Smoke Break!

Just a little something…

Double feature!  Sort of!

Patterns in nature are as close as you can get to a real poetry of the universe.  (Holy books and platitudes about karma don’t count, okay?  That shit isn’t reproducible data, it’s a fever dream.)  A lot of scientists say that everything boils down to physics.*  And it’s hard to argue with that–biology, chemistry, even psychiatry, are all explained at their base level by molecular activity, since everything is comprised of atoms at the most fundamental level (apparently, there’s quarks and shit, too, but I’m not that smart.)  Everything in the universe is a result of atomic weight and electron valences.

But what is physics, really?  Applied mathematics.  Not just applied mathematics in pursuit of result (as in, “I am a human who is going to use these equations to measure how fast these balls of differing weights will roll down this rampӠ), but the results that have existed since the beginning of time, before any conscious mind even observed or wondered about them, let alone defined them.   Mathematics is the only tool through which physics is accessible to humankind.  Which is why I’d go a step further and say that everything in the universe is not the result of physics, but of something phenomenal that humans have discovered and decided to call “math.”  (Isn’t it funny how people are always mystified by things that seem to be ordered, absent of human intent?)  With this in mind, I bring you “Nature by Numbers” for your smoke break.  Except that repeating piano arpeggio in the score gets REALLY annoying, so I suggest muting the volume and playing Radiohead’s “Kid A” instead.  Scoff all you want about Radiohead being typical stoner music, but it works better than Dark Side of the Moon did with The Wizard of Oz.‡