Category: Musings

How Are Things Shaping Up?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

It will be three weeks tomorrow after the operation.

I can walk unaided a bit now. My energy levels are still a tad low. I have lost about 5kg. I am still not sleeping properly and the dreaming is not back. Tomorrow or the next day the hospital bed goes back. The residual evidence will be crutches and a filling bio-hazard sharps box. I can’t sleep on my operated side yet and wake up to lower back pain. I am off the sleeping tablets and my opiate intake is very low, only light nocturnal. I am due to go to the workplace of the physiotherapist by car early next week instead of having home visits. I will be driving.

The days are long and the relatively sleepless nights longer. I may be back in the garden and on the DIY again soon. I anticipate ongoing interrupted sleep. I do not yet see an obvious end to this.

It is pretty clear that the hip functionality will continue to improve. Many things are already easier than before. There is a novelty factor. I’ll speculate that the movement will become limited by my other arthritic left hip in due course. I will be able to do more than one kilometre walks on the beach relatively soon. I should be significantly more physically able than before.

The rather weird dreaming about arcane scripts perhaps can be explained by my watching of “A Discovery of Witches”. The Tibetan thread is fizzling out. To me it is no big deal. I am accustomed to things like this. Nothing usually happens as a result. There is no inclination to follow up on the physical plane. Like so many times before dream content fades into the nebulousness from whence it came.

The feeling is that whatever it was that may or may not have been going on before is simply fizzling out. In my mind I am envisaging more of the same cook-garden-DIY vibe and not a lot else. It seems that this is the future scope moving forward into next year.  I do not anticipate anything non mundane, nothing overly unusual. Though we did have a ‘phone call from a withheld number yesterday.

I can apply for permission from the French authorities to stay soon. I have the documents ready and should the application progress I will have an interview at the prefecture in the big town sometime early next year.

I am due to see the surgeon in January and he may pencil in phase 2.

It is all shaping up to be much of the same…though more physically able and with much lower waking pain levels.

Not Going to America Then…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Because of the hip operation and ongoing recovery I have a fair bit of time on my hands. The media report that Trump has started a consultation process about the possible need for additional information on the ESTA system. {see below}.

There will of course be an added administrative burden.

I can be seen as critical about US policy and the goings on in Palestine.

Were I to consider going to the USA there is a very good chance that any application would be rejected as I am not sufficiently “fond” of things.

If the consultation approves the suggestions it will make any attempt to gain entry very unattractive. Not sure what that will do for the world cup and Olympics.

The data will fulfil a profiling requirement. Good luck to anyone who reads my blogs from the last five years. I am currently not living in a designated “shithole” country. This level of data is compatible with mid-level security vetting. It is a bit OTT.

The obvious conclusion is that I will not be going to the USA ever again…the mat outside the front door does not say “welcome”.

“Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy”

What a great Christmas message from DC…

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Agency Information Collection Activities; Revision; Arrival and Departure Record (Form I-94) and Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)

3. Mandatory Social Media:

In order to comply with the January 2025 Executive Order 14161 (Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats), CBP is adding social media as a mandatory data element for an ESTA application. The data element will require ESTA applicants to provide their social media from the last 5 years.

4. High Value Data Elements:

To comply with the January 2025 E.O. (14161), and the April 4, 2025, Memorandum Updating All Forms to Collect Baseline Biographic Data, CBP will add several “high value data fields” to the ESTA application, when feasible. This is in addition to the information already collected in the ESTA application.

The high value data fields include:

a. Telephone numbers used in the last five years;

b. Email addresses used in the last ten years;

c. IP addresses and metadata from electronically submitted photos;

d. Family member names (parents, spouse, siblings, children);

e. Family number telephone numbers used in the last five years;

f. Family member dates of birth;

g. Family member places of birth;

h. Family member residencies;

i. Biometrics—face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris;

j. Business telephone numbers used in the last five years;

k. Business email addresses used in the last ten years.

CBP invites the public to comment on both the previously approved emergency changes and the newly proposed changes.

Provenance Lineage and Branding

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

If for example you had a couple of season’s playing premiership football at Manchester City recently, it would be a good thing to put on your CV. There would be an automatic few brownie points added mentally. Your power by affiliation to a “top” team gives kudos. People would not imagine you, a priori, a shite player. Likewise if you studied at a pukka university and did research in the group of a Nobel Prize winner, people might imagine you clever, good and perhaps competent. The CV then gives some notion of provenance. Where did you learn your trade and who taught it you? The quality of teaching may be far higher at a lower kudos university but human mind likes bragging rights. An Imperial College graduate commands top whack salary and employment in the UK. In France because of the lack of Harry Potter affiliation it is not such a big deal.

Put simply this is a form of reputational prejudice. Affiliation to brand can be paid for and claimed. Reputation, though often relied upon, is no guarantee.

I personally have interacted with an academic lineage and a martial arts lineage. Studying at a groovy place with high reputation did not make me any better. In terms of the martial arts lineage it did convey a connection with a real and lethal martial tradition. It is/was not in the ring kick boxing nor caged MMA. When the sensei says, en passant, that it was not unusual in the 1960s and 1970s for people to still die during training, or that they had undertaken a 100 man kumite, it is a different ballgame. In many senses here, the fewer words, the less show and less overt marketing the more “real” the tradition. Action speaks louder than words and need not be advertised and sold. For a westerner to be given the keys to a “Ryu” hundreds of years old, is a high honour and a mark of respect. I know that I only saw maybe 5% of what that sensei was capable of even though I was close to dan grade. I have by experience respect of the profound depth of what a direct transmission lineage might hold; I did not see it fully but I sure as hell sensed it. There was a lineage of marked lethality over and above regular combat skills. Perhaps of limited and specialised use these days.

Within a genuine lineage there can be found knowledge and skill beyond the ordinary and mundane. The preservation of this can become an obsession and not all elements are “time of man” appropriate.  The arcane knowledge is highly specialised and perhaps incredible, unbelievable to modern “scientific man”. If you have been choked out and revived on the judo mat and had an injury healed by Mr Miyagi “hands on” you may have a little more respect and less of a tendency to scoff. We do not regularly have the time for complex and extensive Vajrayana rituals in our 21st century day to day. This does not mean they have no value. They do. Though the number of skilled practitioners of such things will wane. Everything needs some kind of modernisation. Sparsity of ritual can in fact enhance the intent and power thereof.

Because of the Western obsession with advertising PR and branding, those who might be called “spiritual” practitioners have been persuaded that they need jazzy web sites and recounting of lineage back to the founding fathers. Go Daddy may even have a “guru” template to get you started. In this respect claimed Zen lineages are core to the initial marketing effort. Everyone seeking a connection back to the twirling of a flower on vulture peak. Much like the kings of England sought a bloodline back to claim their divine right to the throne. Lineage is good marketing and appeals to some would be punters / clients / devotees.

However interacting with a true lineage carries with it something extra, not bargained for. If you are susceptible and open, the thought forms and aged collected intent of the lineage has an added “dimension”. The thought forms, built by mind after mind, transmitted between minds, have a power far in excess of the face value. If you are a knob or a bellend, you will be unable to receive and/or assimilate. To put it in another way, somehow the lineage itself discerns who is a worthy recipient.

It is unfortunate sign of our times that unless the advertising or PR aligns with expectation we do not “buy” or trust. We have become prejudiced to a certain form of inane packaging. There is often a ginger and a brown person in the advert. Sometimes this is saccharin woke. Not all advice is good advice. People are forever chasing a buck and may try to persuade you otherwise.

Being of a certain age I have come up with a new service. I will offer end of life insurance to pay for it {no medical questions}, a no fuss cremation plan, the construction and positioning of a bench in a country location with your name plaque, and a vetted agent to take your ashes on a SAGA Norwegian fjord cruise there to scatter them on a wind of your choosing.

I think that there is mileage in this…the trouble is I have nor provenance or lineage for so doing. I am pretty sure that I could come up with a catchy brand and use a template design web site which I can pay to have SEO optimised.

“Blowing in the Wind” our bespoke end of life package for the discerning over 60s…

“Spiritual” Journeys

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have used inverted commas quotation mark here because I struggle a little with how words have in a sense become tainted by multiple usage and being bandied about as PR. Spiritual as a word has had its impact and meaning downgraded to the point of near meaninglessness.

I am going to attempt to put into words something which I have hesitated to do. It is close to impossible. This cannot be undertaken without emphasising just how important a few years of my childhood were in my development, in this life. One constellation in particular left its mark deep in my psyche.

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It was by its light during an English language common entrance exam that I foresaw events near two and a half decades later. It was the harbinger and the key of a volte face in life. I left the harbour alone in my coracle adrift upon the Southern ocean lit by its solace. I left Cape Town after being burned on table mountain.

Later I had another foreboding which was also to find consummation over a similar time delay. Each of these were pivotal. That foreboding prevented me making a UCAS university choice against the advice of my school teachers.

When I was young and in an English boarding school as an expat child I got to read the lessons and the prayers in church. While the others sat with parents. It was like a duck to water that I took to the lectern and the prayer “chair” deep in the nave. There I found St Francis of Assisi.

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« Seigneur, faites de moi un instrument de votre paix.
Là où il y a de la haine, que je mette l’amour. »

« C’est en pardonnant qu’on est pardonné,
c’est en mourant qu’on ressuscite à l’éternelle vie. »

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This man was in tune with the Mahayana bodhisattva ideal. His words touched.

Unfortunately those with the skill of a chameleon can adopt any mask, any direction, any character they choose. Believe me I learned how to blend. And in blending one loses authentic essence.

At the end of my schooling I took general studies courses in Buddhism, cooking and Rastafarianism. Ever Jah, ever loving, ever faithful. Rastafari. I read all that I could on witchcraft and alchemy. I made “friends” with the librarian in our town.

The Buddhism was presented in an intellectual descriptive manner in which the various fetters were enumerated for debate. Although I understood, the manner was for me boring and definitional. I sensed beyond that which was being professed. It was during intense meditation sat in seiza at karate that I learned that I had in fact been meditating all of my childhood. I used to sit and observe. I used to wait. I was touched directly by the dreamtime out in the shimmering bush of western Queensland. The aboriginal pointing stick had cleaved something open.

And then when I went to university I mostly forgot. By the time I was doing my Ph.D. research I figured that I had found something I was good at. So maybe this was the future. I enjoyed “pissing about with lasers”. I was to an extent, life and soul of the party. It was only in the early nineties that I started to withdraw, as if driven by a deeper current, out into the hills, the mountains and the countryside. It set up a kind of imbalance. On the one hand was a “normal” life and career. On the other there was silence and quiet. My reading was more intellectual philosophy, science and philosophy of science. I noted that despite mundane academic achievement many of “the greats” struggled with non-salary paying bigger questions.

I was offered a choice. Fort Collins Colorado or Bern Switzerland. One of those would have brought me quicker into contact with things “spiritual” than the other. The Swiss francs were certain, so I saw the Berner Oberland and learned painfully of “qualität”. Something which I tried thenceforth to express.

In the mid nineties at the place of my prior foreboding I was brought to my knees. Despite writing excellent research proposals I was stymied and unfunded. A grudge held by a “competing” senior academic could kill a proposal with a mere word. I had a breakdown. The answer to life the universe and everything could no longer be found in the laws of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. It seemed there was more. It was around then that my ambition faded and the picture of a life academic dimmed. I began to search in earnest. I opened myself up wide. Again I largely forgot and tried to rebuild a life after breakdown. For some unknown reason money for research and start-up came more easily. I was “successful” for a while.

In the very early part of this century I was tested by power. I had a taste of it and did not abuse. Like Galadriel I refused the ring and was no longer sorely tempted thereby. It was around this time that a series of what might be called micro-renunciations began. In which step-wise I renounced or was forced to renounce the accoutrements of normal life. Each one was more difficult and profound than the last. Slowly life was stripped of all that made it busy and hectic. Until in the middle of 2006 I renounced all and walked off into the metaphorical “wilderness”. Dramatic as that sounds, at face value it looked simple, at core it cleaved and parted, severed and up-ended.

I did not become a wandering mendicant with charnel grounds for abode nor skull cup for beverage. Though adrift I most certainly was. I had already learned as a child, the nature of impermanence. Strangely without accoutrement life did not cease, the world did not implode, nor did it stop.

When you are thrust  from an Outlook calendar ruled life, with hours dissected into segments, with meetings set for you, with each action seemingly accountable, into nothing. The meaning of time changes in an unalterable and irrevocable way. It is no longer a spreadsheet thing. The boxes, the rice paper walls of the day, dissolve.

At end of 2008 I left the map so to speak. I began a series of meditations which went beyond. There was nothing, despite my research skill, which I could find written. These “meditations” continued in the UK in houses close to civilisation yet separate in the English countryside. I can say that the rigor of these was high and they continued for many years. In around 2010-11 I began having Buddhist dreams.

In the early part of the century whilst still teaching physical chemistry I had a series of waking visions in which I had “om mane padme hum” tattooed on my forearms in Sanskrit and with me in monastic robes. These visions were sufficiently powerful to be present whilst I was lecturing Chemical Reaction Kinetics to undergraduates in South Kensington. It was around then that I got to express my compassion for others, to care for them.

Overlaid on a “Toltec” background was a distinctly Buddhist vibe.

All the while I had a seemingly normal life as a married man doing for quite a while “A” level science private tutoring. The outer world and the inner world differed and markedly so.

To me as a member of the elephant dreaming class there is no problem with the scholastic wisdom teachings of Siddartha and the more dramatic Toltec corpus. The latter is a guide, when viewed with clarity, to the navigation of glamour and illusion. There is probably only one truth expressed via many different approaches. The Tower of Babel has a lot to answer for…

This is probably enough for today…

Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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Le rasoir d’Ockham ou rasoir d’Occam est un principe de raisonnement philosophique entrant dans les concepts de rationalisme et de nominalisme. Le terme vient de « raser » qui, en philosophie, signifie « éliminer des explications non nécessaires d’un phénomène » et du philosophe du XIVe siècle Guillaume d’Ockham.

Également appelé principe de simplicité, principe d’économie ou principe de parcimonie (en latin « lex parsimoniae »), il dispose d’une ancienne formulation :

    Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate

    (les multiples ne doivent pas être utilisés sans nécessité)

Dans le langage courant, le rasoir d’Ockham pourrait s’exprimer par les phrases : « L’explication la plus simple est généralement la bonne », ou : « Pourquoi faire compliqué quand on peut faire simple ? » Une formulation plus moderne est que « les hypothèses suffisantes les plus simples doivent être préférées (il faut et il suffit) ». C’est un des principes heuristiques fondamentaux en science, mais ce n’est ni un principe de départ ni un résultat scientifique.

Le principe fait appel à une simplicité en termes de nombre d’entités, de concepts ou d’hypothèses utilisés, et non en termes de complexité de leur combinaison, les deux se contredisant généralement : si vous avez une explication d’un phénomène par la combinaison de deux causes séparées, le principe incite à rechercher une cause unique plus profonde qui serait à l’origine des causes préalablement postulées, ce qui donnera finalement, en cas de succès, une construction plus complexe mais avec un nombre plus réduit d’hypothèses.

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One of the interesting thoughts for me which pertains slightly to this blog relates to finding an internally consistent and comprehensive explanation as to the nature of the dreams I have had and which are archived in this blog. I would genuinely be interested to hear any explanation from the psychology / psychiatry profession which attempts to explain the scope of them. This specifically so given my prior training as a scientist and current life context as a relatively socially isolated retired person.

Those dreams which appear to point at previous incarnations can be discounted as merely dreams. There is no need to invoke the hypothesis of reincarnation. But saying things are just dreams is a bit of a handwaving dismissal. It is not entirely satisfactory.

Invocation of the single hypothesis of reincarnation renders explanation easier in context and does not require any complicated theorising as to just why or how come I dream about, inter alia, Buddhist themed, dreams. Inherent in this is a difficulty because it suggests that there needs to be some mechanism of transfer of memory between different lives, different incarnations. It raises the question as to what exactly is the nature of the “thing” which not only reincarnates but which is able to carry memory and recollection in the absence of a biological body. The neuroscientist is likely to prefer a brain and perhaps evolving synaptic scaffold construct to explain memory. Such a thing cannot exist beyond the soft wet matter of living humanity. There is no biological or biochemical hypothesis which can account for the notion of memory transfer between lives. The science fiction writer or scientifically inarticulate new-ager might say, “it is all in the DNA”.  If it were, it is not facile to explain how “Buddhist DNA” found its way to a small valley in the foothills of Snowdon. Yes my mother when tanned could pass for an Indian especially if she wore a bindi. But the DNA explanation does not really wash. My dad was ginger.

The easiest explanation is to blame an overactive imagination on my part which somehow breaks though during sleep. Perhaps there is a part of my deep sub-conscious which wants to be “special” and thereby invents some new DSM-5 type nocturnal mental disorder, the classification of which could be career enhancing for some psychologist or other. I have a form of delusional psychopathy which may or may not be common. After all who in their right mind would make dreams like mine public? Best kept secret to avoid public gaze. We can come up with the Whacko McNutjob persona.

The fact of the dreams and their recall are, at least to me, real. My speculation is that they are not “common or garden”.

This does not require the invocation of significance. I am just some bloke who happens to dream a lot. No biggie…

Provided that they are not significant there is no wider problem or issue.

If however we invoke, even tentatively, a putative wider significance, a gamut of implications might surface. A similarity to mystical vision and quasi-religious imagery can be drawn. In some circles that is significant in terms of context and perhaps faith. The follow on question might be, “why does someone who, was for a short while, deep in the UK based science community have such phenomena?”. This community being the self-assigned debunker of myths and pseudoscience. “Bah!!”

One could say that weird stuff happens, end of story. It  / he is just an anomaly.

The easiest hypothesis is that the hundreds of dreams archived here are all “just some shit that I made up”. The follow on to this is that I must therefore have at least some imagination and persistent inventiveness. One could counter with the deep philosophical argument, “you just can’t make shit like this up!” I am not sure as to what the motive might be for this inventiveness though others could speculate freely. Maybe I am simply an attention seeker. Maybe it is all some big game to make people question the extent and wider applicability of their self-diagnosed omniscience.

For me it is just habit. If I have a dream which I can recall and am lucid in, when I get up of a morning,  I type it up in Word.  I sometimes make a short note on a post it before typing. There are close to 100 dreams in 2025.

I personally have no strong need to pick an explanation and have that as a definite. A part of the art of dreaming is to enjoy the unknown and the partially or poorly explained.

I can see multiple implications which will almost certainly never manifest. Life circumstance does not support these weekly possible trajectories. There is nothing I can do about it.

I could say something groovy…

The coalescence of the dreaming onto and into the physical plane is not easy. Surprisingly little, though nascent in dreaming, makes it through into the “agreed” and “shared” physical plane realties.

He is just a feckless dreamer, head in the clouds…

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Each of us make our own versions of reality not all of which are entirely apt.

Socks on – no crutches…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

———-

It’s a Mystery

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Somewhere in the distance

Hidden from view

Suspended in the atmosphere

Waiting to come through

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Toyah

Written by: KEITH HALE

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Downtown Music Publishing, Kassner Associated Publishers Ltd

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This morning a little after 7 AM I did something that I have not been able to do for many months, I put both my socks on, all by myself. The socks are so-called diabetic socks which means that the elastic is not overly tight. The socks are designed to limit need for amputation and are loose. But I managed it with little or no drama.

Yesterday afternoon less than two weeks after surgery I was walking up and down our living room without any crutches whatsoever. I probably did some 40 metres without any crutch. Now I have to be careful to not learn an accentuated limp.

Not bad for two weeks…everyone seems mildly surprised at just how quickly progress is being made. If you would have asked me to bet on it, walking in two weeks, I would not have made a significant wager.

Long may it continue.

Last night I had a dream with a couple of people from my undergraduate chemistry cohort in. The dream also referred to a very specific date and cross referenced another dream also with a specific date. Why I have eighteenth century dates in dreams has no obvious explanation. It is a bit of a mystery perhaps related to the time-walker thread…

During the night the smoke detector started to beep. I can say that taking a smoke detector off from high on the wall when perched on a spiral staircase and unplugging the battery whilst recovering from hip surgery mildly trolleyed due to codeine is not ideal. New battery now fitted and smoke detector is back in place.

Anyway the guys from the hunt are here and hopefully they will deal with the wild boar situation…

Yes really, wild boars…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Last night and the night before we have been visited by one or more wild boars. They are a bit of a pest around here. They have made a mess in two large patches of the lawn which will cost hundreds to repair. There is nothing that I can do about it now being incapacitated. The wildlife has already been more present in the garden as I/we have been spending less time there due to the arthritis. They are reclaiming it.

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We have called the local Mairie and members of the “hunt” are due to visit during the day. It is one of those things which you do not need, wild boars messing up the lawn. Hopefully the hunt geezers will have some suggestions. I cannot shift our heavy gate at the moment. Maybe there is some other way of scaring them off. Maybe piggie is still on the premises.

Something needs done in case the little buggers come back tonight…

If they manage to get it, it could add to the Christmas festivities…

That me and Kevin we’re just not the same…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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Although I do have a research paper co-author who is a University Challenge quiz winner and am a regular viewer of past series of University Challenge which  I quite like, I am not the same as Kevin. Since we have been watching YouTube re-runs my average score has risen to the point where I might even be a slightly above average quiz team member. I have been accidentally learning the answers to questions. I can respond Pavlovian to certain questions. I am now slightly programmed.

We try very hard to get people to fit to our preconceived ideas, notions and prejudices about how people should or ought to be. Very few measure well to the perfect Kevin yardstick. We reach for that shoe horn and try real hard to squeeze them into the shoe we have imagined for them. If people are not  sufficiently like Kevin we can be upset and complain. We may discard them outright because of their lack of apparent Kevin-ness. We can throw the poorly made Kevin ersatz out with the tepid and soapy bathwater. Kevin himself never gets the blame it is merely the poor attempt at Kevin-hood. Kevin is a perfected and illusory ideal.

I am pretty sure that in a number of contexts that I am not sufficiently like Kevin to be taken seriously and thereby can be easily discounted. People do not believe me because I am not like Kevin. Kevin is the reason that many things have gone wrong or not even gotten started.

Anway enough about Kevin.

Tonight we have Beef Karai on the menu.  I am going to use the last of my hand ground Karai spice mix to do us a curry. Not sure yet if I am going to add some flaked almonds but probably will add a few dried apricots. To make it a tad more Persian inspired. We will see.

I have made it up to the local supermarket to participate in the shopping. I walked around mostly using only one crutch. Bit knackered now…can be done.

Last night I upped the codeine and managed for the first time to get near six hours sleep. If that continues tonight I will be well happy.

The next hurdle will be driving up to the physiotherapist’s clinic. Possibly early next week. It is already a lot easier getting in and out of the car than before I had the operation. The guidance in the US and UK is more contra than here. Things here can be a bit loose {imagine shoulder movement and hand gestures}.

Unfortunately I am still technically speaking obese. Although I have lost ~4 kg in just under two weeks I am still defined obese, a fat bastard. According to the NHS web site I have to lose another 8 kg to stop being obese. Not sure if I am supposed to aim for that or not…

I will be more like Kevin then…

Following the footsteps of a rag doll dance…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Not all cultural references are directly transferable some are “time of life” and others are “time of man” related.  I personally view myself as being on the conservative side in that outwardly I am not outlandish. It always used to amuse me how the “goths” had less of an idea of the shadows than I did.

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But Siouxsie et al. were definitely a part to the soundtrack of my life.

In the “A Discovery of Witches” TV series the notion of the main protagonist being spellbound has come to the fore. In which her parents cast a spell which both hid and prevented the usage of her powers. She was literally bound by spell or spell bound. The narrative suggests that this practice was usually reserved for insane witches and that it was a harsh thing to do, to prevent the person from living to their full potential, to inhibit and otherwise hinder them. The back story is that the “creatures” are forced to hide from the discriminatory humans and their notions of normality. Humans are depicted as prejudiced. The story also has “time-walker” as a top echelon witchcraft skill. A lot of the plot revolves around “powers” of a magical and special kind. Power ever being the motivator for political intrigue, shenanigan and skullduggery. Somehow Diana is able to summon an old text which may or may not hold the secret(s).

In physics a lot of stock is made upon observables and making an observation. If one in any way makes an observation one changes the system. For example if one “observes” a photon using a detector that photon changes the energy state of an electron. The photon ceases to be. The energy has been transformed from one thing to another. At a very local and very tiny level every act of observation changes the system.  Science rhetoric is less explicit as to the nature of interpretation and subsequent assimilation caused by the observation, the act of observation. One could say that the observation of a “handful” of particles in a science experiment can have a truly dramatic and wide ranging impact because of interpretation and assimilation to or with a previously held thought form or model. I might infer that a photon is the witness to an act of proton transfer. My observation hints at a physical process. Any observation changes the system and it cannot be undone. If I talk about it down the pub that handful of photons triggers synapses and a train of thought heads off on whichever trajectories.

I have always had a few problems with the notion of time travel because of observation. It is impossible to travel back in time without altering its forward propagation. Although pleasant as an artistic and entertaining notion it is philosophically tricky. {Ok there may be some time reversal events at sub atomic levels that I am unaware of but these may be mathematical legerdemain}. In terms of karma time travel is also problematic.

In my mind it raises an interesting thought line. “Does reminiscence alter the past or merely our recollection and narrative assimilation thereof?” We do not travel back in time to the acts of perception but how we retell what we “remember” does change our futures because our basis for world interpretation has altered if only slightly.

If for example you held a view that I was a complete bastard and you hated my guts, then any future interaction would be coloured by this framing. If on reminiscing you decided I was only a partial bastard then you have already changed the future. Your change of mind changes the future(s).

Time-walking may be seen as a reinterpretation of events previously observed. Bearing in mind that the apparatus of observation must of course be error prone and never 100% accurate. Not all instruments are sensitive nor well calibrated. We do not actually go back in “physical” time rather review our mental registers of how we have constructed the time evolving narratives. We could re-consider, re-view and possibly re-perceive. Much like an astronomer may apply correction factors to space telescope raw data. There is some “algorithm” which enables (perhaps) a more reliable assimilation. We may refuse to apply said algorithm because we are stuck in our ways and like to cling to old perceptions, prejudices and world views.

The quantum mechanics of a 75kg lump of wet proteins and fats going backwards {or forwards} in time do not seem plausible. Perception and “mind” however are clearly much less physically tangible. In a sense these may be able to travel along what might be called time-registers. In the absence of matter time has no meaning. In a sense time as it is measured is a property of matter (vibration or time to travel between spatial coordinates). How we currently measure time is by the observation of photons in a fancy physics rig.

To extrapolate wildly by measuring time we are changing our futures.