Yeah, I read the book by Everett's son, who related the demise of his Everett's sister, by suicide as you have duly noted. I am suspecting that the novel by physicist Gregory Benford, Rewrite is precisely based on Everett's work, along with Bryce DeWitt, and nobelist John Archibald Wheeler. Basically, it's similar to Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, save that the protagonist gets to restart his life every time on his 16th birthday. His awareness of his former existence is occasionally shared by a few famous people, and thus, he attempts to nudge history a bit. My point is despite Sagan's' intellectual breadth he was in error in not wanting to face down the fun folks in the Kremlin. Facing down runs a higher risk of conflict, but then, so did surrender. My concern is that the easiness that the new Prez has with comrade Xi, seems a similar thing. That's my criticism and we shall soon see if it becomes a national concern, or not? If no, then skies are sunny everywhere. I find even brilliant people, with great intellectual capacity, become furious when their worldview is challenged. Did Sagan become pissed off? He never seemed to be to me. I still read his articles and purchased his books. It is essential to try to answer this rhetorical question, which should be directed to everyone, which is best, phrased, "Ok. what's your answer?" If the individual has an proposed answer, let's give it a think? If the person is simply venting, it may do the amygdala wonders, but for problem resolution, not so much.
-----Original Message----- From: John Clark <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, Jan 24, 2021 5:05 am Subject: Re: Q Anon is the tip of the iceberg On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 6:19 PM spudboy100 via Everything List <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't think we disagree much on the facts, merely that astronomers and > physicists can get out of their depth as other lesser intellects do. Scientists are always out of their depth, that's why their dominant emotion is confusion, and that's why it's a hard job, but at least they know they're out of their depth. Scientists are usually right but never certain; political and religious ideologues are always certain but seldom right. > That Nuke Winter was an irrelevant addition to the anti-nuke argument, How is the extinction of the human race irrelevant? World War III will either cause the extinction of human beings or it won't, the answer can be found with the application of physics and no political ideology, left right or center, will aid in finding that answer one bit. And to the defense department, which controls thousands of H-bombs, the answer to such a question might be rather important. > not that it was ridiculous, but that it was always one sided. One sided? There's a good side to human extinction? > Sagan seemed to think that surrendering was infinitely better than nuclear > extinction. It was never a binary choice, but if it was then yes, surrendering would be better than human extinction. What wouldn't be? > Bart Weinstein agrees with your opinion that the physicists of both camps should have been praised for their weapons work, because it forced leaders to be rational actors. Interesting to note, that Hugh Everett the 3rd was himself a DoD physicist. I wonder if he believed that some of his world's died in a nuclear conflagration? Everett was disappointed at the poor reception his doctoral dissertation received and never published anything on quantum mechanics again for the rest of his life; instead he became a Dr. Strangelove type character making computer nuclear war games and doing grim operational research for the pentagon about armageddon. But he was one of the first to point out that any defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles would be ineffectual and building an anti-ballistic missile system could not be justified except for "political or psychological grounds". In his book "The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett" Peter Byrne makes the case that Everett was the first one to convince high military leaders through mathematics and no nonsense non sentimental reasoning that a nuclear war could not be won, "after an attack by either superpower on the other, the majority of the attacked population that survived the initial blasts would be sterilized and gradually succumb to leukemia. Livestock would die quickly and survivors would be forced to rely on eating grains, potatoes and vegetables. Unfortunately the produce would be seething with radioactive Strontium 90 which seeps into human bone marrow and causes cancer". Linus Pauling credited Evertt by name and quoted from his pessimistic report in his Nobel acceptance speech for receiving the 1962 Nobel Peace prize. Despite his knowledge of the horrors of a nuclear war Everett, like most of his fellow cold warrior colleagues in the 50's and 60's, thought the probability of it happening was very high and would probably happen very soon. Byrne speculates in a footnote that Everett may have privately used anthropic reasoning and thought that the fact we live in a world where such a war has not happened (at least not yet) was more confirmation that his Many Worlds idea was right. Hugh's daughter Liz Everett killed herself a few years after her father's death, in her suicide note she said "Funeral requests: I prefer no church stuff. Please burn me and DON'T FILE ME. Please sprinkle me in some nice body of water or the garbage, maybe that way I'll end up in the correct parallel universe to meet up with Daddy". John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv3e2z60SoEYTBmM%3D5RakDG91nVGYUY8bSyNtFRQtNGyhQ%40mail.gmail.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/1831832567.4780156.1611522139078%40mail.yahoo.com.
