Inflation hasn't died, it's just in hiding for the moment.

Many people on fixed incomes such as social security have been incredulous to hear that they are not getting any cost of living increases because supposedly, there is no inflation this year. They're wondering what planet the administrators of SS are living on, because out here in the grocery stores of this country, food costs continue to climb. It's true that in a broad range of markets (housing being the most obvious) a serious deflationary trend is in play. But inflation isn't dead. It has merely been, so far, seemingly surgically selective in its effects.

It is debatable whether this is a result of inflation per se, or simply the underground effects of peak oil percolating under the surface. But even if it is the price of oil underlying agricultural production, that will change in 2010, because with or without peak oil, old-fashioned inflation in the agriculture is set to make a big comeback.

National Inflation Association
U.S. Inflation to Appear Next in Food and Agriculture
October 30, 2009

While most mainstream economists such as Nouriel Roubini are warning of deflationary threats to the U.S. economy, it is our belief that massive price inflation has already begun. The Federal Reserve's policy of massive monetary inflation in 2009 has caused the Dow Jones to bounce over 50% from its low, oil to rise 100% from its low, and gold to surge to a new all time nominal high. One NIA co-founder just saw his health insurance premium rise 16% over a year ago; and the average tuition for a four-year public college increased this year by 6.5%...

That's just an average, of course. As was recently reported, UCLA is proposing a 32% tuition increase. At that price, university as we know it ceases to exist - most families will be priced out of the market for college completely, with or without student loans.

...Prices are rising all around us, yet agricultural commodities have for the most part been left behind and remain at historically depressed levels. Fundamentals for agriculture are improving on a daily basis. A worldwide shortage of farmers combined with food inventories falling to record lows is setting up the perfect storm for an explosion in agriculture prices. There is a huge opportunity today to invest at the ground-floor into what will likely be one of the biggest boom industries of the next several decades.

Wheat is currently down 60% from its all time nominal high set in 2008 and 80% from its inflation adjusted high set in the 1970s. Corn is currently down 50% from its all time nominal high set in 2008 and 75% from its inflation adjusted high set in the 1970s. Wheat and corn have only bounced 13% and 26% from their 52-week lows this year respectively. While sugar has faired much better and is now at a 28-year nominal high, sugar is still down 70% from its inflation adjusted high set in the 1970s.

With crude oil back above $80 per barrel, we will soon see a renewed interest in alternative energy. This will create increased demand for wheat, corn and sugar which are used to make ethanol and other biofuels. A massive rise in agriculture prices is just around the corner...

Of course, we have sufficient animal farm waste and harvest biomass waste to produce plenty of fertilizer for American farms - but the giant agribusiness industry is built on peteochemical inputs and has no intention of giving up those cushy profits. There's not much money in composting, you know. It's very low tech. It could be done reasonably profitably, however, in local and regional marginal agricultural zoned land where transportation costs to clients would be minimized. But as things are, nobody is working on building such a business - instead, they continue to rely on the petrochemical industry instead of local land and resource conservation.

...No longer will Americans eat more than most other countries, yet spend less of their income on food. When Americans are forced to pay more for food, it will take away from what they can spend on rent.

The average American consumer today spends approximately 30% of their income on housing and only 10% of their income on food. We expect these numbers to reverse in the years ahead as the U.S. dollar loses its purchasing power. In Germany during hyperinflation, rents fell from 30% to less than 1% of the average households' expenditures while food rose from 30% to a high of over 91%.

The U.S. is currently the world's largest exporter of wheat and corn and the fifth largest exporter of sugar. When American consumers purchase food at their local supermarket, they are competing against consumers from all around the globe. As the Federal Reserve prints trillions of dollars out of thin air and causes our currency to lose its purchasing power, Americans won't be able to afford to eat as much and farmers will be forced to increase their exports to countries with stronger currencies.

Due to the wage stagnation of American households (a direct result of the globalization scam), people in the US will be reduced to the fate of people in third world countries right now - watching the best agricultural land be used for food exports to rich people in other countries, while we ourselves go lacking.

...While Americans will eat less in the years ahead, Chinese citizens will be able to afford to eat more. Despite China's rapidly growing economy, there are major food shortages in China. Chinese agriculture companies have a chance of becoming the market's biggest gainers of the next decade.

So, China will not only have control of our banks, they have a sufficient manufacturing base to enjoy rising wages for their population, which will gleefully buy up our food at prices we can't afford. Hope you've got that "victory garden" started already, because you're going to need it.

Wait, I think I've seen this movie.

You might recall that we have wondered from time to time how China was going to be repaid for all the US bonds and dollar holdings they have. Since they intend to divest themselves of most of both of these, the US would have to pay off this debt somehow. We thought maybe national parks, government buildings, or historical sites might do the trick. And I'm sure they are interested in real estate. But another option has recently become available - one they will also like. In short, the US is now in the process of clearing the legal obstacles that prevent China from buying US banks. This way, they get foreclosed real estate, gold or other reserves, and can unload their US greenbacks all in one package.

CNBC
US Wants China to Buy into Its Small Banks
Published: Tuesday, 17 Nov 2009 | 4:56 AM ET
By: Reuters

Chinese and U.S. regulators are negotiating a pact aimed at encouraging Chinese financial institutions to buy into small and medium-sized banks in the United States, bankers briefed on the plan said on Tuesday.

...Two senior Chinese bankers said they had been invited this year by U.S. officials, investment bankers and financial advisers to look at several potential investments in U.S. banks, mostly in financial trouble.

"The trend is already there," said one Chinese banker.

"Now they're going to make this into an agreement to show there's a change in official attitude towards Chinese investments in the U.S. banking system," said the banker, who declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the matter.

...Over 100 U.S. banks have already been seized by regulators in the financial crisis, and more bank failures could come as the Obama administration also needs more capital to take over troubled lenders...

The "sensitive nature" of the matter, of course, is that having China own US banks means China has defacto control over issuance of loans and services to US customers.

Needless to say, a lot of people aren't going to like that.

But, as we see, Obama has to do something with all the banks they are in the process of seizing, and in their globalist minds, one buyer is as good as another - and in this case, better than most.

In reality, though, having your economic infrastructure owned by a county with a radically un-Western political ideology that sneers at little concepts like freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, has no respect for human life and so on is about as smart as making your transportation and agriculture dependent upon a substance that is primarily obtained from countries with radically un-Western religious ideology that sneers at pretty much the same things.

Oh, wait...

Fabric of the Cosmos, chapter 3 part II.

In previous chapters, we have examined the development of cosmology up to the time of Einstein. In the second half of this chapter, Einstein eventually examines some of his own previously held suppositions and realizes some adjustments need to be made. He finds, ironically enough, that perspective means a lot. It's a lesson that a lot of us could use to learn, too. Too often, we are either too complacent or too afraid to be outside the box. But outside the box generally is the only place where you can get a good view.

Fabric of the Cosmos
Brian Greene
Chapter Three, part two
Relativity and the Absolute
Is Spacetime an Einsteinian Abstraction or a Physical Entity?

The Bucket, According to Special Relativity

The relativity of time and space requires a dramatic change in our thinking. Yet there is an important point, mentioned earlier and illustrated now by the loaf of bread, which often gets lost: Not everything in relativity is relative. Even if you and I were to imagine slicing up a loaf of bread in two different ways, there is still something that we would fully agree upon: the totality of the loaf itself. Although our slices would differ, if I were to imagine putting all of my slices together and you were to imagine doing the same for all your slices, we would reconstititute the same loaf of bread. How could it be otherwise? We both imagined cutting up the same loaf.

Similarly, the totality of all the slices of space at successive moments of time, from any single observer's perspective, collectively yield the same region of spacetime. The region itself, like the loaf of bread, has an independent existence. Absolute space does not exist. Absolute time does not exist. But according to special relativity, absolute spacetime does exist.

In the first part of chapter three, the idea that creation begins with light was discussed - here is a good point to expand a bit on the creation of the spacetime continuum. The Sages discussed (as we mentioned in previous posts) how the Ain Sof was at first everywhere, but evacuated an area to make the "void" or "womb" where creation could occur. This process is called Tzimtzum.

From Chabad's webpage Tzimtzum - the Principles of Kabbalah:
"...While some Kabbalistic texts speak of a gradual contraction of Divine Power as it streamed into this finite world, eventually reaching a point of complete concealment in this world, the Kabbalah of the Arizal, however, held a different view. According to the Arizal, there was a quantum leap from infinite to finite, calling this leap of states Tzimtzum (contraction).

In order to visualize how this happens, the Etz Chaim of Rabbi Chaim Vital presents the following structure. The power and ability of the Ein Sof is called the Or Ein Sof (the Light of the Ein Sof). Because physical light is perceived as being ethereal and intangible, and because light gives life and warmth, it is often used in Kabbalah as a metaphor for Divine Power.

...In order for creation to take place it was necessary somehow to conceal this infinite Light, thus creating a vacuum for the Finite Light to be revealed.

...Imagine a circle, and the circle is full of the Or Ein Sof. No finite existence may be created within this circle for the Light of the Infinite totally occludes it. The Tzimtzum concealed the Or Ein Sof so that within the circle is left a void within which something finite can be created."

In Einstein's thought, then, according to special relativity it's not just a "void," it's an actual "thing" which is, basically, the "boundaries" of spacetime - the "loaf" which can be sliced into various views and perspectives. Greene continues:

Even though two observers in relative motion slice up spacetime in different ways, there are things they still agree on. As a prime example, consider a straight line not just through space, but through spacetime.

For an object's trajectory through spacetime to be straight, the object must not only move in a straight line through space, but its motion must also be unifrom through time - that is, both its speed and direction must be unchanging and hence it must be moving with constant velocity. The geometrical shape of trajectories in spacetime are independent of the time slicing one uses.

This is a simple yet critical realization, because with it special relativity provided an absolute criterion - one that all observers, regardless of their constant relative velocities, would agree on - for deciding whether or not something is accelerating. If the trajectory an object follows through spacetime is a straight line, like that of the gently resting astronaut, it is not accelerating. If the trajectory an object follows has any other shape but a straight line through spacetime, it IS accelerating. For example, should the astronaut fire up her jetpack and fly around in a circle over and over again, or should she zip out toward deep space at ever increasing speed, her trajectory through spacetime would be curved - the telltale sign of acceleration.

And so, with these developments we learn that geometrical shapes of trajectories in spacetime provide the absolute standard that determines whether something is accelerating. Spacetime, not space alone, provides the benchmark. In this sense, then, special relativity tells us that spacetime itself is the ultimate arbiter of accelerated motion.

Gravity and the Age Old Question

...Mach never really specified a mechanism whereby distant stars and other matter in the universe might play a role in how strongly your arms splay outward when you spin or how forcefully you feel pressed against the inner wall of a spinning bucket. Einstein began to suspect that if there were such a mechanism it might have something to do with gravity.

...In special relativity, to keep the analysis tractable, he had completely ignored gravity. Maybe, he speculated, a more robust theory which embraced both special relativity and gravity would come to a different conclusion regarding Mach's ideas. Maybe, he surmised, a generalization of special relativity that incorporated gravity would show that matter, both near and far, determines the force we feel when we accelerate.

...Also..special relativity, with its central dictum that the speed of light is the fastest that anything or any disturbance can travel, was in direct conflict with Newton's universal law of gravity - the monumental achievement that had for over 200 years predicted with fantastic precision the motion of the moon, the planets, comets, and all things tossed skyward. The experimental success of Newton's law notwithstanding, Einstein realized that according to Newton, gravity exerts its influence from place to place, from the sun to the earth, from the earth to the moon, from any-where to any-there, instantaneously, in no time at all, much faster than light! And that directly contradicted special relativity.

To illustrate the contradiction...[lets say] hostile aliens zap the moon... Newton's law predicts that the water would start to recede from high tide, because of the loss of the moon's gravitational pull, about a second and a half BEFORE you saw the moon disappear from the sky.

...The reason is that, according to Newton, at the very moment the moon disappears its gravitational pull would instantaneously disappear, and without the moon's gravity, the tides would immediately start to diminish. Yet, since it takes light 1.5 seconds to travel the 1/4 million miles between the earth and the moon, you wouldn't immediately see that the moon had disappeared...

Thus, according to Newton's approach, gravity can affect us before light - gravity can outrun light - and this, Einstein felt certain, was wrong.

Einstein's journey toward general relativity began with a key question that Newton, rather sheephishly, had sidestepped two centuries earlier. How does gravity exert its influence over immense stretches of space? How does the vastly distant sun affect earth's motion?

There is a similarity between this problem and the one Faraday and Maxwell solved in the 1800s, using the idea of a magnetic field, regarding the way a magnet exerts influence on things that it doesn't literally touch. So you might suggest a similar answer: ... the gravitational field. And, broadly speaking, this is the right suggestion. But realizing this answer in a manner that does not conflict with special relativity is easier said than done.

Einstein's key breakthrough was tightly linked to the very issue Newton highlighted with the bucket: What is the true nature of accelerated motion?

The Sages also wrestled with the contrast between God's eternal unchanging nature and the fact that creation, had a definite beginning, is never still and is finite.

The Chabad article continues:
"...This “first” Tzimtzum was the most radical in the sense that it was the quantum leap that allowed finitude to surface. It must be noted that the concealment of the Or Ein Sof did not affect Atzmut itself, for Atzmut is the essence of G-d which transcends everything, including changes.

...This is what Malachi the prophet meant when he spoke, “I, G-d, have not changed.” G-d remains the same after creation as before creation. He remains totally aloof from any change within the creation. All change took place within a manifestation of revealed power–the Or Ein Sof.

Hassidism explains that what was left after the Tzimtzum were the “letters of the residue” (Reshimu). The Zohar states that “He engraved letters in the supernal purity” (i.e. in the Or Ein Sof). This means that when it arose in G-d’s will to create the world, “G-d measured out within Himself in potential what would exist in actuality.” In the Zohar, this act of measuring out is referred to as “engraving letters.” These letters signify the structuring and formation of the Divine will prior to the Tzimtzum. They are the potential for limitation that existed within the Or Ein Sof.

...The revelation of Vessels came about through the Tzimtzum, although they existed in an abstract form before the Tzimtzum. As previously stated, within the Or Ein Sof was also the power of finitude. Prior to the Tzimtzum these “Letters” were filled with Or Ein Sof and they represented only the potential for limitation.

The function of the Tzimtzum was to remove the Or Ein Sof that flooded the letters so that limitation and finitude could be actualized.

In order for there to be diversity within the creation, it was necessary to reveal different qualities or attributes within the Divine. These “attributes” are called Sefirot and they are the building blocks of creation. Every Sefirah (attribute) is composite of Lights and Vessels."

In other words, it's a change in perspective which gives us a point of view that reveals motion. As the old saying goes in the midwest, "if the tornado appears as if it is not moving - run," because it's coming directly toward you. In order to see its motion, you have to change your perspective - viewed head on, it appears to be standing still but rest assured, tornados do not stand still. Neither does creation. Though God's attributes are eternal and unchanging, by moving some more into focus and others farther away from focus, movement, so to speak, is perceived - but the nature of them does not change. In the same way, gravity becomes motion to us because we arrive at a perspective where we can detect it, not because it isn't otherwise happening. Greene continues:

The Equivalence of Gravity and Acceleration

In special relativity, Einstein's main focus was on observers who move with constant velocity - observers who feel no motion and hence are all justified in proclaiming that they are stationary and that the rest of the world moves by them. But accelerated motion is different, because you CAN feel it. There is no way to shield yourself from its influence. If you're standing on planet earth yo mare subject to planet earth's gravitational pull. It's inevitable. There is no way around it. While you can shield yourself from electromagnetic and nuclear forces, there is no way to shield yourself from gravity. In one of those flashes of insight that scientists spend s lifetime longing for, Einstein realized that gravity and accelerated motion are two sides of the same coin.

Just as by changing your planned motion (to avoid accelerating) you can avoid feeling squeezed back in your car seat or feeling pushed sideways on the train, Einstein understood that my suitably changing your motion you can also avoid feeling the usual sensations associated with gravity's pull. As a matter of fact, NASA trains astronauts for the gravity-free environment of outer space by having them ride in a modified 707 airplane, nicknamed the Vomit Comet, that periodically goes into a state of free fall. Similarly, by a suitable change in motion you can create a force that is essentially identical to gravity. The same is true of other kinds of accelerated motion.

All this led Einstein to conclude that the force one feels from gravity and the force one feels from acceleration are the same. They are equivalent. Einstein called this the principle of equivalence.

Since gravity and acceleration are equivalent, if you feel gravity's influence, you must be accelerating. Einstein argued that only those observers who feel no force at all - including the force of gravity - are justified in declaring that they are not accelerating. Such force-free observers provide the true reference points for discussing motion, and it's this recognition that requires a major turnabout in the way we usually think about such things.

...you feel gravity's influence only when you resist it. By contrast, when you fully give into to gravity you don't feel it.

Having forged the link between gravity and acceleration, Einstein was now ready to take up Newton's challenge and seek an explanation of how gravity exerts its influence.

Resisting, or struggling, to reach past the barrier of spacetime and connect with the eternal is the very raison d'etra of Judaism, right down to ...the name "Israel" (Yisrael), meaning "the one who wrestled with G-d" or "the Champion of G-d." By going against the customs and traditions of other nations and keeping Torah instead, we struggle daily against the concealment of God and strive toward enlightenment. We are made in God's image - we have the same attributes, though obviously less powerfully. We can embrace those attributes and strengthen them through Torah observance, or we can weaken them and let they atrophy by doing things the world's way. To put it another way, like gravity, we don't really feel the force that ungodliness exerts on us until we resist against it. It's easy to stay trapped inside creation and never work toward connecting with the Being outside of it. Staying in the box is always less trouble than getting out of it.

Warps, Curves, and Gravity.

Through special relativity, Einstein showed that every observer cuts up spacetime into parallel slices that he or she considers to be all of space at successive instants of time, with the unexpected twist that observers moving relative to one another at constant velocity will cut through spacetime at different angles. If one such observer should start accelerating, your might guess that the moment-to-moment changes in his speed and/or direction of motion would result in moment-to-moment changes in the angle and orientation of his slices. Roughly speaking, this is what happens.

The differently angled cuts through the spacetime loaf smoothly merge into slices that are curved but fit together as perfectly as spoons in a silverware tray. An accelerated observer carves spatial slices that are warped.

With this insight, Einstein was able to invoke the equivalence principle to profound effect. Since gravity and acceleration are equivalent, Einstein understood that gravity itself must be nothing but warps and curves in the fabric of spacetime.

If you roll a marble along a smooth wooden floor, it will travel in a straight line. But if you've recently had a terrible flood and the floor dried with all sorts of bumps and warps, a rolling marble will no longer travel along the same path. Einstein applied this simple idea to the fabric of the universe. He imagined that in the absence of matter or energy - no sun, no earth, no stars - spacetime, like the smooth wooden floor, has no warps or curves. It's flat.

Einstein then imagined that the presence of matter or energy has an effect on space much like the effect the flood had on the floor. Matter and energy, like the sun, cause space (and spacetime) to warp and curve. Anything moving through warped space - such as the earth moving in the vicinity of the sun - will travel along a curved trajectory. It's as if matter and energy imprint a network of chutes and valleys along which objects are guided by the invisible hand of the spacetime fabric. That, according to Einstein, is how gravity exerts its influence.

Footnote: Time is also warped by matter and energy. And just as a warp in space means that space is stretched or compressed, a warp in time means that time is stretched or compressed. In fact, it turns out that the warping of space caused by ordinary bodies like the earth and sun (as opposed to black holes) is far less pronounced than the warping they inflict on time.

The footnote is particularly interesting to read. Think about that for a moment - something with sufficient energy warps space or time. Our own planet warps time to some extent (of course we know it has a gravitational field). And, since we know the equations for time work both ways, forward and backward, then time could be warped either backward or forward. In the Tanakh, there are two instances when time was manipulated. In the first, time was run backward, and in the second, it seemed to stand still.

Isaiah 38:4 Then the word of Adonai came to Yeshaiyahu, saying, Isa 38:5 "Go, and tell Chizkiyahu, 'Thus says Adonai, the God of David your father, "I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life. Isa 38:6 I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Ashur, and I will defend this city. Isa 38:7 This shall be the sign to you from Adonai, that Adonai will do this thing that he has spoken. Isa 38:8 Behold, I will cause the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down on the sundial of Achaz with the sun, to return backward ten steps. So the sun returned ten steps on the sundial on which it had gone down."'"

Jos 10:12 Then spoke Yehoshua to Adonai in the day when Adonai delivered up the Amori before the children of Yisra'el; and he said in the sight of Yisra'el, Sun, stand you still on Giv`on; You, Moon, in the valley of Ayalon. Jos 10:13 The sun stood still, and the moon stayed, Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies. Isn't this written in the book of Yashar? The sun stayed in the midst of the sky, and didn't hurry to go down about a whole day. Jos 10:14 There was no day like that before it or after it, that Adonai listened to the voice of a man: for Adonai fought for Yisra'el.

These two examples are largely considered to be "scientifically" impossible, proof that the text is simply mythology. But here Einstein's work shows that they are not impossible after all. Obviously, a great deal of energy would be required - but there are no limits on God's resources. One could argue that even if the first example were "doable," that the second one could not be, because nothing in creation "stands still." But that perception is relative - like the tornado, it depends on your position as to whether or not something appears to be moving. To Joshua and his army, the sun appeared to stand still because their relative motion had been aligned to it - not that the earth stopped rotating, but that time was warped so that the earth's rotation was constant relative to the sun's position.

Greene continues:

The mathematical result Einstein found...is embodied in what are called the Einstein Field Equations. Einstein viewed the warping of spacetime as the manifestation - the geometrical embodiment - of a gravitational field. By framing the problem geometrically, Einstein was able to find equations that do for gravity what Maxwell's equations did for electromagnetism.

Of equal importance, since general relativity specifies the detailed mechanism by which gravity works, it provides a mathematical framework for determining how fast it transmits its influence. The speed of transmission comes down to the question of how fast the shape of space can change in time. That is, how quickly can warps and ripples - ripples like those on the surface of a pond caused by a plunging pebble - race from place to place through space? He found that warps and ripples - gravity, that is - do not travel from place to place instantaneously, as the do in Newtonian calculations of gravity. Instead, they travel at exactly the speed of light. If aliens plucked the moon from its orbit, the tides would recede 1.5 seconds later, at the exact moment we'd see that the moon had vanished.

So light - matter/energy, in this case expressed as gravity - is still solidly found as the basis for activity in our universe. So far, so good. The light has been divided, transformed, manipulated, combined, and moved through what used to be the void. As the sages say, became vessels to hold the attributes of the light. Our perception of a solid, inert, still world bears little resemblance to the reality of the dynamics of our matter, which is interchangeable with light, hurtling through time and space. Indeed, our perception of our own spacetime continuum is so very wrong that is astonishing that anyone would say with a straight face that what is measurable and viewable around us is all there is, and that its true nature can be known from our horribly flawed perception.

General Relativity and the Bucket

In Newton's age, space and time do not respond to happenings in the universe. spacetime - the loaf, as we've been calling it, is taken as a given, once and for all. In general relativity, all this changes. Space and time become players in the evolving cosmos. Matter here causes space to warp there, which causes matter over there to move, which causes space way over there to warp even more, and so on. General relativity provides the choreography for an entwined cosmic dance of space, time, matter, and energy.

This is a stunning development. But we now come back to our central theme: What about the bucket? Does general relativity provide the physical basis for Mach's relationist ideas, as Einstein hoped it would?

General relativity is subtle and it had features that took many years for physicists, including Einstein himself, to appreciate completely. AS these aspects ere better understood, Einstein fount it increasingly difficult to fully incorporate Mach's principle into general relativity. Little by little, he grew disillusioned with Mach's ideas and by the later years of his life came to renounce them.

Mach argued that when the spinning water's surface become concave, or when you feel your arms splay outward, or when the rope tied between the two rocks pulls taut, this has nothing to do with some hypothetical - and, in his view, thoroughly misguided - notion of absolute space (or absolute anything, in our more modern understanding). Instead, he argued that it's evidence of accelerated motion with respect to all the matter that's spread throughout the cosmos. Were there no matter, there'd be no notion of acceleration and none of the enumerated physical effects (concave water, splaying arms, taut rope) would happen.

What does general relativity say?

The benchmarks for all motion and accelerated motion in particular are freely falling observers - observers who have fully given in to gravity and are being acted on by no other forces. Now, a key point is that the gravitational force to which a freely falling observer acquires arises from all the matter (and energy) spread throughout the cosmos. The earth, the moon, the distant planets, stars, gas clouds, quasars, and galaxies all contribute to the gravitational field (in geometrical language, to the curvature of spacetime) right where you're now sitting. Things that are more massive and less distant exert a greater gravitational influence, but the gravitational field you feel represents the combined influence of the matter that's out there.

Thus, in general relativity, when an object is said to be accelerating, it means the object is accelerating with respect to a benchmark determined by matter spread throughout the universe. That's a conclusion which has the feel of what Mach advocated. So, in this sense, general relativity does incorporate some of Mach's thinking.

Without gravity, spacetime is not warped. It takes the simple, uncurved shape - and that means we are back in the simpler setting of special relativity.

In contradiction to what Mach would have predicted, general relativity comes to the same answer as special relativity and proclaims that even in a otherwise empty universe, you will feel pressed against he inner wall of the spinning bucket... The conclusion we draw is that even in general relativity, empty spacetime provides a benchmark for accelerated motion.

Spacetime and the Third Millennium

The verdict? Although the issue is still debated, as we've now seen, the most straightforward reading of Einstein and his general relativity is that spacetime can provide such a benchmark: spacetime is a "something."

In Newton's view and also that of special relativity, space and spacetime were invoked as entities that provide the reference for defining accelerated motion. And since, according to these perspectives, space and spacetime are absolutely unchangeable, this notion of acceleration is absolute. In general relativity, though, the character of spacetime is completely different. Space and time are dynamic in general relativity: they are mutable. They respond to the presence of mass and energy - they are not absolute. Spacetime, and in particular the way it warps and curves, is an embodiment of the gravitational field. Thus, in general relativity, acceleration relative to spacetime is a far cry from absolute, staunchly unrelational conception invoked by previous theories.

Instead, acceleration relative to general relativity's spacetime is relational. It is acceleration relative to something just as real, tangible, and changeable - a field, the gravitational field. In this sense, spacetime - by being the incarnation of gravity - is so real in general relativity that the benchmark it provides is one that many relationists can comfortably accept.

Indeed, since 1905 with Einstein did away with the luminiferous aether, the idea that space is filled with invisible substance has waged a vigorous comeback. Key developments in modern physics have reinstituted various forms of an aetherlike entity, none of which set an absolute standard for motion like the original luminiferous aether, but all of which thoroughly challenge the naive conception of what it means for spacetime to be empty. Moreover, the basic role that space plays in a classical universe - as the medium that separates one object from another, as the intervening stuff that allows us to declare definitively that one object is distinct and independent from another - is thoroughly challenged by startling quantum connections.

Space is not, of course, empty as the ancients imagined it - we are literally swimming in a sea of various particles, waves, fields, and energies, not to mention affected by matter that is light-years away from us. The universe is an interconnected place after all - and according to Einstein's theory there is an objective standard - a truth, if you will - out there by which all things are observed and measured. Everything that is relative is relative "to" something.

All of the -isms, philosophies, religions, cultures and traditions that we espouse either measure well against the standard or they do not, and we often cannot tell from our stale perspective how something is measuring. But one thing we do know - if we're floating along without resisting, we are never going to have a perspective that will reveal the concealed to us. If we know we need to struggle against something but don't, we will never reach it. Our struggle is to resist the complacency and strive to reach the infinite. And a God who went to all this trouble to withdraw from an area so that the void and creation could come into being would not leave his creations stuck in this void without a means to reach outside it. By obeying Torah (not the Rabbis) we "align" our circuitry, our electromagnetic field, to the correct wavelength and with prayer we use our "in-tune" frequency to connect to the Divine.

We don't have to understand exactly how it works - it just does.

A hair-raising experience.

Warning to my orthodox readers - hair porn to follow.

Today I donated my hair to Locks of Love. For those of you who are male or do not know me personally, and of course can't tell from the only pic of me on this blog in which my hair is put up and covered, my hair was very long - not long enough to sit on the ends, but within a handspan of being so. Now after being cut my hair is quite short, of course, not even to my shoulders. What was my long hair will now be made into wigs for young girls with cancer or other diseases whose symptoms or treatment include a side effect of hair loss. Going bald is a terrible blow to a young person's self esteem. Having my hair cut is a small and temporary thing in comparison.

I think the last time I had my hair cut was in 2003, but I'm not really sure. It might have been early 2004. Since then I have trimmed the very edges a couple of times to get rid of split ends, but have not had a real haircut. My hair is extremely thick and coarse - back in the 80s I could get a perm and have it last forever. It would never fall out, it had to grow out and be cut off to get rid of it. Same thing with hair coloring - my hair sucks up color like a sponge, except the grey ones. My silver hairs are just as stubborn and recalcitrant as the rest of me - coloring them is a futile exercise.

So I have decided to just go gray, and that means cutting off all the un-gray stuff and starting all over again, since at this point there were several inches of unruly gray at the top and the rest of my hair was a reddish-brown. I had colored it before, a year or so ago. My hair in my younger days was a very dark brown with red tones - in a polariod photo it looks almost black, but sunlight made it look quite auburn. Now I think it's time to embrace middle age and grow old gracefully instead of doing the color, botox, and permanent makeup route.

My husband does not yet know about my haircut. I mentioned I was thinking about it a couple of times, and he didn't say anything - but he definitely prefers it long. It will take a few years to grow back out, of course. In the meantime it will be a lot less hassle for me, if nothing else. If he had any thoughts on the subject, I'm sure I'll hear about them in an hour or so. Will he be less attracted to me? I'm not worried about that. My hair was near to this short when we first met - apparently I have some other desirable qualities, too.

The Rabbis believe hair is pornographic - but only married women's hair. For some reason, a man can look at an unmarried woman's hair and not be moved at all, but if he sees a married woman's hair, he will be inflamed with passion. More likely, the feminists have it right - it's more about power and control than sex. If it were about sex, an unmarried girl's hair would be more inflammatory because she's available. They'd lust after her all day long.

So it's not about sex at all. Is it about God?

The only place in scripture where haircoverings are discussed involves the priests having to wear turbans as part of their official costume and an incident involving a woman suspected of adultery who is summoned to the Temple to undergo a test to prove or disprove her innocence. She is depicted as arriving with her hair covered, and from this the Rabbis presume that it was customary for all married women to cover their hair all the time. However, since she was summoned to the Temple, and even the priests there had to wear turbans, this presumption is very flimsy. More likely that woman, like men, wore headcoverings for religious purposes, but not necessarily for everyday life.

Since we don't have a Temple at this moment, does this mean women should cover their hair at least at shul, since it is standing in for the Temple? I would say yes. I would further opine that if a woman is in mixed company at any sort of yom tov or prayer service, even one not at shul, a woman should cover her hair. Furthermore, I would say she should do this whether or not she is married. Worship is irrespective of marriage. Either you are communing with God or you're not - marriage has nothing to do with it.

As for headcoverings for everyday errands, I have been at different minds on this at different times in my life. Currently I favor covering but would not consider it a sin if I didn't (for everyday errands). Recently I received the Fall issue of JOFA Journal and the entire issue is devoted to articles about clothing and hair covering. Also, this topic has come up recently on several blogs that I read regularly. It seems the issue is "in the air" at the moment. I would not impose a chumra to cover all the time on a woman who didn't feel comfortable doing it. I can tell you for a fact if you work or live in a community where covering is not the norm, choosing to cover will cause everyone to ask you constantly what sort of cancer you have. They presume you are covering a bald head, not one with hair.

I have also noticed that women in many orthodox communities wear wigs that make them look like supermodels - is that really following the spirit of the chumra if "covering" your hair makes you attractive to men? I think not. Therefore I would not consider a wig to be a proper hair covering. I don't own one and have no intention of ever owning one. A hat, scarf, or snood fulfills both the spirit and the letter of covering - a wig does not.

So there you have my opinion, take it or leave it.

Future Watch: Govt Fees and Fines Shoot Through the Roof.

An astonishing number of theoretically intelligent people believe that they don't need to do anything to prepare for peak oil or the end of dollar hegemony. They believe that they do not need to reposition themselves, make arrangements other than a car for getting to work or school and to groceries, don't need to grow any of their own food, don't need to cut down on their energy usage, and don't need to relocalize their spending to support local farms, business, artists and craftspersons, and manufacturers. They think that government is going to take care of all this - that all they have to do is sit back and wait to be saved from the follies of the past.

That's a pipe dream, class.

Make no mistake - government is not going to help you get through this crisis. Government is going to make your crisis 100x worse. The only helping hand you have is at the end of your own arm, and the arms of your family and close friends. Top economists such as Milton Friedman have been quoted as saying even Social Security should be scrapped - and its not like they're going to refund all the money you paid into it. That money is all gone - the "trust fund" is empty and has been for a long time.

Oh, granted, the government COULD embark on a radical restructuring of spending - call home all military troops and dismantle all foreign bases, cut loose all programs that should be handled at the state and local levels (such as education), focus on truly national priorities like social security, single payer healthcare and mass transit - not to mention adopting a balanced budget amendment. But we all know that is NOT going to happen. Instead, government will continue printing money until nobody anywhere will accept US dollars, and milk that pork-barrel spending to the last possible dime.

And the last dime is near to being reached. And when they're done with their last dime, they'll be looking for yours.

Of Two Minds Online
Theft By Other Means II: When the State Steals Property, Is It Not Theft?
(November 10, 2009) Charles Hugh Smith

...Here is the context for the discussion:



...Oh my gosh, we're short of money here! Go stripmine some citizens with no power or political juice. And make it snappy!

...A State law allows the police to seize property from suspects without getting a warrant and without charging them with a crime. This seems very unfair to me if not unconstitutional, what happened to the Fourth amendment?

...The State's strategy is clear: criminalize all sorts of behaviors like not paying traffic fines and then use that "criminality" as the phony justification for illegal search and seizure.

If you're not afraid of the State, you should be.

Government is not going to be helping the little guy, government is going to be squeezing the little guy for his last penny to make up for revenue shortfalls at all levels: federal, state, and local.

Expecting government to make the necessary preparations for the second (and far more disruptive) half of the economic downturn is insane - they will not even admit there is a PROBLEM until it is already so excruciatingly obvious that even primary school kids can see it. Until then, they will continue to feed you false statistics to try and lure you back into spending money you don't have, so their tax revenues will increase. And when that doesn't work (because it can't - their imaginary recovery didn't make a single job for any of the 40+ million un- and under-employed people out there) they will simply take what they "need" to keep government running.

And our communities are absolutely NOT ready.

Fabric of the Cosmos, Chapter 3, part one.

This is the next installment in our fall/winter book commentary. We are studying Cosmology this time around, and in particular asking if scientific understanding of cosmology is compatible with Biblical faith.

Fabric of the Cosmos
Chapter 3
Is Spacetime an Einsteinian Abstraction or a Physical Entity?
Part I

Some discoveries provide answers to questions. Other discoveries are so deep that they cast questions in a whole new light, showing that previous mysteries were misperceived through lack of knowledge.

An incredible amount of talmudic material would be covered by this statement, of course. In spite of the "min har Sinai" myth put forth by the Ultra Orthodox, the scientific understanding of the Sages of the Talmudic period was severely lacking in a great deal of knowledge, everything from hygiene to basic biology of reproduction of various animal species. Though the Torah assures us that all creatures reproduce after their kind, the Rabbis believed mice sprang from dust, and lice from sweat, amoung other scientifically untrue and impossible things.

These would be but a few of the instances where the Rabbis completely ignored the statements of Torah to make up their own version of reality, often incorporating what passed for "scientific" knowledge of their day - hence the fairy tales about mice and lice and so on from the dark ages and the medieval eras understanding of how the world worked. One would think that this previous incorporation of then-current "scientific" knowledge would provide a ready framework for incorporating modern science into the Talmudic framework - but the Orthodox now instead insist that the Rabbis of the Talmudic period were writing God's words instead of their own, and were therefore infallible. This attitude is the exact opposite of Judaism's historical acceptance and incorporation of scientific knowledge into our interpretation of scripture. Ultra Orthodox Judaism has therefore become incapable of understanding that modern science is not something that has to work against Torah - in fact, it can work with it very well.

Albert Einstein made two deep discoveries. Each caused a radical upheaval in our understanding of space and time. When he was done, time had become so enmeshed with space that the reality of one could no longer be pondered separately from the other. The question of the corporeality of space was outmoded; its Einsteinian reframing...became: Is spacetime a something? With that seemingly slight modification, our understanding of reality's arena was completely transformed.

As we read in the last chapter, the Sages deduced that the universe contains space and time, and the Ain Sof, outside of creation, was also outside of the spacetime continuum. God observes spacetime, and can "reach in" and affect spacetime, but exists outside of it, and will continue to do so after the spacetime continuum of this universe is replaced by the "new heavens and the new earth."

Is Empty Space Empty?

Light was the primary actor in the relativity drama written by Einstein in the early years of the 20th century. And it was the work of James Clerk Maxwell that set the stage for Einstein's dramatic insights. In the mid-1800s, Maxwell discovered four powerful equations that, for the first time, set out a rigorous theoretical framework for understanding electricity, magnetism, and their intimate relationship. Maxwell developed these equations by carefully studying the work of the English physicist Michael Faraday.

Faraday's key breakthrough was the concept of the field. This concept has had an enormous influence on the development of physics during the last two centuries, and underlies many of the little mysteries we encounter in everyday life.

The discovery that much of matter/energy exists as fields of activity and not as fixed in place entities with exactly known positions and attributes completely changes our understanding of how the universe works: and even of how we ourselves work. E=MC(squared). We don't "have" a soul, we ARE a soul.

From the Jewish Virtual Library:
The doctrine of the resurrection seems to embody two significant areas: (1) the idea of retribution and reward for the Jewish nation as a whole and not merely for individuals; and (2) the idea that body and soul are a single indivisible unit, both essential and equal in the constitution of a human being...The common denominator of all the views so far discussed, except, perhaps, that of Maimonides, is that they all stress the indivisibility of the body-soul unit for purposes of the accountability of the human personality for its actions, both good and bad.

Matter and energy are 100% interchangeable - they are the same "thing" in different forms. And our "field" of energy stretches out beyond our physical bodies that we can see. We have bonds at the quantum level with our family, spouse, good friends, and even the places where we spend time, because our field interacts with these other fields, these other objects - and, of course, with God. Greene continues:

Any magnet [or, for our discussion, any electromagnetic entity/object] creates an invisible something that permeates the space around it...and, to our intuition, it resembles a mist or essence that can fill a region of space and thereby exert a force beyond the physical extent of the magnet itself. A magnetic field provides a magnet what an army provides a dictator and what auditors provide the IRS: influence beyond their physical boundaries, which allows force to be exerted out in the "field."

It is the pervasive, space-filling capability of magnetic fields that makes them so useful. Magnetic fields are one familiar kind of field, but Faraday also analyzed another: the electric field...and a deep interconnection between electric and magnetic fields - something first discovered by the Danish physicists Hans Oersted and investigated thoroughly by Faraday.

Useful or annoying, or even dangerous. Some people if they stand in certain places mess up your radio reception or tv reception because they have strong electromagnetic fields. Some electric equipment can do the same. Microwave ovens and cell phones have been implicated in causing cancer because they can mess up your electromagnetic fields near your head, causing disruptions in your cellular and nerve activity (which is electrically based, after all). You can't see the disruption, but it's there nonetheless.

It is for this reason that things we do physically can have "spiritual" effects - though they are in fact one and the same we still think of them as separate, but in truth they are not. We don't understand why, but certain items and activities described in scripture make us "unclean" and that "uncleanness" is trasmissible to other people in certain circumstances. Now, there is no doubt that "ritual uncleanness" is simply a concept that pre-scientific peoples could understand, but now with quantum physics and electromagnetism we know there is a real basis for these abstract concepts. They were not somebody's imagination. And somehow, the things defined as "sin" in scripture cause disturbances in our electromagnetic selves that disrupt our relationship with God, our ability to communicate effectively with God in ways we do not quite yet comprehend, but clearly have a scientific basis.

...Changes in an electric field can produce changes in a nearby magnetic field, which can then cause changes in the electric field, and so on. They were eventually christened electromagnetic fields, and the influence they exert the electromagnetic force.

Today, we are constantly immersed in a sea of electromagnetic fields.

And it is therefore not so farfetched to worry that what we are exposed to on TV, in movies, and through music may have an adverse effect on us, though we think we are intellectually superior to such influences, they may be deep and pervasive.

Through the language of fields, Maxwell had shown that electricity and magnetism, although initially viewed as distinct, are really just different aspects of a single physical entity...and it will become increasingly clear that the field concept is central to our modern formulation of physical law.

Maxwell...found that changes or disturbances to electromagnetic fields travel in a wavelike manner at a particular speed: 670 million miles per hour. As this is precisely the value other experiments had found for the speed of light, Maxwell realized that light must be nothing other than an electromagnetic wave. He had linked the force produced by magnets, the influence exerted by electrical charges, and the light we use to see the universe - bit it also raised a deep question.

In the beginning, God said, "Let there be light." With that, the basis for all matter and energy was established, and all the rest of creation follows from the establishment of Light as the basis of the space-time continuum.

When we say that the speed of light is 670 million miles per hour, experience, and our discussion so far, teach us this is a meaningless statement if we don't specify relative to what this speed is being measured. The funny t hing was that Maxwell's equations just gave this number, 670 million miles per hour, without specifying or apparently relying on any such reference. It was as if someone gave the location for a party as 22 miles north without specifying the reference location, without specifying north of what.

Familiar waves such as ocean waves or sound waves are carried by a substance, a medium. Ocean waves are carried by water. Sound waves are carried by air. And the speeds of these waves are specified with respect to the medium.

Naturally, then, physicists surmised that light waves - electromagnetic waves - must also travel through some particular medium, one that had never been seen or detected but that must exist. To give this unseen light-carrying stuff due respect, it was given a name: the luminiferous aether, or the aether for short.

And, to square this proposal with Maxwell's results, it was suggested that his equations implicitly took the perspective of someone at rest with respect to the aether. The 670 million miles per hour his equations came up with, then, was the speed of light relative to the stationary aether.

As you can see, there is a striking similarity between the luminiferous aether and Newton's Absolute Space. They both originated in attempts to provide a reference for defining motion. Accelerated motion led to absolute space, light's motion led to the luminiferous aether. But what actually is the aether? What is it made of? Where did it come from? Does it exist everywhere? These questions about the aether are the same ones that for centuries had been asked about absolute space.

But in 1887, when Albert Michelson and Edward Morley measured the speed of light, time and time again they found exactly the same speed of 670 million miles per hour regardless of their motion or that of the light's source. All sorts of clever arguments were devised to explain these results. But it was not until Einstein had his revolutionary insight that the explanation finally became clear.

Recall from chapter two that Newton was influenced by his belief that space is a static entity (and so is time) that led him to that conclusion. His belief in the "watchmaker" and the idea that all of history is predetermined in advance down to the smallest little thing (a concept related to Calvinism) led him to conclude that space and time were not like fluctuating fields, but were fixed in place.

Relative Space, Relative Time

In June 1905, Einstein wrote a paper with the unassuming title "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," which once and for all spelled the end of the luminiferous aether. In one stroke, it also changed forever our understanding of space and time.

As a teenager, Einstein struggled with the question of what a light wave would look like if you were to chase after it at exactly light speed. The light should appear as it it wasn't moving. But here's the problem. It turns out that Maxwell's equations do not allow light to appear stationary - to look as if it's standing still. So, Einstein asked, what are we to make of this apparent paradox?

There is no doubt that his unshakable belief in simplicity played a critical role. Einstein declared, take the simple approach: ...there is no aether. Like, unlike any other kind of wave ever encountered, does not need a medium to carry it along. Light is a lone traveler. Light can travel through empty space.

What what, then, are we to make of Maxwell's equation giving light a speed of 670 million miles per hour? What is the what with respect to which this speed is to be interpreted? Again, Einstein bucked convention and answered with ultimate simplicity. If Maxwell's theory does not invoke any particular standard of rest, the most direct interpretation is that we don't need one. The speed of light, Einstein declared, is 670 million miles per hour relative to anything and everything.

Or, possibly, to something else entirely - something outside the spacetime continuum. Light was created first of all - it first existed alone with God. In a way, you could say that everything else is relative to the speed of light, and light is always moving because unlike everything else, it is the one thing made to be the basis of matter, energy and motion. All other things came after light - are made of light, in their own ways. Therefore "anything and everything" is relative to light, the primal substance. As Greene tells us, these thinkers were perplexed at first as to how light could always be in motion. Einstein's simple answer sprouted a host of new questions.

Well, this is certainly a simple statement. The problem is that it also seems crazy. Maxwell's theory does not allow for stationary light because light NEVER is stationary. But, we naturally ask, how can light possibly behave in such a strange manner?

Think about speed for a moment. Speed is measured by how far something goes divided by how long it takes to get there. It is a measure of space (the time traveled) divided by a measure of time (the duration of the journey). Ever since Newton, space had been thought of as absolute. Measurements of space and spatial separations must therefore also be absolute: regardless of who measures the distanced between two things in space, if the measurements are done with adequate care, the answers will always agree.

"Time [also] exists in and of itself and flows equably without reference to anything external." In other words, according to Newton, there is a universal, absolute conception of time that applies everywhere and everywhen. In a Newtonian universe, regardless of who measures how much time it takes for something to happen, if the measurements are done accurately, the answers will always agree.

[But light always measures the same, from any perspective.] How can this be? Einstein figured it out, and the answer he found is a logical yet profound extention of our discussion so far. Think about it. Since speed is nothing but distance divided by time, ...Newton's ideas of absolute space and absolute time were wrong.

Newton's absolutist universe deprives everyone of free will, including God. It had to be wrong.

Subtle but Not Malicious

The relativity of space and of time is a startling conclusion. From the well-worn statement that the speed of light is constant, we conclude that space and time are in the eye of the beholder. Each of us carries our own clock, our own monitor of the passage of time. Each clock is equally precise, yet when we move relative to one another, these clocks do not agree.

The same is true of distance. Each of us carries our own yardstick, our own monitor of distance in space. Each yardstick is equally precise, yet when we move relative to one another, these yardsticks do not agree.

If space and time did not behave this way, the speed of light would not be constant and would depend on the observer's state of motion. But it is constant. Space and time do behave this way. Space and time adjust themselves in an exactly compensating manner so that observations of light's speed yield the same result, regardless of the observer's velocity.

Once Einstein had the key insight - the realization that he needed to break with the more than 200 years old Newtonian perspective on space and time - it was not hard to fill in the details. We are used to the fact that objects can move through space, but there is another kind of motion that is equally important: objects also move through time.

Newton had thought that motion through time was totally separate from motion through space - he thought these two kinds of motion had nothing to do with each other. But Einstein found that they are intimately linked. In fact, THE revolutionary discovery of special relativity is this: When you look at something like a parked car, which is from your viewpoint stationary - not moving through space, that is - ALL of its motion is through time.

Light is the basis of all creation, and light never, ever sits still. Light is incapable of being perfectly still. Matter, energy, time are based on light - and were given their direction at creation, and are still moving.

The car, its driver, the street, you, your clothes are all moving through time in perfect synch: second followed by second, ticking away uniformly. But if the car speeds away, some of its motion through time is diverted into motion through space.

The speed of the car through time slows down when it divers some of its motion through time into motion through space. This means that the car's progress through time slows down and therefore time elapses more slowly for the moving car and its driver than it elapses for you and everything else that remains stationary. That, in a nutshell, is special relativity.

Special relativity declares a similar law for all motion: the combined speed of any object's motion through space and its motion through time is always precisely equal to the speed of light.

Think of appliances plugged into an outlet with multiple plugs. The outlet only gets so much energy. If you plug in one thing and turn it on, it gets all the available energy. If you plug in every plug and turn everything on, things don't run as well because they are not getting as much energy as they'd like. Or, think of your internet broadband connection. If you have multiple computers on a server in your house all using the same DSL line, if everyone gets on and starts doing intensive things like online gaming or video streaming, everybody using the server starts getting lag.

In a similar way, you only have so much energy available to you. That energy is based on the speed of light - because light is the primary basis for everything in creation. It's a zero sum game. You have x available. If you use it for motion, you have less to run your clock. If you are being perfectly still, like when you are asleep, perhaps, all your energy goes to your clock and none of it goes for motion. So you wake up, and the time has flown by, but you got nothing accomplished. You gave all your energy to the clock.

We are all used to the idea that nothing but light can travel at light speed. But that familiar idea refers solely to motion through space. We are now talking about something related, yet richer: an object's combined motion through space and time. The key fact, Einstein discovered, is that these two kinds of motion are always complimentary.

Moreover, the maximum speed through space is reached when all light-speed motion through time is fully diverted into light-speed motion through space - one way of understanding why it is impossible to go through space at greater than light speed. Light, which always travels at light speed through space, is special in that it always achieves such total diversion. Moving at the speed of light leaves no motion for traveling through time. Time stops when traveling at the speed of light through space.

In other words, Light is timeless. It's time allocation is zero. We, however, are a material substance at this point, and are subject to time. We age and die - use up our material substance until it runs out of energy. And then we die. The dead are dead and "know nothing," scripture tells us (Ecc 9:5). Their "thoughts perish" (Tel. 146:4). They "do not praise God" in death (Tel. 115:17). Our particles, though, are still bound to each other wherever they dissipate - as quantum physics told us - and will, according to the Book of Daniel, be called back together in a form that is less material and more like pure energy - giving us back our timelessness. This is referred to as Resurrection from the dead, as mentioned above.

From the Jewish Virtual Library:
The components of the idea of resurrection were present in biblical thought from early times. That God can revive the dead is one of His praises: "I slay and revive; I wounded and I will heal" (Deut. 32:39; cf. Pes. 68a for the argument that death and life of the same person is meant); "YHWH slays and revives; He brings down to Sheol and raises up" (I Sam. 2:6; cf. II Kings 5:7). His power to do so was exhibited through the acts of Elijah and Elisha (I Kings 17:17ff.; II Kings 4:18ff.)...In the rabbinic period the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is considered one of the central doctrines of Judaism.

Science, of course, cannot prove such a thing will ever happen - but we know from the quantum properties of the bonds of particles (discussed briefly in chapter two) that they do not have to be near each other to still be bound, so such a thing is theoretically possible. The same quantum bonds that bond you to your spouse and children bond your atoms to each other. Your atoms would still be bound even if separated by your death. In the meantime, you are subject not just to the laws of quantum mechanics but the laws of relativity as well. Greene continues:

The effects of special relativity are most pronounced when speeds (through space) are a significant fraction of light speed. But the unfamiliar, complementary nature of motion through space and time always applies.

In other words, though E=MC(squared) shows our physical matter is completely interchangeable with pure energy (spiritual) forms, we are so heavily invested in our physical bodies and the physical motion resulting from material life that we have "traded" almost all our timelessness for material life. Time flies for us because our physical manifestation has slowed us way, way down in our "travel" through the space-time continuum.

But what about the Bucket?

Theory and experiment agree that light needs no medium to carry its waves and that regardless of the motion of either the source of light or the person observing, its speed is fixed and unchanging. Doing away with the aether did not do away with the bucket, so how did Einstein and his special theory of relativity cope with the issue? Well, truth be told, in special relativity Einstein's main focus was on a special kind of motion: constant velocity motion. Even so, Einstein and others repeatedly considered the question of rotating motion using the insights of special relativity. They concluded, like Newton and unlike Mach, that even in an otherwise completely empty universe you would feel the outward pull from spinning.

Special relativity does claim that some things are relative: velocities are relative; distances across space are relative; durations of elapsed time are relative. But the theory actually introduces a grand, new sweepingly absolute concept: absolute spacetime. Absolute Spacetime is as absolute for special relativity as absolute space and absolute time were for Newton, and partly for this reason Einstein did not suggest or particularly like the name "relativity theory." Instead, he and other physicists suggested invariance theory, stressing that the theory, at its core, involves something that everyone agrees on, something that is NOT relative. Even if devoid of all material benchmarks for defining motion, the absolute spacetime of special relativity provides a "something" with respect to which objects can be said to accelerate.

So there is still an objective "something" out there against which things can be measured, even though space and time alone, and even light (which can be absent from an area), are not those things.

Carving Space and Time

We are used to thinking about space as the arena of the universe, but physical processes occur in some region of space during some interval of time. By way of terminology, a region of space considered over an interval of time is called a region of spacetime. You can think of a region of spacetime as a record of all things that happen in some region of space during a particular span of time.

Einstein realized that there are different, equally valid ways to slice up a region of spacetime. This may sound like only a minor extension of what we know intuitively about space, but ti's the basis for overturning some of the most basic intuitions that we've held for thousands of years. Until 1905, it was thought that everyone experiences the passage of time identically, that everyone agrees on what events occur at a given moment of time, and hence, that everyone would concur on what belongs on a given page in the flip book of spacetime.

But when Einstein realized that two observers in relative motion have clocks that tick off time differently, this all changed. Clocks that are moving relative to each other fall out of synchronization and therefore give different notions of simultaneity. This is known as the relativity of simultaneity.

Since observers moving relative to each other do not agree on what things happen simultaneously, the way each of them will slice a block of spacetime into pages - with each page containing all events that happen at a given moment from each observer's perspective - will not agree, either. Instead, observers moving relative to each other cut a block of spactime up into pages, into time slices, in different but equally valid ways.

Of course, these differences are most readily apparent when you're dealing with huge distances and big timeframes, but the same math applies to our little distances and small instances of time. This is why "eyewitness" accounts of crimes or accidents are so notoriously unreliable - the witnesses varying perspectives and varying attention to time invariably lead to conflicting testimonies.

This is also one reason why the Torah insists that no one can be convicted on a single person's testimony.

From the Jewish Virtual Library:
As a general rule, no single witness alone is competent to attest or testify: there must always be at least two (Deut. 19:15; Sif. Deut. 188; Sot. 2b; Sanh. 30a; Yad, Edut 5:1)

It takes the testimony of two or three people to get a sufficient number of points of view to establish a more or less factual account of how events transpired. Though we are all bound by radical subjectivity, together our combined perspectives approach (though never actually reach) objective truth. Greene continues:

Angling the Slices

Again, although it's hard to accept at a gut level, there is no paradox here. Observers in relative motion do not agree on simultaneity - they do not agree on what things happen at the same time. What is a single time slice, from one perspective, cuts across many time slices, from the other perspective.

If Newton's conception of absolute space and absolute time were correct, everyone would agree on a single slicing of spacetime. Each slice would represent absolute space as viewed at a given moment of absolute time. But this is not how the world works, and the shift from rigid Newtonian time to the newfound Einsteinian flexibility inspires a shift in our metaphor. Rather than viewing spacetime as a rigid flipbook, it will sometimes be useful to think of it as a huge, fresh loaf of bread.

Think of the variety of angles at which you can slice a loaf into parallel pieces of bread. Each piece of bread represents space at one moment of time from one observer's perspective. Another observer, moving relative to the first, will slice the spacetime loaf at a different angle. The greater the relative velocity of the two observers, the larger the angle between their respective parallel slices, and the greater the discrepancy between what the observers will report as having happened at the same moment.

Each of us acts, in some way or another, every moment of our lives. We do things, we think, we make decisions. These have led us to where we are right now. I am sitting here typing this. You will be reading it somewhat later. You may act or think or make a decision based on what you read here. Or it may go in one ear and out the other (or is that in one eye and out the other?). The objective fact of this post will mean different things to different people - some may remember it years from now, and some will choose not to read it at all. Each person's reality who encounters this post will be different.

Your perception of time, space, and God is colored by many influences - not all of them are objective, not all of them are factually correct, not all of them are timely. When we seek truth, we must examine several different viewpoints, and realize that they are all radically subjective. Only one Being has true objectivity - the rest of us must filter our thinking through our perceptions, our preconceptions, our feelings, and our goals for the future. And we must always, always remember that none of these things is 100% reliable. We are not even aware of all the subconscious goings-on in our minds, much less the minds of those who present information to us. A search for God or for any truth must be rooted in the knowledge that real truth is incredibly hard to find. Not everything that sounds outlandish at first glance is, not everything we think is an immutable fact is. Newton certainly had no reason to think he was wrong about anything, and yet he was. Even Einstein's theory doesn't work under certain conditions - and his genius is undeniable. So keep an open mind - examine all points of view without prejudging. It takes more than one witness to reveal the truth.

-End of chapter three, part one-

Chief Rabbinate to American Jews: you are NOT Jewish.

As we have seen, US converts have been given a hard time by the Israeli Rabbinate to prove they are "Jewish" by UO or Chereidi standards, which most are not. This blog and others have warned that the next step in their imperialistic civil war would be to deny Jewishness to anyone who was not born UO or Chereidi. Now, we see signs those steps are being taken by the Chief Rabbinate.

In this story, the woman grew up in Israel - her mother was an American who made aliyah to Israel. Immigrants to Israel have no guarantee that they or their children or grandchildren can marry, because there is no recognition of a basic human right to marry in Israel. The UO and Chereidi authorities are allowed to make rulings discriminating against other sects of Judaism, and the state does nothing to prevent this, in spite of the Declaration of Establishment of the State of Israel's supposed guarantee of Freedom of Religious Practice.

American Jews do not understand that just because that - for now - they can make aliyah under the Law of Return, that is NOT sufficient to give them civil rights in Israel. Most of them are going to be considered NOT JEWISH by the Israeli Rabbinate. They have no clue.

New York Times Online
March 2, 2008
How Do You Prove You’re a Jew?
By GERSHOM GORENBERG
[hat tip: Daas Torah]

One day last fall, a young Israeli woman named Sharon went with her fiancé to the Tel Aviv Rabbinate to register to marry. They are not religious, but there is no civil marriage in Israel. The rabbinate, a government bureaucracy, has a monopoly on tying the knot between Jews. The last thing Sharon expected to be told that morning was that she would have to prove — before a rabbinic court, no less — that she was Jewish. It made as much sense as someone doubting she was Sharon, telling her that the name written in her blue government-issue ID card was irrelevant, asking her to prove that she was she...

...This stereotypical biography did not help her any more at the rabbinate than the line on her birth certificate listing her nationality as Jewish. Proving you are Jewish to Israel’s state rabbinate can be difficult, it turns out, especially if you came to Israel from the United States — or, as in Sharon’s case, if your mother did.

In recent years, the state’s Chief Rabbinate and its branches in each Israeli city have adopted an institutional attitude of skepticism toward the Jewish identity of those who enter its doors. And the type of proof that the rabbinate prefers is peculiarly unsuited to Jewish life in the United States. The Israeli government seeks the political and financial support of American Jewry. It welcomes American Jewish immigrants. Yet the rabbinate, one arm of the state, increasingly treats American Jews as doubtful cases: not Jewish until proved so...

...Now, as Sharon’s experience indicates, the status of Jews by birth is in question.

...Seth Farber is an American-born Orthodox rabbi whose organization — Itim, the Jewish Life Information Center — helps Israelis navigate the rabbinic bureaucracy. He explained to me recently that the rabbinate’s standards of proof are now stricter than ever, and stricter than most American Jews realize. Referring to the Jewish federations, the central communal and philanthropic organizations of American Jewry, he said, “Eighty percent of federation leaders probably wouldn’t be able to reach the bar.”

...Sharon’s mother was Jewish, so Sharon knew that she was, too. And yet it seemed impossible to provide evidence that would persuade the rabbinate.

Sharon left the office infuriated. Her mother was Jewish enough to leave affluent America for Israel; her brothers had fought for the Jewish state. Now, she felt, she was being told, “For that you’re good enough, but to be considered Jews for religious purposes you’re not.”

...At the court, Sharon told me, the clerk who opened her file told her to bring her mother’s birth certificate and her parents’ marriage certificate. “I said: ‘But my mother’s birth certificate doesn’t say “Jewish.” It’s from the United States. They don’t write that. And the marriage license — they had a civil wedding.’ ” After she waited hours to see a judge, he told Sharon to return with “any document that would testify to her mother’s Jewishness.” She asked a court official if a letter from a Conservative rabbi would solve the problem. Her mother has a cousin in Florida who is a rabbi, son of the uncle who originally sent Suzie to Israel. No, the official said, “that won’t help. It has to be someone Orthodox.”

And there's the rub - most Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Secular or Athiest Jews have not had any contact with the UO or Chereidi Rabbinate - nor have their parents.

...“When Sharon called me, she was crying,” Suzie told me. Her daughter said the court wanted testimony from an Orthodox rabbi who had known Suzie all her life. “Even if there was such a thing, he would be dead by now,” Suzie said. Lacking an official document labeling her a Jew and without a childhood connection to Orthodoxy, Suzie was again a typical American Jew.

...Ultra-Orthodox Jews increasingly question the Jewishness of those outside their own intensely religious communities.

And they are in charge of EVERYTHING regarding Jewish civil rights in Israel, NOT the secular government.

...Couples registering to marry were asked to bring two witnesses who could testify that the applicants were Jews under Orthodox law...Increasingly, rabbinate clerks sent anyone not born in Israel, or whose parents weren’t married in Israel, to a rabbinic court to prove that he or she was Jewish...The rabbinate’s expectations, however, are a poor fit with the United States. American Jews generally don’t have government papers testifying to their Jewishness.

...it was becoming steadily less likely that an American Jew would be able to dig an Orthodox marriage contract out of her mother’s drawer. In the generation after World War II, most American Jews moved away from even a nominal connection to Orthodoxy. Today, young American-born Jews are likely to be two or three generations removed from any tie with Orthodoxy.

...Strikingly, the rabbinate’s doubts extend even to Orthodox rabbis in America. “They’re not familiar with them,” Friedman told me. “They say: ‘The rabbis in the United States, in England, aren’t the kind we know. Someone can define himself as an Orthodox rabbi, but really he’s Reform.’ ” A marriage registrar given a letter from an Orthodox rabbi abroad certifying that a person is Jewish is now expected to check with the office of Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, which maintains a list of diaspora clergy whose letters are to be trusted. The list is not publicly available. If the rabbi who wrote the letter is not on the list, the applicant is asked for other proof or referred to the rabbinic courts.

...It means “writing thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands, out of the Jewish world.”

Which is, of course, the Israeli Rabbinate's intention. American Jews need to understand this clearly. To the Chief Rabbinate, they are not Jews and have no civil rights in Israel - and when the Rabbinate has their way completely (which the demographic and vote in the Knesset is creeping their way) Jews who are not UO or Chereidi won't even be able to make aliyah. They will be cut off from the Jewish people forever, because these power-mongering imperialists have been allowed to get away with appointing themselves as the arbiters of who is Jewish.

Do these figures "do it" for you?

The writer calls these "chart-porn," but I was under the impression that porn was supposed to get you excited, not depressed. Those Brits are strange sometimes.

UK Telegraph Online
Everything you need to know about the economy in four pictures
By Edmund Conway
Economics. Last updated: November 5th, 2009

...This first one is courtesy of Paul Krugman - the story of the crisis in one picture.



The lines represent world industrial production – the blue being in the 1930s and the red the current trajectory. The story is clear: the opening months of this crisis were as bad, if not worse, than the Great Depression in terms of the collapse of economic activity (for which ind production is a pretty good proxy). Since then, the massive injection of stimulus from central banks and from governments all around the world has helped arrest that decline.

The actual different between the two has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any stimulus or government monetary policy - it has to do with the existence of China as an industrial power, nothing more or less. China has a bigger internal market than all the West put together. They don't actually need us, as they are fast figuring out.

...Of course, it’s far too early to sit back and relax. I fear there could be a further dip in the future as the stimulus wears off, or is reversed, but it is reassuring that, throughout the world, the plan is having at least some success.

Except, it seems in Britain, at least according to this chart from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research.



This is the path of Britain’s economic output throughout this crisis, compared with previous recessions. As you can see, NIESR’s latest calculations, which take into account UK performance in October, show we’re still sinking deeper...

...As we all know, the Bank of England is creating money (it doesn’t like to call it “printing” but the net result is the same) like gangbusters...Now, what alarms many of you, and rightly so, is the fact that it is using this money to buy Government debt.

You may recall, the Federal Reserve in the US is doing the same, printing money and then using it to buy T-bills and other investments that foreign governments and institutional investors are refusing to buy.

...[This type of subversive policy] raises suspicions that it is considering monetising the deficit (printing money to fund government borrowing – what the Weimar did in the 1920s and Mugabe in the 2000s)...

And we all know how well that turned out. The US, is of course, doing the exact same thing [chart courtesy of Shadown Government Statistics] and will have the exact same results.



Which is why China, India and other G20 players are dumping US cash assets like the hot potato they are. And our "growth" in GDP isn't all that "real," either. It's a reflection of the rising worthlessness of the Dollar and the usual government magical sleight of hand accounting methods:



Is having slightly less negative GDP really an improvement? I think not.

Reality bites the housing market.

If you recall, a couple of years ago I took a couple of housing cost charts and plotted trendlines for them. Those are now, of course, hopelessly out of date. I wondered if anyone else had done one, so I wouldn't have to do another, and sure enough, somebody has. The upside is I don't have to the work. The downside is that the latest figures make an uglier looking trendline.

Seeking Alpha
Property Values Set to Fall 43% from Current Depressed Levels
Michael David White
November 2, 2009



Price Trends / WAR OF THE WORLDS: If you use a 20-year time horizon, and assume prices will return to the trend line, then our residential property bubble will bottom after values fall over 40% from current levels (see above (c) aka “(y) - (z)” aka “Loss Today to Bottom”)...

...No one would question these numbers absent The War of the Worlds. The War of the Worlds is the United States Government versus aggregate borrower income. Uncle Sam is funding every new mortgage – high, low and in between (see chart below--the blue and red represent government-backed loans and the private market is the yellow and green). It takes very little imagination to see the world of real estate prices vaporizing without government support. If that support was lost, values would crash down faster than a big rock dropped into a shallow puddle.

...Reality bites. Prices for real estate are ultimately determined by our income, and if the trend represents a match of income and price, then the picture of the trend line is the picture of our future...

What he's saying is that the market can't bear prices above what people can actually afford, and with wage stagnation being a fact of the last 30 years, prices of homes (and everything else, for that matter) have to go back to 1970s levels or people will simply not be able to qualify for conventional mortgages - you know, the only ones with any validity and sustainability.

This is what happens in an economy that is not focused on living wages. The top 10% of earners, the Robber Barons, live like kings while the bottom 90% of people watch their wages get reduced to the level of having to compete with third world backwaters, all in the name of a con game called "globalization."

In those backwaters, CEOs get to externalize costs. That means instead of the company paying the true costs of its labour and production, a great deal of that cost is shoved off onto the local government and their cost is never reflected in the price of the products. Businesses located in America, however, have to pay themselves for their worker's safety, for environmental protection, and have to pay a minimum wage, obey laws regarding the number of hours a person can work every day, laws regarding overtime pay, rules giving people the right to their sabbaths, religious holidays, sick leave, vacation days, and other worker's rights we, as a Judeo-Christian nation, decided were the moral and ethical way to do business.

So building a house in America means these costs are "internalized" and properly reflected in the price - except, of course, when the contractors hire illegal immigrants and can get away with not paying the proper taxes and can get away with mistreating them.

Houses, in other words, have for the most part First World ethical and moral costs built into their price.

The problem is that the jobs that would have enabled people to buy the houses at the proper price - manufacturing, for example - have been shipped off to places where these costs can be externalized and the employees can be mistreated and overworked with impunity. And the higher end "service economy" jobs, the various trades and professions, are competing in such an overcrowded field (comprised of those who would formerly have been manufacturing employees) that the market is too saturated to support them all. Their wages are therefore also seriously depressed, and business failures are more and more common.

So Americans are left with little else but low end "service economy" jobs like flipping burgers, mowing lawns, stocking shelves, and doing people's laundry for them - none of which pay living wages. In a normally functioning economy, these types of jobs would be taken by young people, by those who intend to "work their way up" the corporate ladder, by those transitioning out of paid employment, and by those who only want part time work so they can spend the rest of their time doing something else, whatever that may be. These types of jobs do not and cannot be the main source of income for a middle or upper class family. The pay is simply inadequate to support a household, much less buying a house.

That means the median price of housing has to fall to the level that most people can afford to buy a house - that means falling to the level of low-end service job incomes. Too bad for you if you bought your house after the 1970s - that means your house is probably going to lose value further. And my condolences if you owe money on a house bought since the 90s - you will be underwater soon if you aren't already, and the bottom is nowhere near being reached. The trendline is clear, as is the logic behind it - median home prices have to be affordable to median incomes, and median incomes have been flat (adjusted for inflation) since the 70s due to globalization.

If you want to save the value of your house, then you had better be supporting living wages and relocalization of manufacturing. If you choose not to, don't complain that you owe your bank twice what your house is really worth. And don't claim your house is "really worth" what you paid for it. It's not. It's only "really worth" what the market will bear, and the market can't buy 2009 homes with 1970s income.

India joins China in dumping US Dollar assets.

The end of US Dollar hegemony is a lot closer than the government is admitting or anyone on Main Street realizes.

Financial Times Online
Gold extends record high on India purchase
By Javier Blas in London and James Lamont in New Delhi
Published: November 3 2009 09:08 | Last updated: November 4 2009 09:51

Gold prices continued to rise on Wednesday extending the all-time highs which followed India’s central bank bought 200 tonnes of the precious metal, swapping dollars for bullion as the country’s finance minister warned the economies of the US and Europe had “collapsed”.

India’s decision to exchange $6.7bn for gold equivalent to 8 per cent of world annual mine production sent the strongest signal yet that Asian countries were moving away from the US currency...

...“This is a landmark trade,” said Jonathan Spall a director at Barclays Capital and a gold ­specialist. “Central banks are conservative institutions and India’s move is a sign for other central banks and sovereign wealth funds that were contemplating buying gold.”

New Delhi’s acquisition came months after China revealed it had almost doubled its gold reserves in the past six years...

They're contemplating buying gold because they are contemplating the fast-approaching day when the US defaults on its international debts and US T-bills and Dollars become completely worthless.

The average person has no way to even prepare for such a day - institutional buyers such as other governments and giant transnational companies are buying all available gold, which is why the price is soaring. While buying silver bullion and silver coins might be decent strategy, or even just buying any metal objects, most households simply don't have enough cash lying around to buy a hoard of silver coins or copper pipe sufficient to get them through a currency crisis.

And our communities have not made any real efforts over the last four years to become self-sufficient, in spite of having numerous reasons to do so: peak oil, climate change, fighting globalization (relocalization), and knowing that the Feds continually pumping out dollars 24-7 on the printing presses would cause inflation or something worse - like this. We knew, and have done nothing to prepare. Like the Chereidi who think they can not work and still get money, we don't think anything like this can happen to us. The rest of the world wouldn't DARE drop our business - they NEED us, right? Right? Wrong.

Like the Chereidi, our grasp of reality is sadly lacking.

Walmart treats people like dirt.

Here's some more evidence that Wally-Wort and other "globalization" proponents like them are lowering the wages and benefits of American workers to third world status. In this case, while most decent First World companies have intelligent and reasonable sick leave policies, and leave-banking arrangements, etc., etc., Walmart makes their employees contaminate their customers and send their worker's sick children on to school so they can infect your kids. And better (worse, actually) they keep food service workers who are sick there to prepare your food unless they are coughing SO MUCH that customers notice, then they just transfer them to another department for the day. Nice, huh?

The Institute for Southern Studies
Wal-Mart's stingy sick-leave policy may contribute to swine flu's spread
November 3, 2009

Wal-Mart's policy of punishing workers for taking sick leave risks spreading swine flu. So concludes a new report from the National Labor Committee that finds that employees of the Arkansas-based retail giant -- even its food handlers -- feel they have no choice but to work when they're sick. That's because the company gives workers demerits and deducts pay for staying home when they're sick or caring for sick children.

Said a worker at one Wal-Mart supercenter: Plenty of girls are coughing their brains out. But they cannot go home because of points. Everyone comes in sick. You can't stay home and God forbid if you leave early.

The report found that the only time the company is removing sick workers from the food section is when they are coughing too loudly or violently -- and then the person is merely transferred to another department rather than being sent home.

Wal-Mart's sick-leave policy conflicts with recommendations for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which calls on employers to advise workers to be alert for symptoms of flu-like illness and to stay home if they are ill. The CDC also asks employers to allow workers to stay home to care for sick family members...

...The situation is particularly difficult for Wal-Mart workers who are single parents. The NLC reports on an instance in which an employee got a call from her four-year-old's preschool telling her to pick up the child, who had a fever of 103 degrees F. Despite the fact that the employee had already worked for four hours that day, she got a demerit point for leaving and lost her wages for the rest of the day.

The report says: Parents have no choice but to load their children up with Motrin and Dimetap to mask their symptoms so they can go to school...

Class, do not reward these incredibly greedy and insensitive corporate fat cats with your hard earned money. This immoral and unethical policy violates not only CDC policy but also common sense and the First World Judeo-Christian values that we expect our employers to hold. The executives at Wal-mart would never for one second put up with anyone treating themselves or their children like this. Don't reward such hypocrisy. Shop somewhere else - preferably a locally owned and operated store. Americans can't survive on third world wages and third world treatment. It's time to stop rewarding companies that walk all over their employees. The more they get away with treating people like dirt, the more companies will follow suit.

Fabric of the Cosmos, chapter 2.

Here is the next installment in our study this fall/winter on quantum physics and Biblical faith. Chapter one was primarily an introduction. Chapter two begins looking at historical developments in cosmology and how thought about these discoveries evolved over time.

Brian Greene
Fabric of the Cosmos
Chapter Two: The Universe and the Bucket
Is space a human abstraction or a physical entity?

It's not often that a bucket of water is the central character in a 300 years long debate. But a bucket that belonged to Sir Isaac Newton is no ordinary bucket, and a little experiment he described in 1689 has deeply influenced some of the world's greatest physicists ever since.

The experiment is this: take a bucket filled with water, hang it by a rope, twist the rope tightly so that it's ready to unwind, and let it go.

At first, the bucket starts to spin but the water inside remains fairly stationary - the surface of the stationary water stays nice and flat. [Then] the water starts to spin, too. As it does, the water's surface takes on a concave shape, higher at the rim and lower in the center...

...the bucket of spinning water is extremely puzzling. And coming to grips with it, as we have not yet done in over three centuries, ranks among the most important steps toward grasping the structure of the universe.

Early efforts and understanding the cosmos were geared heavily toward describing philosophically and mathematically how things move and what things (if any) are real. Movement we can now describe mathematically all the way to the edges of the universe down to the probable movements of the tiniest sub-atomic structures. But the "reality" question has not been so easy to pin down. Just because something can be described mathematically does not mean it has a real, independent existence. As was mentioned in the first chapter, mathematical equations can show time going backwards, but can it really? Time seems to be stuck in forward motion. Understanding motion, then, is a key to understanding time and space. Early philosophers understood this, though it may be lost on today's public school students.

It has been argued by Zeno, an ancient writer, that neither time nor motion themselves are real. If you take a moment - any moment - you can divide it in half. And that half can be divided in half, and so on - ad infinitum. Ditto for distance. Zeno argued that you can never reach any destination, because you travel half the distance to it, and then you travel half of the next half, and half of that half, and so on again - ad infinitum - meaning you never get where you're going. Motion is an illusion (and therefore so is time). This called Zeno's paradox. The math/motion/time entanglement influence Jewish thinking on the subject, too.

From the Jewish Virtual Library:
On the subject of time, Jewish medieval philosophers were divided into two broad camps: Those who subscribed basically to the Aristotelian concept of time, and those who favored a concept that goes back ultimately to Plotinus. Included among the former are Isaac Israeli, Saadiah Gaon, Abraham ibn Daud, Maimonides, and Levi b. Gershom, and among the latter are Ḥasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo. Maimonides may be taken as representative of the first group and Crescas of the second.

Maimonides, whose discussion of time appears in his Guide of the Perplexed (notably, 1:73), accepts the definition of time laid down by Aristotle as "the number of motion according to 'before' and 'after'" (Physics 4:11, 219b). Time, therefore, is neither an independent substance nor identical with motion, although it is totally dependent upon the latter and constitutes an accident of motion, which is itself an accident of body or corporeal substances. Time, consequently, possesses only a quasi-reality. Not only is it an accident of an accident, but it is composed of a past that is gone, a future that does not yet exist, and a present that serves only as a limit between the two. Accordingly, Maimonides rejects the concept of time proposed by the Mutakallimun (see*Kalām ) who, basing their thought generally on the atomism of Democritus, maintained that time is composed of time-atoms or instants, which are real entities.

Despite Maimonides' basic agreement with Aristotle on the definition of time, he rejects the latter's attempt to prove the eternity of the universe from the nature of time, and argues instead that time came into existence with the creation of the universe. Prior to creation, God existed alone in timeless eternity, for inasmuch as God is absolutely incorporeal, He has no relation to motion, and consequently none to time.

Modern Rabbinic Judaism believes, however - based on Kabbalah - that God did move. In fact, God had to vacate an area, the void or womb of creation, in order to create. Until then, God's expanse filled all that is. After God "moved," there was the void - a place where God "was not." We can presume that after creation, God observes time, but is still not part of it. The Ain Sof is still outside the void, unaffected by space and time, which were both created. Creation set time and motion into their trajectories, or, as we might describe it, the Big Bang resulted in time having a certain forward momentum and the rules of physics were established that we perceive as motion began.

Relativity Before Einstein

Velocity - the speed and direction of an object's motion - is relative. Motion has meaning only in a relational sense. An object's velocity can be specified only in relation to that of another object.

Of course, there are circumstances under which your motion seems intrinsic, when you can feel it and you seem able to declare, without recourse to external comparisons, that you are definitely moving. This is the case with accelerated motion - motion in which your speed and/or your direction changes.

Even if your eyes are closed, you know you're moving, because you feel it. Thus, while you can't feel motion with constant speed that heads in an unchanging straight line trajectory - constant velocity motion, it's called - you can feel changes to your velocity.

What is it about changes in velocity that allows them to stand alone, to have intrinsic meaning? If velocity is something that makes sense only by comparisons - by saying that "this" is moving with respect to "that" - how is it that chages in velocity are somehow different, and don't also require comparisons to give them meaning? In fact, could it be that they actually do require a comparison to be made? Could it be that there is some implicit or hidden comparison that is actually at work every time we refer to or experience accelerated motion?

If velocity is not constant, with respect to what or from whose viewpoint is it not constant?

Newtons studied the Bible for years, and spent the latter portion of his life dissecting scripture for the "secret code" which he believed was contained in it that would explain all of creation. It is therefore worth noting here that Newton had a bias, a big one, in all his investigations into mathematics and physics - he believed in God, an outside observer. His conclusions were necessarily colored by his personal beliefs about God (as are all scientific and philosophical writings) - and his concept of God was the result of his childhood, his religious teachers, his personal understanding of scripture, and his personal religious philosophies on a variety of subjects. And the understanding of God held by persons of his era were colored by ideas such as the "watchmaker" and Calvinism - a very deterministic view which while understandable, is very likely completely wrong.

The Bucket

Newton was grappling with the very foundation of motion and was far from ready to accept that accelerated motion, such as spinning, is somehow beyond the need for external comparisons.*

*footnote: The terms centrifugal and centripetal force are sometimes used when describing motion. But they are merely labels. Our intent is to understand why spinning motion gives rise to force.

In totally empty space - no sun, no earth, no air, no doughnuts, no anything - what could possibly serve as the "something" with respect to which the bucket is spinning?

He answered by fixing on the ultimate container as the relevant frame of reference: space itself. He proposed that the transparent, empty arena in which we are all immersed and within which all motion takes place exists as a real, physical entity, which he called absolute space.

It's the "something" he proposed that provides the truest reference for describing motion. An object is truly at rest when it is at rest with respect to absolute space. And most important, Newton concluded, an object is truly accelerating when it is accelerating with respect to absolute space.

Space itself provides the true frame of reference for defining motion.

Newton, as someone who believed in God, believed in an impartial observer outside of space and time - but then, as now, you can't say that and still have "credibility" in the scientific community. The Enlightenment Era was all about throwing off the "oppression" of religion and embracing a rationalistic point of view - a scientific point of view which states only things which can be measured and observed and "proved." (Of course, we now know that getting data and reaching correct conclusions from it are two ENTIRELY different things - LOL.) But getting back to the point, Newton "needed" to maintain that the universe is "fixed" and that lack of a human observer or human reference points was no barrier to accurate measurement or experience. By substituting "space" for "God," Newton filled his need and retained credibility. He could not at that time have entertained the idea that God allows things to happen, that the future and all of creation is not "fixed" in concrete. His belief that God micro-manages and that everything is predetermined made him decide that space, as an aspect of time and motion (read "future events as described in prophecy and scripture"), must be predetermined down to the tiniest atom, also.

But what is absolute space, really?

Newton's next words have become famous. "Absolute space, in its own nature, without reference to anything external, remains always similar and unmovable." That is, absolute space just is, and is forever, period.

So Newton leaves us in a somewhat awkward position. He puts absolute space front and center in the description of the most basic and essential element of physics - motion - but he leaves its definition vague.

He had to, of course. He couldn't explain how time and motion could be fixed by God but not space, and didn't want to invoke God in his arguments - hence, the vagueness.

Space Jam

The struggle to come to grips with the meaning of space is an ancient one. Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and many of their followers through the ages wrestled in one way or another with the meaning of "space." Is there a difference between space and matter? Does space have an existence independent of the presence of material objects? Is there such a thing as empty space? Are space and matter mutually exclusive? Is space finite or infinite?

Should we ascribe an independent reality to space, as we do for other, more ordinary material objects...or should we think of space as merely a language for describing relationships between ordinary material objects?

Leibniz...firmly believed that space does not exist in any conventional sense. Talk of space, he claimed, is nothing more than an easy and convenient way of encoding where things are relative to one another.

According to Leibniz, if all objects were removed from space - if space were completely empty - it would be as meaningless as an alphabet that's missing its letters.

Ah, Leibniz. Those were his younger days. In 1676 he traveled to the Hague for one purpose: to meet the Heretic, Baruch de Spinoza.

From The Courtier and the Heretic, by Matthew Stewart:
Spinoza did not invent the modern world, but he was perhaps the first to observe it well. He was the first to attempt to answer the ancient questions of philosophy from a distinctly modern perspective. In his philosophical system, he offers a concept of God befitting the universe revealed by science - a universe ruled only by the cause and effect of natural laws, without purpose or design. He describes what it means to be human after our pretension to occupy a special place in nature has been shattered...

Leibniz, on the other hand, seems to have more in common with Newton after his meeting with Spinoza:

Analysis of his unpublished writings makes clear that a decisive change in the tone and substance of his reflections occurred within days of his visit with Spinoza...

In large part as a direct result of his meeting with Spinoza, Leibniz came to represent his own original and antithetical response to the challenges of the modern era. In his philosophical writings, he articulates a strategy for recovering something of the old ideas about God and man by means of an analysis of the limits of reason. He claims to discover the meaning and purpose of life in all that modernity fails to comprehend.

Leibniz, like all other philosophers and mathematicians and scientists the world over, let his preconceived ideas influence the outcome of his supposedly impartial scientific work. Spinoza was formally declared apikorus by a bet din and excommunicated from Judaism long before Leibniz met him. But somehow Leibniz came away from that meeting convinced Spinoza was wrong, and Newton had been more correct (if not actually right).

While all this is interesting, knowing the biases of various writers and thinkers for or against religion doesn't really help answer the nitty gritty bolts and nuts of cosmology. Greene continues:

What is the location of the universe within space? If the universe were to move as a whole - leaving all relative positions of material objects intact - ten feet to the left or right, how would we know? What is the speed of the entire universe through the substance of space? If we are fundamentally unable to detect space, or changes within space, how can we claim it actually exists?

Newton argued that the existence of absolute space does have consequences that are observable: accelerations, such as those at play in the rotating bucket, are accelerations with respect to absolute space. Thus, the concave shape of the water, according to Newton, is a consequence of the existence of absolute space.

In one clever stroke, Newton shifted the debate about space from philosophical ponderings to scientifically verifiable data. The effect was palpable. In due course, Liebniz was forced to admit, "I grant there is a difference between absolute true motion of a body and a mere relative change of its situation with respect to another body." This was not a capitulation to Newton's absolute space, but it was a strong blow to the firm relationist position.

Yes, in due course, Leibniz had to backtrack a bit. If he had held to his earlier course, he would have found himself in the same camp as Spinoza - and he wasn't, upon reflection, ready or willing to completely toss God out of the picture. And we should not be, either. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but quantum physics makes more scientific room for God than any previous paradigm of space and time before it.

Mach and the Meaning of Space

According to Newton, while you are certainly free to contemplate the world from any perspective you choose, the different vantage points are by no means on an equal footing.

Our perspective of anything is necessarily not 100% correct or true. "Radical subjectivity" is the position that the human mind is simply not capable of seeing things 100% accurately. In Greene's text, the example of an ant's perspective versus a person's perspective is discussed. But many secular humanists today claim that "scientists" by definition have some sort of superior perspective to persons of religious faith. As we saw in the example of Leibniz above, and the example of the hundreds of organic biologists, physicists, and other "scientists" who maintain their belief in God, all persons are subject to biases - and those who have a vested interest in "getting rid" of God often rely on feelings rather than facts. They "feel" that they don't want to obey God, therefore they look for justification to not have to. That's not science, that's adolescence.

And the idea that things are fixed in concrete is also somewhat adolescent, as teens often don't think of the long term affects of what they're doing. They are now young, healthy, and carefree and therefore always will be in their minds. And their simplistic and idealistic views of the world are, to them, crystal clear and obviously correct. But eventually, they learn - often in the school of hard knocks - that things are not black and white, nor set in concrete. So also did the adolescent age of science where everything was black and white give way to a less fixed, less absolute idea of the universe.

Accepting Newton's absolute space meant accepting an absolute conception of acceleration, and in particular, accepting an absolute answer regarding who or what is really spinning.

Why wouldn't relative acceleration, like relative velocity, be the only thing that's relevant when considering motion at velocity that isn't constant? The existence of absolute space decreed otherwise, but...this seemed thoroughly peculiar.

Beyond the intuitive sense that no perspective should be "more right" than any other, and beyond the eminently reasonable proposal of Leibniz that only relative motion between material objects has meaning, the concept of absolute space left many wondering how absolute space can allow us to identify true accelerated motion, as with the bucket, while it cannot provide a way to identify true constant velocity motion. After all, if absolute space really exists, it should prove a benchmark for all motion, not just accelerated motion. If absolute space really exists, why doesn't it provide a way of identifying where we are located in an absolute sense, one that need not use our position relative to other material objects as a reference point? And, if absolute space really exists, how come it can affect us (causing our arms to splay if we spin, for example) while we apparently have no way to affect it?


In other words, how can God affect us but we cannot affect God? It's so inequitable that it should not be. And if it should not be, then it must not be. And if it must not be, then it isn't. Right?

[In] the mid 1800s, the Austrian physicists and philosopher Ernst Mach came on the scene.

Might Newton have kicked the bucket aside with such ease that he skipped too quickly over the relative motion we are apt to invoke in real life, such as between the water and the laboratory, or the water and the earth, or the water and the fixed stars in the sky? Might it be that such relative motion can account for the shape of the water's surface, eliminating the need to introduce the concept of absolute space? That was the line of questioning raised by Mach in the 1870s.

Imagine now that you are immersed in the blackness of completely empty space: no starts, no galaxies, no planets, no air, nothing but total blackness (a real existential moment). This time, if you start spinning, will you feel it? Will your arms and legs feel pulled outward? Our experience in day to day life lead us to answer yes: anytime we change from not spinning (a state in which we feel nothing) to spinning, we feel the difference as our appendages are pulled outward.

But the current example is unlike anything any of us has ever experienced. In the universe as we know it, there are always other material objects either nearby, or at the very least, far away (such as the distant stars), that can serve as a reference for our various states of motion. In this example, however, there is absolutely no way for you to distinguish "not spinning" from "spinning" by comparisons with other material objects - there aren't any other material objects.

Mach took this observation to heart and extended it one giant step further. He suggested that in this case there might also be no way to feel a difference between various states of spinning. More precisely, Mach argued that in an otherwise empty universe there is no distinction between spinning and not spinning - there is no conception of motion or acceleration if there are no benchmarks for comparison - and so spinning and not spinning are the same.

This is, of course, far before the space age of rockets, zero-g training, and moon visits. We now know that our inner ear and nervous system are hard wired to respond to gravity and the first thing you would feel in a truly empty space is the urge to throw up and a splitting headache. We bio-physically NEED a point of reference or our wiring goes haywire. In the time of these thinkers, however, these practical things were unknown. It doesn't necessarily make the example worthless, but it does mean an effective argument would need a different example - or a non-human participant.

If you spun around in an otherwise empty universe, your arms and legs would not splay outward, and the fluid in our ears would be unaffected. You'd feel nothing.

This presumes, of course, that the universe is all there is, and there is nothing outside the universe that could exert any influence upon you. The Sages would, of course, vehemently deny such a possibility. God in the essence of the Ain Sof may be motionless, but there is no denying that motion (action) occurred and that it links us back to God.

From the Jewish Virtual Library:
...The link between God and the created world is, according to Philo, the *logos. Beginning its existence as part of the essence of God, the logos was given by God an existence of its own. As this separate, incorporeal existence the logos contains within itself, and is the mind of, the intelligible world and the ideas which constitute the intelligible world... [Later,] Maimonides...rejects the neoplatonic accounts of creation (Guide, 2:21). On the other hand, he argues that neither Aristotle nor his Muslim followers have succeeded in demonstrating the eternity of the universe. Hence, the issue cannot be decided on philosophical grounds alone. For Maimonides, however, it must be decided, since to adopt the eternity hypothesis is to give up belief in miracles; for the eternity hypothesis is tantamount to the claim that the universe and its laws necessarily emanate from God...

[Even later,] According to Levi b. Gershom, Aristotelian physics implies creation, even if it is the case that Aristotle did not recognize it. For Aristotle's system is teleological: it ascribes ends and purposes to nature (Aristotle, Physics, 2). A teleological conception of nature, however, implies a creator who fashions the universe according to specified ends (Levi b. Gershom, Milḥamot Adonai, 6:1, 7). Moreover, Aristotle's laws of dynamics are falsified if the eternity hypothesis is accepted...

Crescas' doctrine of creation exhibits a different use of the term "creation" and displays an ambivalence on the issue of the eternity or temporal beginning of the universe...Yet he claims that the traditional biblical view is that the universe had a temporal beginning. Perhaps the solution to this apparent inconsistency is to be found in his sympathy for the doctrine of eternal re-creation of many universes, a view that is found in rabbinic literature...

And, of course, still has many proponents in the scientific community today, although the latest mathematics seems to indicate that the universe lacks sufficient matter to retract back to a new Big Bang beginning.

Even so, there are none now who argue that this universe is eternal - the Big Bang theory is well established and entrenched. The philosophers up to and including Mach, influence by Enlightenment teachings, embraced the idea of an eternal universe and therefore reached philosophical conclusions that cannot now be substantiated.

But the idea that motion, time and space require some sort of something to provide a benchmark both for completely objective measurements and for our own sense of perception is one that continually plagues this era of thinkers. The idea of a theoretical place with absolutely no matter led to thought experiments such as Mach's. Greene continues:

This [idea that you'd feel nothing in a perfect vaccum of matterless space] is a deep and subtle suggestion. Without such benchmarks, Mach argued, the very concepts of motion and acceleration cease to have meaning. It's not just that you won't feel anything if you spin, it's more basic. In an otherwise empty universe, standing perfectly motionless and spinning uniformly are indistinguishable.

Newton, of course, would have disagreed. He claimed that even completely empty space still has space. And although space is not tangible or directly graspable, Newton argued that it still provides a "something" with respect to which material objects can be said to move.

Mach strongly challenged the key assumption. He argued that what happens in the laboratory is not what would happen in completely empty space.

Without invoking absolute space - if absolute space is not a something - how would Mach explain the water's shape? The answer emerges from thinking about a simple objection to Mach's reasoning.

The unasked question here, of course, is that if you cannot distinguish movement, does that mean it's not "really" happening? Even if there is not an outside observer such as God, can such sweeping theoretical pronouncements even be made without such huge unstated assumptions as to render them senseless? It's the big question that science dances around but cannot answer: Is only the measurable real? And even without God, isn't our own intuition adequate to tell? Mach says yes, but it's not due to space or an outside observer. Instead, it's just due to matter - gravity, to be more exact.

Mach, Motion and the Stars

If you can feel spinning motion in a universe with merely a few distant start, perhaps that means Mach's idea is just wrong - perhaps, as assumed by Newton, in any empty universe you would still feel the sensation of spinning. Mach offered an answer to this objection. In an empty universe, according to Mach, you feel nothing if you spin (more precisely, there is not even a concept of spinning vs nonspinning). That is, the force you [do] feel is proportional to the amount of matter in the universe. In this approach, the force you feel from acceleration arises as a collective effect, a collective influence of all the other matter in the universe.

Again, the proposal holds for all kinds of accelerated motion, not just spinning. The force you feel represents the combined influence of all the other matter making up the universe. If there were more matter, you would feel greater force. If there were less matter, you would feel less force. And if there were no matter, you wouldn't feel anything at all. So in Mach's way of thinking, only relative motion and relative acceleration matter.

For many physicists, this is one of the most seductive proposals about the cosmos put forward during the last century and a half. Generations of physicists have found it deeply unsettling to imagine that the untouchable, ungraspable, unclutchable fabric of space is really a something - a something substantial enough to provide the ultimate, absolute benchmark for motion.

Space, in Mach's view, is very much as Leibniz imagined - it's the language for expressing the relationship between one object's position and another's.

We know, of course, that space is not empty. It is filled with particles - particles of dust and dirt, matter, energy, light, and radiations of all kinds. We know that the universe started as a dot and expanded - grew - and therefore at least at the beginning had finite edges. It still, technically, "contains" all this matter, dark and light, dust, dirt and various waves and particles. They can't go "outside" the universe, though it is so large as to be practically infinite. And as mentioned above, many scientists think it will shrink back down and a new Big Bang will occur. But none of this can answer the one question everybody wants to know the answer to: what was "here" before the universe was, and is God out there, outside of it? By postulating a truly infinite universe with no beginning and no end, early thinkers could write God out of the picture. Modern math, however, has let God squeeze back in.

Mach vs. Newton

Is Mach right? If his ideas were right, how do the distant stars and the house next door controbute to your feeling that you are spinning when you spin around. Without specifying a physical mechanism to realize his proposal, it was hard to investigate Mach's ideas with any precision.

From our modern vantage point, a reasonable guess is that gravity might have something to do with the influences involved in Mach's suggestion.

When the dust of relativity has finally settled, the question of whether space is a something - of whether the absolutist or relationist view of space is correct - was transformed in a manner that shattered all previous ways of looking at the universe.

The unasked question, of course, is: what if the universe is absolutist AND relationist? If quantum physics tells us there are only probabilities, not things set in concrete until AFTER they are observed, then only that which has been observed is absolutist - everything else is relationist. And there's a lot of room for free will and expansion of the universe in that relationist space, isn't there?

Scary things lurking in the dark.

The "shadow inventory" of homes are those houses that have either not yet been foreclosed by banks even though the owners are no longer making payments, and homes that have been foreclosed but have not yet been put up for sale by the banks. They don't want too many houses to flood the market, so they hold back - never quite acknowledging the extent of the unborn problem lurking in those shadows.

Of two minds.com
Housing: Round Trip to Pre-Bubble Prices Underway
October 26, 2009
Charles Hugh Smith

...regardless of the fundamental reasons offered (they're not making any more land, inventory is drying up, foreclosure rates are dropping, etc.), markets tend to fully revert to pre-bubble prices.

Here is a chart of the national median prices which have already reverted to 2002 levels. The future full retrace has been added as a projection:



..."Only" $100,000 more to drop for a full reversion to the starting point of $180,000 [in California - most likely the pre-bubble median price in YOUR state is way LESS than this].



...The consequences of a further retrace in valuations to 1998 levels are clearly dire for household wealth. If the median price of housing nationally falls another $40 -$50,000, as will occur in a full reversion, then all that decline will come straight out of remaining equity. In California, the same can be said of the expected $100,000 decline in median valuations.

Some analysts have already gone on record that they expect fully 50% of all homeowners with mortgages to be underwater by 2011--that is, owing more than their equity...

...If we ponder these charts, it's difficult to conclude the consumer can recover his/her free-spending ways and thus difficult to expect the economy to grow on the backs of renewed consumer spending.

Which brings us to the next ugly monster hiding in the darkness - the nearly completely unacknowledged (by your everyday media) pending crash in CRE (Commercial Real Estate).

Fortune Magazine Investor Daily (Online via CNN Money)
3 signs of the next real estate collapse
The latest bubble is about to burst, but this time it's in the commercial market. Here's how to see it coming.
By Katie Benner, writer-reporter
October 22, 2009: 10:16 AM ET

...Refinancing the $2 trillion in commercial mortgages will be tough, as property values decline. And in this new age of cautious lending, few banks are willing to refinance loans.

"There is a lack of new debt," says Michael Haas, a real estate attorney at Jones Day. "There is a hesitancy to extend credit when there is a real possibility that the real estate may be worth less than it was a few years ago."

Now, in a situation eerily similar to the subprime crisis, the result is likely to be a wave of foreclosures and loan defaults that could, in turn, trigger a collapse in the market of the structured bonds backed by commercial real estate and construction debt...

..."Medium and small banks have a lot of exposure to local building projects," says Chris Whalen, a bank analyst and co-founder of Institutional Risk Analytics. "They're forbearing or getting involved in their customers' business rather than taking losses. They're hoping they can hold out until values come back."

And the odds of that are what, class?

If consumers have no discretionary income - and they don't - then any business that is not involved with something people will absolutely avoid living without (say, electricity or water), that business is seeing declines in revenues that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to stay in business. For a while, of course, just as they do for residential mortgages, banks will sit around and try not to foreclose businesses and try not to put too much commercial real estate on the market - giving the business owners a temporary reprieve.

But is that really going to help? They will have to lay off workers, which will mean less money floating around out there to come back to them in the form of sales, which will mean more layoffs... You see how it goes. Without living wage jobs for employees, businesses cannot stay afloat forever. At some point, owners can no longer roll over their debts and they certainly don't have enough sales to pay off their debts and still cover the rest of their bills. When no more room to fudge exists the debts will have to be paid, and the business goes under.

The smartest business plan was to eschew debt, but few heeded that sage advice. And soon the fallout will begin - on top of and worsening the residential real estate collapse. The monsters will be out in the daylight for everyone to see - and it won't be pretty.

More ignorance isn't bliss.

Demand destruction in the US could only depress oil prices for so long - and it appears we are entering the next period of rising prices. This "bumpy plateau" of pricing will prevail as the price of oil and gasoline tries to find an equilibrium balance between rising production costs, decreasing oil field capacity, increasing overseas demand as other countries begin using more of their fair share, and falling demand in the US due to rising unemployment and other economic disruptions.

While it is true that the US demand has been bigger in the past than these other forces, the scales are now more equally balanced. Even the continual slide towards a Depression in the US may not stop oil prices from rising now - the other factors are weighing much more heavily on the scales. Yet Americans are still doing little to nothing to prepare for the day when they cannot rely on long distance transporation for anything in their daily lives: getting to work, to school, to the store, and stores themselves who rely on distant out-of-state suppliers will also be out of luck.

Policy makers ignore the facts, though they have known them for quite a while. Why? Because Americans aren't interested in preparing for the inevitable. They prefer to close their eyes and hope their children will have to deal with it, not them. It's an irresponsible and selfish attitude.

The Oil Drum
Dr. Chu, Dr. Aleklett, and the Price of Oil
Posted by Heading Out on October 22, 2009 - 10:05am

...There are a number of us who write about the situation in regard to the world supply of liquid fuels, and the future availability of those supplies. In general we began by gleaning our information from the internet, or each other, and from those relatively amateurish beginnings a community has developed to study the condition of “Peak Oil.” That community was immeasurably helped coalesce and grow by the conferences that began under the ASPO banner, with ASPO standing for the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. Kjell Aleklett began these conferences on the study of peak oil some years ago, and has watched the growth of the community (shepherding, as International President, where necessary) since then...

...And has shown [that]...it is possible to acquire and publish a wealth of information about the condition of the various aspects of future energy supply that cast a relatively realistic view of what we might expect in the future...

...I look at what he has been able to accomplish, and then I contrast this with the current U. S. Secretary of Energy, an individual who has the vast resources of one of the larger Departments in the United States Administration at his disposal...

...Folk such as Dr. Aleklett have studied the real situation in regard to the future of oil. Based on detailed studies of the actual rate of oilfield discoveries and oilfield production individuals such as Rembrandt Koppelaar (ASPO Netherlands) have been able to produce high quality analysis of the reality of the global oil situation that has caught the attention of groups such as Global Witness, who have in turn produced a report “Heads in the Sand” that documents some of the issues that the global economy faces as future supplies of crude oil are unable to meet demand.

The evidence that forewarns of a problem has been out there for a long time. Sites such as The Oil Drum and Energy Bulletin have documented the evidence that has come to show that non-OPEC production of crude oil has already likely peaked, and the ability of OPEC itself to much increase their production beyond another couple of million barrels a day or so is in serious question.

There is, in short, a problem, and in the United States the responsibility for resolving that problem sits at the desk of the Secretary of the Department of Energy. Who with all due respect should not be surprised at all by the current rise in the price of crude, and the path that the price will take in the future, yet he is!

At least it would if he were paying attention. Unfortunately, however, the listing of the priorities of the Department...show that peak oil or the related issues over the supply volumes and prices of natural gas – are not that great a concern. Climate change seems to be of much greater concern than the coming crisis in fuel supplies...

...Even the British Government have recognized that, while making the politically correct genuflection toward the motif of global warming, that they are responsible for the ultimate fuel supply security of the British Isles...

...Unfortunately at the moment the United States does not seem as well served by its Administration in this area, since the Secretary seems woefully unaware of the underlying fragility of the energy supply situation.

...There is a meaning to the current rise in oil prices, control of which has now been passed to the OPEC nations, at least in the short term. If the Secretary is not aware of this, it would be extremely unfortunate not only for him but for the nation. This particularly the case if Dr. Chu's on-the-job training meant that he was unprepared when the next phase of this rolls around in the next year or so.

I have wondered on this blog if perhaps the government casting the problem in terms of climate change instead of peak oil is perhaps deliberate, simply because Americans will only give up their cars when you pry the steering wheels from their cold, dead hands - or when they are so flat broke they simply have no other choice. Americans are simply not willing to do what it takes to mitigate the facts of peak oil and transition calmly to a lower level of petroleum usage. That it is in our own best interest to take the problem seriously and act now doesn't matter to them. Americans have an adolescent attitude - taking the position that the future is not their problem. They expect TPTB to have their best interests in mind and not let things get "That Bad."

Where they got such an expectation I have no idea, since it is clearly unrealistic at best and seriously delusional at worst. TPTB have not in the last 50 or so years acted in the best interests of the common people - what makes anyone think they will start now? No, if changes are going to be made, they have to be at the local level, by ordinary people - communities together sitting down and planning what can be done, and then doing it without federal help, without state money, without the support of the Robber Barons. These three things will simply never manifest. It's every community for themselves, now. Either communities will step up to the plate, or they will drown in joblessness, incapacity, and privation.

And pretending otherwise isn't ignorance, it's suicide.

Ignorance isn't bliss.

American Jews are still largely unconcerned about the Jewish Civil War raging on around them - a war that will affect their future and their children's futures directly and mercilessly. Many don't seem to even know what's going on. However, skirmishes continue on both fronts: MO Rabbis in Israel are attempting to maneuver a bypass for the Chereidi marriage process and some American Jews are complaining about the discrimination against non-ultra-orthodox Jews. On the legislature's end, a first step - pathetically inadequate but a step nonetheless - has been taken toward civil marriage and recognition of marriage as a basic human right. In order to have a civil marriage, you basically have to renounce religious faith completely - but hopefully that will cause enough of an outcry to get it changed to a real basic right to marriage.

In the meantime, the facts about the war are becoming more widely known. As this blog has complained many times before, non-ultra-orthodox Jews are treated like dirt by the Israeli Rabbinate, and are not considered Jewish.

Jewcy.com
The Magenta Elephant in the Room
When [the children of] Interfaith people visit Israel
by Robin Margolis, October 20, 2009

...I have spoken to many Jewish outreach professionals about this. I've asked them to please explain why interfaith family trips never include even one hour to meet with resident Israeli half-Jewish people -- who might give the American interfaith families a realistic picture of their lives in Israel -- living in fear of immigration bureaucrats yanking their Jewish identity papers; being refused permission to marry Jews with two Jewish parents; delayed (sometimes permanently) Orthodox conversions; being called "non-Jews" and "erev rav" (mixed rabble) and contents of "pooper scoopers" in the Israeli newspapers; and yet still being compelled to serve in the IDF and pay taxes...

...the IDF staff running the military conversion to Judaism programs -- they have many descendants of intermarriage among their students, who are tired of being called "non-Jews" and being buried in special sections of IDF cemeteries among the Druze and Christian soldiers, away from the areas set aside for Jews with two Jewish parents...

...These young half-Jewish adults haven't been told that the Israeli Law of Return (allowing anyone with a Jewish parent or grandparent to make aliyah) currently operates as a "bait and switch." Once half-Jewish people arrive in Israel, there is a strong probability that they will be classified as "non-Jews" if they cannot produce enough documentation certifying either that they have a biological Jewish mother or an Orthodox conversion. Hostile Israeli immigration bureaucrats and Haredi-dominated rabbinical courts are reversing Orthodox conversions and rejecting proofs of having a Jewish mother or a Jewish father that were deemed quite sufficient two decades ago, leaving thousands of half-Jewish people stranded as second-class "non-Jew" Israeli citizens...

Some of the comments posted to this article were very astute. In particular there was one comment that reflects the real situation of most American Jews, who are blithely unaware of their de facto status:

Great article! Israel's policies regarding interfaith couples and being Jewish enough for immigration, but not for anything else have always rubbed me the wrong way. It's one reason I've not spent more time in Israel than on a birthright trip. My mother is Jewish, so in theory I'd be Jewish enough for the the Haredim. However, we are Reform Jews and are probably the most practicing of any of our family since they came to America. I'm sure there's not a way to sufficiently document my Jewishness to the liking of the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel. I don't like the idea of having to "convert" to a religion I'm already a part of. It's insulting...[limberliz, 10/21/09 12:38 pm]

Yes, it is insulting, and it's meant to be. It's intended to be degrading, because the UO want Reform and Conservative, etc., and yes, even MO Jews to feel as if their "past life" was a falsehood, that only the UO/Chereidi have "real" Judaism.

And if you walk away - well, that's just fine with them. They don't WANT people who won't submit to their backwards, misogynist, unhygienic, racist and ignorant leaders. American's can't understand that. In truth, Americans think their monetary support buys them acceptance. But that's a dangerous fallacy. The Chereidi use people with money for their money. They con't CARE about them personally, and will not hesitate to discard whole families, including children, to stand up for their ideological crusade when it gets down to the wire. This shouldn't be that hard for Americans to understand, but for some reason it is. To the Rabbinate non-UO/Chereidi are just another resource to exploit. They do NOT consider us fellow Jews until we submit without reservation to their powermongering and control.

Some MO Rabbis in Israel, however, are trying to take back some of the lost ground - not because they care about Reform, Conservative, Secular, etc. Jews, though. No, indeed. They just want to avoid having civil marriage instituted at all.

Jerusalem Post Online
Tzohar Rabbis: Privatize marriage registration
By MATTHEW WAGNER Oct 22, 2009 0:29
hat tip: Failed Messiah]

A group of religious Zionist rabbis are calling to privatize the marriage registration process to stop what they call the Chief Rabbinate's inefficient, unfriendly and overly stringent bureaucracy from turning off secular Israelis to religion.

However, a senior member of the Chief Rabbinate said he and others would oppose any attempts to change the way marriage registration was performed.

The rabbinic standoff pits religious Zionists against a more haredi spiritual leadership that has been gaining power within the Chief Rabbinate in recent decades...

..."If, heaven forbid, there are civil marriages in Israel, God will know to blame petty religious functionaries who care only about their own jobs," said Tzohar chairman Rabbi David Stav...

...Tzohar wants to break the monopoly of local rabbis over marriage registration and open it up to competition. Currently a man and woman who want to marry must register with the rabbi of the city in which one of the two lives. Tzohar wants to change the directives so a couple would be able to register with any rabbi in the country who is recognized by the Chief Rabbinate...

But this would not be any real benefit to most American Jews, because the Chief Rabbinate has made it no secret that only UO/Chereidi people are "real" Jews - everyone else is either a fake or apikorus.

...dozens of converts who have attempted to register in cities such as Ashdod, Petah Tikva, Rehovot, Ma'aleh Adumim and Beersheba have been turned away by the local rabbis because they are not considered Jewish.

...For the first time in Israeli history, a significant segment of the Zionist population was not Jewish according to Orthodox criteria. These immigrants served in the army, participated in all aspects of society and defined themselves as Israelis, but could not marry.

In addition, many secular Israelis who are Jewish according to Halacha nevertheless prefer not to marry in a religious ceremony and see the Orthodox monopoly over marriages as a form of religious coercion.

Stav said he feared that unless Orthodox rabbis began to provide secular Israelis with better, more efficient religious services in a friendlier environment, pressure would build to amend legislation to enable civil marriages.

"I see mixed marriages between Jews and non-Jews as a spiritual disaster," said Stav. "And I want to do everything in my power to stop it."

Stav added that "in recent years, the Chief Rabbinate has deviated from its original mission of serving the entire Jewish nation, both secular and religious and making sure that Orthodoxy remains relevant. Tzohar is trying to return the Chief Rabbinate to that original mission."

It's original mission, however, appears to have been to prevent people from exercising their basic human rights, including the right to marriage, the right to divorce, and the right to freedom of religious observance. If you're not ultra-orthdox or not Chereidi, they don't believe you have these rights, and if you're born Jewish, they intend to force you to comply with Chereidi rulings even if you've never been Chereidi a day in your life and have no intention of being Chereidi ever. It is, in fact, religius coercion and it violates both the founding principles of the State of Israel and people's basic human rights.

And it needs to stop. The only marriages, divorces, or conversions that the Chereidi and ultra-orthodox should be allowed to oversee are those of people who have voluntarily decided to join that sect. Jews of any other sect, or no sect at all, should not be subject to religious coercion and denial of their basic human rights.

Americans, on the other hand, seem to have no idea what's even going on, much less why - or what to do to protest to the Israeli government that their rights should be respected and preserved. By the time they realize there is a serious problem, it will likely be too late. The Chereidi are demographically poised to take over the majority of vote and when they do, that will be the end of the Law of Return as we know it, the end of civil rights for non-UO/Chereidi people, and the end of any semblance of a secular state that respects all sects of Judaism or even recognizes all sects of Judaism.

If American Jews don't care, then so be it. But they ought to at least know what they're doing as they throw their children's rights away - and most don't.

From the "don't hold your breath" department...

Neither the Federal Government nor most US cities have been taking peak oil seriously, in spite of industry experts such as Matthew Simmons and oil executives plainly telling people to do so. What will it take, exactly, to get our communities to relocalize if they won't listen even to oil executives? I have no idea.

Reuters Online
U.S. needs gas tax, 50 mpg standard -Hess CEO
Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:22pm EDT

LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. needs to levy high taxes on gasoline and to require tougher automobile fuel efficiency standards to conserve energy, the chief executive of one of the country's biggest oil companies said on Tuesday.

John Hess, CEO of Hess Corp which pumps almost 400,000 barrels of oil and gas a day, said the world would face a "devastating" supply crunch in five to 10 years if it did not limit energy demand and boost supply.

"We need to have the courage to demand 50 miles per gallon fuel economy as the national standard for all vehicles," Hess told the Oil and Money conference in London.

"The targets we've talked about by the U.S. are way short of what they need to be," he added...

... Hess also advocated higher taxes on gasoline.

"A gasoline tax of $1 per gallon would boost conservation and help bring down the federal deficit," he said...

It would also cause Americans (5% of the world's population), who believe they have some sort of inherent right to continue to gobble up 40% of the world's natural resources (including oil), to have a collective apoplexy. How DARE anyone suggest they only use their fair share?

It's "non-negotiable," they claim.

But in a way, they're right - it isn't negotiable. In fact, if we don't reduce our usage voluntarily, the rest of the world is not going to negotiate at all, they're just going to keep what's theirs and not give it to us, for one thing. And for the other, well, if they don't accept dollars for oil, it's not likely we have anything that they will accept. So, no, there won't be any negotiation. Either we drastically reduce our use of petroleum or demand destruction due to inadequate supply and outrageous market prices will do it for us.

That's the non-negotiable reality.

The calm before the storm?

Last year I found some graphs showing similarities in tracking of several economic indicators which showed a clear correlation between the current "Recession" and the lead-up to the Great Depression of the early 1930s.



Now there is some new data, but the news is not any better.

Yahoo Finance: Tech Ticker
1929 And Today - Sobering Parallels Abound
By Simon Maierhofer
On 1:14 pm EDT, Thursday October 15, 2009

...If there is just one time you want to take a lesson from history, it is RIGHT NOW. The parallels between today and the Great Depression are numerous and strikingly similar. This 5-minute history lesson might be the best investment you'll ever make.

Optimism preceded the 1929 and 2007 market tops

Even though a major storm was brewing, prior to the 2007 market top, Wall Street saw no 'cloud in the sky.' In its Global Economics Report, released in the summer of 2007, Merrill Lynch's analysts published the following outlook: 'The Merrill Lynch global economics team believes that the economy will continue to grow in 2007 - with no sign of a significant cyclical slowdown.'

From 2007 to 2009, the major indexes declined some 50%.

On December 4, 1928, President Coolidge sent the following message on the state of the Union to the reconvening Congress: No Congress of the United States ever assembled, on surveying the state of the Union, has met with a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present time. You may regard the present with satisfaction and anticipate the future with optimism.'

A few days before leaving office in 1929, the parting President cheerfully observed that the economy was absolutely sound and that stocks were cheap at current prices.

Following the 1929 highs, the Dow Jones (NYSEArca: DIA - News) declined 48%.

The market rallied 50% in 1929/1930 and today

Following the initial 48% decline in 1929, the Dow Jones rallied 48% within a period of six months. This rally was powerful and retraced 52% of the Dow points lost in the initial decline. Even though the market was far from its previous highs, investors had once again gotten excited about owning stocks and felt confident that the market would continue to move higher.

On March 25, 1930, just a few weeks before the waterfall decline resumed, the New York Times reported that 'Wall Street was in a cheerful frame of mind as a result of numerous vague reports of improvement in business and industry.'

Once the bear market resumed, it erased another 86% of the Dow's value.

Following the 54% 2007 - 2009 decline, the Dow Jones rallied 54%. So far, the Dow has retraced 45% of the points lost in the initial decline. The 50% mark, a Fibonacci retracement level, often exercises a magical pull and provides an upper target for bear market rallies (chart below includes data up to 8-15-09).



...Similar to the 'vague reports of improvements' reported in 1930, today's 'good news' reports are merely an adaption to lower expectations; many consider it the new normal. Just like in 1930, vague reports of improvements (in 2009 they've become known as 'green shoots') are enough to propel stocks. For savvy investors, the parallels between the two declines and subsequent rallies are certainly too close for comfort.

...If this sounds impossible, consider the following:

1) The Dow Jones measured in the only true currency - Gold (NYSEArca: GLD - News) has already declined over 80%. To reset valuations, the Dow measured in dollars will have to follow.

2) Japan's Nikkei has lost as much as 80% since its 1990 all-time high. This drop came amidst a global bull market. Imagine what a global bear market can do.

3) A look at current dividend yields and P/E ratios shows that U.S. stocks are grossly overvalued. The current P/E ratio of 141 (reported by Standard & Poor's) dwarfs even the P/E ratios seen during the dot.com bubble, where technology companies with no earnings traded at $100 a share and more.

The human tendency to shun overpriced stocks will take over once this emotional buying frenzy has run its course. That's how it's always been, that's how it will prove to be. Once that happens, the majority of investors will wish they'd listened to the subtle but clear advice presented by history...

Every realistic analysis concludes that the Fat Lady has not yet sung. This crisis is not over and isn't going to be soon. This stock market rally is based on nothing but moonbeams and fairy dust. These companies have not gained any intrinsic value. They are not more valuable and not more likely to make sales in 2010. In fact, they are less likely.

CNBC Online
Recession Will Be 'Full-Blown Depression': Strategist
Published: Friday, 16 Oct 2009 | 8:03 AM ET

This global recession will turn into a "full-blown depression," Nicu Harajchi, CEO of N1 Asset Management, said Friday, adding that global stimulus hasn't come down to Main Street.

Wall Street is making money, while consumers aren't, Harajchi told CNBC.

"We have seen the G20 coming out with cross border capital injections of $5 trillion this year… But a lot of this money hasn't really come down to Main Street," he said.

"When it comes down to corporate America, corporate Europe or even in Asia, in Japan, we are not seeing Main Street making any money," he said. "Consumers are losing their jobs. They are struggling with their mortgages, with their credit. And we are just seeing this continuing."

The $5 trillion injection is "monetary expansion," according to Harajchi. "At some point, which we believe to be 2010/11, some of the central banks are going to recall some of that money and that will turn from monetary expansion to monetary contraction."

He also said he doesn't see the corporates or the public "being able to pay back that debt."

"We see 2010 becoming a much more risky year than 2009," he said...

No amount of fantasy bookkeeping is going to keep the large corporations running when Main Street is flat broke. There simply isn't any real end in sight to unemployment, and without jobs, people simply don't have money to spend. It's a vicious cycle than has nowhere to go but down. The idea that bailing out fat cat CEOs somehow leads to ordinary people becoming employed and having economic security is delusional. Trickle down economics is a myth that needs to be shot dead.

New York Times Online
Safety Nets for the Rich
By BOB HERBERT Op-Ed
Published: October 19, 2009

...we still don’t seem to have learned the proper lessons. We’ve allowed so many people to fall into the terrible abyss of unemployment that no one — not the Obama administration, not the labor unions and most certainly no one in the Republican Party — has a clue about how to put them back to work...

...Even as tens of millions of working Americans are struggling to hang onto their jobs and keep a roof over their families’ heads, the wise guys of Wall Street are licking their fat-cat chops over yet another round of obscene multibillion-dollar bonuses — this time thanks to the bailout billions that were sent their way by Uncle Sam, with very little in the way of strings attached...

...We need to make some fundamental changes in the way we do things in this country. The gamblers and con artists of the financial sector, the very same clowns who did so much to bring the economy down in the first place, are howling self-righteously over the prospect of regulations aimed at curbing the worst aspects of their excessively risky behavior and preventing them from causing yet another economic meltdown.

We should be going even further. We’ve institutionalized the idea that there are firms that are too big to fail and, therefore, “we, the people” are obliged to see that they don’t — even if that means bankrupting the national treasury and undermining the living standards of ordinary people. What sense does that make?

If some company is too big to fail, then it’s too big to exist. Break it up.

...Enough! Goldman Sachs is thriving while the combined rates of unemployment and underemployment are creeping toward a mind-boggling 20 percent. Two-thirds of all the income gains from the years 2002 to 2007 — two-thirds! — went to the top 1 percent of Americans.

We cannot continue transferring the nation’s wealth to those at the apex of the economic pyramid — which is what we have been doing for the past three decades or so — while hoping that someday, maybe, the benefits of that transfer will trickle down in the form of steady employment and improved living standards for the many millions of families struggling to make it from day to day.

That money is never going to trickle down. It’s a fairy tale. We’re crazy to continue believing it.

Any government policy that is not aimed, directly or indirectly, at living wage full time employment for the masses is a waste of taxpayer resources. But government isn't doing that - so those "green shoots" are weeds, nothing more. We are on track for a disaster, because weeds will not feed your family - only cultivated crops do that.

Fabric of the Cosmos, Chapter 1.

As mentioned earlier this summer, for the fall semester we will be reading Brian Greene's book "Fabric of the Cosmos." Though I am certainly no expert on Kabbalah, in going through these chapters we will be searching for congruity (and discongruities) between quantum physics and scripture. These are deep cosmological issues about the nature of reality and how the space/time continuum is made and works. The basic question, though, is simply this: can Biblical faith co-exist with the findings of quantum physics?

As in the previous books studied on this blog, excerpts from each chapter will be discussed. The italicized material is Mr. Greene's text, the regular type is commentary.

Brian Greene
Fabric of the Cosmos
Chapter 1: Roads to Reality
Space, time, and why things are as they are.

"There is but one truly philosophical problem, and that is Suicide," the text began. The book was The Myth of Sisyphus and was written by...Albert Camus. You can ponder this or analyze that till the cows come home, but the real question is whether all your ponderings and analyses will convince you that life is worth living.

For many people, scientific issues just don't interest them. They either decide that it's not important to them, or they decide that science is a rival for religion and they don't want to complicate their lives by trying to decide which is "true," never asking themselves what they mean by "truth." Here Greene reminds us that science does not have all the answers of our everyday lives. There are realities that we perceive, and realities that we don't perceive. Scientifically, "reality" is only determined by what can be measured and quantified. That is, unfortunately, a limited view of what is "real." By reducing reality to only that which can be perceived by human physical senses, we more often than not will be mistaken about what is "real." Perception has limits, and quantum physics demonstrates this better, in fact, than any religion or philosophy can.

Surely reality is what we think it is, reality is what is revealed to us by our experiences. To one extent or another, this view of reality is one many of us hold, if only implicitly. [But] modern science tells a very different story. THE overarching lesson that has emerged from scientific inquiry over the last century is that human experience is often a misleading guide to the true nature of reality.

Modern science has spearheaded one assault after another on evidence gathered from our rudimentary perceptions, showing that they often yield a clouded conception of the world we inhabit.

Physical reality both sets the arena and provides the illumination for grappling with Camus' question.

Regrettably, that is true for a great many people - even people who profess a religious faith in God or a philosophical faith in humanity. And for a scary number of secular athiestic scientists who are now being appointed to positions of power in governments across the globe, it is the only arena for consideration.

Thus we have calls to increase abortions, because to them children have no value and are burdens on the environment and on an adolescent society that is not interested in having responsibilities or having to put the welfare of others above themselves. And on the other end of the scale, we now hear calls to limit healthcare for the elderly, because they have supposedly already contributed everything they have to give to society and are now a burden themselves.

Other examples abound, but you get the idea. The question of what comprises reality is not an abstract one - it is one that sets government and social policy, sets economic policy, and sets the stage for how human beings are treated by each other, by corporations, by government, and by other peoples. A view of reality driven solely by "Science" gave us Mao, Stalin, and Hitler - men who view other human beings as interchangeable parts, numbers on a spreadsheet, or only as resources to be used up and discarded when "better" resources, such as robotics, come along. It is a viewpoint devoid of ethical, moral or religious sentiment. It values nothing but what can be "scientifically" discerned.

Classical Reality

Early pioneers of modern scientific thought argued that, when looked at the right way, the happenings in the universe not only are explicable but predictable. The power of science to foretell aspects of the future - consistently and quantitatively - had been revealed.

The challenge was to hear the rhyme and reason behind the rhythm and regularity...Understanding requires context, insight must be anchored.

So one of the basic foundations of science is a premise that is seldom acknowledged by scientists themselves - that things are the same way they have always been, that things work the same way they have always worked, and measurements we have taken in our short modern computerized "scientific" era of history represent constants and are not just variable that happen to be particular to our own time and place. This is a presumption that cannot itself be demonstrated scientifically - it has to be taken on faith.

Relativistic Reality

[But] The classical conceptions of space, time and reality - the ones that for hundreds of years had not only worked but also concisely expressed our intuitive sense of the world - were overthrown. Newton's conception of space and time, the cornerstone of classical physics, was flawed. Space and time are not independent and absolute, as Newton had thought, but are enmeshed and relative in a manner that flies in the face of common experience. Space and time are part of a unified whole...[and] by warping and curving they participate in cosmic evolution. Far from being rigid, unchanging structures envisioned by Newton, space and time in Einstein's reworking are flexible and dynamic.

Einstein toppled Newton's conception of reality. Even though Newtonian physics seemed to capture mathematically much of what we experience physically, the reality it describes turns out not to be the reality of our world. Ours is a relativistic reality.

But utility and reality are very different standards.

This last means that what "works" for us in our everyday lives, using math and high school physics to work out everyday problems, should not be confused with the true, objective underlying reality of the universe. The two are entirely separate things.

Quantum Reality

A core feature of classical physics is that if you know the positions and velocities of all objects at a particular moment, Newton's equations, together with their Maxwellian updating, can tell you their positions and velocities at any other moment, past or future. Without equivocation, classical physics declares that the past and future are etched into the present. This feature is also shared by both special and general relativity.

By the 1930s, however, physicists were forced to introduce a whole new conceptual schema called quantum mechanics. Only quantum laws were capable of resolving a host of puzzles and explaining a variety of data newly acquired from the atomic and sub-atomic realm. But according to the quantum laws, even if you make the most perfect measurements possible of how things are today, the best you can ever hope to do is predicts the PROBABILITY that things will be one way or another at some chosen time in the past. The universe according to quantum mechanics is NOT etched into the present. The universe, according to quantum mechanics, participates in a game of chance.

This relates to the question of free will. Under Newtonian and even Einstein's teachings, the universe was a fixed place where everything happened in a calculable way. It was, to borrow a phrase, a very Calvinistic universe - and even some persons of various religious faiths still cling to Calvin's teaching that everything was set in stone at the creation of the universe and nothing is changeable. Those who were destined to be "saved" will be, and those who were not have no chance at all - it was all decided before they were ever born.

But quantum physics tells us that's nonsense. We have free will. Things may be probable, but they are not in concrete.

Probability is deeply woven into the fabric of quantum reality. Things sometimes hover in a haze of being partly one way and partly another. Things become definite oly when a suitable observation forces them to relinquish quantum possibilities and settle on a specific outcome. The outcome that's realized, though, cannot be predicted - we can predict only the odds that things will turn out one way or another.

[Another weird thing is that] quantum mechanics, if taken at face value, implies that something you do over here can be instantaneously lined to something happening over there, regardless of distance.

Here we get into a fascinating arena that is covered more in depth in the following chapters (as are the rest of these issues - this chapter is primarily an introduction). Quantum physics here verifies what kabbalah and some eastern philosophies have known all along - that what we choose to do DOES affect others and the the physical world in ways we cannot perceive or measure. We are not islands, we are part of a much bigger whole and what we do MATTERS.

Researchers confirmed that there CAN be an instantaneous bond between what happens at widely separated location. Normally [as we perceive it], spatial separation implies physical independence. Quantum physics challenges this view by revealing, at least in certain circumstances, a capacity to transcend space. Long range quantum connections can bypass spatial separation. Two objects can be far apart in space, but as far as quantum mechanics is concerned, it's as if they are a single entity.

Which means, for example, that you and your spouse really are "one." When you enter that bond, it is reflected at the very atomic level of your being. Cheating on your spouse, viewing porn, or other indiscretions aren't just a problem if you get caught - they cause fundamental problems at the very deepest levels, and those disruptions manifest in various way at the level of everyday life and can affect not just your present circumstances but can bleed over into your future as well.

Moreover, because of the tight link between space and time found by Einstein, the quantum connections also have temporal tentacles.

Cosmological Reality

The reality we experience is but a glimmer of the reality that is. We take for granted that there is a direction to the way things unfold in time. These asymmetries govern our lives - the distinction between forward and backward in time is a prevailing element of experiential reality.

But where does time's asymmetry come from? What is responsibel for this most basic of all time's properties?

It turns out that the known and accepted laws of physics show no such asymmetry. Each direction in time, forward and backward, is treated by the laws without distinction. And that's the origin of a huge puzzle. Nothing in the equations of fundamental physics shows any sign of treating one direction in time differently from the other, and that is totally at odds with everything we experience.

God lives in a nexus of "now," where past, present, and future exist simultaneously. God can view any or all, God can interact with any or all. Time is not linear - even the Hebrew calendar shows that time is cyclical. To our perception, it should more rightly be viewed as a spiral than as a straight line, and kabbalah has known this long before science figured it out. Since God exists outside of space/time as we know it, the rules of what we perceive simply don't apply to God's reality or to the conditions outside of the space/time continuum of creation.

Special physical conditions at the universe's inception may have imprinted a direction on time, rather as winding up a clock, twisting its spring into a highly ordered initial state, [and] allows it to tick forward. But [this] does not fully solve the mystery of time's arrow. Instead, it shifts the puzzle to the realm of cosmology - the study of the origin and evolution of the entire cosmos - and compels us to find out whether the universe actually had the highly ordered beginning that this explanation of time's arrow requires.

Religion, of course, insists that creation was in fact an orderly and planned event, not random or haphazard at all. Many other philosophies share this view - one that science has sought to refute in the past but now must embrace to assure its own validity. Science's view of the inception of the Universe has therefore changed over the years, too.

Inflationary cosmology modifies the big bang theory by inserting an extremely brief burst of astoundingly rapid expansion during the universe's earliest moments. This stupendous growth of the young universe goes a long way toward filling in the gaps left by the big bang model - of explaining the shape of space and the uniformity of the microwave radiation, and also of suggesting why the early universe might have been highly ordered - thus providing significant progress toward explaining both astronomical observations and the arrow of time we all experience.

And because space and time are inexorably bound together, we must realize that "accelerated" describes a relationship between speed and time. As you may recall from high school physics, velocity is a measurement not just of distance, but also time. As the universe's expansion of space was going extremely rapidly compared to now, time was also expanding more rapidly than we now perceive. Time itself, if you will, was in "fast forward," just as the universe's expansion into space was in "fast forward."

Yet despite these mounting successes, for two decades inflationary cosmology has been harboring its own embarrassing secret. Like the standard big bang theory it modified, inflationary cosmology rests on the equations Einstein discovered with his general theory of relativity.

Physicists h ave long known that an accurate theoretical analysis of small objects - such as the observable universe when it was a mere fraction of a second old - requires the use of quantum mechanics. The problem, though, is that when the equations of general relativity comingle with those of quantum mechanics, the result is disastrous. The equations break down entirely, and this prevents us from determining how the universe was born and whether at its birth it realized the conditions necessary to explain time's arrow.

It's not an overstatement to describe the situation as a theoretician's nightmare: the absence of mathematical tools with which to analyze a vital realm that lies beyond experimental accessibility. Understanding space and time fully requires us to find equations that can cope with the extreme conditions of huge density, energy, and temperature characteristic of the universe's earliest moments. This is an absolutely essential goal, and one that many physicists believe requires developing a so-called unified theory

To put that into plain English, we right now do not have the math or the tools necessary to investigate the first few moments of creation. We cannot show that "things are as they have always been." We cannot say what did or did happen in those moments, or how they came to be caused, because we lack the science to do so.

Unified Reality

Over the past few centuries, physicists have sought to consolidate our understanding of the natural world by showing that diverse and apparently distinct phenomena are actually governed by a single set of physical laws.

Physicists found that the central obstacle to realizing a unified theory was the fundamental conflict between the two major breakthroughs of the 20th century physics: general relativity and quantum mechanics. Although these two frameworks are typically applied in vastly different realms - general relativity to big things like stars and galaxies, quantum mechanics to small things like molecules and atoms - each theory claims to be universal, to work in all realms.

However, as mentioned above, whenever the theories are used in conjunction, their combined equations produce nonsensical answers. For instance, when quantum mechanics is used with general relativity to calculate the probability of some process or other involving gravity will take place...out of the combined mathematics pops and infinite probability. That doesn't mean a probability so high that you should put all your money on it because it's a shoo-in. Probabilities bigger than 100% are meaningless. Calculations that produce and infinite probability simply show that the combined equations of general relativity and quantum physics have gone haywire.

A very few realms - extreme physical situation that are both massive and tiny - fall squarely into the demilitarized zone, requiring that general relativity and quantum mechanics simultaneously be brought to bear. The center of a black hole...and the big bang...provide the two most familiar examples. Without a successful union between general relativity and quantum mechanics, the end of collapsing stars and the origin of the universe would remain forever mysterious.

A conflict in the known laws of physics means a failure to grasp a deep truth and that was enough to keep scientists from resting easy.

The approach that many agree is a leading contender is superstring theory.

Superstring theory starts off by proposing a new answer to an old question: what are the smallest, indivisible constituents of matter? For many decades, the conventional answer has been that matter is composed of particles. Superstring theory tells a different story. It does not deny the key role played by electrons, quarks, and other particle species revealed by experiment, but it does claim that these particles are not dots. Instead...every particle is comprised of a tiny filament of energy, some hundred billion billion times smaller than a single atomic nucleus (much smaller than we can currently probe), which is shaped like a little string. And just as a violin string can vibrate in different patterns, each of which produces a different musical tone, the filaments of superstring theory can also vibrate in different patterns.

But these vibrations don't produce different musical notes. Remarkably, the theory claims that they produce different particle properties. A tiny string vibrating in one pattern would have the mass and the electric charge of an electron. According to the theory, such a vibrating string would BE what we have traditionally called an electron. All species of particles are unified in superstring theory since each arises from a different vibrational pattern executed by the same underlying entity.

Or, as Einstein explained it more simply: E=MC squared. Mass (matter) and Energy (in this case, vibrations) are the SAME thing. You don't "have" a soul. You ARE a soul. It's not something separate from your physical body - it IS your physical body as it is currently configured. You cannot separate your spiritual self from your physical self. Anything you do with your body IS a reflection of your spirit, indeed, it IS your spirit doing it. So we may not understand all the reasoning behind Biblical laws of purity of our body, such as not eating certain things called "unclean" and not being ritually defiled by various actions considered "unclean," but quantum physics shows that what we do MATTERS at levels even deeper than atoms. It matters at the very essence of ourselves.

Superstring theory combines general relativity and quantum physics into a single, consistent theory, banishing the perniciously infinite probabilities afflicting previously attempted unions. And as if that weren't enough, superstring theory has revealed the breadth necessary to stitch all of nature's forces and all of matter into the same theoretical tapestry.

[But] superstring theory's proposed fusion of general relativity and quantum mechanics is mathematically sensible only if we subject our conception of spacetime to yet another upheaval. Instead of the three spacial dimensions and one time dimension of common experience, superstring theory requires nine spacial dimensions and one time dimension. And, in a more robust incarnation of superstring theory known as M-theory, unification requires ten space dimensions and one time dimension - a cosmic substrate composed of a total of eleven spacetime dimensions. As we don't see these extra dimensions, superstring theory is telling us that we've so far glimpsed but a meager slice of reality.

The confusion between whether there are 10 or 11 dimensions is reflected in the kabbalastic confusion between whether there are 10 or 11 sephirot, or aspects of creation. The elusive 11th sephirot, called "Da'at," knowledge, is represented as being (or not being) at the position of the human head in the usual illustrations of the kabbalistic "tree of life." The problem with Da'at is that in order to be a true sephirot, all knowledge would have to come from God. But that's not our everyday experience. We can receive knowledge that is absolutely objectively true from God's perspective, or we can receive subjectively true knowledge from other sources, or we can receive deceptive untrue knowledge from other sources. In kabbalistic thinking, Da'at is only a real sephirot when knowledge comes from God, and since that is not our normal everyday experience, they usually consider only 10 sephirot to be manifested. The M-theory of quantum physics, which seeks to describe the ultimate reality of the universe, presumes knowledge is inherently true and therefore reflects an 11-dimensional universe.

The room provided by large extra space dimensions might allow for something even more remarkable: other, nearby worlds - not nearby in ordinary space, but nearby in the extra dimensions - of which we've so far been completely unaware.

Well, science has been unaware of them. We can't say the same for various religions and philosophies, who've known about them for millennia.

If superstring theory is proven correct, we will be forced to accept that the reality we have known is but a delicate chiffon draped over a thick and richly textured cosmic fabric. Camus' declaration notwithstanding, determining the number of space dimentions, and in particular finding there aren't just three - would provide far more than a scientifically interesting but ultimately inconsequential detail. The discovery of extra dimensions would show that the entirety of human experience had left us completely unaware of a basic and essential aspect of the universe.

And that basic and essential aspect could very well be God.

Hobnobbing with TPTB.

Last night we attended a lecture at the University, and a reception following, featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.


[Ehud Olmert (right) with Kentucky Governor Steve Brashear (left) at the Reception, which was held at the UK Art Museum adjacent to the Singletary Center for the Arts, where the lecture was given.]

There were hecklers, of course - people not actually interested in hearing what he had to say. Security removed most of them promptly.

The local Islamic organization arranged a big protest, and apparently supported the hecklers, too. This makes no sense to me at all, because Olmert's position, indeed his entire speech, was to make the point that he intended to give those former citizens of Egypt, Syria and Jordan now calling themselves "Palestinians" just about everything they wanted.

His proposal was to give them all of the West Bank back to the 1967 lines, except four towns which would be now be included in Israel, which would be swapped for four towns that were part of Israel in 1967 but would now be part of "Palestine." This 6.3% land swap would not affect their industrial, economic, or agricultural capabilities. Their borders would be entirely contiguous. They would have a corridor of highway that would be their own safe passage to Gaza, so that Gaza would not be cut off from the West Bank. And Israel would agree to build desalination plants for them for extra water.

Jerusalem would be divided, and the Temple mount handed over to an international authority - and no new Temple, obviously. A limited number of "Palestinians" would even be allowed to remain on the Israel side of the new border for a least 5 years, to alleviate hardship cases.

And they rejected their own sovereign state on these terms - why? They heckled the guy offering it to them - why? They acted as if this was a terrible plan - why?

They acted as if any other nation in the world would have acted differently concerning the unremitting kassam rocket attacks. But as Olmert pointed out in his speech, and I have written here before, if Mexico lobbed rockets into Texas or Arizona or New Mexico, we would have blasted them into next week, not sat around wringing our hands. If France decided to lob rockets at Britain, would they sit there and do nothing? No, they would bomb France until the French waived the white flag. And if any neighboring county had lobbed rockets into Saudi Arabia, do you think the King would whine about it to the UN? No, he's blow them back to the pre-stone age. Every intelligent person understands this, which only leaves one explanation for why the "Palestinians" don't.

Because their goal is not, and never was, to have their own sovereign state. If it was, they would have spent some of the international funds they received to build the infrastructure necessary for a sovereign nation - but they aren't doing that. They've never done that. They money they got from the international community for nation-building went into numbered Swiss bank accounts and bought more rockets.

This proves, also, that their goal is, and always has been, to kill every single Jew and purge the land of Israel of all Israelis. They are not interested in "peace."

This should be pretty obvious to even the most dense observer, and yet somehow people cling to the false belief that if we just offer them the "right" package, all will be well and peace will break out with rainbows and flowers any minute now.

Bologna. (to put it mildly)

Next he spoke about Iran, and how the world cannot sit around twiddling their thumbs while Iran speeds toward acquiring the Bomb. Not exactly a novel position, there.

After the lecture, he took some questions from the audience, and a few more hecklers. He was courteous, humorous, and respectful in his answers.

At the reception, I was able to talk with Olmert for a brief time (in all fairness, he did try and speak to everyone, so don't think I'm special or something in that regard). Unlike everybody else, I didn't ask him some question about peace. Instead, I asked him a question about education, since that is a topic I follow and am personally interested in. Olmert used to be the Education Minister (this was prior to being Prime Minister) and had done a great deal to modernize and upgrade Israeli schools and implement academic standards during his term. He had mentioned during his lecture the recent Nobel Prize in Chemistry won by an Israeli. So I asked him how Israel could continue to have such winners, and continue to be at the leading edge of innovation and science when a large and growing percentage of schoolchildren are Chereidi and the Chereidi schools ignore the standards he worked so hard to implement?


[Picture of the back of my head as I talk to Olmert. Yes, I am that short.]

His reply: *shrug* Then he said, basically, that it's not his problem anymore.

Oh, well. It didn't hurt to ask. To me, at least, the two issues are related. You certainly can't have peace if you have a bunch of fanatical ignoramuses in charge of everything, whether they have a two state solution or not.

But I guess that's a problem for another day.

You don't have to live in a third world country to be a defacto slave - you can also work at Walmart.

Those of us who take Torah seriously, and who understand the reasons why First World nations passed laws protecting workers from various abuses, know that the moral and ethical way to do business is to compensate employees fairly and keep them reasonably safe while they work. But corporations would like nothing more than to rid themselves of what they consider to be annoying and intrusive restrictions on how they treat their employees and the communities in which they are located. While manufacturers have simply packed up and moved to backwaters where defacto slavery doesn't bother anyone's conscience (apparently, since we keep buying their junk), retailers still supposedly have to deal with fair wages and other laws regarding reasonable treatment of their employees.

Unless they decide to ignore the laws. Employers such as Rubashkin had no qualms about moving to a rural area and exploiting children, illegal aliens, and the locals because they thought the people were so desperate for jobs that they would put up with it - and for the most part, they were. But the same types of things can happen in urban areas, too. And wally-wort is one of the worst offenders.

Fat cat CEOs don't have any scruples. Their goal is to stuff their wallets while relieving you of yours. If they can get away with exploiting First World workers, they will certainly do so.

Center for Research on Globalization
Sweatshop Conditions in US Cities
by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, October 9, 2009

...on Wal-Mart

With over $400 billion in sales and about 2.1 million employees, the company ranks third globally in the 2009 Fortune 500 rankings behind Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil.

In 2008, Wal-Mart's average full-time Associate, its most common position, earned $10.84 an hour (for a 34-hour week) or an annual income of $19,165, $2,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of four. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2, 2008), the average full-time Wal-Mart Associate last year earned 16% less than the average retail wage. At the same time, its CEO Lee Scott (January 2000 - January 2009) earned $29.7 million in total compensation.

On December 23, 2008, the company announced that it settled 63 wage and hour class action lawsuits, representing about 86% of the 73 total pending. Through evidence obtained and employee testimonies, these cases revealed company ruthlessness in keeping labor costs down and unions out.

Legal documents showed that managers are rewarded for forcing employees to work off-the-clock, skip meal and rest breaks, then manipulate time and wage records to cut costs. They also overwork minors and keep them during school hours. An internal July 2000 company audit revealed that these violations were longstanding. Company executives engaged in illegal activity and hid the evidence to avoid liability.

Under terms of the settlement, Wal-Mart agreed pay at least $352 million and perhaps as much as $640 million to present and former employees. According to Professor Paul Secunda of Marquette's School of Law, the company settled to avoid an even worse defeat, including what unionization might cost.

On October 23, 2003 in a 21-state raid, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested more than 250 undocumented workers at 61 Wal-Mart stores. As cleaning crews and janitors, they were forced to work seven days a week under harsh conditions at below minimum wage rates, no overtime, and according to one employee "no benefits, no health insurance, no nothing."

The thing is, what they're paying in fines is still less than what they're "saving" by exploiting their employees. Of course, all that $29.7 million dollars that could have been paid to workers from just that one man's compensation package would have enabled those employees to have reasonable wages, which would in turn allow them to have money to spend and support the economy. Imagine what wages they could have if ALL the upper management of wally-wort were only paid a mere one million a year - more than enough for a comfortable lifestyle. But no, greed rules their day. Let the employees eat cake - the executives of wally-wort need to stuff their swiss bank accounts some more.

Still shopping there, class? I certainly hope not.