Time, string theory, and everything

[Front-Ranger]

When he does occasionally let fly, it can result in a confused tangle. Reflecting on a friend's missing tooth, one of his more existentialist characters ends up thinking "about three dimensions... and how things, shapes, folded in on themselves, and four dimensions, and if time is variable, then how do I vary it, and why do I want to? Because everything just focuses on me and I hate it". This is from "Jack-O" (published in Esquire  last year as "Just Before the Black"), which, to be fair, is the weakest story here.

Hmm, I just encountered something similar in a book I am reading, The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein. The narrator, a dog, says, "Because memory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present." In fact, it also reminds me of the prelude to Brokeback Mountain where Annie Proulx describes the older Ennis' reveries: "He let a panel of the dream slide forward." This concept of time being flat or maleable occurs here and there in contemporary fiction. I wonder if it has to do with the growing popularity of string theory.

[serious crayons]

This concept of time being flat or maleable occurs here and there in contemporary fiction. I wonder if it has to do with the growing popularity of string theory.

Yeah, I occasionally hear the idea that time isn't really linear, that we just experience it that way, an illusion. I don't really get it. Isn't time, by definition, the process of moving forward from one moment to the next, one year to the next, and so on? If events don't happen in a linear one-way chronology, then that to me seems the absence of time, not a different concept of it.

  Maybe it's just my human cognitive limitations that prevent me from understanding this.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Hmm, I just encountered something similar in a book I am reading, The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein. The narrator, a dog, says, "Because memory is time folding back on itself. To remember is to disengage from the present." In fact, it also reminds me of the prelude to Brokeback Mountain where Annie Proulx describes the older Ennis' reveries: "He let a panel of the dream slide forward." This concept of time being flat or maleable occurs here and there in contemporary fiction. I wonder if it has to do with the growing popularity of string theory.

That line always makes me thing of a shoji screen, which, of course, is totally out of place in Ennis's broken-down trailer, but let be, let be. ...

[Front-Ranger]

Yes, Jeff, the feng shui of Ennis' trailer left something to be desired. As Alma Jr. said, "Daddy you need more furniture!" Maybe she was thinking of a shoji screen, LOL!

I forget where I read recently about the development of string theory...apparently there are two dominant theories of time, space, and well, everything. There's Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which does an excellent job of explaining the macro universe. Then, there's quantum mechanics, which explains the micro world of particles. But there's a big disconnect between them which is relatively unexplained. Thus, the rise of string theory, and these "strings" apparently bridge the gap between micro and macro.

Let's discuss this further! I'm also excited about the parallels between what's happening in science and the arts, and how they reflect each other.

[Front-Ranger]

Now I remember where I read this...it was on the NPR website. Here's Brian Greene talking about string theory:

"the entire universe can be explained in terms of really, really small strings that vibrate in 10 or 11 dimensions — meaning dimensions we can't see. If it exists, it could explain literally everything in the universe — from subatomic particles to the laws of speed and gravity.

So what does this have to do with the possibility that a multiverse exists?

"There are a couple of multiverses that come out of our study of string theory," Greene says. "Within string theory, the strings that we're talking about are not the only entities that this theory allows. It also allows objects that look like large flying carpets, or membranes, which are two dimensional surfaces. And what that means, within string theory, is that we may be living on one of those gigantic surfaces, and there can be other surfaces floating out there in space."

Seems rather far-fetched, doesn't it?

[serious crayons]

I think of subjects like this the way my dog might speculate on why when I sit in the comfy chair I tend to hold a bunch of papers with little squiggles on them up in front of my face. That is, it's perfectly conceivable that these answers exist out there, but there's no way I -- and by I, I don't just mean me, with my limited science background, but really all humans with our limited human brains -- will ever really understand it.

[Penthesilea]

That line always makes me thing of a shoji screen, which, of course, is totally out of place in Ennis's broken-down trailer, but let be, let be. ...

 
I never heard the term shoji screen before, but I knew immediately what you meant, because I always thought the exact same thing whenever I read this line. The shoji screen part, not the out of place part, because I like the mental image Proulx uses here.
(Meanhwile I looked up the term then, to be sure).

[Front-Ranger]

I think of subjects like this the way my dog might speculate on why when I sit in the comfy chair I tend to hold a bunch of papers with little squiggles on them up in front of my face. That is, it's perfectly conceivable that these answers exist out there, but there's no way I -- and by I, I don't just mean me, with my limited science background, but really all humans with our limited human brains -- will ever really understand it.

Never say ever, friend! Sure, we can't comprehend the universe now, but maybe someday in some far distant aeon...the human brain is limited, yes, but it can change and evolve.

And, speaking to your first point, I'm reading a book written by a dog right now! It's called The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth (or is that Garff?) Stein.

[Front-Ranger]

Another example of this "flatness" thinking is from the special Brokeback Mountain issue of Film Quarterly, Spring 2007, which friend Chrissi gave to me (thank you, friend!) In the article "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Me" by Joshua Clover and Christopher Nealon, the authors rhapsodize over Madonna's music video for "Don't Tell Me" from her Music album of 2001. They describe the series of flat planes that appear in the video as "not depth but possibility, allowing a range of motion and feeling that retains its shock and intensity." The video suggests that Madonna occupies a space where the virtual becomes "real" and then becomes virtual again. Then, dancing cowboys on separate screens join together behind Madonna and mimic her moves, while they exist on different planes.

The authors conclude, "The layered flatness of "Don't Tell Me" comprise a structure of feeling; the feelings themselves come from the mobility of iconic figures between the layers." Artists like Richard Prince, and parodists who create cartoon representations of Brokeback Mountain want to rescue the icons from their realistic depth and return them to the flatness in which, ironically, they can enjoy greater freedom. In the end of the video, a magnificent horse and rider appear, a Prince painting come to life, the horse throws the man, and he watchs it run away, left in Western loneliness.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I think of subjects like this the way my dog might speculate on why when I sit in the comfy chair I tend to hold a bunch of papers with little squiggles on them up in front of my face. That is, it's perfectly conceivable that these answers exist out there, but there's no way I -- and by I, I don't just mean me, with my limited science background, but really all humans with our limited human brains -- will ever really understand it.

Contemplating string theory too long is enough to make one embrace Creationism. ...