Not My Very Favorite Day

Photography is about capturing light. This afternoon, I tried to capture wind. Because that is all there was today.

Not liking the way things are working out. Is it any wonder that our grown grandchildren still dress up as comic book characters? (Nevermind that Carlton was madly in lust with with Wonder Woman. Too bad he died before I discovered Wonder Woman undies in my size!)

Space.com had an article about parallel universes a couple of months ago. See: Parallel Universe Theories. This morning, I was ready to try out another universe RIGHT NOW.

My son-in-law, suggested maybe this is all a simulation. And, referred me to this year’s graduation address at MIT by Matt Damon. You can watch it yourself.

“….I’ll tell you one that’s been on my mind: Simulation Theory.

Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe you took a class with Max Tegmark.

Well, for the uninitiated, there’s a philosopher named Nick Bostrom at Oxford, and he’s postulated that if there’s a truly advanced form of intelligence out there in the universe, then it’s probably advanced enough to run simulations of entire worlds — maybe trillions of them — maybe even our own.

The basic idea, as I understand it, is that we could be living in a massive simulation run by a far smarter civilization, a giant computer game, and we don’t even know it.

And here’s the thing: a lot of physicists, cosmologists, won’t rule it out. I watched a discussion that was moderated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, of the Hayden Planetarium, and by and large, the panel couldn’t give a definitive answer. Tyson himself put the odds at 50-50.

I’m not sure how scientific that is, but it had numbers in it, so I was impressed.

Well, it got me to thinking: What if this—all of this—is a simulation? I mean, it’s a crazy idea, but what if it is?

And if there are multiple simulations, how come we’re in the one where Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee?

Can we, like, transfer to a different one?

Professor Tegmark has an excellent take on all this. “My advice,” he said recently, “is to go out and do really interesting things… so the simulators don’t shut you down.”

But then again: what if it isn’t a simulation? Well, either way, my answer is the same…”

So, I went outside to took pictures of wind.

Hope that amused the superior beings enough to keep me in the game for another few rounds.