I can either write something now or call someone. As I’ll be zooming later I’ll opt for writing. The question is which is more stressful, deciding who to call or deciding what to write? This is going to be one of those, I don’t care if anyone likes it, I want to write it entries. If I resign myself to that I won’t be disappointed. I’m going to write thoughts while I was making dinner and cleaning up the kitchen, mainly the latter. Cooking was popping an Italian sausage into the air-fryer. It of course came out perfect because that’s what air-fryers do; 13-minutes at 360ºF for those of you playing at home. Poke holes in it first. Poke the holes in the sausages, not the air-fryer. You have to be explicit when making instructions. I learned that both teaching and asking questions on my baseball trivia group.
I went through some of my usual God thoughts. I’m an atheist so my God thoughts are academic, it’s like trying to figure out if Superman could beat the Flash in a race. My most common thought is, why do people think that God created the heaven and earth only once? Here he is for eternity, he decides to create a universe, does it once, and never again for another eternity? Not impossible but not the most likely scenario. Creating Universes is God’s hobby. What else does he have to do? God is in permanent lockdown as there is no “outside” for him to go to. I don’t see him sitting around playing videogames and binge watching on Netflix for eternity. Not saying it couldn’t happen, it’s just not where I’d place my bet.
I go through those thoughts often, last night I had what I found an interesting line of thought. People say they love God. I don’t because I think God doesn’t exist and I won’t love an imaginary friend. What fills that emotional space in me? I love the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. That’s a term coined by Eugene Wigner [“The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” in Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, vol. 13, No. I (February 1960). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright © 1960 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ]. The scientifically minded of you should follow the link and read the paper. This was my first time reading it though I’ve heard of it most of my life. It’s become a central problem in physics; Why can we describe nature so accurately using math? My hypothesis is that we are looking at mathematical modeling in only one direction; we use math to model the universe. But can’t we say with equal validity that the universe is an analogue computer for solving problems in mathematical physics? Math works because the universe is a computer that in inherently logically connected. The math and the physics are different sides of the same coin. I’m not sure that’s not nonsense. But the topic fills me with sense of wonder and limitless possibilities. Isn’t that akin to loving God?
This is where my thoughts make a sharp turn. I saw Wigner speak once. While a Nobel Laureate in physics the talk was about the Soviet Union’s capacity for making nuclear war. While physicist is one of the most liberal professions there are exceptions and Wigner was one of them. He was devoted Cold Warrior, like his good friend Edwin Teller, the father of the H-Bomb and the model of some aspects of Dr. Strangelove. The big difference is that Teller was Jewish, a refugee from the Nazis. Teller and Wigner were both Hungarian Jews that fled the Holocaust, found refuge in America, and worked on the Manhattan project. Wigner was a scientific hero who came up with my favorite concept of the philosophy of science, how could I reconcile that with him taking political views I find abhorrent? I did what people should always do when confronted with thoughts and behaviors you can’t understand, I put myself in his shoes. Here was this Hungarian who first saw his country overrun by the Nazis, and the Communists. In 1956 the Russians brutally put down a Hungarian revolt against their rule. Do we need more of an explanation of why he would hate the Russians so much as to distort his perceptions? I am still disturbed by one he said at that talk and think of him as “a bad guy.” But intellectually I know that “good guys” and “bad guys” are not a clear division of humanity.
What gets me thinking like is something my father told me. In 1927 Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic and became the hero of his age. My father was 11 so of course he idolized him. He was particularly impressed that Lindbergh wasn’t just a pilot, he was an engineer. He helped design not just his plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, but also invented what was commonly called an artificial heart but more properly the glass chambered perfusion pump [To Save His Dying Sister-In-Law, Charles Lindbergh Invented a Medical Device (Smithsonian Magazine September 2015)]. He was without doubt a great man. My father, and all of us, have to reconcile that with Lindbergh also being an American Firster, a Nazi apologist and perhaps sympathizer. We are Jewish, my father liberated a concentration camp in WWII, yes my father all by himself, he single-handedly won the war. Just ask anyone in my family. There is nothing my father hated more than Nazis. The way my father made peace with these conflicting ideals is by blaming Lindbergh’s horrific policies on the kidnapping and murder of his son. That understandably traumatized him. It was his belief that this could not have happened in Nazi Germany that led him down the brimstone path. I have no idea if that’s true, but it is how my father thought about it. He never forgave Lindbergh, but he didn’t let that detract from his admiration for the great things he accomplished.
That’s an attitude I share. Isn’t the acceptance that circumstances helped make the person a key part of the liberal mind set? When we see that the murder rate is higher in the poor, don’t we think, “There but for the grace of god go I?” We realize how we are privileged, and that privilege was an element in who we are. We don’t blame the victims. We consider mitigating factors when thinking of the perpetrators. The world is not black and white. It isn’t even shades of gray. It’s many pixels of different shades mixing together at a fractal level. I am the victim of a series of accidents are as we all.
A miracle just occurred. I wrote all that and the only error that spell and grammar check found was one missing comma.
Wise Madness 