Thursday, February 23, 2023

Dakar And The Mali Empire

Dakar is the city located at the furthest west point in Africa, and indeed in the entire continental eastern hemisphere. From Dakar, a flight to Recife in Brazil, which is in the western hemisphere, would be more of a north-south route than east-west.

Dakar is the capital and largest city of Senegal, and is located on the coast. Unlike Nigeria and Ivory Coast, which also have their largest cities on the Atlantic coast, Senegal has not moved it's capital city back to an inland city which would reflect the historical kingdoms in west Africa which were inland, and not focused on the coast.

What is now Senegal was once part of the great Mali Empire. The name of this empire lives on in an inland west African nation. The dominant ethnic group is the well-known Mandinka.

The title of Mansa meant "king" in the Mali Empire. The best-known of these kings is Mansa Musa. There was gold in the Mali Empire and Mansa Musa is remembered as possibly the richest man who ever lived, relative to his time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_I_of_Mali#/media/File:Catalan_Atlas_BNF_Sheet_6_Mansa_Musa.jpg

One of the most fabled stories in world history is the pilgrimage that Mansa Musa made to Mecca in 1324. He brought an entourage of tens of thousands of people with him. Camels carried tons of gold. On the way to Mecca, he paid to build mosques and gave away gold to those in need. He gave away so much gold in Egypt that the economy of the country took years to recover from the resulting inflation.

The pilgrimage of Mansa Musa, and the generous gifts of tons of gold, may actually have changed world history. The Age of Exploration would begin toward the end of the following century. It began with Spain and Portugal, the European countries that are geographically the closest to northwest Africa, and the overwhelming driving factor was the relentless search for gold. Persistent rumors of "cities of gold" are what drove the exploration of much of the western hemisphere, in the relentless quest to find them.

At the time of Mansa Musa, Spain and Portugal were ruled by the Moors, who were also from northwest Africa, as we saw in "When The Moors Ruled Spain". Could it be that stories of Mansa Musa's famous pilgrimage, and the seemingly-endless gold that he gave away, is what ultimately fueled the drive of Europeans, starting with Spain and Portugal, to explore the entire world?

There were two great cities of the Mali Empire that are still there today. These are Timbuktu and Djenne. Both were inland and not on the coast.

Unfortunately, there is no coverage by Google Street View for either city. But here are some photos of the fabled Timbuktu, once part of the Mali Empire and now in the modern nation of Mali. Not only was it fabulously wealthy, but was a great Islamic center of learning in the same way as Cordoba, Baghdad and, Cairo. I can remember the name of Timbuktu being used as a euphemism for a place that is far away or unreachable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#/media/File:Timbuktu-139086.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#/media/File:Timbuktu_Mosque_Sankore.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu#/media/File:Barth_1858_Timbuktu_from_terrace.jpg

Not quite as well-known as Timbuktu is the city of Djenne.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djenn%C3%A9#/media/File:Great_Mosque_of_Djenn%C3%A9_1.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djenn%C3%A9#/media/File:Djenn%C3%A9.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djenn%C3%A9#/media/File:Djenne_Fortier_407.jpg

This is the modern city of Dakar, it is on the Atlantic coast, and not far inland like Timbuktu and Djenne. The following scenes begin at Cathedral Notre Dame of Dakar.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@14.6658157,-17.4376028,3a,75y,188.17h,114.55t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNj1FXMQlUwmSnu08eS7AcANAcrs2iyQiMhmRx0!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNj1FXMQlUwmSnu08eS7AcANAcrs2iyQiMhmRx0%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-24.552082-ya354.1667-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

Proceeding northward, we come to the area of Dakar known as Medina.

https://www.google.com/maps/@14.6848484,-17.4461469,3a,75y,134.36h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s6bQvXrH8G9wGEpmfraJAWA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D6bQvXrH8G9wGEpmfraJAWA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D134.35756%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is known as Grand Dakar.

https://www.google.com/maps/@14.7015404,-17.4561538,3a,75y,324.01h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s0f4ugjYh26WVAuGK2pk66A!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D0f4ugjYh26WVAuGK2pk66A%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D324.0074%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Further north is Grand-Noff.

https://www.google.com/maps/@14.7289188,-17.4507952,3a,75y,34.63h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1unORmBM_1GreyfOcAxcZw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D1unORmBM_1GreyfOcAxcZw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D34.633324%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This area of Dakar is known as Bel Air.

https://www.google.com/maps/@14.7120236,-17.4331515,3a,75y,14.88h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sSHvqpC0VSQ3_l1DqWtiqjg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DSHvqpC0VSQ3_l1DqWtiqjg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D14.883656%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The Nature Of Information

I have three different major theories about information on this blog. There is "The Theory Of Complexity", "The Flow Of Information Through The Universe" and, "The Lowest Information Point". There are actually only two theories because I now consider "The Flow Of Information Through The Universe" to be part of "The Lowest Information Point".

Information is a special way of looking at the universe, since everything is really information. We see the universe in our usual "physical" way because we are part of the universe ourselves. What is so useful about looking at the universe in terms of information is that everything conforms to a few simple rules and we can "discover" how things must be even if we can't yet "physically" confirm it by observation or measurement. We can thus "look ahead" at how things must be.

It's really just another way of looking at things. We can see that energy and information is really the same thing, because we cannot apply energy to anything without adding information to it, and we cannot add information to anything without applying energy to it. Another way we can see that energy and information must be the same thing is how we can make our lives physically easier by using technology, but only at the expense of making them more complex. We can never, on a large scale, make our lives physically easier and also less complex.

The four basic forces of the universe, the Strong Nuclear Force, the Weak Nuclear Force, Electromagnetism and, Gravity are not considered as information but are the "blank slate" on which information is recorded.

Empty space, which I see as consisting of a checkerboard of alternating negative and positive electric charges in multiple dimensions, is not, in itself, information. But distance in space is information.

We have seen that energy and information is really the same thing. We also see that distance is equivalent to energy. A satellite in a more distant orbit has a higher orbital energy. An object falling from a greater distance will make a greater impact. A baked potato will cool faster when sliced open because it now has a greater surface area, relative to the energy that it contains.

The number sequence, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... Doesn't contain information unless we only count up to a specific number, because that specific number is information. Rather it is the "blank slate" on which information is "written". A number sequence in order but with missing numbers, such as 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8... contains more information. A number sequence with some numbers out of sequence, such as 0, 1, 4, 11, 7, 23, 3 contains still more information.

We know that the universe always seeks the lowest energy state. But the energy that does exist must be manifested. Distance is energy. This is why the default gravitational form of matter, such as stars and planets, is a sphere. 

A sphere is the 3D geometric form with the lowest surface area, and thus the least energy per volume. A sphere also contains the lowest information because it is only geometric form that looks the same from all directions. But that shouldn't be surprising because energy and information is really the same thing.

The most important rule in the universe is that electric charges always have to balance out. What energy does is to increase the distance over which it has to balance out. This is why there can be electrically charged particles, such as electrons, held together by energy against the mutual repulsion of the like charges. This energy shows up as mass, expressed in the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence. The two charges still have to balance out overall but there is enough distance to allow for concentration of like charges, such as electrons.

So energy and information is really the same thing. Energy is the physical "textbook" way of looking at things. I find that we can get a fresh perspective by looking at the universe in the information way.

One thing we can always be sure of is that the universe will always seek the lowest energy state, although not a zero energy state because the energy that there is must be manifested.

Consider the following two statements.

A equals A 

A does not equal B 

The first statement contains less information than the second, because it contains only one piece of information while the second contains two. This is the simple reason why everything in the universe seeks an equilibrium. Because an equation contains less information than an inequation. It is the reason why negative and positive electric charges always have to ultimately balance out.

The universe resists change, meaning that change requires energy, because change requires information, making it a higher energy and information state than just staying the same. This is because to change from A to B requires two pieces of information, while to stay at A only requires one. 

This explains Newton's Laws of Motion. For every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction. Although matter can move this ensures that the centerline of all matter in the universe stays the same, thus maintaining the lowest information state. An object in motion will stay in motion, until an outside force acts on it, may seem like a higher energy state but is really a lower information state, because the universe can otherwise avoid a definition of when the object has to slow or stop.

If you are holding an object, and you let the object go, it will fall to the floor or the ground. The reason is explained by the number sequences above. Suppose that the earth has a density of 5, the object has a density of 4, and the air has a density of 1. It falls because the sequence 5, 4, 1 contains less information than 5, 1, 4. The closer a number sequence is to it's order, or reverse order, the less information it contains.

One thing that the universe always tries to do is to reuse information because this means using less information. Consider the following two fractional equations.

A/B = C/D 

A/B = B/C 

The second equation contains less information than the first because it has only three points of information, while the first equation has four. The second equation accomplishes this by reusing B. So what we can expect is that the universe will try to reuse information.

An example of this reuse that immediately comes to mind is the orbits of planets around the sun and the orbitals of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. There is a close resemblance between the two, and this is the universe moving towards the lowest information state by reusing information. The information from lower scales is reused on higher scales.

This is what the theory " The Flow Of Information Through The Universe", January 2016, is about. There are many examples of this reuse of information. For another thing I wonder if it is only a coincidence that there are eight planets in our Solar System and the outermost orbital shell of any atom can contain a maximum of eight electrons.

Since we know that the universe reuses information that means we can study the subatomic realm, that we cannot see without special equipment, by looking at the world around us that we can see, because we know that it must reuse the information from the atoms of which it is made. 

Have you ever known a person who just cannot stand to give money away? They are always looking for ways to reuse and recycle things to avoid spending money. That is what the universe is like with information.

We now know that most of the atoms in the atmosphere, of nitrogen and oxygen, are diatomic, which means two atoms bonded together. But we could have figured this long ago by the fact that there are self-sustaining circular storms, hurricanes and tornadoes. The root of these storms are diatoms spinning on their axes like a dumbbell. If the atoms in the atmosphere were not diatomic there would not be circular storms like this. This is reusing information.

Although the universe always seeks the lowest information state, the information that does exist must be manifested. It cannot just disappear. This is why fermions, particles of matter, can never occupy the same space at the same time, while bosons, which are the "messenger" particles between matter and the basic forces, can occupy the same space at the same time. Fermions are information while bosons are information about information. Since distance, and thus space, is information for fermions, which are also information, to occupy the same space would inevitably mean loss of information.

Quantum physicists tell us that a fundamental particle, such as an electron, is best defined as a wave function. The particle is not pinpointed to a definite location. Rather there is a wave of probability of where it can be found, starting at zero and going to the peak of the wave before going back to zero. But we see this information reused, on our macro scale, by the ubiquitous "Bell Curve" that we use to model so much of the world around us.

Have you ever known a person who just cannot stand to make a decision? That is what the universe is like, since a decision is information and the universe is always seeking the lowest information state.

Why do planets and stars rotate? Because if they didn't rotate the universe would have to make a decision about their directional alignment, such as the sun always being in the four O'clock position where you live. So what the universe does is have the planet or star rotate through all possible alignments, that way the universe can avoid choosing any one of them. The same concept of rotation also goes for galaxies.

It is true that planets and stars have to have an axis to revolve around and it's alignment involves a decision. But the universe gets around this by having the rotational axes of planets, stars and galaxies being aligned in all different directions so that they must ultimately balance out. How do I know that rotational axes all balance out? Because if any one alignment predominated above all others it would mean that the universe would have to decide which one, and the universe just cannot stand making decisions.

This points to something else. All gravitational spheres must be different from one another. No two can be exactly the same. How do I know this? Because, as gravitational spheres are coming into being, if one was to be exactly like one before it the universe would have to choose which one, and we know that the universe just cannot stand to make a decision. 

This means that, considering the number of such spheres in the universe, and the scale of the atoms of which they are composed, planets and stars must be large enough so that they can be different from every other such sphere in the universe. By using information in this way we can get a good idea of what the scale of the universe must be.

Can you see how this information way of looking at the universe can lead us to so much that we might not otherwise notice?

Here are links to two postings with more about "How Information Works" from April 2019 and February 2021:

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-information-works.html?m=0 


www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2021/02/examples-of-how-information-works.html?m=0


Recent Resignations

The mayor of Toronto and the First Minister of Scotland both recently resigned from their positions.

The Mayor of Toronto resigned after admitting to an illicit relationship. Honestly I have mixed feelings about this. The relationship apparently did not involve the public trust, it was his own personal life. I have usually had a "To each his own, mind your own business" attitude toward how other people live their lives. I am not saying that it is right, just that they have to answer to God rather than to a fellow human like me.

If you shopped in a grocery store, and found out that the manager had an affair, would you continue shopping there?

Suppose that you call a company to place an order, and find out that the person taking your order has been arrested for drug possession, would you still place the order?

If you are to board a flight and find out that the flight crew engages in wild parties during stopovers, although not the pilots, would you still use the airline?

If you use an app, and find out that some of the people involved in producing the app are LGBTQ, would you still use the app?

The answer of most people to all of the above questions would be "yes". So why are politicians held to such different standards? A politician is just the manager of a political entity. If you think the character of a politician is especially important because they have a greater opportunity to cheat the public, that actually isn't true because everything that politicians do tends to be closely scrutinized.

We saw in "Journey To Faith" that we have somewhat fallen away from religion but still have the patterns of religion. So what ends up happening is that politicians are the new "religious leaders", and we apply the standards to them.

Here is a link to "Journey To Faith":

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2020/01/journey-to-faith.html?m=0

The First Minister of Scotland, who was seeking to separate Scotland from Britain, has resigned.

There is no great desire for separation among the people of Scotland. A British court recently denied the First Minister's request to hold another referendum on independence. If there had been a widespread desire in Scotland for independence there would have been demonstrations in the streets. But the fact is that the court decision didn't elicit much of a reaction from the people of Scotland, as a whole.

Polls are not entirely reliable because people might say they want independence just to sound patriotic, or to make sure that London doesn't take their loyalty for granted. In the 2014 referendum the polls were much closer than the vote itself turned out to be. This shows that many people said they wanted independence, but then didn't actually vote for it.

I consider the King James Bible as a symbol of the bond between England and Scotland. Here is a link to "Hampton Court Palace And The King James Bible":

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2016/07/hampton-court-palace-and-king-james.html?m=0

Thursday, February 16, 2023

Abidjan

In a way, the history of the west African nation of Ivory Coast parallels that of Ghana, with both nations as models of modern Africa. The counterpart in Ivory Coast to Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah is Felix Houphouet-Boigny, the founder of Ivory Coast. Politically and economically, Nkrumah leaned to the left and Houphouet-Boigny to the right, and this precluded any alliance between the two neighbors.

Like the other west African nations, Ivory Coast has it's largest city on the coast. The largest city of Ivory Coast is Abidjan. The following scenes are of the central district of Abidjan, the area known as Plateau.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.3252927,-4.0156563,3a,75y,80h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipPX_Sz_M0EUJi0v_XJPxDzYc6nuXaNdAIMJVMIc!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPX_Sz_M0EUJi0v_XJPxDzYc6nuXaNdAIMJVMIc%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-21.4121-ya271.2334-ro-8.095515-fo100!7i7680!8i3840

These are some more scenes around the center of Abidjan.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.3592907,-4.0269744,3a,75y,60h,110t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOrt0FsT-EKM5sBl8pGsvyx4t_YaKRc1BDe6GBv!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOrt0FsT-EKM5sBl8pGsvyx4t_YaKRc1BDe6GBv%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-17.936508-ya75.096565-ro8.852982-fo100!7i7680!8i3840

This is to the south of the center of Abidjan, known as Treichville.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.2986807,-4.0053682,3a,75y,136.5h,92.93t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNSuOsuBgBu2K2PyevTNBoRtxDqckFAtCdUsAem!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNSuOsuBgBu2K2PyevTNBoRtxDqckFAtCdUsAem%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya229.16463-ro0-fo100!7i5376!8i2688

This part of Abidjan is Marcory.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.2955104,-3.9842075,3a,75y,214.5h,92.93t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMT8Z0E0HQTBE1eXIXh3V8VPr_aneLb6TeoQMFv!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMT8Z0E0HQTBE1eXIXh3V8VPr_aneLb6TeoQMFv%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya270.5-ro-0-fo100!7i8704!8i4352

These views of Abidjan are in the area known as Abattoir.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.2618933,-3.9641433,3a,75y,340h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipO-A3nQNrWzNsHygOKCbR7mlWB-Tc8BKW-3_QGt!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipO-A3nQNrWzNsHygOKCbR7mlWB-Tc8BKW-3_QGt%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-1.6446339-ya176.37964-ro-3.9972448-fo100!7i7680!8i3840

This is to the west of the central part of Abidjan.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.3556983,-4.0744937,3a,75y,240h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOJNzbxIvivh4YG8VfVe_yw1ZXFRmkOzZtNBRzO!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOJNzbxIvivh4YG8VfVe_yw1ZXFRmkOzZtNBRzO%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-4.669609-ya312.0833-ro-2.0513923-fo100!7i7680!8i3840

These are newer developments in the northern part of Abidjan.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.3926911,-4.0012604,3a,75y,349.5h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOja3K2BCp2nXugA5JIh2uI-X9Y5dgSvZaB95k!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOja3K2BCp2nXugA5JIh2uI-X9Y5dgSvZaB95k%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya349.5-ro0-fo100!7i6000!8i3000

This is more of the northern part of Abidjan, which is further inland from the ocean.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.4224659,-4.0164244,3a,75y,124.5h,92.93t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipN5rpYVTbavP5sTz8bsk8yh2ZWJOrec9w3Qe8eM!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipN5rpYVTbavP5sTz8bsk8yh2ZWJOrec9w3Qe8eM%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9338646-ya110.50001-ro-0-fo100!7i10000!8i5000

Did you know that the largest church building in the world is in the Ivory Coast? Yamoussoukro is actually the capital of Ivory Coast, not the much-larger city of Abidjan. The founder of the modern Ivory Coast, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, moved the capital to his hometown and built the church there. The population of west Africa has shifted from inland to the major cities of the coast, and this is another example of emphasizing African heritage in the modern nations by moving the capital back inland.

https://www.google.com/maps/@6.8112333,-5.2967833,3a,75y,118.84h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOX0EdYJrxoFNzz3nSAauR9V1SiDGCaZJmQeW24!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOX0EdYJrxoFNzz3nSAauR9V1SiDGCaZJmQeW24%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya13.842452-ro-0-fo100!7i10240!8i5120

New Units Of Measurement

This has been added to the compound posting "Measurement", November 2021.

Units of measure, for length, area, and so on, would be more useful if we could relate to them. This was originally the idea. The yard was based on the length of a king's arm. The mile was when the left foot of a marching soldier had touched the ground a thousand times. The meter was originally supposed to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole, along the line of longitude that passes through Paris, but has since been redefined by wavelengths of light.

However most of this relatability has since been lost. Acres are widely used as a measure of land area. But how many people seriously know what an acre is? It started as the area that a farmer could usually plow in a day. Below is an acre against a nearby parking lot, where you can see the cars and parking spaces.

Image from Google Earth.

The modern era, particularly cars, has brought the possibility of a new set of units that are easily relatable to everyone. Units of length are the primary unit of measurement, being squared or cubed to form units of area and volume. In the Metric System mass is also based on length, and water, a liter of water weighs a kilogram.

When you turn on the heat or the radio in a car you probably turn a knob. These knobs seem to all be of a standard size and the width of one would make an ideal unit of measurement that everyone could easily relate to.

Then there is the steering wheel, which also come in standard sizes. This would be the most ideal and relatable length unit of all.

The next higher unit of length could be the width of a lane on a highway, again something that is very familiar to everyone.

We could form units of area by simply squaring the units of length. But probably the most familiar unit of area is also automotive in origin. What would be better for a general unit of area than a standard parking space?

Just another thought about measurement, but this is not related to cars. We now know that the universe overall is a very cold place. The average temperature in the universe overall is believed to be 2.726 degrees Kelvin, although that may not be an extremely precise figure.

Kelvin is the temperature scale that begins at Absolute Zero. Heat is the energy of moving atoms and molecules. When something cools down it's atoms and molecules move more slowly. If cooling continued so that all motion stopped it would not be able to get any colder. This point is known as Absolute Zero and is equivalent to -459 degrees Fahrenheit or -273.16 degrees Celsius.

The Celsius scale is defined by the melting and boiling points of water. Water freezes at zero degrees Celsius and boils at 100 degrees Celsius.

This means that the freezing point of water is at 273.16 degrees Kelvin, since a Kelvin degree is the same size as a Celsius degree. Notice that the average temperature of the universe is just about exactly one percent of the freezing point of water, starting at Absolute Zero, and the figure for the average temperature may not be perfectly accurate.

The size of a Celsius degree is one-hundredth of the span between the freezing and boiling points of water. Now that we are in the Space Age, and cosmology is becoming ever more important, why don't we define the average temperature of the universe as one degree? Water will then freeze at 100 degrees and boil at 136.89 degrees.

The freezing and boiling points of water are not as precise as it may seem. The freezing point depends on the purity of the water. The salt water in the sea does not freeze at zero degrees Celsius. The boiling point of water is dependent on the atmospheric pressure.

The Imperial Iranian Flag

I didn't see that any of the news agencies caught it but there was a demonstration in California this week, at the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, in which the demonstrators were waving Iranian flags. But if we take a close look the flags were not the present flag of Iran. The flags had the lion, the sword and, the sun. 


This was the Imperial Flag, of the Shah's monarchy that was overthrown by the present government in the revolution of 1979. The flag was changed after the revolution, with these symbols removed.

The turning point of the Iranian Revolution is considered to be "Black Friday", September 8, 1978, when the Shah's forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing dozens. That is what turned demonstrations for reform into a full-fledged revolution. After that there was no possibility of compromise, the revolution would either fail or it would succeed.

I have an autographed portrait of Empress Farah, the widow of the Shah and last empress of Iran, on my wall here.

Here is a link to "Remembering The Pahlavi Dynasty":

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2017/10/remembering-pahlavi-dynasty.html?m=0

Opposite Spin For Particles And Antiparticles

Here is something that I must have neglected to include in my cosmology theory. It is actually very simple to show that my theory's version of the Big Bang is correct. So much has been written about what happened after the Big Bang but I cannot see a plausible explanation anywhere about what caused the Big Bang. It is actually simple.

The following two paragraphs is the brief abstract that I use to introduce the theory.

My cosmological theory has the universe as not-quite-parallel strings of matter aligned mostly in one direction in four-dimensional space, although there could be many more than these four dimensions. The direction in which these strings of matter are primarily aligned is the one that we perceive as time, along which our consciousnesses move at what we perceive as the speed of light. We can only see perpendicular to the bundles of strings of matter comprising our bodies and brains. The original two-dimensional sheet of space, amidst the multi-dimensional background space, disintegrated in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact. Due to charge migration, to seek a lower energy state, one side was positive in charge and the other was negative. This brought about the matter-antimatter mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang. The energy in the disintegrating dimension, from the tension between adjacent opposite electric charges, was released. The remaining dimension then consisted of very long strings of infinitesimal cross-section, that we perceive as the particles of matter today. Some of the energy released by the disintegrating dimension went into "welding" the charges of the remaining dimension together as strings of matter. We perceive these strings as particles because our consciousnesses are moving along the bundles of strings composing our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light, and we can only see at right angles to our strings.

So, the basics of my theory is a two-dimensional sheet of space, which formed amidst the multi-dimensional background space by the same kind of opposite charge induction, disintegrating in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact to create the matter-antimatter explosive mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang, which began the universe, and which scattered the remaining one-dimensional strings of matter out across space to form the universe that we see today. The strings of matter from the original two-dimensional sheet were scattered across four dimensions of the background space. We perceive these strings as particles, such as electrons, because we can only see in three of the four dimensions.

So how can I show that this version of the Big Bang is correct, aside from how much sense it makes? 

Here is one of those things about the universe that we cannot seem to explain. It may not seem very important to most people but there must be something about the universe that we are not getting if we can't explain it.

Particles of matter, such as electrons, have their corresponding antiparticles of antimatter. There is nothing mysterious about antimatter. There are two electric charges in the universe, negative and positive. In atoms of matter the negatively-charged electrons are in orbitals around the positively-charged nucleus.

But there is nothing written in stone that the positive charge has to be on the inside of the nucleus, and the negative charge on the outside. It can just as easily be the other way around. If the charges of the atom are reversed it is known as antimatter. Of course matter and antimatter cannot exist together in the same neighborhood of the universe because they mutually annihilate on contact. But matter and antimatter would handle light in the same way and I don't think we could tell matter from antimatter just by observation.

Now here is what is interesting but cannot be explained. There are particles called neutrinos, which usually easily pass through matter. We don't have to fully explain neutrinos for our purpose here but there are also antineutrinos, the antimatter version of the neutrino.

What cannot be explained is this. Neutrinos and antineutrinos spin as they move rapidly through space. But, relative to the direction that they are moving, neutrinos spin to their left while antineutrinos spin to their right. 

The question is WHY? There must be something about the universe that we don't understand that is causing this.

Fortunately the answer is simple but I cannot see it explained anywhere else. In my cosmology theory space consists of an alternating checkerboard of negative and positive electric charges, in multiple dimensions. It began with a single electric charge. The number one rule of the universe is that electric charges always have to balance out. The universe must contain an equal number of negative and positive charges. This means that the original electric charge had to induce an opposite charge on either side of it, but that still left an imbalance and the process of charge induction continued indefinitely. This is what created space.

What created the matter, and antimatter, of our universe is that an "orphan" two- dimensional sheet of space got started that was within, but not contiguous with, the background space. This means that the electric charges of the two blocks of space do not align. This was a higher- energy state so some charge migration took place in one dimension of the two-dimensional sheet, negative charges to one side and positive charges to the other.

Not being coordinated with the background space, the negative and positive sides of the sheet came into contact. This is what produced the great matter-antimatter explosion that we refer to as the Big Bang. One of the two dimensions of the sheet disintegrated into energy. The other dimension became the strings of matter that we perceive as charged particles, such as electrons, because we can only see in three of the four dimensions, the other dimension we perceive as time.

All matter in our universe originated with that sheet, and the "ghost" of the sheet is still with matter. Now imagine the strings of matter that originated from the negative side and from the positive side of the sheet. They would have different concepts of left and right, just like two people walking in opposite directions.

Hold your hands with the palms facing earth other. Now curl the fingers of each hand. Each hand represents one side of the two-dimensional sheet, one the positive side and the other the negative side. The fingers of each hand curl in opposite directions. One represents the spin of the neutrino and the other the antineutrino.

That explains why neutrinos and antineutrinos spin in opposite directions. It means that my version of the Big Bang, and the rest of the cosmology theory, must be correct.

Here is a link to the posting that I use to introduce the cosmology theory:

www.markmeeksideas.blogspot.com/2019/05/in-cosmology-everything-just-fell-right.html?m=0

Geology Theory Confirmed

There was important news this week regarding the geology theory, "The Story Of Planet Earth", on the geology blog.

The following two paragraphs are the brief abstract that I use to introduce the theory.

Basically, the theory which reveals the explanation for so much of the major features of the earth's topography and the seafloor ridges is that the continents on earth came from three Continental Asteroids. Much debris from the Continental Asteroids was hurtled back into space, where it coalesced by gravity to form the moon. The idea of the moon forming in this way is not new, the asteroid is commonly referred to as "Theia", but my theory expands on it to include the continents as well. Each of the impacts of the Continental Asteroids unbalanced the earth's rotation, by the addition of the new mass, so that the earth's poles and equator underwent three shifts to regain rotational balance by centering one of the poles in the new additional landmass. The land mass from each Continental Asteroid was eventually broken up by tectonic activity, driven by the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation. The south pole is today in Antarctica because that was the core of a Continental Asteroid. A similar situation is seen on Mars, where the southern hemisphere is higher in elevation and thus heavier, than the northern hemisphere. But this does not upset the rotation of Mars because the south pole is in the center of the heavier hemisphere. What this means is that there have been four polar eras on earth, with the poles and equator in different places in each era. We are in the fourth polar era, after the Third Continental Asteroid. The First Polar Era was before the First Continental Asteroid.

The spin of the earth causes magma, hot molten rock, to emerge from below along the equator by centrifugal force. According to the laws of fluid dynamics, this equatorial emergence must then be balanced by periodic longitudinal lines of emergence in a perpendicular direction to the equator. Each time the poles and equator shifts, to regain rotational balance after the added mass of a Continental Asteroid, these lines of magma emergence must also shift, but magma emergence continues along old longitudinal and equatorial lines for a long time. This scenario explains just so much about the topography of the land and seafloor, and leaves few major features of the earth unexplained.

We know that much of the interior of the earth is hot, molten rock, known as magma. There is heat left over from the formation of the earth and the decay of radioactive elements inside the earth releases heat. But the magma was thought to be mostly deep inside the earth, occasionally released to the surface by volcanoes or able to seep between tectonic plates.

But my geology theory requires that there had been quite a bit of magma emergence, not necessarily all the way to the surface but close enough to shape the land above it. In my theory the spin of the earth would bring magma up along the equator by centrifugal force. This would create an imbalance that would also cause magma to emerge perpendicular to the equator, as longitudinal lines of emergence. I knew that the magma had to come from within the earth but didn't have a full explanation of where all that magma would come from.

This week the vindication of the theory came. It was in the news that a layer of magma has been found, about 150 km down, that exists across the entire earth. This is great news for the theory that was not known previously.

Buffalo's India Walton

India Walton got national attention in the U.S. by running for Mayor of Buffalo. Let's get her into the Common Council for now, she can be mayor later.

India Walton did a great service by getting in there and challenging the establishment. We saw in the posting "Review Of Freedom", January 2023, that the people who run society are made of the same kind of flesh and blood as everyone else. They may make mistakes and sometimes are vulnerable to corruption. It is vital to continuously watch and question the establishment.

But whatever India Walton does she doesn't need an official position to be a great inspiration to all of us. I see India Walton as the Queen of Buffalo, whether or not she also holds temporal positions such as Mayor or Common Council. Let's get through this shooting and blizzard and follow India Walton into the future.

Why doesn't an artist do a portrait of India Walton that we can get?

Thursday, February 9, 2023

Accra

The city of Accra, which is the capital and largest city of the west African nation of Ghana, is named for ants. The nation of Ghana is named for a historical west African empire of that name, but the modern nation is not a part of the same territory.

One of the best-known names to ever come out of Africa is that of Kwame Nkrumah, the founder of Ghana. The U.S. Government was not fond of him, suspecting that his sympathies lay toward Communism. He spent a lot of his time as a student in the U.S., working at a restaurant in Pennsylvania. But Ghana was, in many ways, the prototype of the modern African nation and it would not have gotten there without the guidance of Kwame Nkrumah.

Accra is another example of the shift of the population of west Africa to the coast. The empires of the past, including the one for which Ghana is named, were inland. Their trade routes centered on camel caravans, and not ships.

The following scenes begin at the mausoleum in the Memorial Park of Kwame Nkrumah.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.5441752,-0.2025547,2a,75y,203.28h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sofQoxm025ZYAAAQvPCycrQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Not far away is Ghana's Independence Square. There are two arches in Independence Square, one rectangular and one curved.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.5485098,-0.1927154,3a,75y,184.21h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s3EvAcafGyT68eQW7UeWmLA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D3EvAcafGyT68eQW7UeWmLA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D184.18707%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This business district is known as Airport City.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.6033393,-0.1765416,3a,75y,322.64h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sh6eNiTImpARI0jg32RDgow!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dh6eNiTImpARI0jg32RDgow%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D322.63553%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This business district is on the other side of the airport.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.631706,-0.1411712,3a,75y,157.58h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-4HNrUoZjjupLW0F6RhFeQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D-4HNrUoZjjupLW0F6RhFeQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D157.57852%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

This is a residential area in Accra.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.6487757,-0.2121648,3a,75y,186.62h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1svAOq-abafGljeyO4Jsy4rQ!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DvAOq-abafGljeyO4Jsy4rQ%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D186.59117%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Much further away from the central city is a new development in Accra.

https://www.google.com/maps/@5.7099309,-0.1613458,3a,75y,270.37h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sYJJIkp26_Z-qrBv1byNlyg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DYJJIkp26_Z-qrBv1byNlyg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D270.37405%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Kumasi is another major city of Ghana, but is not on the coast. The following scenes are around the center of Kumasi. Unlike some west African nations, with their largest city on the coast, Ghana has not moved it's capital to an inland city. Accra, the largest city and on the coast, is the capital of Ghana.

https://www.google.com/maps/@6.7031083,-1.6168254,3a,75y,30.52h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sDmWWg-Y7yRQErltakEKQQw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DDmWWg-Y7yRQErltakEKQQw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D30.515495%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

The Science Of Human Society

I periodically collect postings about similar subject matter together into a compound posting. There is a list of compound postings in the introduction posting at the top of the blog, and in the posting "Index Of Compound Postings".

This is all about how human society really operates.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

1) THE SIMILARITY OF TASKS

2) THE COINCIDENCE CONSTANT

3) THE CYCLE OF REPETITION

4) ART, MUSIC AND, SPORTS

5) THE PERFECTION OF TECHNOLOGY

6) THE NATURE OF FAIRNESS

7) SYMBOLISM

8) THE PARADOX OF KNOWLEDGE

9) IS HUMANITY ALIVE?



1) THE SIMILARITY OF TASKS

In my information theory humans are at a higher level of complexity, containing more information, than our inanimate surrounding environment. When we alter our environment, such as creating technology or building settlements, we are imposing our higher level of complexity on the environment.

Our higher level of complexity does have it's disadvantages. It is why things that we make and build, and also our bodies, tend to break and deteriorate. The surrounding environment is trying to pull us down to it's lower level of complexity. Even though we know that energy can never be lost or destroyed, but only changed in form, we cannot get energy back, at least not in any useful form, once we have used it.

Energy and information is really the same thing. We can see this in how we cannot add information to anything without applying energy to it, and we cannot apply energy to anything without adding information to it. Another way we can see that energy and information is really the same thing is the way we can make our lives physically easier by technology, but only by making them more complex. We can never, on a large scale, make our lives both physically easier and also less complex.

We are at a higher level of complexity than our surrounding inanimate environment. We have to sustain that higher level with an intake of information. It seems to us that food gives us energy but remember that energy and information is really the same thing. Food is actually the input of information that we need to sustain our higher level of information over our surrounding environment.

We perceive our need for food so that we have the energy to move but movement contains more information than remaining still and the food actually contains information. Our digestive system destroys the information in the food, which is the information in plants but since energy, and thus information, can never be created or destroyed the information is transferred to us. The surrounding environment is trying to pull us down to it's lower level and our food sustains our higher level of information, at least for a while.

Just as we can never create energy out of nothing so we cannot create information out of nothing.

As human knowledge and technology increases society gets ever-more complex. There are more and more different job descriptions and tasks that we do. Even though we are imposing our own complexity on our environment it seems that eventually we would reach a point where the society that we have created is more complex than we are.

But yet that would have to be impossible because it would be creating information out of nothing, and we know that can never happen.

So here is what does happen. There is a principle that I will call the "Similarity Of Tasks". This principle ensures that the society that we create can never exceed our own complexity, so that information is never created out of nothing.

Many of the things that we do are very similar to other things. Humans have been hunting and fishing for thousands of years. Shopping today is very similar to hunting and fishing in that shoppers "hunt" for bargains while stores "fish" for customers. Investing money, in anticipation of getting a return, is likewise very similar to planting seeds in anticipation of reaping the harvest.

This similarity lowers the total complexity. When we have two objects or systems the more similarity there is between them the less total information there is. An equality contains less information than an inequality because we are only dealing with one piece of information, rather than two. So we should expect that the closer to an equality we are, the more similarity, the lower the total amount of information.

So we can be sure that no matter how much knowledge we gain, and how far we progress in technology and society, there will be more and more similarity between the tasks and things that we do so that the total information in all that we have created will never exceed the amount of information in ourselves.

2) THE COINCIDENCE CONSTANT

We often use the phrase "Just by chance...". What this means is a coincidence. Coincidences are all around us, although most go unrecognized.

Following are a few examples of what might be called coincidences. 

"You attend a meeting on the other side of town. Back near where you live you go into a store, where you just happen to run into someone who was at the meeting".

"You become friends with someone and find out that you just happen to have the same birthday".

"In your job there is another person seated across from you. The workplace closes down but you find another job at a similar workplace. You find that, just by chance, the same person is again seated across from you".


Here are some examples of coincidences that might go unrecognized.

"You call a company to place an order. Your parents once went on vacation. What you don't know is that the second cousin of the person on the phone was once in a car accident with the son of the person behind the desk who checked your parents into the hotel where they stayed while on vacation".

"You sit next to a stranger on a flight. Neither of you has any idea that your fathers were in basic military training together. Not only that but another person on the flight is the daughter of one of the cooks that was in the mess hall".

"You are at the counter in a restaurant. There is one other person at the counter. A waitress takes both of your orders. What none of you know is that all three of you have the same initials".

"You buy a used car. You don't know that the car has had two owners. The first was one of your teachers in elementary school and the most recent owner was the assistant manager of the grocery store where you once worked".

"Two elderly men are in a hospital room. The nurse notices that their dates of birth are only one day apart, the one was born the day after the other. But what none of them know is that their mothers shared the same hospital room when giving birth to the two of them. Furthermore their two mothers had the same birthday".

"You have a flat tire. Someone stops and offers to help. You introduce yourselves with your first names. What neither of you knows is that both of you have the same last name, although you are not related".

Financial transactions today are mostly done electronically. But what about when cash and coins were used? Can you imagine all of the unknown coincidences involving bills and coins? You might have a coin and not know that one of your favorite celebrities, or a relative that lives far away, or a notorious criminal that you read about, once used the same coin. A 40 year old might use a coin, not knowing that they had used the same coin at 16 and again at 29.


There are also what we could call "reverse coincidences". Here are some examples.

"You call a company but no record is made of your call. You later want to get back to that same person you talked to, but don't remember their name. You are told that there are thirty people answering phones. In trying to get that first person back on the line you have to go through all of the operators and the very last one is the one that you talked to on the first call".

"A company has 355 workers. The computer system is set to send each worker a greeting on their birthday. It is noticed that, even though there are almost as many workers as there are days in a year, no two workers have the same birthday".


Not all coincidences are significant. These are some minor coincidences.

"You go to look at cars at an auto dealership. You don't know it but the salesperson who helps you has the same tiles in their bathroom that you do".

"A litter of puppies is born and are sold as pets. You get to know someone and find out that they had the same breed of dog when they were a child as you did. What neither of you know is that your dogs were from the same litter".


I define a coincidence as "a random apparent reduction in complexity". A reverse coincidence is a random apparent increase in complexity. It is complexity and movement in the society around us that increases coincidences, by increasing the number that could occur. An increase in population increases the potential number of steps in coincidences, thereby decreasing the value of the average coincidence, but increases the total value of those that do occur.

Since coincidences represent a random apparent reduction in complexity, the more information there is in a coincidence the less it's value because there will be more steps. Never having a coincidence would actually be a coincidence in itself because it would represent the most ordered information state. This means that coincidences must occur, they are by far the rule rather than the exception, but the more that occur the less the value of each one.

It doesn't make sense that any changes that are made to society would increase or decrease the total value of all coincidences. Higher complexity would increase the total number of coincidences but would decrease the average value of each one, because coincidences would have more steps which would make them less of a coincidence.

This indicates that there must be a Coincidence Constant that averages out to be constant over time. We cannot expect the Coincidence Constant, the number of coincidences multiplied by the value of each, to be constant all the time because that would be a coincidence in itself, like every week in the summer getting exactly the same amount of rainfall.

The value of a coincidence is something that we would have great difficulty putting a number on. The reason is that coincidences are the result of our own perception. To put a number on something it is necessary for us to completely understand it. This means that we would have to be "smarter than ourselves" to put a number on the values of coincidences.

But we do not need to put a number on this Coincidence Constant, which includes reverse coincidences and must remain constant, as the complexity of society changes because increased complexity brings more coincidences, even if not recognized, but decreases the value of each one by increasing the average number of steps. The more steps in the coincidence the more information and, since the definition of a coincidence is a random reduction in complexity, this decreases the value of the coincidence.

Society contains a certain level of information. We could express that level as a horizontal line across a sheet of graph paper, with the area below the line representing the complexity, or amount of information, in the society. But it would be better represented as a diagonal line dividing the paper in half, from the lower left to the upper right corner. 

Very rarely do we see the complexity of the society just as it is. Sometimes we see it on the left side of the paper, with the complexity appearing as less than it actually is. This side represents coincidences, with the greater coincidences being toward the edge of the paper and the lesser ones toward the middle. 

The right side of the paper represents reverse coincidences, also with the greater ones toward the edge of the paper and the lesser ones toward the middle. But the coincidences and reverse coincidences average out to the center of the line, which is the same point as would be the horizontal line dividing the paper in half. This represents the Coincidence Constant.

3) THE CYCLE OF REPETITION

Here is something that really should have a name. Has there ever been a story that you have truly never read?

If you have read any story, the writer of that story had previously read stories that you have never read, and the writers of those stories had read other stories that you have never read, and so on. The concepts and patterns of those stories found their way into the stories that you did read.

There are a limited number of patterns, concepts and, details that can go in stories. This means that there are only a finite number of possible stories, and so after reading a certain number of stories you can say with at least some truth that you have read all possible stories. This is what I mean by "indirect reading".

In fact, all designs from buildings to houses to cars are affected, to some degree, by the stories that the designer has read, and the designs that the designer has seen. This includes television, the themes of Shakespeare are to be found all over modern television. It is true that there are a vast number of stories, but also true that there is a vast amount of similarity between the stories.

There is practically nothing that is completely unfamiliar, just rearrangements of all possible themes, settings, concepts and, details. Every time you read an article, get to know someone, are taught by someone, or look at a product that was designed by someone, you are in some way affected by the stories which that person has read or the movies that they have seen, and all of the designs that they have been exposed to.

For example, in every corner of western society you can see the patterns found in the Bible. So many scenes in stories resemble scenes in the Bible. Have you ever noticed the resemblance between a psalm in the Bible and a modern rock song, except that the psalms are about God and the songs are usually about romance?

Western legal systems and constitutions resemble the detailed lists of commands and procedures in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. The legal descriptions of properties, for mortgage and tax purposes, closely resembles the parceling out of well-defined territories after the Israelites had settled their promised land.

The sites of modern capital cities of settled lands, such as Washington, Ottawa and, Canberra, were selected due to their central locations between colonies or settlements in the same way as the Israelites chose Jerusalem as a central capital. Notice how the U.S. Civil War resembles the split into the rival kingdoms of Judah and Israel after the death of King Solomon.

The journeys of explorers from Europe to all parts of the world very much resemble St. Paul's three missionary voyages in the New Testament. The taming of the U.S. and Canadian west, and the parceling into states and provinces, seems like something right out of the Book of Joshua. Even the lengthy lists of screen credits at the end of movies is very much like Paul's list of credits at the end of the Book of Romans.

Many western historical events look very much like scenes out of the Bible. When power was being sorted out in 1930s Germany, the Nazis invited the leaders of the Brownshirts (Storm Troopers) to a meeting and then slaughtered them exactly like Jehu did with the prophets of Baal.

The unfortunate glamorization of violence on modern television also has some roots in the Bible, with the recounting of the exploits of the mightiest of King David's warriors in the Second Book of Samuel.

Both sides of the economic spectrum today can be seen in the Bible. The adoration of wealth in the glories of King Solomon's Temple, in the First Book of the Kings, as well as capitalism in the harsh parable of the talents (or pounds) used by Jesus. The support of workers and opposition to exploitation by the wealthy in the Book of James, the parable of the rich young man in the Gospels and Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in the Temple.

Repetition of patterns can be seen in a nation's history. This means that even if you do not know all about history you can watch it being repeated in the current news. The 2013 removal of Egyptian president Morsi, after the 2011 overthrow of long-time leader Mubarak, is actually a throwback to ancient times.

In ancient times, the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, when the pyramids and Sphinx were constructed, deteriorated and lost control until order was restored by force. This brought in the Middle Kingdom. The country was eventually ruled by Semitic foreigners, known as the Hyksos, until their expulsion brought in the New Kingdom.

In modern times, the army restoring order by force, after both the Mubarak and Morsi overthrows, reflects back to order being restored after the end of the Old Kingdom. The bringing in of the elected Morsi government, after the overthrow of Mubarak, but then it's removal in a coup by the military, represents the rebellion that removed the Hyksos.

The same pattern can be seen in Iran. I have always thought that the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, to form an Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Khomeini, is a throwback to the country's original conquest after the advent of Islam. The shah represented pre-Islamic Persia, in fact he held a lavish 1971 anniversary celebration of it in the ruins of Persepolis. The 1979 revolution was reenacting the coming of Islam to the country.

History tends to repeat itself and, even if you have never studied it much, you can see it being repeated on the daily news.

Not only are the stories that we read or watch and the designs of everything that we use affected by the stories and designs that came before them, people also influence each other directly.

You probably have known a relatively limited number of people well, and those people have influenced you. But your acquaintances have known people that you didn't know. Those people have known others, and those still others, and those still others, and those yet others, and so on.

This means that you have some kind of connection to virtually everyone that has ever lived in the past, just as you probably have at least one atom in your body that was once part of everyone that ever lived.

You may not have the same kind of connection to people who are living far away at present. But all people living today have been influenced by the people of the past just as you have, aside from the global communications and social media that we have today. People on the other side of the world are like distant leaves on the same tree as we are.

You may be thinking that other people know things that you don't know, and you know things that they don't know. But that difference may seem more important than it really is. After a certain point in relatively early childhood we no longer really learn anything that is completely new. Rather we merely clarify things that we already know. This makes us more similar to all other people, based again on our common heritage.

The Cycle of Repetition keeps going around and around. The Cycle of Repetition in which we live would be much more apparent to us if there was some way we could see it from outside. So while there are many books that you have never directly read there are really none that you have never indirectly read.

4) ART, MUSIC AND, SPORTS

The role of those human endeavors that are not the "real world", particularly art, music and, sports, is they transmit patterns while allowing us the chance to work out the complexity that is then applied to the "real world". It is much like how children's games work out how the "real world" actually works.

Meanwhile, art and music is pleasing to us because we are more complex than our inanimate surroundings and is a reflection to us of our own higher level of complexity. Art and music can be defined as a form of mathematical expression using graphics or sound, in that the position of every element is defined relative to every other element. Again, we are imposing our higher level of complexity on our inanimate surroundings.

Before we had the complex modern technology, science and, society that came with the Renaissance, we had to work out and learn to use that complexity through art. Realist painting and sculpture had to come before modern design. As for the operation of modern society, we had to produce complex paintings, with all of the many parts "working together" to convey the meaning of the painting, before we could produce the "real world" constitutions that govern how society operates.

We certainly could not have the complex circuit boards in modern electronic devices without first working out the complexity in painting. Every part of the circuit must support all of the other parts, just as in the painting.

Surrealistic, or non-realistic, artwork gets us thinking outside of our vision, or "outside the box", and this gets us in the frame of mind to invent, to come up with new ideas, and to discover things that we cannot see with our vision.

Many early paintings and sculptures involved great anatomical detail. We had to become intimately familiar with anatomy through art before we could effectively apply it to medicine. In the same way we had to master rendering buildings, and their spatial relationship to each other, before we could have modern architecture.

Likewise the rhythm of poetry, and of music, is reflected in the rhythm of machines. Have you ever noticed the similarity between a song and the operation of an internal combustion engine? 

The musical instruments, percussion, string, wind and, singing, work together in exactly the same way as the several systems of the engine. A song is usually led by a singer just as the thrust-generating system is the primary system of the engine. This is supported by the cooling, lubrication and, charging systems in exactly the same way that the musical instruments support the singer.

The engine's valves have to open, and spark plugs have to fire, according to a rhythm that is identical to that of a song. We definitely could not have had cars without music. We had to work out the complexity of the engine in songs first.

Any machine with moving parts, the gears in a clock for example, must work together like "clockwork", but this precise rhythm is just like that of a song and it was through music that we worked out the complexity that made machines with many moving parts possible.

Sports is where we work out the complexity and strategy involved when there is opposition to what we are trying to do. Ball games against a similar team in a different uniform have always been used as preparation for, and to work out the patterns of, warfare. On another level, games like chess have been used to work out the strategies that might be involved in war, just as card games allow the working out of strategies that might be applicable to either war or business in peacetime.

As always, as the old saying goes, "Art imitates life imitates art". We are at a higher level of complexity than our inanimate surroundings and it is where we can master and work out that complexity before applying it to the "real world". That is the purpose of art, music and, sports.

5) THE PERFECTION OF TECHNOLOGY

I have noticed something about technology that brings about a concept that we could call "perfection".

What I notice about technology is that when an element of technology, such as a car, radio, computer or, phone, is first introduced it is necessary to know how it works in order for the average user to use it. As the technology develops, with improvements made to it, it becomes less and less necessary for the average user to know how it works in order to use it. What I mean by perfection is not being "perfect", in the strict sense of the word, but having reached the point where there is no need to understand at all how it works in order for the average user to use it.

This concept of perfection is useful because it tells us how much room for improvement any element of technology has left. If it is necessary to know how it works for the average user to use it then it still has room for improvement. When it has reached perfection then the average user will have no need at all to understand how it works.

An example of something that has reached perfection is the calendar. We know that the calendar is based on the rotation of the earth as it revolves around the sun. But it is not necessary to understand this in order to use the calendar.

Mathematics is a realm that has reached perfection. What I mean by that is we must completely understand something in order to describe it with mathematics. But science is not a realm that has reached perfection because there are unsolved mysteries in science and we can express in words, rather than numbers, what we do not yet completely understand.

Perfection just means having no more room for improvement. It shows up in how much we need to understand something in order to use it. If it has reached perfection then there is no reason for the average user to understand it at all.

If anyone remembers the early days of personal computers, the C, colon, backslash days of DOS, you can see what I mean. This was known as the C Prompt, C:\. The user typed in a command after the C Prompt.

The user had to remember that the main hard drive of the computer was the C: Drive because that made it third in line in the boot sequence. The A: Drive was reserved for a floppy disk drive. The reason for this is that, if the computer failed to boot in the usual way from the C: Drive, it could be booted by inserting emergency boot floppy disks into the A: Drive which had the necessary boot sequence. The B: Drive was reserved for another insertible disk drive. If there was a secondary hard drive it was the D: Drive.

Fortunately those days are long gone and users today need to know none of this to use a computer, or especially a phone. But we can see that computers and related devices have not yet reached perfection because it is still helpful to know how the device works for the average user.

All improvements to technology go in the direction of making it less necessary to know how it works. I cannot think of a technological improvement that has made it more necessary to understand how it works, unless something has been added to it.

If it is helpful for the average user to know how it works then an element of technology has not yet reached perfection. Software and especially AI are major steps towards perfection.

High-level computer languages that are compiled make it much less necessary for a programmer to understand how the processor works but still do not bring the computer close to perfection.

What about radios? It used to be necessary to string a piece of wire as an antenna. That was because longer wavelengths were used in the early days. The shorter wavelengths that came into use later use much shorter antennas but can only be used in a line of sight. Shorter wavelengths can carry much more information, and thus higher quality.

The development of solid state electronics, based on chips instead of vacuum tubes, were a step forward so now the user doesn't have to remember how the radio requires tubes for detection and amplification because tubes have to be replaced periodically but transistors last the life of the radio.

In the early days of telephone a caller had to dial the operator and tell her who they wanted to be connected to. The operator had a pile of cables, each of which had a connector at each end. The operator would plug one end into the caller's connection and the other into the connection of the recipient of the call. At the end of the call the recipient would call the operator again and request removal of the cable. The user clearly had to know all about how the phone and it's system worked.

I will leave it up to you to decide how much room for improvement phones have left, keeping in mind that today's phones are computers as well as phones.

Cars are somewhat different from the above technical elements in that they are moving. With mechanical parts in motion that naturally makes auto parts susceptible to wear, and requiring replacement. This makes it much more necessary to understand how a car works, relative to the elements of technology referenced above.

To use a standard transmission it is necessary to understand how the transmission operates but automatic transmissions have eliminated this need. It is not absolutely necessary to know at all how a car works in order to drive it, other than the basic controls like ignition, steering and brakes. But, since cars are inevitably subject to the wear that comes with moving parts, a vital part of being a user is continuous monitoring for signs of malfunction or breakdown.

While it is not really necessary for a driver to understand how each part of the car works, but it is helpful and it is necessary to understand how the different parts of the car work together. This means that cars today are nowhere near perfection, despite how far they have come, and still have a lot of room for improvement left.

6) THE NATURE OF FAIRNESS

Fairness is very important to us. It is the basic principle behind all codes of law, and how we ideally interact with each other. But I cannot see that it has been broken down into exactly what it is. I have broken fairness down into four principles.

6a) THE LEAST PRINCIPLE

An ideal example of the Least Principle is the express line in supermarket checkouts. In most supermarkets a shopper who is buying a certain number of items or fewer, typically ten, have their own line or lines at supermarket checkouts.

The reason is fairness. If a shopper is buying only a few groceries then it will not take long for them to be rung up at the checkout. It is unfair for someone buying only a few groceries to have to wait for others to be rung up who are buying a lot of groceries. 

That is why most supermarkets have at least one express line. It facilitates the least waiting relative to the number of items a shopper is buying.

If two students have to stay after school, so that the teacher can go over something different with each of them, the one that will require the least time should go first. This will facilitate the least waiting, relative to the amount of time required. That is why it is called the Least Principle.

6b) THE GREATER GOOD

This counterbalances the Least Principle. Fairness is not written in stone, it is a matter of perspective. Human nature must be taken into consideration.

If we strictly followed the Least Principle it would mean that if there was two people, one with no money and one with a lot of money, it would be only fair for the one with a lot of money to share it with the one with no money.

But if everyone had to share whatever wealth they had then what would be the point of working? People require incentive to work and that incentive is the money that they earn. Why should anyone work hard if they will only have to share their earnings? This means that some people will inevitably have more wealth than others.

In the long term, the principal of the Greater Good will mean more wealth, on the average, for all, because it provides incentive, while the Least Principle is more short-term where incentive is not a factor.

As a counterbalance to the Least Principle, which is the fundamental principle of fairness, we could call this the "Most Principle".

6c) BALANCING OUT

This is a long-term modifier of the short-term Least Principle. If there are two shoppers in the supermarket, both buying the same number of items, is it fair that one has to wait longer in the checkout line because the line that they are in is moving more slowly than the one the other is in? 

Of course it isn't. The fair thing to do would be for the supermarket to have just one line, and then the next person in line go to the next available cashier. This is what some markets do have, the trouble is that it takes up floor space and will thus add to the cost of groceries.

But standing in line is a repetitive thing. We stand in lines all our lives. The Balancing Out principle is that, just by chance, sometimes we will err and choose the line that takes the longest but it will balance out, over time, because sometimes we will make the right choice of the fastest line.

6d) THE PARADISE PRINCIPLE

Sometimes fairness is just beyond our ability to implement.

Two children are crossing a street. A car is trying to evade the police and comes around the corner at high speed. One of the children is killed but the other is uninjured. It that fair to the family of the child that was killed? Of course it isn't.

Two families send their sons off to war, one is killed but the other isn't. Is that fair to the family of the one that was killed? Of course it isn't.

There are two siblings, one gets a hereditary disease but the other doesn't. Is that fair to the one that got the disease? Of course it isn't.

It looked as if it might rain. Two people are walking, one brought an umbrella but the other didn't. The one with the umbrella doesn't get wet but the other does. Is this fair to the person that got wet? Actually it is fair because the other person had the common sense to bring an umbrella but the one that got wet didn't.

We cannot completely implement freedom, making it so that everything is always fair. In fact, that could be the definition of a paradise. Where everything is always fair. It would be a higher-level paradise if everything was always perfect, but it would be at least a first-level paradise if everything was always fair.

That is why I call this the "Paradise Principle".

7) SYMBOLISM

Just a reminder of how important symbolism can be.

America started east of the Appalachians but it ended up stretching from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans, from "coast to coast". The inevitability of reaching the opposite coast is referred to as "Manifest Destiny".

But the reason it was inevitable is the symbolism of the flag. The stripes stretch from "coast to coast".

America is also, at the time of this writing, the only nation to have put humans on the moon. Of course, a number of nations have stars on the flag but America has more than any other nation. This seems to have made it inevitable that Americans would land on the moon first.

But the flag has a downside too. The stripes resemble prison bars and America has a high proportion of people in prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Flag_of_the_United_States.svg

I believe that Britain's flag helped in discovery of sub-atomic particles. All three components of atoms, electrons, protons and, neutrons were all discovered in England. But the flag resembles a nucleus at the center with electron orbitals passing over it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Jack#/media/File:Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg 

The symbol of Canada is the Maple Leaf. There is one disadvantage. Maple leaves fall off the tree in the winter. Emulating the national symbol snowbirds from Canada go south during the winter, to Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean, taking hundreds of millions of Canadian dollars with them, at least before the pandemic started. Maybe more money would stay in Canada if it had an evergreen tree as it's symbol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Canada#/media/File:Flag_of_Canada_(Pantone).svg 

The symbol of Communism was a red star and, sure enough, the Soviet Union was the first nation to put a satellite in orbit and then a man in space.

But another symbol of the Soviet Union was the hammer and sickle, representing industry and agriculture. Have you ever noticed that, true to the national symbol, the Soviet Union and it's Communism held together as long as the bulk of workers were employed either in agriculture or heavy industry, but then came apart when that stage had passed?

Instead of the hammer and sickle would it still be together if it had the computer mouse and smart phone as it's symbol?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union#/media/File:Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union.svg 

Could it be that America has the crime rate that it does because it's national symbol, the bald eagle, is a predator with razor-sharp claws? What if the buffalo had been the symbol of America? We have a ruthless predator as our national symbol but then send people to prison for conducting themselves like the national symbol.

Could it be that so many people have, in the past, immigrated from Britain because it's national symbol is the lion and it is doubtful that a lion would want to live in the drizzle and fog of Britain. What if the native fox was the symbol of Britain?

Could it be that part of the reason for so many wars is that nations tend to choose vicious wild predators as their national symbols? What if we had peaceful herbivores as our national symbols?

8) THE PARADOX OF KNOWLEDGE

We generally consider having knowledge to be a good thing. But have you ever wondered if knowledge can be a disadvantage, if there can be such a thing as "knowing too much"?

It depends. If we just want to know what is then knowledge is a good thing. But if we are trying to create something new then it can be a disadvantage.

We have heard of a person being considered as not the best person for a particular job because they "know too much about the wrong way of doing things". The French Revolution is generally considered as initiating the modern political era. What was notable about it is that it was conducted mostly by young people lacking in political experience.

But that was what enabled them to create a new political order. If they would have been experienced they would have gone with what they knew and would never have been able to create a new order.

Albert Einstein once famously said that "imagination is more important than knowledge". When Einstein came up with his first theory of Relativity he was not a professional scientist. He was working as a patent clerk.

Maybe if he had been a professional scientist he never would have come up with his breakthrough new theory. His mind might have been too set in "things as they are".

In remember that when I came up with my cosmology theory, which is my version of string theory, I really didn't know much about string theory, which was first introduced in 1968. I had once read an article about the concept that what we perceive as particles, such as electrons, are actually strings and there are more spatial dimensions than the three that we can see.

I had picked up a book about string theory. It was a long book and I don't remember the name of it. I got about a third of the way through the book when I noticed that there is a relatively simple solution that makes so many unsolved mysteries of the universe just fall right into place.

I had been wondering what time exactly is but could find no answer anywhere. I noticed that a fundamental principle of science seemed to be the assumption that we have an unbiased view of the universe. But what if we don't? I concluded that we do not have an unbiased view of the universe, we see it as we do not only because of what it is but also because of what we are. 

The reason there was no satisfactory explanation of what time is was because we were looking in the wrong place, in the realm of physics. Time was actually within us, the movement of our consciousness along the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains at what we perceive as the speed of light, which also has no real explanation as to why it was that particular speed.

If I had a degree in cosmology, or if I had "known" all about it, the probability is that I would never have been able to take a "leap" outside the box, and to come up with a new way of looking at it. My mind would have been too locked into the existing ways of looking at it.

In the past many people who have made discoveries have been self-educated, or mostly self-educated. A university education is a wonderful thing but it inevitably means learning to think like everyone else. A self-educated person hasn't learned to think like everyone else, at least not to the same extent, and are therefore better suited to notice the things that no one else has noticed.

9) IS HUMANITY ALIVE?

Have you ever wondered if humanity, meaning all human beings, is alive? I don't mean each human being that is alive, I mean humanity as a whole.

We see both a human as alive, and also every cell in their body as alive. But if the cell could think it would see itself as alive, along with all of the other cells it works together with, but not the body as a whole. All of humanity, in our interconnected world, works together as one in just the same way that all of the cells in a human body work together as one. Just as individual cells die and are replaced, individual people die but humanity as a whole goes on.

We consider the human body, as well as each cell within it, as alive but not humanity as a whole, even though the two relationships are virtually the same. The exception being that humans are not physically connected to one another.

But is this just a matter of perspective? We are part of this structure of humanity ourselves, and so do not have an unbiased perspective. If any of the cells in our bodies could think they would be concerned with their own lives and tasks. While they would see other cells as also alive it would be very difficult for the cell to see the human body as a whole of being alive.

We can sense other humans as being alive and we know that their component cells are alive because we know how our bodies work. But then humanity as a whole must somehow be considered as alive. If we don't consider humanity as a whole to be alive it must be because the perspective does not exist to view humanity as a whole as alive, but that really makes it no less alive.

Just because there is no perspective to recognize humanity as a whole as alive cannot mean that it isn't alive. Consider the example of numbers. We might say that a number has no real existence until it is manifested. There is no such thing as the number six that we can go to see or hold in our hands. But the number is manifested whenever we have six of something.

Since the universe is finite, but numbers are not, there must be numbers that are not manifested by anything. Yet by all of the rules of mathematics these unmanifested numbers still exist. Indeed a number must exist before it is manifested. In the same way how can it be that each of our cells is alive, and we are alive, but yet humanity as a whole is not alive?

What about our internal organs? Is your stomach and your liver alive? If the individual cells are alive, and your body as a whole is alive, then shouldn't your internal organs be considered as alive in themselves? You might answer that they can be considered as alive, but only as part of a larger whole. 

Now consider that each human being is alive but very few people today could produce all that they need to live, considering the work that they do. Couldn't we say that, like our internal organs, we are alive but only as part of a larger whole? Then the larger whole, which is all of humanity, must be alive.

Human civilizations are said to rise, reach their peak, and then decline, in exactly the same way as an individual human being. But why should a civilization decline once it has the advantage of dominance? Doesn't it make sense that the civilization is actually alive even though we, due to our perspective, are capable only of seeing the individual humans that compose the civilization as being alive? 

The more globally interconnected we become, through modern transportation, communication and, the internet, the more all of humanity matures as a living thing. Humanity, as a whole, fits all definitions of a living thing, with the exception that humans are not physically connected to one another, like the cells of the body, but that is not necessary with the way we can communicate and the modern global economy certainly functions like a living thing.

Just like any living thing humanity sometimes gets sick. Wars resemble autoimmune diseases, which causes the body to attack itself. An economic downturn operates in much the same way, to humanity or a nation as a whole, as a human getting an illness and then recovering from it.