time and anti-time

＂Ｗｈｙ　ｄｏｅｓ　ｓｏｍｅｔｈｉｎｇ　ｃｏｍｅ　ｆｒｏｍ　ｎｏｔｈｉｎｇ？＂

Lately I have been thinking about the ultimate question. The universe, where did it come from, and why? Precluding the existence of an omnipotent figure, which would simply shift the onus of causation a further step, the universe simply came from nothing.

Right now my conceptualization of this nothingness is that it is a temperature of absolute zero,  or perhaps less than absolute zero. Some property of the nothingness causes matter/energy (same thing anyways, simply at a different energy level) to come into being. This property has to exist, because the existence of me writing this affirms that I exist, and without the beginning of the universe, I could not exist.

Apparently at very cold temperatures, matter crystallizes. However, I would guess that as matter passes below absolute zero, it would become antimatter? Matter plus antimatter causes large explosions, and hence we get a big bang...but what about the matter-antimatter? Where did that come from? Theoretically 'absolute nothing' should contain neither matter nor antimatter? 
For that matter, if it was so cold, shouldn't time itself slow down, stop or even reverse itself, as it is a measurement of vibration of subatomic particles(?) Is there anti-time? Even if there were, still that doesn't explain the something from nothing effect.

I also wonder what the connection between the term 无极 in ancient texts and my idea of nothingness, they seem quite similar. 无极---〉阴跟阳---〉太极 yes, there it is, wuji leads to yin and yang, which combined together make taiji...but why why why...

A clear day in Shanghai

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

With my sister visiting, I haven't had much chance to read or think much recently. I have continued with 'Sputnik Sweetheart' but otherwise have not had a chance to put much of a dent in 'The Wealth and Poverty of Nations'.

The wikipedia entry on Frank Herbert gives scant information about his influences. Before becoming successful as a novelist, he worked as a newspaper journalist and magazine editor, as well as working as a photographer for the US Navy Seabees during WWII.

The research for Dune took him six years to complete. Frank Herbert was interested in general semantics, which in many ways seems to base itself on a restatement of David Hume's ideas on causation and the problem of induction. The idea of general semantics is basically to clarify thinking: the 'Litany Against Fear', written above, seems to be a good example of the aim of general semantics. I also see strong similarities between the ideas of general semantics and those written in certain passages in 菜根谭: [君子之心,雨过天晴], as well as [事悟而痴除,性定而動正]in particular spring to mind. English wikipedia has no entry on 菜根谭("Cai Gen Tan", traditional character version), and the Chinese version basically is a blurb saying that it was written in the Ming dynasty and written by 洪自诚.

In reading Jack Vance's books, I am always quite convinced that Vance draw upon his experiences travelling in the Merchant Marine and touring the world when he creates new locales in his novels. Apparently Frank Herbert and Jack Vance were also friends, and they and their respective families lived together in Mexico for some time.

Frank Herbert said the following about writing:

A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. You're there now doing the thing on paper. You're not killing the goose, you're just producing an egg. So I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing, for example, or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, "Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write." There's no difference on paper between the two.

A conversation last night hinged upon humor. My sister, who had been visiting Shanghai, said that 'suchandsuch movie' was the funniest that she had ever seen. I challenged this by asking the question 'if you were stuck in a spaceship with only one funny movie to watch, would you pick that movie?'

Smokescreen, Presidential Races, and Spielberg

Everyone's talking about Edison. In the past four days in Hong Kong, not one conversation with a friend failed to touch on it. Sitting down for lunch in the chacanting, the two guys sitting across the table were reading gossip mags with Edison pics, on the plane back, the front page news of the newspapers being read by people on both sides of me was Edison.

Through reading news on the HK MTR's internet kiosks, I have been following the election news, which says that Obama continues to lead Hillary Clinton, although an NY Times article which I read last night says that neither candidate may have enough votes to win the nomination, and the primary will be decided by superdelegates, which seem to be basically an intraparty voting committee selected in rather arbitrary fashion. The NYT article seemed to paint the superdelegate voting system as a way that Hillary may be able to snatch victory away from Obama.

By far the most interesting news of the morning, however, is that Steven Spielberg has resigned as artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics. His main reason for quitting was due to China's lack of action to stabilize the chaos in Darfur in the Sudan. It will be extremely interesting to see how the PRC media decide to handle his resignation...Maybe they can get his non-union Mexican equivalent...