Ranting bosons

I woke up today and for some unbeknown reason I had all these weird thoughts in my head. It all began a few years back, but really came back to me the other night when I was watching a film about aliens.

Yes, I know how it sounds. Aliens, weird people, conspiracy theories and whatnot. But it really is something else. 

The film I was watching began with a quote by Arthur C. Clarke: "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."

I don't know about you, but it really bugs me that people take it for granted that aliens don't exist. And I should perhaps abandon the use of the word "aliens" as it implies something something I don't mean to. You see, "aliens" to me can be any form of extra-terrestrial life, and it seems weirdly normal that extra-terrestrial life should not only be immeasurably more advanced than us, but it would also be playing around on our planet. Perhaps it is a perception too similar to the one we have of teenagers, wouldn't you agree? You give a teenager a smartphone with more CPU power than my first and second computer combined, and what he does is play Angry Birds in HD mode.

I guess what I'm saying is that it seems rather improbable, let alone impossible, that we are alone in the vast span of the whole Universe. Scientists have already discovered other planets with Earth-like features which would be suitable to support life as we know it. Life as we know it. Life as WE know it... Hmmmm...

What do we know about life? What IS life? Why are we considered alive and other things not? We do have organic chemistry, we do consider all life to be carbon-based, we give great weight to proteins and try to find traces of water on places very far away. But what if life does not exist only in the way we know it? What if there are other possibilities, other viable environments? What if other forms of life exist, forms we can't even perceive? It is common sense that we would not be able (probably) to interact with such a form of life with techniques currently available. Imagine an entity living in an environment completely devoid of oxygen and hydrogen, feeding off metal-based alloys and thriving on naturally occurring electricity discharges. 

I dare say that the basic compound of life as we know it is not carbon, it's electricity. Even if we are so different from "soulless matter", the soul itself is not contained in our material body. Otherwise, we would be immortal. Life ceases when the brain stops functioning, ultimately. And it can be caused by a variety of factors, but the result is one: no signals are conveyed, there is no flux of electrons, it's like we are out of battery.

So, if electricity is what makes us tick, why wouldn't it work on other environments as well? We only need oxygen so that the brain, our current functional headquarters, as well as every other subsystem, can meet the challenge of surviving in the state it has been created. There is nothing more to it. It just doesn't know anything different. What would happen, though, if it were created under different circumstances? Would it be able to contain electric charge and use it in a manner so that it could be classified as "alive"? 

It must be an old question, and Frankenstein is a proof for this.

What I want to say, in the end, is that perhaps we should keep an open mind.  Consider when people didn't know that the world is round. Consider when they didn't know that we revolve around the Sun, and not the other way round. I think we ought to have more than enough proof to make us consider our options twice, yet we seem to hold on to whatever we already know, and exclude new possibilities instead of examining them based on our knowledge.

This morning, as I said, I woke up in a strange mood, and started reading online about String Theory. For the theory to hold, it says, we need a space of higher dimension, namely 11, if I am correct. And everyone loses their mind.

I was TA in my time in University. Trying to explain in a Programming class what multi-dimensional arrays are, I confronted the limits of my colleagues  as well as mine. How does one understand what a multi-dimensional array is?

We all know what an array looks like. It's rows and columns, spanning for as many elements as we need. And we all know that this is a two-dimensional array. Then, how do we add a third dimension?

Well, I presume you've at least once worked with Microsoft Excel or a similar package. Have you noticed the small tabs indicating the spreadsheets? So, by going to a different sheet, you have a whole new table to work with. There you go, a third dimension.

If you add workbooks to that, you have another yet dimension: every book has its sheets, and every sheet has its own table.

What if we have a folder in which we keep the books for every year? Then we have another dimension.

I could go on, but I think you got the message. We need practical examples to be able to make things work in our heads, but sometimes it's not as complicated as it seems. We just need the right perspective, I guess. And perhaps the 11-dimensional space is not such a crazy theory, given our own limitations. We can't even directly see the whole spectrum of the light around us, let alone perceive the grandeur of the space that we live in!

But hopefully the people that prefer to use their intuition and put their minds to work will have better results than my random thoughts. I can only hope I've gotten you intrigued and not bored.

Random drops of rainy thoughts

Hey there. What's up with you on a rainy day like this?

I don't know, somewhere between the sore throat, the headache and the sips of tea from my lovely Winnie the Pooh cup, I felt like writing. So, if you're reading this, my guess is you have nothing better to do either.

The thing is, I haven't thought of a topic. There is nothing on my mind that I have to share or something deep or funny to say. It's just a state of boredom/idleness and this is some kind of a safety valve, an escape route, if you wish. So I suppose there's no harm in just blurting out anything that comes to mind.

Let's see... I was thinking about the weather. There was sun a few days ago, and there is so much water today, it feels like we're living through a different season. It's like Mother Nature is going through its menopause or something. One moment, everything is blooming with life, Spring is on our doorsteps, people bathe in sunshine (literally, there were people sunbathing the other day) and it almost seems like Winter is over. Then, the next day, you can almost hear Ned Stark's voice saying sternly "Brace yourselves, Winter is coming." Only that it's not coming, it's already here, and it has no intention to go away.

Then again, I was thinking about Summer. Seeing that it seems to forget us, it's only natural to think of it, right? So, I was thinking about it, and they were happy thoughts as much as they were scary. Scary, yes. I mean, Summer is the season when one goes to the beach, there is the sea, there are hot days in cool places, there are fewer clothes to wear... and that's just the scary thing. Well, scary in a relative manner. It's kinda intimidating, going to the beach and taking off one's clothes, revealing every little fridge-sin one has committed during the past months. And there are quite a bit of sins under my belt, I can tell you that. Yes, there is a pun there somewhere.

Anyway, they say it's the "inner beauty" that counts. Please, do tell me, when was the last time someone came to you and said "Wow, you look very pretty inside!". Kinda creepy, isn't it?

I truly believe there is such a thing, this "inner beauty". Someone would describe it as whatever one does when no one is watching. Others would say it's how you treat those who cannot do anything for you. Then again, there are those who sternly believe it's what you say, rather that what you do. But they don't really like to admit it. And I doubt they even realize it.

But on the topic of inner beauty, given that it exists in any form one wants to define it, it is still... inner. It cannot be seen until it is shown (that was deep, huh?). What we can see, on the other hand, is the outer beauty, the wrapping we come in. And it is not uncommon that the worst surprises come wrapped in the best wrapping paper. I should give and example here, but due to lack of ideas, I invite you to make one for yourself.

So, here comes a question. Should one present a face (we are talking general concepts here) that is not true in order to impress, or should one present one's real face? What is more, is one even capable of presenting a fake face? Or is it possible to present different faces due to the fact that we posses many (faces)?

Oh, this is bad... My headache is acting up...

On a non-related topic, I have a dog. His name is Odie. You know, like the dogie from Garfield. He's always jumping around and searching for something to gnaw on, very often it being my limbs. Be it my hands or feet, he will bite until I play with him for so long that he's exhausted and decides that breathing is as important as playing. When he wants something, he stands on his rear feet like a monkey and jumps around in circles, back and forth, crying and asking for attention. And when he gets none, he gets mad and puts up a fight.

He's kind of a dummy dog, he's small and spoiled, and he likes company. But the thing that's always surprising me is how friendly and cheerful he is. Even if I wake him up just to pet him, he will be happy and lick my hand. And when I yell at him for breaking something or eating my shoes, he will come back after a while, waving his tail and pretending as if nothing ever happened. And his greatest joy is going out for a walk. Simple as that.

There is nothing more to it, I just wanted you to know that I have a pet dog.

I used to have a small turtle. Then I had rabbits. Then pigeons. Then parrots. But dogs are way better for me. It would be somewhat awkward to wrestle with a pigeon. The dog, on the other hand, is just the right companion for that. And for you, cat lovers, a fight with a cat equals numerous scratches, and this doesn't really work for me. 

Useless stuff for today, I know. Pretty random as well. Oh, I hope you get over it! I have another cup of tea to make, so... until next time!