The Trial by Franz Kafka

Original posting (Comment), October 2006

The Trial by Franz Kafka:

"... it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance."

Unbalanced Sponsorship

Sponsorship can lead to an unbalanced influence.

Axes to grid.

Advantage to be unfairly 'won'.

A conflict in the duty of journalists to report honestly and the possibility of editors accepting financial support to compromise this. Grants being withheld if the thinking is not 'correct' and only the desired message promulgated.

Not looking too deep.

Suppression of truth that reveals negatives in favour and only promoting perceived benefits.

Was "God" An Astronaut?

Change the terminology to 'a superior being': "Godlike".

An alien. An extraterrestrial. Not of this Earth.

Where is Heaven? Up there. Not of this Earth.

Where would an extraterrestrial come from?

Up there. Not of this Earth. From the stars.

Without hesitation there is a belief in the existence of God, but the concept of an alien is generally ridiculed.

That doesn't make sense and is quite illogical.

So: was "God" an astronaut?

Wealth And Perpetual Motion

Wealth

is like perpetual motion.

Wealth Creation

Effects Of Exercise

We can never get something for nothing and, therefore, cannot 'buy' the effects of exercise. No amount of wealth can provide health gains and such gains are only accessible by spending effort.

Buying good bodies is impossible and that includes (especially) surgery's knife. Going under the knife is a highly dangerous thing to do. And to do it for no other reason than vanity is totally illogical. My concept of sheer lunacy.

Acquiring a good body is only possible through exercise. Some need to work harder than others and that is determined by your genetics. However, it is natural, safe and the only way, but it does require hard work though.

Something out for something in. The more in, the more out. Straightforward really, but not necessarily simple...

...the real deal is only achieved by the free expenditure of effort.

Worlds Apart By 'e' Or 'n'

One letter 'e' or 'n'. Worlds apart as in...

...owe

or

...own

Challenging Opinion

To state I am wrong and you are right isn't a problem to me. An opinion challenged is quite healthy and stimulates debate and examination of an isue. There may be no resolution of the difference of opinion, but the issue has been aired.

If you are being honest with yourself, to express an alternative and argued opinion does mean you have read or listened to what I have communicated and compared it with your own viewpoint.

This is how it should be.

A difference of opinion should be just that. Quality argument can persuade though it does not make that argument right by simply being well argued. It can still be fundamentally wrong.

Argument and debate can healthily follow.

Switching Rôles

The scientist cannot automatically be a 'people person'.

Even a neurosurgeon may need to retrain to become an airline steward or an excellent doctor (GP) might not have the best 'bedside manner'.

Ideally, both qualities should be present.

Lesson In Life

Probably one of the most valuable lessons to learn and master is to recognise, accept and take good advice. It is the ability to 'see' good advice for what it is. Advice can be either good (confer benefit) or bad (potentially harmful) and it can never be both at the same time.

• 'When the student is ready the teacher will appear'

It is possible that the 'teacher' has no concept of being an instructor though the knowledge or lesson imparted can have the same result. It is about the learning (from whatever source) that is important. No end of wealth can confer this free lesson in life. It's a reflection that moves inwards and develops character and experience. Introversion.

Learning From Mistakes

Not repeating a mistake is not denying anything. The learning from the mistake is simply not to do it again.

Something that should not be done should not be repeated.

To deny it can allow the same mistake to reoccur and such denial is potentially harmful and certainly ill-advised.

Surviving the avoidable accident.

There's the story of the 'adrenaline freak' who jumped from a plane having thrown his parachute out just ahead of himself. By styling his profile he was able to catch up with it. In mid-air the task was then to get into the harness and complete the jump.

He jumped a total three times. Twice he put on the harness successfully.

Perfection Detail

An attention to detail creates the illusion of striving for perfection.

Entity Of Creation

Music is very visual as are words. Both create images and affect the mind. It is perhaps the reason language can be musical, especially when only hearing and not understanding. The brain may house the mind or the mind could be some other 'entity'.

An entity suggests something physical and allows the creation of a wrong picture.

Imaginary Numbers

We have to invent imaginary numbers to make the 'maths' work sometimes. Where 'j=(-1)1/2'. The explanation of such 'fiddle factors' to the learning and inquisitive child in order to convince them they are not being lied to is a betrayal of trust.

Being told that there are no solutions to square roots of negative numbers, but then invoking the concept of 'j'. The loss of trust can be incalculable.

Newton allegedly invented calculus to solve some of the problems he had. Some maths has undoubtedly not yet been discovered and after all mathematics is only an attempt to describe the real world. Mathematics is a collection of 'models' that are held to be not in conflict with each other. Mathematics defines the box. Not its size or shape, but effectively just a (very extensive) set of constraints. Perhaps a single mathematics system exists that is entirely different to the accepted 'model'. But then the concept of mathematics precludes such a different concept. The description that defines the concept of the mathematics-box is accepted as being written in stone. This can be extended as new theorems and ideas are discovered and developed, but every fact must still fit. The shape of the box may be constantly changing, but the only contributors are the mathematicians themselves who define the shape and size. Little ever gets challenged except by other mathematicians. An exclusive group (Catch 22).

Numbers are a human concept and perhaps mathematics isn't the answer. Possibly something is yet undiscovered that will produce a different concept where solutions to currently unanswerable questions may become obvious. Some of those answers that are currently just imponderables: how the universe works.

A single theory. There must be one since the universe does work.

At least it appears to work and if honesty prevailed much that is currently regarded as so definite would be rationally relegated to the 'don't know' box. Being so effectively trapped on Earth, and to where any living human traveller must return in order to stay alive, renders everything an actual and complete mystery.

Theory And Supposition

The whole of chemistry is based on theory and supposition. Chemical bonds do not exist as they are visually accepted. It seems to work so leave well alone, yet build on supposition. This can lead ultimately to situations where observation is rejected because the 'model' does not allow it. The model wins over observed and witnessed fact. Very unscientific if this were to happen.

Closed and limited thinking only allows certain possibilities that fall inside the box. Anything else is automatically rejected because it doesn't fit.

The paradoxical scientist does exist.

Incorrect Hypothesis

The fact that a single Theory of Everything is still sought demonstrates that the hypothesis is wrong. If it was right then there would be no conflict. Maybe things behave differently in different places naturally and we'd never realise anyway. Unless existence can happen simultaneously in two places, and being aware of both, it is an academic point.

Similar to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: the position and the momentum of a subatomic particle, eg the electron. The precision of both cannot be measured at the same time with any accuracy. Detection and measurement depend on an understanding of what is sought.

Failure to achieve will result if the wrong tool is used.

The Unified Theory is speculation. It is reasonable since reality exists (apparently). Therefore such a situation as a Unified Theory already exists. The models that have been used in isolation 'seem' to work for some phenomena, but not others. The models are wrong. A single 'model' would provide a total solution if it were correct.

Keep searching though in the knowledge that nothing has been proven correct by virtue of no single theory having yet been discovered.

Other answers are equally possible if all dogma (and similar chains that keep everything 'inside the box') is ignored.

Denial And Skepticism

Ever Present End Of The Beginning

To confer the concept of age defines a belief in a beginning and, therefore, an end. This traps in the thinking of past, present and future. Present is as close to reality as it's likely to get.

But even then, is reality more likely to be perceived in our own mind than what has been presented to it?