Catmachine

"The first thing to realize about parallel universes is that they are not parallel. It is also important to realize that they are not, strictly speaking, universes either." — Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless I have been reading about The Mandela Effect. This is a name for collective false memory whereby a significant amount of people will swear blind that something in the past was one way whereas in actual fact it was another and furthermore there's written, photographic and filmed proof. The most likely explanation for this is that misconceptions which lead to a false memory of something are common misconceptions and that people susceptible will develop similar false memories, which they can then reminisce with each other about thereby strengthening them. A more outlandish theory—and much more interesting from a fantasy point of view—is that the people remembering things differently are now living in a different parallel universe from the one in which the memory was first...

One of the advantages of living where I do is that it is relatively easy to go out in London in the evening during the week and get back in time to get a reasonable amount of sleep before going to work the next day. All very convenient but one downside of this practice is that it means sometimes I have to catch one of the late trains back. One of the Drunk Trains. We've all experienced the Drunk Trains. The ones that run after the pubs and theatres have turned out and as a result are full of people whose social skills have been dulled by the liberal application of alcohol to the brain cells. Now I like a drink as much as the next person, but even when I have been drinking I don't take it out on other people. I don't start trying to guilt trip them into engaging me in inebriated conversation with an undercurrent of menace lest they appear a humourless party pooper. I don't, I would hope, turn in to an Aggressive Drunk. A lot of people do though, which is why the dr...

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul."  Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything Sunday evenings are amongst the most unpleasant time spans it is possible to experience. Whilst both Tony Hancock and Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged may have had a problem with Sunday afternoons , it's only during the evening when things start to get really nasty and you become filled with a sense of disappointment and self loathing because once again you didn't get nearly enough done. This isn...

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it" Niels Bohr So, smelling is quantum. No really. As mentioned in an earlier blog entry , it turns out that the underlying biological mechanism that allows us to smell relies on quantum tunnelling to get the job done. It seems to me that if one neurological mechanism - and quite an old one at that - uses the very structure of reality itself to function, then it's likely they all do. But what would the implications be if we discover that our very thoughts are subject to the new physics? As is so often the case I have to put in a disclaimer; I Am Not A Scientist . I am someone interested in science; someone who, upon reading about the latest bleeding edges of physics in the quest for ultimate truth, starts performing thought experiments based on his very dim understanding of what he's just read. So bear in mind that I may very well be talking rubbish. Don't slouch, Albert I am not shocked by quantum...

The apparent size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilisations ought to exist. However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it. The Fermi Paradox Why haven't we come across any aliens yet? I'm talking about convincing scientific proof, not garbled " ...them thar moon-critturs been done abducted me ag'in ..." reports from the likes of Cletus Hickson in Bumfuck, Arkansas . It feels right that aliens should exist. Surely by now we should have come across some hard evidence? A belief in aliens is older than our knowledge of the wider universe. Even before we had any idea that there existed worlds other than our own we had a concept of non-human intelligent beings. These concepts were quite distinct from our ideas of other humans. Even if Thugg the Caveman had taken a gap year before going to The University of Central Ugland and had trekked across Europe and down i...

One of the things people say about me is that I'm quiet. Sometimes this is a criticism, other times not. I've already explained that part of the reason for this is because I find small talk difficult . Well, not just difficult, I find it pointless. If there's something worth discussing, I'm quite capable of amputating the hindquarters of a member of Equus africanus asinus with my garrulousness. Some people just can't help themselves though. As Douglas Adams once said " if they don't keep exercising their lips, their brains start working ". I usually come across them whilst I'm out and about, on public transport or in shops. You can hardly call it eavesdropping; to avoid overhearing these types you really have to be listening to Napalm Death on your iPod. Its incredible just how much you can overhear without picking up any genuine content. It's all filler, conversational fluff designed to prevent the other person getting a word in edgeways and...

"Sorry, did I say something wrong?" said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh god, I'm so depressed." Douglas Adams, The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy Now that we have our thought experiment of me-as-robot fully set up in the Thought Lab, it's time to start playing with it. Settle down. There are any number of advantages to my new state. Instead of having to struggle with contact lenses and then having to hold small print documents at arms length, I can simply upgrade and get a new pair of peepers from eyeBay. And I'm sure once I get the mechanism calibrated I can do away with all that getting tired stuff and simply go onto standby at the end of the day; no more tedious insomnia. It's only when I start talking about it in this manner that it becomes apparent how complex the human machine is. How many of these things I think I could do without, or...

"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind" Douglas Adams, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish It can't have escaped the attention of the more observant amongst you that I began both today's and yesterday's entries with a quote from Douglas Adams, specifically quotes from his magnum opus, the five-part Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Those of you who know me won't be surprised; Douglas Adams's work has been a big influence not only on my own style of writing, but on my mode of speech, my way of thinking, and not to put too fine a point on it, my life. I suppose it can partly be put down to the age at which I became acquainted with it; when Hitch-Hiker's was first broadcast I was an impressionable thirteen year old and, thanks to almost constant self exposure to science fiction in general and Doctor Who in particular, a fledgling nerd. I was therefore gripped initially by the SF ...