Friday, April 27, 2007

Big Wow!

Strange Things of the Universe
(Image from Wikipedia)

According to Wikipedia, the astrophysicist Paola Zizzi, Department of Pure and Applied Mathematics, University of Padova, Italy, has a loopy theory about consciousness:

Italian astrophysicist Paola Zizzi is perhaps most notable for her work in the field of Loop quantum gravity theory that regards the early universe as a kind of quantum computer. She proposed that the universe could have achieved the threshold of computational complexity sufficient for the emergence of consciousness during the period of cosmic inflation, in a paper entitled "Emergent Consciousness: From the Early Universe to Our Mind," which has become known as the Big Wow theory.
In a small corner of this possibly conscious, quantum-computating universe occurred a perhaps not unrelated 'big wow' moment, reported by The Sun Online (Mike Sullivan and John Kay, "Docs fight to save man's willy," April 24, 2007, h/t Big Ho), during which some diners in the London restaurant 'Zizzi' were interrupted by a fellow in a deep blue mood of deflationary expansiveness:

Horrified diners watched in shock as a maniac . . . burst into the Zizzi eaterie in central London and grabbed a knife from the kitchen. He then leapt on a table and dropped his trousers as customers fled screaming. . . . Stuart McMahon, who was eating supper with his girlfriend, said: "This guy came running in then charged into the kitchen, got a massive knife and started waving it about. Everyone was screaming and running out as he jumped on a table, dropped his trousers and popped his penis out. Then he cut it off. I couldn't believe it."
Seeing is not always believing, it seems, concerning the loopy acts of the ridiculously insane. Anyway, I juxtapose these two random bits of information because both involve the name "Zizzi" and synergistically teach us a lesson about consciousness and futility:

"Futility" (1918) by Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun --
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds, --
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
-- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
The universe despite Paolo Zizzi, gives no indications of consciousness, aside from in such occasional detritus as human beings. As for that insane fellow in the restaurant 'Zizzi', the man's unmanned manhood was reattached under conditions of general anesthesia.

In other words, unconsciousness.

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19 Comments:

At 8:49 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

We'll leave Don behind.

"With useless endeavor,
Forever, forever,
Is Sysyphus rolling
His stone up the mountain!"

I fear I may see a poseur coming onto this current posting pond. I shall keep a wary eye behind and glancing side to side.

As to the member rejoined? Are both it and he as one?

JK

 
At 8:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is this an attempt to:

1) exponentially increase your hits?

2) stir up the trolls' nest?

3) invite Sally Stanford to exchange lofty prose with you?

4) remind me of what I had forsaken during my 13 years as a Western English nun in Asia?

 
At 12:00 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

JK, we must simply wait and see, and all will be revealed...

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 12:03 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Sonagi, none of the above (and no pun intended, but you were a nun?).

I was simply pressed for time and threw up (so to speak) something that I found ridiculous and amazing.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 4:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

As sonagi implies,albeit in some different sense, I am certain I would wish not all to be revealed.

Certainly I was unfamiliar with this "Wow Theory". I was just getting used to seeing a thinker of strings happily bereft of weight.

Happily I would go back to simply "anonymous" and not feel it necessary to add kapok. I'd keep the "JK" of course.

JK

 
At 5:19 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

JK, I rather like that Kapok, but I'm happy to stick with JK.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 7:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

No, I was not, but I felt like one. A heterosexual fortyish woman friend of mine in Korea admired the buzz cut of a Korean lesbian bartender and got one for herself, reasoning, "In this country, it doesn't matter what you look like," a dry reference to the lack of dating prospects for women over thirty in Korea.

 
At 7:36 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Well, Sonagi, I'm sure that I would have found you fascinating ... except that I'm very, very happily married (to a fascinating woman, nonetheless).

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 11:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Kapok might just be for the best I'll admit. And so as not to confuse, suppose we just keep it.

A story caame to mind. Back in the late 70's, 80's I flew quite a bit (economy, nowhere near the pilot's seat). Of course this only moderately pertains to the subject at hand. To the restaurant Zizzy's episode of course.

I once knew a stewardess, they were called such then, who saw all kinds of people, witnessed quite a bit. She related:

"There are all kinds of weirdos, one time I got flashed in DFW, I was growing tired of this and I asked him in a pitying tone; Oh my, did that happen in Viet Nam?"

I recall how much I enjoyed that Hong Kong laughter shared.

JK

 
At 3:35 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

I reckon that biting remark cut him short.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 3:37 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Oh, and JK, does your opening remark mean that you wish to be called "Kapok" --- or Kapok, do you wish to be called "JK"?

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 7:21 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well it really doesn't matter but hathor at one time suggested, or seemed to point that it would be appropriate for me to avoid a simply "anonymous said...", and then sign, JK. Caused confusion.

If addressing me the qwuerty seems JK more efficient. (I, doggone it, can't recall how Mrs. DeShazo spelled it.) But you said you liked kapok. It is simply a name my father (small "f", I don't want to call forth Drac) bestowed.

But since few in the phonebook have been where I've come, and come back to, and will. Oh heck, I don't care, I have to read everything anyway.

I'll know.

JK

 
At 7:35 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Perhaps I'll stick with JK for simplicity's sake.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 8:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Simple is as simple does. Taylor calls me "Grump".

JK

 
At 10:00 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Dialect for "Gramp"?

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 10:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gotta love toilet humor, especially when its intelligent :)
Matt

 
At 10:03 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Thanks, Matt.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 
At 2:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, Gramp.

And when I hear ir, I enjoy it so. But I think he really does mean "Grump". And not in an adult way. So much more the enjoyment, he has yet to learn Grump's cynicism. And guilt.

JK

 
At 5:30 PM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

The young one who calls you "Grump" will have to find his own way in those days to come, hopefully with fewer detours than our generation encountered, but everyone experiences a fall from the path of innocence -- though some of us with a harder landing than others.

Jeffery Hodges

* * *

 

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