkley and Oxford educated gentleman should do well to remember his fellow Kenyans who were not afforded his opportunity to read Nietzsche, Socrates and Hobbes or travel the world professing something that greater men have discovered before him but were wise enough to keep to themselves . Religious delusion played no part in their recent unrest. As he mulls over a good wine or an erudite tome or perhaps his fan mail, may he reflect on the fact that for some people, delusions are all they have.

There is sense of impending danger in the analyst world. Both bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri (20th March, 24 March) have recently released statements urging attacks. The attacks themselves may not be al-Qaeda originated but undeniably al-Qaeda complicit and with foreknowledge. Al-Qaeda’s failure to take hold in Iraq and with the US and allied occupations beginning to wrap up and wind down, Pakistan and Palestine are the weakest targets, Pakistan being the more accessible. The Jamestown foundation’s Imtiaz Ali suspects that Paki-Afgani insurgents are preparing for IED and suicide belt coordinated mass attacks. The suspected faction, “The Haqqani Network”, are soviet era Mujadeen who have been embroiled in the Taliban and post 9/11 struggle. Their tribal area has come under rocket attack from “unknown origin”, most likely US forces in Afghanistan or the Pakistani military. They now feel a need to make a dramatic political statement which in that part of the world unfortunately involves extreme violence.

Osama bin Laden’s ‘warnings’ usually indicate a high probability of attacks. For both al-Qaeda leaders to rush out statements, the terrorist organization indicates a high desire to be tied into an event which they have some foreknowledge of. While Pakistan’s Sharif has probably sent word of his fidelity to Islam, the thoroughly Westernized and crooked Zardari will have a hard time convincing extremists that a) he won’t kowtow to the will of the US and b) he won’t resume pilfering the aid sent. Musharraf of the other hand has lost almost all leverage now that Western, extremist and Pakistani factions have turned their back on him. That he is not now begging bread on the streets indicates that he still commands military support and may be taking the dual role of scapegoat and big dog in this failed states problematic fight against extremism. This transition period is an opportunity for radicals and militants to create mass casualties.
Pakistan’s “victory over dictatorship” is likely to be punctuated with several large scale or a massive scale attack from disaffected tribal factions. Al-Qaeda is promoting these events to shore up their flagging numbers and perception among fellow Muslims.

Reference:
Imtiaz Ali, The Haqqani Network and Cross-Border Terrorism in Afghanistan, Terrorism Monitor, The Jamestown Foundation March 24 2008.