Me and Galileo
Galileo was the first to put forward the theory of relativity. He believed that there were infinite frames of reference, but within each reference, Newtonian laws applied equally and, in all frames of reference, time was universal. Galileo was in fact wrong. Newtonian laws sometimes do not equally apply and time is not universal. Things get all mucked up with special relativity and quantum mechanics. Oh well. Though Galileo was wrong, in every day life, he appears to be right. For nearly all motion and observance of time in our lives, Galileo is good enough.
Galileo’s ideas are seductive and people try to even pull them into our social world. We discuss and we argue in order to bring people around to our “perspective.” If someone disagrees, we assume that they are simply in a different frame of reference. If we bring them to our frame, they too will see the logic that we see. We assume that all people with the same information will come to the same conclusions.
After an hour of late night arguing with a friend about Reagan (I dislike the Gipper in case you didn’t know) and exhaustive attempts to find a common frame of reference, we finally realized it was far too late and quit. Time was universal in this case. Still, morning Dilettante was very angry at evening Dilettante. They have very different perspectives on time.
The social world is different from the Newtonian physical world in that we are not separate frames of reference. Who we are is dependent on who we are around. What we believe is dependent on what others believe. What we say is based on what others understand.
We are also creatures who grow and change. Ideas that we scoffed at earlier in life seem more rational later while others ideas grow to become impractical. Emotions dealing with our family, friends and mortality cloud every thought we have. They warp the truth like high-speed travel.
Additionally, we have subconscious minds that cause us to live with dualities. We have love-hate relationships and we want what we cannot have. We are scared and influenced by events we sometimes do not even remember and remember some events better than others for no logical reason. Like Schrodinger’s cat, ideas seem to exist and not exist in our mind simultaneously.
For our social lives, we must remember that Galileo is not good enough. In order to understand the social world, we need to grasp these other factors. Of course, to completely do this is impossible, even for an Einstein.
Galileo’s ideas are seductive and people try to even pull them into our social world. We discuss and we argue in order to bring people around to our “perspective.” If someone disagrees, we assume that they are simply in a different frame of reference. If we bring them to our frame, they too will see the logic that we see. We assume that all people with the same information will come to the same conclusions.
After an hour of late night arguing with a friend about Reagan (I dislike the Gipper in case you didn’t know) and exhaustive attempts to find a common frame of reference, we finally realized it was far too late and quit. Time was universal in this case. Still, morning Dilettante was very angry at evening Dilettante. They have very different perspectives on time.
The social world is different from the Newtonian physical world in that we are not separate frames of reference. Who we are is dependent on who we are around. What we believe is dependent on what others believe. What we say is based on what others understand.
We are also creatures who grow and change. Ideas that we scoffed at earlier in life seem more rational later while others ideas grow to become impractical. Emotions dealing with our family, friends and mortality cloud every thought we have. They warp the truth like high-speed travel.
Additionally, we have subconscious minds that cause us to live with dualities. We have love-hate relationships and we want what we cannot have. We are scared and influenced by events we sometimes do not even remember and remember some events better than others for no logical reason. Like Schrodinger’s cat, ideas seem to exist and not exist in our mind simultaneously.
For our social lives, we must remember that Galileo is not good enough. In order to understand the social world, we need to grasp these other factors. Of course, to completely do this is impossible, even for an Einstein.
posted by American Dilettante at
11:25 PM
1 Comments:
I like to interact with people from varied frames of reference, whenever possible. I've read that people in the East Village were stunned when Nixon won in 1972, because they literally knew no one that voted for him. I don't want to be that out of touch with my fellow Americans, even the ones that hate me for not sharing their fascist views.
I watched "Team America: World Police" and suddenly understood why Bush would win in 2004. In the movie, all the whiney liberal elites were characatures of their selves, whiney & ignorant & stubborn. It was like looking through the eyes of 51% of America to see a "Tim Robbins" that really DID love terrorists and a "Sean Penn" who preferred to see Kim Jung Il lead the world rather than Bush.
In "Left Behind", the head of the UN is actually the Anti-Christ. Heck, no wonder we sent them John Bolton - we need to stop the Apocolypse!
I watch "24", and follow along online with Blogging for Bauer. Some members write, repeatedly, how much they hope the terrorists will nuke Berkeley, to take out all the traitors that live there. I assume they just mean "in the show", though it's not always clear. But why? How are these smelly hippies hurting anyone? Then a character comes on, at first just defending her client from illegal search and seizure. Right on, there's no probable cause, the FBI is wasting their time on this case - bring on the ACLU! But when the client finds himself entrusted by terrorists and wants to help the FBI expose their plans, she continues whining about how he is being used - ignoring the fact that his voluntary help is going to prevent thousands of American deaths. Those liberals, their concepts are so high and mighty and righteous but they take it too far and become extremists!
So sharing ideas from other frames has taught me a few things. Extremists of all types are often shrill, annoying, and dangerous. And yet most of the Real People that support movements are not the wackjobs that the loudest and most visible of the proponents seem to be (or their characatures in film). Lastly, we ALL hate lawyers, maybe because they are paid to be "extremists" - whatever the evidence against their cause, whatever the harm their actions take, they will do whatever it takes to win the case.
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mizerock, at 6:50 PM
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