Some Thoughts on the Nature of the Universe, Emergence, Time, and Complexity

It seems to me that one could posit both reductionism and emergence simultaneously, depending on what level of reality -- what perspective -- you are talking about. Let's take the example of biochemistry and the cell. Suppose you were a conscious amino acid. The material world consists, for you, of fellow biochemicals, and you know too that you are made up of atoms, and that those atoms are made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons. You go about your business, acting as an individual amino acid, sometimes joining into larger groups (proteins), and then separating out from them. You wander around your society of biochemicals, imagining that this is all there is. And then one day, a nucleic acid comes to you and tells you that you are part of this larger entity, that your mind is not entirely your own, but that there is this thing out there, this "cell" of which you are a part, that comes in and influences your actions. All that you thought were your choices or merely random events is in fact run by this higher intelligence known as the "cell." It is not that you don't have choices -- you can be in this or that part of the cell, you may attach yourself to a tRNA, to a protein, to a short polypeptide, etc. -- but you are now informed that there is a greater purpose involved, that you are part of this larger cell, and that your actions help to keep this cell alive. Now, from the point of view of the amino acid, the cell will seem, in relation to you, "immaterial." It will make no sense from your material point of view. It will seem very strange indeed. You may believe in the cell, or not (and be an atheist). There will be discussions among your fellow biochemicals regarding the nature of the cell. Is it material? That is, if it even exists. The "cell" theory does seem to make a lot of things make more sense -- but it is nonetheless troubling. If it is not material in the same sense as a biochemical, is it really material? From our more complex, emergent human perspective, the cell seems to be just as material as as its constituent biochemicals. While, on the other hand, our "mind" appears to be just as immaterial as the cell is to the biochemical. The ideal seems, then, to be emergent from the real. The amino acids might get together and come up with all sorts of theories about the nature of the cell that seems to transcend them. They may get it more or less correct, but how would they know for certain, as what is above them is so much more complex than they are? Let me tell a short story of emergence. In the beginning was pure information, or pure energy. Information is inform, yet gives form. It is the foundation of all things. (In the beginning (archae) was the word (logos).) As the universe expanded and cooled, that pure energy crystalized out into quantum particle-waves. It became more material. Some of those quantum particle-waves combined to form emergent atoms with greater complexity. These atoms were more material than their constituent particle-waves. Some of those atoms combined to form chemicals (more material than atoms) --- and some of those chemicals were able to interact in complex cycles to give rise to cells with emergent complexity. These cells were more material than their constituent chemicals. Some cells were able to develop complex interactions such that multicellular organisms were able to emerge, giving rise to greater complexity and more complex interactions. These multicellular organisms were even more material than their constituent cells. One species of animal evolved a highly complex brain with an emergent intelligence. This brain resulted in more complex social behaviors, the evolution of language, and the emergence of complex culture and religion. It was so complex that it was able to contemplate itself and the universe (thus, the universe became complex enough to become self-aware, to be able to contemplate itself). It seems that there will soon be 10 billion members of that species, with brains so complex that the minding function of that brain has given rise to the appearance of permanence (the same way that while each of the lower levels that constitute it are in fact always in flux, always in time, they nonetheless gain more appearance of permanency). This species has more time and more time experience, more material being, than do all the levels below it that constitute it (there is a nested hierarchy -- a new Great Chain of Being). And that mind is much more material than the brain that gave rise to it. If we were at a level more complex than the mind, we would look at it as we currently look at the cell, or at chemicals vs. quantum particles, and wonder at something as insubstantial the brain gave rise to something as substantial as the mind.

Perhaps we should think instead of levels of reality, since different levels of reality in fact act quite differently from each other, though there are some similar traits that keep repeating themselves at each level, though with variations (information is one of those things -- all information is similar in form, but also differs considerably, if you consider quantum information vs. the information needed by an animal to survive, for example). I fear that if we look for "reality-in-itself," all we are doing is trying to reduce everything down to just one of these realities -- as though quantum physics, for example, is real reality. Emergent properties are just as real and have real results.

Nothing. Unstable nothing gave rise to the singularity. Energy burst forth, the Universe was born in space-time. Energy rolled back and forth across space-time, in solitons that pushed space-time out, causing the universe to expand. These solitons, waves, pushed out and interacted with each other, creating more complex patterns of waves. Waves interacting with waves to create more complex patterns of waves, trillions of wavelets that interacted with each other in simple systems to create the first particle-waves of matter-energy. Matter came about through the folding of space-time, and the interactions of those folds to create the first, simple, complex systems. And when these folded back onto themselves, creating folded folds, the first atoms emerged. And these new folded realities folded again, and chemistry was born, and this folded once again, and living things were born into the world. Complexity emerged with ever more folds, and as living things enfolded themselves, more complex organisms, including vertebrates, were born. And more complex vertebrates emerged from more enfolding, and more complex nervous systems emerged with more neural enfolding, creating more complex behaviors, driving even deeper, more complex neural folding. And human intelligence emerged, in deeply folded neurons, in a deeply folded brain. And then...? What, indeed, is the next, and then...? But what have I in fact just said? I have said, first, that all existence is in fact nothing more than folded space-time. It is ever-enfolded and enfolding space-time. Any entity is not in space-time, but is space-time. It constitutes and is constituted of space-time. If gravity is curved space-time, then the curving is caused by the pull created by the folds – by the external folds, those folds that are “external” on the system. In a less densely folded object, there is in fact more externality to the system, since the folds are farther apart. A sun is both heavier, and less dense than the planet Earth – it thus has less dense folds, though many more, though simple, objects in it. This is what bends space-time. The earth is denser in that it has more complex, and thus more densely folded, atoms in it – and this is what causes it to have the gravitational pull it has, despite its relatively small size. One may suppose, then, that if this model is correct, then molecules should have greater density than atoms, and thus must weigh more. Obviously this is incorrect. But one thing we have failed to take into account to this point is the fractal geometry of the folding. When we have a fractal object, we have an object that has a finite area surrounded by an infinite border. With a real-world fractal, we have a finite area that can be surrounded by an increasingly long border. The addition of more folds creates more border, but the amount of space occupied remains the same. This is what allows for a relatively moderately-sized bipedal ape like ourselves to nonetheless have very complex brains – the folding in fact encompasses a similar area. Certainly, brain size increased as humans evolved, and this helped with the creation of even more complexity – the same way that a uranium atom is both more complex and larger than a hydrogen atom – but we can compare the human brain to a similarly sized-brained animal, and the human is still more intelligent, and has a more complex brain. So the fractal model still holds. The human brain in fact has many more folds in it than does the brain of any other mammal with a brain of similar size, and yet takes up the same area. More, human brains take up much less area than does an elephant brain, or a blue whale’s brain, and yet humans are much more intelligent, due precisely to the deeper folds. But if greater complexity is caused by more folds in space-time, and all folds in space-time are in fact energy waves, doesn’t this mean that there is in fact more matter in a more complex entity? After all, we all know that E=mc2. Well, in a sense, there is in fact more mass in more complex entities – just not in the same way as exists in relatively simple objects like atoms. Another thing to consider is that when we split an atom, we are reducing the atom, which is one of the lowest levels of folding, to the less folded pure space-time. It is a violent reaction, but it is in fact a low-level one. Higher levels of folding must first unfold into lower levels, and go down level by level. The human can be reduced to the animal, an animal reduced to chemicals, and chemicals reduced to isolated atoms. Thus does the energy level of an entity decrease, level by level, the way that high-energy electrons drop down electron shell by electron shell. In this way, the matter of more complex entities increase, while the matter stays, in one sense, the same. What we will need will be new ways of measuring “mass” and “matter” in order to understand how deeper folds of space-time give rise to more complex entities. One way of looking at things is to see space-time itself as the real, and emergence into new levels of complexity as new levels of quasi-reality. Thus, it is space-time that is the real, while particle-waves are quasi-real, atoms are quasi-quasi-real, chemicals are quasi-quasi-quasi-real, etc. through biology and humans. Thus, in a sense, each emergence is more “ideal,” and the philosophies of “realism” and “idealism” are allowed to co-exist along a continuum. But another way of looking at things is to see that each time more space-time is folded and enfolded, more space-time comes into contact with more space-time. Thus, there is an emergence into ever greater levels of reality. More space-time is experienced by a complex entity, and thus it becomes more real. With this latter view, we are able to see how nothing can give rise to something, and not only that, the way in which that something grows, and grows more complex.

In my unpublished-manuscript-looking-for-a-publisher "Diaphysics" I argue that there are in fact a set of rules which go through each of the emergent levels of reality, but which can get expressed in different ways at different levels. Information is one such rule. The information at quantum levels is also necessarily used at higher levels, (like livings things), though other forms of information can also emerge at higher levels -- entire chemicals, sound waves, etc. So too do the rules underlying self-organization. And symmetry-breaking. The rules underlying emergence itself seem to change (and yet continue to resemble each other) at each level, as the emergent properties of an atom are certainly different than of a mind from the brain. So I would argue that these new emergent systems do in fact develop new ways of doing the same old things -- that what we see is new variations on the same old processes. Further, it seems that as systems evolve, when a system develops similar processes as resulted in the previous level of emergence, that is when we get the next level of emergence. A living cell, for example, more resembles an atom in behavior and structure than does a salt crystal. I would argue that it is more the living cell than the crystal which has qualities not predictable from the constituent atoms. Is anyone really surprised that NaCl results in a square crystal? But if you start with the constituent chemicals, the living cell is quite a surprise.

How does complexity emerge? “The theory of quantum mechanics gives rise to large-scale structure because of its intrinsically probablistic nature. Counterintuitive as it may seem, quantum mechanics produces detail and structure because it is inherently uncertain” (Lloyd, 49). In other words, chances are that a number of waves will become particles in a small region, which, because particles have mass, will gravitationally bend space there, making it more likely that more particles will accumulate there. The probablistic distribution of particle-waves resulted in tiny variations amplified through butterfly effects into large-scale structure (49-50). So, since quantum mechanics supplies random quantum fluctuations, “From a single initial state, obeying simple physical laws, the universe has systematically processed and amplified the bits of information embodied in those quantum fluctuations. The result of this information processing is the diverse, information-packed universe we see around us: programmed by quanta, physics gave rise first to chemistry and then to life” (61). Since “gravity responds to the presence of energy, where the energy density is higher, the fabric of space-time begins to curve a little more” (195). This “gravitational clumping supplied the raw material necessary for generating complexity. As matter clumps together, the energy that matter contains becomes available for use” (199). Further, the same interactions that increase entropy “make quantum objects behave in a more classical way” (108), so entropy resulted in the production of order in the universe through decoherence and gravitation. In other words, “information tells space how to curve; and space tells information where to go” (174). As a result of these random inputs from quantum fluctuations in combination with the laws of quantum mechanics, we get “a universe with a mix of order and randomness, in which complex systems arise naturally from simple origins” (185). Emergence is emergence into new levels of greater complexity. The word “complex” means “folded” – thus the universe, as it becomes more complex, becomes more folded. Space-time becomes more folded as it becomes more complex – thus, it becomes increasingly fractal in its geometry. As space-time becomes more folded, more space-time comes into more contact with more space-time. This will affect the way space and time act and interact. As this happens, they way space-time acts and interacts will change. For one, interactions will speed up. This idea is complementary with the previous idea that we are coming to know the nature of space-time more accurately with emergence into each new level, as each new level also has to come to know itself, and is as much a part of space-time as lower levels. Each new level is just a more folded version of space-time. With emergence into each new level, those new levels are able to use more and different kinds of information and energy not available to the levels below them – much of which is only available once that level has evolved (we can process and use language – which was only available to process once language emerged). Thus, it is illegitimate to say that just because one level does something, that it is relevant to all other levels. Einstein’s discoveries about relativity are useless in the realm of ethics, which is a different hierarchical level of reality. At the same time, each higher level is made of the levels below it – and there is a common thread, a diaphysics, that seems to unite them. Humans are a nested hierarchy of self-similar complex systems. We contain the biological, which contains the chemical, which contains the quantum, which contains energy. And each level transmits up certain aspects of its reality. There is a randomness to quantum physics’s probablistic experience. And chaos theory expresses both randomness and probability in a deterministic fashion – as we see in fractals. And each of these are expressed in organisms. The purposeful behavior of organisms is found too in humans, though we supplement it with symbolic and concrete goals. This feed-forward of each level’s reality seems to be strongest precisely in those systems that have emerged into higher systems. Rocks have less complex fractal geometry than cells, precisely because a rock is a systems dead-end. Consider this: Is it “the mind” or “the minding function of the brain” (as Fraser would have it)? Let us put it another way: is it the organism, or the organism-ing of the cells? Is it the cell, or the cell-ing of organic chemistry? Is it chemistry, or the chemistry-ing of atoms? Is it atoms, or the atom-ing of particle-waves? And is it particle-waves, or the particle-waving of strings? The answer, in a sense, is “yes”. The danger of nouns is that people make the mistake of thinking of these things as having some sort of permanent “being.” The danger of verbs is that people make the mistake of thinking that something always changing does not have any kind of form or order (dissipative structures belies this belief – but most people are not yet thinking this way). Each noun-form is the emergent structure of the action of its constituent parts – the verb-form of those elements. A photon of wavelength 700nm reflects off an object and is picked up by a color receptor in the eye. The configuration change in the receptor causes an electric signal to be transmitted to the brain, which maps the signal onto a pattern associated with the pattern associated with the pattern for the word “red.” Even adjectives are actions.

Life is a Cabaret

My wife and I have been watching the AFI top 100 movies, and every once in a while we will come across a film that is surprising.

If you haven't seen "Cabaret" staring Liza Minnelli and directed by Bob Fosse, the great choreographer, then you probably think what we did about the film: that it was going to be a cute song-and-dance number. I mean, it has the song, "Life is a cabaret, old chum . . . life is a cabaret!" Turns out that this final song of the film is meant to be ironic.

This is an incredible film. At turns funny, haunting, sad, creepy, and disturbing, we get a good overview of Germany right as the Nazis are rising to power. But we are also getting a powerful symbol of America in Liza Minnelli's character (a representation still apt in my opinion -- which is one reason why this is still such a great film, and one everyone should watch), and also a symbol of Britain's position and situation in Michael York's character. We see the struggles of a young Jewish man who is hiding the fact that he is a Jew so he can succeed -- but then falls in love with a Jewess and has to decide if he will continue with the charade or not. There is also a brilliant handling of sexuality in this film, used to great effect when a very effeminate-looking young man who begins singing turns out to be a Nazi. Every song in the film is symbolic, but doesn't beat you over the head with the symbolism. And, while they were at it, they threw in the issue of abortion.

There is so much going on in this film, it's amazing. It would be worth it just to see the German cabaret scenes, which show how strange German culture could be at times -- but with everything else going on in the film as well, and how well it is done, this film truly is a masterpiece.

Jeremiah Wright's Soul

The racist bigot Jeremiah Wright is now complaining that the complaints against his racist rantings are attacks on the black church. This is race baiting at its worst. I attend a church that has a majority African-American membership. We have several pastors who alternate, and one is an African-American, and I have never heard him say anything like Wright has said. The church I attend, though, is filled with African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, and European-Americans and various mixtures, so it's not a black church -- it's a church. The only kind of church there should be: a human church. Souls have no color, Mr. Wright. But I do believe those souls who preach hatred are souls which are damned. You can attend or preach at all the black churches would want, but any real Christian doesn't attend a black church -- real Christians simply attend church.

I Hate Indiana Nazis, Part II

I'm glad to learn that there are two other Republicans running for the Republican nomination in the Indiana 2nd District: Joe Roush and Luke Puckett. As a supporter of free markets and someone having been born in South Bend, I hope either one of these men gets the nomination and then wins the election. As a decent person, I hope Tony Zirkle loses. He should go join a party more in line with his fundamental beliefs. There is no room for him in the GOP.

In a side note, my last comments on this idiot Zirkle got the attention of the leader of the group Zirkle spoke to. Bill White is a good example of why evil ideas like those of Karl Marx should be kept out of the hands of 13 year olds.

Public Intellectuals

Go vote for your pick of the top 100 public intellectuals at Foreign Policy.

Obama Insensitive to the Plight of the Poor

Looks like McCain has found something to justly criticize Obama on: his insensitivity to the poor. Of course, that happens to be true of most Democrats, whose policies have made the poor worse off and destroyed their families. They claim good intentions, but after a while, when it becomes clear to any rational person that your policies are having the opposite effect of the stated intentions, and no changes are being bade but, rather, more of the same is proposed, shouldn't we begin to question those intentions? Walter Williams once commented that the Klan could not have developed a better system for destroying the lives dna families of African-Americans than has the Democratic party. Indeed. The Republicans need to start pointing this sort of thing out -- and I'm glad McCain is doing so (even if it's more subtle than WIlliams -- or I -- am).

I Hate Indiana Nazis

This is why some people associate conservatives in general and Republicans in particular with racism. What idiot would give a talk to a neo-Nazi group on Hitler's birthday? A racist, fascist idiot, that's who. I hope the Republicans have someone -- anyone -- running against him in the primary. And if not, I hope the Democrat wins. The Democrats' policies may have the same end result as an out-and-out racists' policies would, but at least they think they are doing the right thing. On the other hand, there's something to be said about evil being open and honest about itself -- you can at least see it coming. This national socialist clown needs to go join some other party that actually does advocate socialism and leave the GOP to those of us who are trying to mae it more libertarian -- meaning, anti-nationalist, anti-socialist, anti-racist, and pro-freedom.

Good For Jay Wheeler

Insensitive? No, Florida school board member Jay Wheeler is right on in telling parents that the reason they can't afford school uniforms for their children is because they are wasting too much on cable TV, alcohol, and cigarettes. And people do -- for which they should be ashamed. It's about time someone told them so.

The Emerson Institute for Freedom and Culture -- Mission Statement

My wife, Anna, and I will be setting up a nonprofit organization we are tentatively calling "The Emerson Institute for Freedom and Culture" -- a think tank to promote the creation of a naturally classical culture. Below is our mission statement. I would appreciate any feedback, recommendations, etc. on it.

The Emerson Institute for Freedom and Culture

Mission Statement

The Emerson Institute for Freedom and Culture is working to change the culture by promoting progressive natural classicism in the arts and humanities.

Censors of every ideology know the power of the arts and humanities. Culture emerges from the people, who are influenced by the culture. Politicians follow the people; the laws they pass are shaped by their perception of what the people want. Thus, if any long-term support for free markets and personal liberty is to occur, the changes must be made in the culture rather than with the politicians. If we have a culture which promotes freedom, truth, beauty, meaning, value, and virtue, we will have people who will support freedom, truth, beauty, meaning, value, and virtue in their lives as a whole, including in their politics. The top will be changed by changes at the bottom.

Cultures, economies, and free societies are all complex systems. Complex systems have bottom-up self-organization, evolve, are polycentric hierarchies, and involve nonlinear feedback loops. Such systems are generative of growth, freedom, value, meaning, and virtue. Thus, we seek to help create this kind of natural culture, one that is a complex, nonlinear, self-organizing, flexible hierarchy that will allow for greater freedom and creative innovation, limit power, and reduce coercion in favor of mutually beneficial exchange and assent. We also seek to oppose all attempts to create a simple, linear, coercive, rigid, egalitarian culture that makes people weak, passive, irresponsible, lacking in self-control, easily led, incapable of independent thought, nihilistic, and prone to engage in crime and self-destructive behavior – all of which makes a society conducive to the acceptance of totalitarianism.

Any real and lasting societal change must start in the culture – in the arts and humanities. If the people are to believe in freedom, truth, beauty, meaning, value, and virtue, then our arts and humanities must create or reconstruct freedom, truth, beauty, meaning, value and virtue in works which address themselves to the average person and not just to the specialist. In other words, we must support works that provide a counterpoint to those postmodern works which promote a simplistic, irrational, unbeautiful, nihilistic worldview that undermines rather than reinforces the creative freedom inherent in the world. Through journals and newsletters, articles and books, scholarly panels, media appearances, and special projects, EIFC strives to reflect the reality of the world as a self-organizing, nonlinear, creative, hierarchical, complex, emergentist system conducive to freedom.

Charles Jencks

Charles Jencks is one of the coolest sculptor-architects I have ever seen. His work is influenced by fractals, DNA, etc. Great stuff! If I could have a dream set-up, I'd have him design an outdoor theater and perform plays in it.

Joy vs. Happiness

There's a lot of talk on the blogs I typically read regarding happiness. As far as I'm concerned, happiness is merely life satisfaction. That can make happiness a problem, because if you're satisfied, you don't want to change anything. It also seems a poor replacement for joy, something which many people seem to try to avoid. The problem with joy is that it's overwhelming and hopeful and beautiful, while happiness seems closer to kitsch (Milan Kundera said kitsch portrays a world without shit; this is to be compared to postmodern art, which portrays the world as nothing but shit). Strict moralists want a world of kitschy happiness; postmodernists want a world of shit. Beauty is the recognition that the world is both simultaneously. When you can witness such beauty, that is what brings you joy.

Synopsis and Characters of “REFLECTIONS”

Here's a synopsis and character list for my new play "Reflections." What do you think? Sound like anything you might want to see? I would love to get together with a musician and choreographer to add music and specific dance elements to this play and make it more like opera and ballet.

SYNOPSIS OF “REFLECTIONS”

“Reflections” is a verse romance in five acts. The first act introduces Adam, the protagonist, who is in love with his friend Lily, and the mirror world they enter. In the second and third act, Adam descends through the mirror world. In the fourth and fifth act, Adam ascends through the mirror world and back into the real world, where he emerges as a poet.

In Act I, Adam is making dinner for Lily. She is admiring an antique mirror he bought. As she is looking through it, her mirror image drags her through the mirror. Adam follows her through to rescue her. On the other side he meets three women called the Norns, who tell him in riddles why he is there.

In Act II, Adam meets a series of creatures that represent stages within Adam himself. First he meets the Fairies, who introduce him to Peter, his occasional guide. Peter takes him to the Gnome, who bought Lily and sold her to a Troll as a slave. They pay the Gnome to take them to the Troll, but along the way they meet The Lamed Wufnik, a holy man, three Angels, and three Knights. The Lamed Wufnik tells Adam he’s destined to be a prophet, then gives Adam a sword. The Angels give him a shield and the Knights accompany Adam to confront the Troll. They find Lily locked up in a cage, and have to fight several Trolls to free her. When they leave, they enter into a spirit forest. The spirits there inform Adam that he’s the one who was promised..

In Act III, Adam and Lily, alone, encounter a group of Satyrs. They try to seduce Lily and, in trying to do so, inform Adam of her long list of sex partners. Adam’s illusions of Lily are shattered, and this is the beginning of the end of their friendship. When Adam and Lily encounter their Doubles, Lily leaves Adam for Adam’s Double, leaving Adam alone. He gets on a boat and rows away. On the sea he encounters Sea Nymphs, who try to seduce him into the sea to drown. He then lands on an island, where he has to fight a Basilisk and, when they become flesh again, the men the monster had turned to stone. Adam finally encounters a Dragon, who purifies him with painful torture.

In Act IV, the Dragon sends Adam off. Adam lands on an island ruled by a demon lord, and he is further tortured by him and his Salamanders to rid him of his arrogance. Set to sea again, Adam is tempted by Air Nymphs. He lands to encounter the Satyrs again, who first cower from him, but then turn friendly when Adam thanks them for exposing Lily for who she really was. They celebrate and the Satyrs introduce him to Eva, who becomes his companion. They leave the Satyrs and encounter a group of Corybantes, who make them dance in celebration of life. The Norns come on and introduce Adam to Marie, who is to become his best friend.

In Act V, Adam, Eva, and Marie enter the spirit forest, where they celebrate Adam’s return. Peter rejoins Adam. Next the foursome enter the Trolls’ country, where they have to fight some Trolls. One kills Marie, and Adam sacrifices himself to bring Marie back to life. The Trolls, impressed, let them leave. They bring Adam to the Borak who, accompanied by the three Angels and the three Knights, bring Adam back to life. They divest Adam of his sword and shield and send him on to see the Gnome, who has a gift for Adam. After visiting the Gnome, they continue on to see the Fairies, who also have a gift for Adam. Leaving everyone behind, Adam finds himself alone with the Norns, who tell him he is finished with his transformation and must now go back to the real world, transformed into a poet. In the final scene, we see Adam talking about poetry with a contemporary poet, where it becomes clear his work is really just starting. Finally, Marie comes in to introduce Adam to her new boyfriend. Adam is left alone to prepare for his new struggles as an artist.

“Reflections” is a play about Adam who, due to his unrequited love for his friend Lily, undergoes a radical transformation tat turns him into a poet. This transformation is reflected in his entering into a mirror world from which he must successfully rescue Lily. He slowly discovers that he is on a more important quest: one that will help him get over Lily, discover who he is, change who he is, and cause him to emerge as a poet. He descends first through psychological stages, then through levels of reality, then ascends again. Those he meets are actually reflections of himself. When he returns from the mirror world, he returns an artist – where he now has to face new challenges that are only just beginning for him as a formalist poet.

CHARACTERS

Bard – iambic hexameter – introduces each act and concludes the play

Adam – style changes – a young man in love with Lily. Adam follows Lily into a parallel world representing his descent into and ascent from the underworld

Lily – prose, then iambic tetrameter – Adam’s friend, who does not love Adam as he loves her

Harpy/Lily’s Dbl– silent – kidnaps Lily though the mirror in Adam’s apartment

Norns – iambic tetrameter – the Fates and Time incarnate. These wise women are Past, Present, and Future and provide guidance to Adam

Todd – rubliw – a Fox, acting as gadfly to Adam

Fairies – prose – a collective of ultraindividualists sympathetic to Adam

Peter – blank verse – Proteus, a shape-shifter who acts as Adam’s guide and teacher

Gnome – iambic – a mine owner/businessman who buys Lily from the Harpies who captured her and sells her to a Troll. He helps Adam find Lily to free her.

Dwarves – iambic – a cook and some miners employed by the Gnome

Lamed Wufnik – ghazal – a holy man who justifies man to God. He gives Adam a sword as defense in the mirror world

Angels (3) – sonnets – give Adam a shield as protection

Knights (3) – heroic couplets – go with Adam to protect him as he rescues Lily

Trolls – alcaics – territorial and militant. One buys Lily from the Gnome. They are impressed by heroic sacrifice

Dryad – ballade – king of the nature spirits

Rock Sprites – rime royal – spirits of the rocks

Tree Sprites – rime couee – spirits of the trees

Satyrs – dithyrambs – half-man, half-goat; lusty, cowardly drunks

Animals – choriambics – Deer, Cougar, Wolf, Bison all representing Adam’s animal nature

Adam’s Double – Adam’s style – the mirror image of Adam

Lily’s Double – iambic tetrameter – the mirror image of Lily

Sea Nymphs – anapestic – spirits of the sea

Basilisk – u/uu//uu/u – giant reptile that turns living things to stone with its glance

Stone Men – blank verse – turned back to flesh and blood when the Basilisk is turned to stone. They attack Adam, and he has to kill each one

Earth Nymphs – headless iambic – clear their island of the dead

Dragon – elegic couplet – purifies Adam at his lowest point and sends Adam back up into life as a poet

Keteh Meriri – headless iambic – demon lord of hot summers and midday. He further purifies Adam

Salamanders – limerick – fire elementals and followers of Keteh Meriri

Sylphs – headless anapestic – air nymphs who try to seduce Adam to stay with them

Eva – dithyrambs – Adam’s lover on his ascent

Women – dithyrambs – Adam’s lovers on his ascent

Corybantes – hendecasyllabics – half demon, half divine dancing attendants to the Mother of God(s)

Marie – Sapphic verse – Adam’s identical opposite; his spiritual soul mate and best friend

Borak – Ruba’i – winged horse with the head of a man and the tail of a peacock who took Muhammad to heaven. He brings Adam back to life

Roland – prose – a contemporary, anti-formalist poet

Why, If It Weren't For My Family, My Life Would Suck

Believing in evolution outside of a biology or other hard science department makes for a lonely life. Religious conservatives reject evolution outright, mistakenly believing that accepting evolution means one must reject God, so I get no support from them. The Left presents they believe in evolution, but the truth is that when you present them with any sort of details, especially regarding behavior, they reject all evolutionary explanations. The blank slate model of the mind is the only one they accept -- if people aren't completely malleable, then most Leftists beliefs fall apart pretty quickly.

Heaven help you even more if you're like me and have a degree in the humanities AND believe in evolution AND support free markets (AND believe in God -- might as well throw in that politically incorrect belief too while we're at it). That's a combination which will guarantee to keep you out of a job. Combine that with a belief in truth, beauty, and excellence, and you might as well give up ever getting a job in the humanities.

Where is one like me -- an interdisciplinary humanities scholar and poet -- to find a job? In places where I should be able to be hired, my being "interdisciplinary" makes people think I'm unfocused, when what it really means is I see problems in their full complexity. I've had an English department tell me I'm overqualified, though the job required a Ph.D. and my dissertation was about literary analysis. I've quit an interdisciplinary studies department because such departments are being treated as places where students failing in every other discipline can go to stay in college and I think that universities should be aiming for excellence and not for mediocrity -- or less. I cannot find a humanities department that is interested in hiring someone who is pro-science -- and if I were hired, there's little chance I'd get tenure due to my support of free markets. I'm not a Leftist, so work is closed off to me to such an extent that you'd think this was the Soviet Union.

So what are my choices? Go back to hotel work? Deny my education so I can get an $8/hr job? What have I done to myself by following my passions? Aren't we told that's the path to success? Then why do I keep failing? Why am I rejected by everyone? -- well, not everyone, I suppose, just everyone who could pay me for what I can do. Why am I barred in this culture from making a living?

Maybe it's time I just gave up on all this stuff and got a job in a mail room somewhere so I could work my way up the corporate ladder. All it would take would be for me to cease being who I am, doing what I love, and supporting what I believe in while rejecting my education. Is that really what it takes to get and keep a job? Do I really have to work to make the world a worse place by supporting positions that I know will make the world worse off so I can provide for my family? Are there any other options? If so, I'm completely unfamiliar with them. I'm at a complete loss.

Libertarian Culture, Libertarian World

I"m reading a book on art by the critic Danto titled "The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art," in which he observes that philosophy has treated art as "superstructure" rather than a "base" activity. Marxism took this idea up, declaring economics to be the base activity, with art remaining superstructure. I bring this up because I just has these two terms brought up again by Mickey Kaus, in context of Obama's elitist comments.

Danto challenges this placement of art in the superstructure, pointing out that if Marxists (or anyone) really believed this, then there would be no censorship, since art is merely a reflection of the problems at the base, meaning we need to change the base. If art is a reflection of the world, and can change nothing about the world, why be upset by it? Isn't it because we actually believe art can and does change the world?

Of course all of this assumes that economics is primary, and that everything goes back to it. No one can have actual belief -- it will be overshadowed by their economic situation. If this were true, then explain away the fact that the leadership of al Qaida are all wealthy and educated. If people only cling to their guns because of lack of jobs, explain those people who quit their jobs every hunting season -- especially deer season. Economics is A factor, but it's not THE factor in everyone's lives. For many, it's not even the main factor, once the basic needs are met. And with some religious practices, basic needs are even shunned. What is the materialist to make of those who abstain from food or sex as part of their devotion to God? Or who are homeless and impoverished for that reason? The Cynics of ancient Greece famously lived homeless as a reflection of their philosophical beliefs. Of course, one could put philosophy at the base -- but if you do, then how can you classify yourself as a materialist anymore? And why exclude art from the base?

Danto suggests that Plato and the other philosophers want to exclude art because art, like rhetoric (which Plato also has issues with), is designed to move people rather than convince them using logic and reason. But what if art becomes more like philosophy, or vice versa? What if philosophy becomes increasingly rhetorical -- as the postmodernists have indeed made it? What if art becomes increasingly philosophical -- as writers like Milan Kundera have made it? What if the history of Western philosophy is just plain wrong, and art is a base activity? In other words, what if in addition to being Rational Man, we are also Emotional Man? What if we are Integrated Man?

Larger questions now emerge. Is it rational for those of us who support free markets and are of a more libertarian stripe to ignore the culture, especially the arts? The Left certainly doesn't. We need to move beyond a culture where the Left supports the arts and the Right attacks what is done in the arts. Further, how much progress can be made in our struggle to change political economy if the culture at large is Left-leaning? Won't those efforts be undermined long term?

The word "pattern" comes from the word "patron." If we want the culture to pattern itself after a libertarian world view, we need to patronize the arts. We need to support the arts and encourage the creation of great works of art that reflect the realities of the world -- and not just Leftist fantasies. We need an active group or think tank to provide the support -- both theoretical and financial -- needed to create a libertarian culture. If I am right that once the basic needs (and sometimes not even those) are met, and that they are met more often than not, that people need culture to be fully human, then we need to work on affecting the culture if we want to have a freer world. If culture is at the base, then we need to work at changing the culture just as much as we need to work at changing the economy and the government. Especially if we are serious about long-term change.

Camille Paglia on Hillary Clinton II

Even though she's a bit more Left-leaning than I would like (and hasn't fully embraced her latent libertarianism), you've got to love Camile Paglia. She's right about everything she says about Hillary Clinton. If she wins, women lose; if she loses, women lose. Hillary Clinton is the kind of woman who make women-haters across the country say, "See, that's just what I said would happen if you let a women have that kind of power." Never mind all the great women the world over -- one shrill, man-hating, shrewish "victim" makes the climb steeper and higher for other women to follow. Especially with the predictable whining we can expect to hear from the cowardly NOW crowd, who would rather protest nonexistent problems in this country than stand up for real violations of women's rights around the world, especially in too many Islamic countries.

The Left's backwards Thinking

Obama's infamous comments are quite revealing of his (and the Left's) misunderstanding of human nature. Let's revisit those comments. He says that people in small towns "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Obama shows here that he has the Rousseauean belief that men are born good and are made bad by society. He thus shows that he is ignorant of the fact -- understood by religions around the world, and increasingly shown by evolutionary psychology -- that the natural state of people is poverty, a desire to have weapons for hunting and defense of their own, and xenophobia (which explains the last three listed). This is not to say that we should not do something to overcome these natural tendencies, but we have to recognize that these are the originary state of humans. Wealth is what is unusual and recent. Opposition to racism is what is unusual and recent. Thank goodness for both, but we have to recognize that we develop these, that they are not the original state of man. This confused understanding of human nature and the evolution of human behavior is what causes the Left to come up with completely backwards ideas of what we should do, what government should do, and what its role should be.

Clinton White House Continues to Dis Hillary

Now Robert Reich has come out in favor of Obama. Is there anyone from the Clinton White House in favor of Hillary Clinton? Shouldn't this tell us SOMETHING?!

Obama's Elitism III

Obama's "clarification" at the debate last night of his elitist remarks only shows that he's completely out of touch with the average American. He said that rural voters are concerned with gun legislation rather than economic rule from a central command (well, that's my interpretation of his Marxist approach to economics) because rural voters are sitting around concerned about the government not doing anything to help them. Bull. I never met anyone not on generational welfare who was sitting around worried about what the government was or was not going to do in regards to the economy or their jobs. Most people have enough sense to know the government can't do a thing for them except get in the way of their own prosperity. They are concerned about issues like guns and religion precisely because they see Democrats doing everything in their power to make sure only government thugs own guns and to eliminate Christianity from every aspect of life.

Obama for Creeping Infringement of Rights

In the debate tonight with HIllary Clinton, Barack Obama said that just because we have rights, that doesn't mean that the government can't put restrictions on those rights. His example? THough we have property rights, we regulate what people can do with their property. Nice to know that Obama's notion of rights is essentially fascist in nature: sure, we'll let you technically have the right -- but in name only, not in actuality. But then, why should I be surprised at this? The Left's idea of "free speech" includes politically correct restrictions. Pay attention, people. Obama just outed himself as an enemy of rights. He will take them away from you bit by bit, until they're gone -- and you'll have never noticed what happened until it happened.

Obama's Elitism II

Obama is now claiming that he could not possibly be an elitist because of his poor upbringing. Now, if we understand an elitist as someone who thinks (s)he is somehow superior to most other people, then I think there is little question that Obama is an elitist. He is certainly convinced that he's smarter than everyone else and has a better idea of what should be done with everyone else's money.

But if we take him at his word that he doesn't think he's a elitist precisely for the reasons given, what does that mean? Well, it means that Obama sees elitism as something related to class structures. In a class-structured society, the classes are rigid. One cannot enter into a class one was not born into, excepting ritualistic entry, of course. Classes have nothing to do with money, either. Or with education. In England, one can be a poor, uneducated noble -- but you are still a noble, meaning you think of yourself as better than those who are not. Marx of course saw the middle class arising between the noble and working classes, with the middle class overthrowing the noble class, and the working class eventually overthrowing the middle class. And this is clearly how Obama sees the world, if he thinks it is literally impossible for him to be an elitist just because of his impoverished upbringing. However, the United States is a classless society. There has never been a nobility, and the U.S. was founded on the very idea of there being no classes. With 401k programs, the workers are the owners of production, even when they don't directly own their own businesses. Thus such things as snobbery and elitism become connected more with how you think of yourself in relation to others, due to your perception of yourself in relation to those others. Obama is an elitist due to his education and where he got educated (the same could be said of Hillary Clinton as well, who has no business calling Obama an elitist). If Obama were not an elitist, he wouldn't be a politician, let alone running for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. The fact that he thinks he can run your life better than you can demonstrates clearly he is an elitist. I knew that long before he exposed himself with his comments.