[Popcorn Talk]

Some wonderful thoughts shared by T.H. Althof


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Hi  again,

Did I have the wrong slant on "Popcorn?" I just assumed it was intended to be humorous....a sophisticated send-up on when science goes to the absurd extremes it sometimes does.

To me that theme is ultimately theological - the quest for God. To many physicists and cosmologists,  that's what it is. Einstein, of course, was convinced that such a magnificent set of natural laws could not have just sprung out of nothing."On the trail of the Champ," as he put it. Hawking now says a god isn't necessary.  So, there are two "camps" on it.

But nobody knows. Funny thing right now is how both the physicists and cosmologists are stuck. They seem to have hit a boundary that cannot be penetrated. Something has set a limit. Gravity is stuck in the physicist's craw and cannot be worked into their Holy Grail of a Unified Theory of Everything.  They have the "M" or "String Theory," but it's only on paper.  It doesn't look as if there will ever be a  way to experimentally verify it.

The astronomers cannot see beyond 13.7 billion years. That's the age of our Universe since the Big Bang when our light was created. They keep proclaiming with glee that the further out we see, the further back in time we are looking. Doubtless true  - but they never talk about what bothers me most about that.  The flip-side of that coin is that it's impossible for us ever to see the Universe as it is now. None of that extremely distant stuff may even be out there anymore.  That immutable speed of light thing - - For all we know when looking up into the night sky we're watching reruns of a show that closed aeons ago. How could we ever know? They say that if the sun went out we wouldn't know it for 8 minutes.  Even when gazing into your lover's eyes, you are not seeing than as they are but as they were about a fempto-second ago.

We're all living in the past - in varying degree - and thinking of the future. That's the paradox of our existential condition.

This identical popcorn kernal, cornflake, snowflake,  grain-of-sand, etc. thing is somehow related to these scientific limitations.  I just feel that it is. It's the same kind of barrier.  I see an analogy to the old Biblical "Tree of Forbidden Fruit," forbidden Knowledge. We have picked a lot of it's fruits, gotten ourselves kicked further out of innocence each time,  but there was always that next "apple" seeming out of reach. But whatever has set this final barrier  - "God" or whatever you will - has let us have them - one by one up to now. This time it seems to hang in another Universe or dimension.  This time maybe "God" says "no" and finally.

And so what? We and the animals exist within our plane just fine. Much was good to know to ease life, have food and medicine and comfort  - and we can keep doing that. Perhaps it would avail us nothing useful having this final "apple." 


So, that's where i perceived the humor in your "Popcorn Project."  So these people expend all this time and money and effort over generations - and finally do get their answer and .....

"So what?"

Is that what you guys are aiming at?

It could be the ultimate kindness of a grand, loving "Super-Spirit"  ( if you believe in such a Thing)  not to let us have it  -that last "apple" -  the final Unification Theory of Everything. The Big Answer. What would the physicists do then? The astronomers? The human imagination and spirit could well collapse into fatal apathy. Just like a gang of monkies in a tree, we need to believe there is yet another apple.