SPECULATIONS OF A LAYMAN ABOUT THE UNIVERSE

Speculations of a layman about the Universe.

Trying to understand the Universe, Steven Hawking came up with one elegant equation representing all the branches of physics that may affect a Black Hole, showing a deep underlying unity in nature. Would we be able to reconstruct our souls one day? Is all that information destroyed forever? Or is it transformed and saved in Universes without Black Holes?

In an amazing world that we can barely comprehend, are we wasting our time trying to understand the Universe, its nature, its interactions and inner workings? Does cause and effect gets unrelated if information is supposedly destroyed in a Black Hole? This was a debate that lasted for 30 years or more. One of the most controversial theories in science so far: “The information Paradox or the Hawkins Paradox” which is a battle that begins at the birth of the Universe and touch deep inside the atom, into its particles, quanta and strings. Perhaps a unifying theory of everything, the very big and the very small. Steven Hawkins said that understanding in a sense, means that you are in control, or I would argue, it will give you the sense or the illusion of control. Hawkins started part of his fame, from trying to understand the relationship between the infinite small point of infinite gravity and infinite density in the Big Bang, and a Black Hole that begins with a momentum event: the dead of a star when it collapses in itself. Where a star has been, gravity becomes powerful and sucks in even light and radiation. At its center, gravity is so high that transform time and space, physics brake down, all matter collapsing into an infinitely small and dense single point, mimicking the singularity or the beginning of the Big Bang, and taking us closer to its understanding. At a Black Hole, space and time comes to an end and matter is crushed out of existence, taking us back to how time began in the Big Bang. Once matter cross the Event Horizon, it can never return. Hawking imagined and wanted, a complete mathematical description of a Black Hole, using different types of physics, some of which were incompatible and never been used together, picturing interactions between different forces of nature, including gravity and the quantum world of subatomic particles.

One of the fundamental principles of physics is that everything is made up of particles, and that the information encoded in these particles can never be lost. Are we not made of particles, our bodies, our brains, our minds? No brain, no mind, no consciousness, no “soul” right? No invisible force that appears to animate us”? In the 1960s, Nobel laureate Roger Sperry showed that the mind and our consciousness are divisible, therefore disproving that aspect of Descartes’s theory; but that is another conversation. However, is long been one of the most deeply held believes, that the information encoded in all particles, can never be lost. The consensus is that information never disappears, it can be scrambled, modified etc. It is a very basic principle of physics that information is never destroyed. According the laws of quantum physics, whatever you do to an object, you can always retrieve the information in the particles that make it up. So, if you collect the all the information about an object, you can reconstruct it from scratch. And this was the fundamental principle that Hawking challenged. So, is information and matter in the Universe lost when it enters a Black Hole? If that is so, it also must be happening in all kind of contexts, having the most dramatic effects in the ordinary world. If the Information Paradox is right, then parts of the Universe must be missing. Predictability does not work, and cause and affect are decoupled. Science nor our memories could be trusted, information will disappear, the Universe will be chaotic and nothing preserve over time, no correspondence between past and future. If is not right, are we all still around even after our deaths, dispersed, in other forms?

Since 1972 scientists were able to observe Back Holes. More that 100-thousand-miliions at this point, supermassive and maybe tiny Black Holes all across the Universe, including the ones we don’t see. If the Paradox Information theory were thru, all of these Black Holes were machines eating up information.  Leonard Susskind started talking about a contradiction that occurs at the Event Horizon in Black Holes. About of what would happen to any person, following into a Black Hole at the edge of the Event Horizon; as it falls in, it will be converted into electrons, protons, neutrons, just completely destroyed in its present form. From the perspective of the person falling in, nothing will be happening. This same equation for both perspectives, is saying that someone falling into a Black Hole will feel different experiences. Is also saying that this person could be both dead and alive. Leonard Susskind says that both stories or perspectives are true. So, the information of everything falling in, remained stretched at the edge of the Black Hole, and that means that information is not destroyed and is theoretically, possible to be retrieved. This is how the Information Paradox was supposedly solved and confirmed 10 years later in a paper by Susskind. Cause and effect are still related after all, our memories are safe. Or is all information destroyed in Black Holes and  across nature, and being kept in other Universes without Black Holes as per Hawking affirmed?

SENSACIONES ATEMPORALES DEL TRAYECTO

Inconcluso poema sin respuestas…

Si es poema, si son preguntas…

A un horizonte de sucesos desde el sueño del poeta

A la información indestructible y la vez perdida

Chopin - Preludio No 4 in E minor, Op. 28

Sensaciones atemporales del trayecto,

arrugado torrente de un abrumador lienzo.

Palabra por palabra, mensajes inconclusos.

Significado fugaz, etéreo, cautivo, insuficiente, inacabado.

Venus abandonando perezosamente el noroeste cielo,

transportando su existencia fuera de la mía

en su rápido viaje cotidiano

desde un ilusorio pasado,

hacia un incierto y perpetuo futuro,

sin tocar el obvio, momentáneo,

persistente, huidizo y eterno presente.

En transitoria, dudosa y necesaria puntuación,

en la libre pausa y licencia de la noche,

del momento que nunca existió.

Repetición infinita del tiempo en su propio ritmo,

del lenguaje que se escapa,

del estrecho túnel que nos separó de todo,

de la dualidad no mesurable y su breve coexistencia,

de su observable incertidumbre,

de su grandiosa insignificancia,

de la lejana luz que regresa a nuestro ilusorio centro

en contradictoria expansión

sin causalidad, sentido o dirección.

Paradójica masa concentrada, breve pasajera

de Información fugaz, perene, indestructible

de lo que nunca hemos de saber.

Aplastados por la inmensidad de lo fortuito,

único, forzoso y necesario,

de lo que no ocurrió ni ha de ocurrir

bajo el peso del ordenado caos que nos define.

Comienzo no ansiado,

desenlace que nunca termina,

temido y categórico final sin inicio,

las mismas palabras con infinito significado.

Preludios, interludios y una escala que nunca satisface su suerte

                                                                                 o repara su eco.

En la misma siempre intensa y penetrantemente salvadora

ambivalencia del significado de la tarde.

En el interminable, infinito e incompleto pasaje

que nos deja en la soledad de su asombro, umbra y murmullo,

de cara a lo perene, hermético y desconocido.

¿A dónde van los que ya no están?

¿Dónde existen los que aquí se quedan?

¿Qué lugar y significado tenemos en el espacio que ocupamos?

¿Dónde está la bestia en nosotros?

¿Dónde están los Ángeles?

¿Cómo proteger la ilusión necesaria de la búsqueda que se desvanece?

¿Por qué la insistencia de un destino atrapado en su única conclusión?

Obsesivos sin apertura ni solución, arduos en la insistencia.

Atrapados y sorprendidos en la misma burbuja.

¿Qué importancia tiene todo, si todo nos ignora?

¿Quién nos marcó con el atrevimiento del significado?

¿Dónde queda lo inconcluso,

sí partir no es una partida, si no es un pasado?

¿Quién nos aplasta con esas limitaciones?

¿Qué nos desvía de un verdadero examen?

¿Si somos parte de Él, por qué no colmados y desbordados por Él?

¿Por qué no todo-presentes, todo-videntes, todo-conscientes?

¿Por qué no nos responde si somos Uno?

¿Por qué no escuchamos?

¿Por qué las estrellas no nos miran con nuestros mismos ojos?

¿Por qué no sabemos qué polvo acariciamos al concebir?

 ¿Cuántas cosas quedan por decir?

¿Por descubrir, crear, idolatrar?

¿Qué ciega fe profetizar, hado adivinar o vivir?

¿Qué probable designio apostar?

¿Qué sueño imaginar?

¿A qué interminablemente incompleta pregunta o poema queda por recurrir?

¿Qué misterio por desatar?

¿Qué ciencia, religión, filosofía, realidad por revelar?

¿Qué perpetuo círculo, movimiento o péndulo por recorrer?

¿Perdonar, sorprender, sentir, procesar, interpretar y transmitir?

¿Cuántos preludios por oír?

antes y después de que se me olvide el mundo

de nuestra temporaria, constante y total transmutación.

La Canción De Las Esferas

La Canción de las Esferas, libro de poemas de Andres Reynaldo premiado en el concurso literario “Letras de Oro” “Descarga” de ciudades que han perdido su vínculo. Su paralelismo con “The Speakers Corner” in Hyde Park, ha desaparecido. Quien nos iba a decir que nosotros seriamos esas “obscuras golondrinas” que nunca habríamos de volver, detenidos en un futuro sin pasado y de eterno presente. Ahora el horizonte es mas ancho y ajeno, en este viaje desde una ciudad hundida en la catástrofe del experimento socialista, otrora lumbrera única. Ahora alimento y víctima del tiempo, de feroces y destructivos vándalos con máscaras de compasión; pero justificando la crueldad, el saqueo y botín permitido usando una injusticia para pagar con otra.

Abajo, citas y fragmentos del libro:

Retrato del artista envejeciente (fragmento)

En abril lo obsesionan las rosas

y el paso de una sombra ante su lampara.

Así está el lobo en su caverna.

Roto el cántaro se le olvido la fuente.

Al amanecer comprueba si Venus resiste sobre el mar.

Cuentas Claras (fragmento)

¿De cuál juguete ya nunca te rehaces?

Mejor será que te borres de ese mapa

y embarques (¿Quién sabe lo que olvidarás?)

en el próximo vuelo hacia Manhattan.

Cristal con estrellita (fragmentos)

La niebla otorga a los colores

develadas y rígidas densidades.

Casi todo está en su sitio.

Los pronósticos invitan al brandy.

(La libertad comienza por el paladar)

…Cada uno es digno de sus renuncias.

Mi mejor amigo recién cumplido de la cárcel,

caminará por Obispo hacia el puerto

(hálito de rotundos aceites)

y se detendrá en la puerta de mi casa

con un cigarro de leales memorias.

…¿Volverán las obscuras golondrinas?

…De lo que falta se vive o se naufraga.

Piso 38 apartamento 8 (fragmento)

…!Cantad! ¡Cantad, muchachos

Las fabulas de este mundo a menudo son ciertas.

Cripcia (fragmento)

Sobrevivir es el oficio de los desterrados

De lo prohibido me toca la vigilia.

Preferible pedir limosna que permiso,

sollozar en los inodoros de un burdel

que aplaudir en las tribunas del honor.

Bienaventurados los que no se dejan salvar,

los que desconfían de causas y partidos…

Diciembre del huérfano (fragmento)

Todo sucede anteayer.

Detrás de los cristales bordados de escarcha,

Lentamente el barrio se hizo a oscuras.

Jugábamos a los soldados

frente al muro de la Cabaña

y del otro lado los soldados

mataron al padre de Jorgito.

Cerraron la heladería de los chinos.

Convirtieron en <<Zona Militar>> La Loma del Cristo.

Prohibieron los papalotes.

Derroté a mi único enemigo.

Descubrí la lealtad con Reynaldo Bragado.

Clowns (fragmento)

¿provocan compasión? Nunca.

Menos en Manhattan, al borde de todas las navajas.

De la importancia del arte (fragmentos)

A mi padre taciturno en el portal de sus Domingos,

A Reynaldo Bragado, en las horas que apostaba

                                    (contra las corrientes del Caribe)

A Milagros Garcia, desnuda en el alba de Bacuranao

A Catherine Deneuve, en una escena de Los Paraguas de Chesburgo.

A Ludwig van Beethoven, que organizo las galaxias,

Al rumor de un pubis en solsticio.

Al general Douglas Mc Arthur, que quiso salvarnos de la Bestia.

A Jorge Luis Borges, que en su poema Otros Dones

determinó la inflexión que para estos versos he tomado…

A Lech Walesa, que burló las estadísticas del imperio soviético.

Al adolescente que las Tropas Especiales del [Ministerio del Interior]

acuchillaron en las letrinas del Mosquito, Mariel.

A la ballena blanca y al unicornio dorado.

A Sigmund Freud, por dar al sexo lo que es del sexo.

Al tigre de Tracy que es el amor.

Al niño que estaba en una leve colina de Flandes.

A Kafka, a Chagall, a Marguerite Yourcenar.

A Cristo.

Con trazos que anticipen la carne

y desborden remotos matices,

oh Franz Hals: ¡retrátalos!

A vuelta de correo (fragmentos)

Cada uno, pese al prójimo,

reclama su propio meridiano.

Ya no vives en la ciudad que yo recuerdo.

La luna en la bahía. Tu olor en el viento.

Una leyenda que asombraría los siglos

se desdeña en el fondo de las gavetas.

La vida imita a las peores canciones.

Descarga de esquina (fragmento)

Gaviotas a babor y estribor

demuestran que el horizonte

dependerá del rumbo, el equipaje

y el valor de no mirar atrás.

¡Gloria a los que dominan su instrumento

porque improvisar es recurso de mediocres!

Manhattan A.M. (fragmento)

Las cerraduras retienen el invierno y la noche.

Insomne, desgajado de ti, presiento abominables visitas.

Fabula para ancianos (fragmento)

Curar cualquier demencia, gobernar a un país,

morir con elegancia, saciar a un enemigo,

escuchar aun en sueños la voz de la madre.

En una centuria se apaga una estrella,

se cumplen dos vidas, se agota un idioma.

La superstición es el final recurso de los cínicos

y anoche en el hotel, depuré mis escasas ilusiones.

Cuestión de estilo (fragmento)

Anduve los prohibidos caminos.

En unos recordé, pobre y deprisa, la vieja canción.

En todos una piedra, una fuente, un fruto ácido.

Solo cambian olores y aeropuertos.

New York fragante a pan, siempre a punto.

Paris, una larga ráfaga de Chanel

en las escaleras del metro, a mediodía.

Las fabulas de mi padre se cumplieron.

El unicornio agoniza en los tapices.

El águila también teme en su montaña.

Yo recomiendo América para cualquier suerte

Y forzar la consistencia de un cuerpo en el espejo.

Quien pasa estos exámenes no regresa.

Ni Dios ni Satanás consienten la falta de estilo.

Es más difícil elegir que citar y me detengo; porque de poesía y ciencia hablaría hasta siempre con mi último aliento. Solo quería hacer el esfuerzo de escribir las notas que este libro merece; pero el mejor remedio es leerlo y leerlo otra vez.

Ricardo Lopez Llopiz

6/7/2020

The Myth of Systemic Police Racism

Hold officers accountable who use excessive force. But there’s no evidence of widespread racial bias.

By Heather Mac Donald

June 2, 2020 1:44 pm ET

George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis has revived the Obama-era narrative that law enforcement is endemically racist. On Friday, Barack Obama tweeted that for millions of black Americans, being treated differently by the criminal justice system on account of race is “tragically, painfully, maddeningly ‘normal.’ ” Mr. Obama called on the police and the public to create a “new normal,” in which bigotry no longer “infects our institutions and our hearts.”

Joe Biden released a video the same day in which he asserted that all African-Americans fear for their safety from “bad police” and black children must be instructed to tolerate police abuse just so they can “make it home.” That echoed a claim Mr. Obama made after the ambush murder of five Dallas officers in July 2016. During their memorial service, the president said African-American parents were right to fear that their children may be killed by police officers whenever they go outside.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz denounced the “stain . . . of fundamental, institutional racism” on law enforcement during a Friday press conference. He claimed blacks were right to dismiss promises of police reform as empty verbiage.

This charge of systemic police bias was wrong during the Obama years and remains so today. However, sickening the video of Floyd’s arrest, it isn’t representative of the 375 million annual contacts that police officers have with civilians. A solid body of evidence finds no structural bias in the criminal-justice system with regard to arrests, prosecution or sentencing. Crime and suspect behavior, not race, determine most police actions.

In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.

The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015. The Post defines “unarmed” broadly to include such cases as a suspect in Newark, N.J., who had a loaded handgun in his car during a police chase. In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.

On Memorial Day weekend in Chicago alone, 10 African-Americans were killed in drive-by shootings. Such routine violence has continued—a 72-year-old Chicago man shot in the face on May 29 by a gunman who fired about a dozen shots into a residence; two 19-year-old women on the South Side shot to death as they sat in a parked car a few hours earlier; a 16-year-old boy fatally stabbed with his own knife that same day. This past weekend, 80 Chicagoans were shot in drive-by shootings, 21 fatally, the victims overwhelmingly black. Police shootings are not the reason that blacks die of homicide at eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined; criminal violence is.

The latest in a series of studies undercutting the claim of systemic police bias was published in August 2019 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers found that the more frequently officers encounter violent suspects from any given racial group, the greater the chance that a member of that group will be fatally shot by a police officer. There is “no significant evidence of antiblack disparity in the likelihood of being fatally shot by police,” they concluded.

A 2015 Justice Department analysis of the Philadelphia Police Department found that white police officers were less likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed black suspects. Research by Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. also found no evidence of racial discrimination in shootings. Any evidence to the contrary fails to take into account crime rates and civilian behavior before and during interactions with police.

The false narrative of systemic police bias resulted in targeted killings of officers during the Obama presidency. The pattern may be repeating itself. Officers are being assaulted and shot at while they try to arrest gun suspects or respond to the growing riots. Police precincts and courthouses have been destroyed with impunity, which will encourage more civilization-destroying violence. If the Ferguson effect of officers backing off law enforcement in minority neighborhoods is reborn as the Minneapolis effect, the thousands of law-abiding African-Americans who depend on the police for basic safety will once again be the victims.

The Minneapolis officers who arrested George Floyd must be held accountable for their excessive use of force and callous indifference to his distress. Police training needs to double down on de-escalation tactics. But Floyd’s death should not undermine the legitimacy of American law enforcement, without which we will continue on a path toward chaos.

Ms. Mac Donald is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of “The War on Cops,” (Encounter Books, 2016).