The Difference Between Art And Math

     The other day I had a couple of mescals. Then, feeling syrupy, I googled myself. This is worse than attending your own funeral and listening to the three other people that came talking casually about what a jerk you were.  I saw some of my own art selling for less than I sold it originally,, and not for forty dollars but for $39.95. Well at least it's still out there,, but what consolation is that. Times were better when there was more anonymity to hide behind.

     The following article basically describes the human race as fish in a very large bowl who are getting a little smarter,, all the time,,, yet in a way that appeals to me.

     This article about what is real and what is not. Perhaps I am all dreamy when reading suggestions that we are all living in a simulation,,, perhaps it is even comforting,,, you know it takes the pressure off. It certainly diminishes the importance of ones web portrait. 

    There is something in the first paragraph that is unintended by the author. The first paragraph made me wonder. It seemed to help define the essential differences between the arts and math. It was mentioned that Nikolai  Gogol burned the followup to Dead Souls. It was lost forever. You cannot duplicate a work of art that was destroyed before it was made public. It exists only after it is brought into existence by someone. However, if Pythagoras had burned his theory it would have been discovered anyway at some point because it seems there is an inevitable historical sequence in the world of math discovery. The arts operate in another less predictable plane,, perhaps falling into the realm of pure human creation whereas mathematical concepts exist in a birthing room netherworld waiting to be plucked and published.

Is the Universe a Simulation?

FEB. 14,

Gray Matter

By EDWARD FRENKEL

In Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” the protagonist, a writer, burns a manuscript in a moment of despair, only to find out later from the Devil that “manuscripts don’t burn.” While you might appreciate this romantic sentiment, there is of course no reason to think that it is true. Nikolai Gogol apparently burned the second volume of “Dead Souls,” and it has been lost forever. Likewise, if Bulgakov had burned his manuscript, we would have never known “Master and Margarita.” No other author would have written the same novel.

But there is one area of human endeavor that comes close to exemplifying the maxim “manuscripts don’t burn.” That area is mathematics. If Pythagoras had not lived, or if his work had been destroyed, someone else eventually would have discovered the same Pythagorean theorem. Moreover, this theorem means the same thing to everyone today as it meant 2,500 years ago, and will mean the same thing to everyone a thousand years from now — no matter what advances occur in technology or what new evidence emerges. Mathematical knowledge is unlike any other knowledge. Its truths are objective, necessary and timeless.

What kinds of things are mathematical entities and theorems, that they are knowable in this way? Do they exist somewhere, a set of immaterial objects in the enchanted gardens of the Platonic world, waiting to be discovered? Or are they mere creations of the human mind?

This question has divided thinkers for centuries. It seems spooky to suggest that mathematical entities actually exist in and of themselves. But if math is only a product of the human imagination, how do we all end up agreeing on exactly the same math? Some might argue that mathematical entities are like chess pieces, elaborate fictions in a game invented by humans. But unlike chess, mathematics is indispensable to scientific theories describing our universe. And yet there are many mathematical concepts — from esoteric numerical systems to infinite-dimensional spaces — that we don’t currently find in the world around us. In what sense do they exist?

Many mathematicians, when pressed, admit to being Platonists. The great logician Kurt Gödel argued that mathematical concepts and ideas “form an objective reality of their own, which we cannot create or change, but only perceive and describe.” But if this is true, how do humans manage to access this hidden reality.

We don’t know. But one fanciful possibility is that we live in a computer simulation based on the laws of mathematics — not in what we commonly take to be the real world. According to this theory, some highly advanced computer programmer of the future has devised this simulation, and we are unknowingly part of it. Thus when we discover a mathematical truth, we are simply discovering aspects of the code that the programmer used.

This may strike you as very unlikely. But the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has argued that we are more likely to be in such a simulation than not. If such simulations are possible in theory, he reasons, then eventually humans will create them — presumably many of them. If this is so, in time there will be many more simulated worlds than nonsimulated ones. Statistically speaking, therefore, we are more likely to be living in a simulated world than the real one.

The Stepford Globe

     This is a minority opinion,,, like all of mine. I have always felt uncomfortable in malls. They are clean well it places,, but cold. 
 
I have felt more at ease in a junkyard. Malls are calculated areas. In the traditional mall there are no windows in order to narrow the range of one's vision. Without a vista contemplation on the world "outside" is gobbled up by "goods". Mallers don't visit these spaces to contemplate the human condition, although you could. A purposeful dearth of chairs wear down the shopper and add finely accumulating stress that urge the consumer to "gather and go". The mall reduces people to a species of Stepford Wives floating down the gates and alleys of The Horn Of Plenty Village high on the morphine of consumerism. I know the appeal of these enclosed spaces is great. The boxy building structure replaced the more varied architecture of downtown and the aisles replaced the village streets with climate controlled environments. 
     The village may not be what it used to be anyway. Small family businesses have been submerged under "new sediments". Hey what can you do, it's just Economic Darwinism. One species overides another and so on until the sun burns out. Years ago people began to fly to the suburbs leaving downtown bereft of a tax base. Meanwhile  malls and Big Box stores erased what was left of main street in many areas. Malls served the new burgeoning suburbs where street life was non-existent,, even prohibited by zoning. After all property values must be protected. I realize that safe clean public places are less common all the time outside the mall culture. In a mall one can park with relative ease, amble with leaden feet like a sponge diver, congregate with friends, have a Ben & Jerrys, a machiatto , see a movie, get a ticket to Bangkok, buy a puppy or a snake even, purchase flowers, or a vacuum robot, eat a creamy meal, listen to a band, talk to Santa, and shop for overpriced goods all under the watchful eyes of guards and cameras  Malls became the new "Lifestyle Villages" in the new periphery that has become the city.  
     With the exception of Mexico, however, I understand some adults and much of the youth of the first world have been abandoning malls for something different, even more insulated. The policy in many malls to evict unescorted teens has made them unwelcome. They take up space hanging out looking threatening,, and of course most of them don't have the same quantity of money or creditline as their parents. Online movies and the internet's vast appeal to the non evaluative audience has also kept  teenagers at home in the evenings gawking, texting, and snapchatting, rather than hanging out at the mall. Adult shoppers, with ever diminished time, and in an increasing rush to terminate their consumtion ever more rapidly don't want to spend time parking and walking to their destination. They are using the internet to bring home the goods. Malls have noticed the trend and have been redesigning their "look" by adding storefronts with windows. What was once the impenetrable mall facade like a great uninterrupted beige wall is recreating the "outside-inside" effect of the village it replaced. In Mexico, by the way, teens are still welcome because so many of them are loaded. Home delivery exists in Mexico but not to the extent in the US. Home delivery is risky for the buyer and filled with impediments for the seller. Just finding the right house is a nightmare here. In one large city there might be 5 different streets named Benito Juarez and the house numeration, if it appears at all, can change ordered sequence in the middle of a block.
            

  cold stares from brilliant people

                                                                               

  Looking down on the basement

Cold corner

  Black and Brilliant and Skinny

 I often marvel at the money marching around centro commerciales in Mexico. The contrast with the nation's poverty is shocking. The other day we went to a mall, parked, and there, in a no restricted zone, close to the entrance of the mall was a military truck with armed soldiers, two black Dodge Challengers with body guards,, and a red Testarosa. Preferential treatment of the rich and well connected here is right up front. 

  
 Here's an article I ran into a few years ago. Somehow it speaks to me:

 A man died after jumping off the seventh floor of a shopping mall in the city of Xuzhou in Jiangsu, China, on December 7th. The 38-year old man had been shopping with his girlfriend. After five hours, he wanted to go home but his girlfriend wanted to continue shopping. A heated argument soon took place as later confirmed by security videos. According to nearby shoppers, the following dialog took place:He said, "You have enough shoes to wear for the rest of your lifetime. Why do you want to go to another shoe store?"She said, "You penny-pincher! You've ruined the Christmas spirit!" He got very angry, threw down all the many shopping bags he was carrying, turned around, and jumped over the rail and fell all the way from the seventh floor of the huge shopping mall. People on the first floor heard a thump and found him bleeding, lying near the Christmas decorations. He was dead. 

    
     A couple of  years ago I was in a  huge upper caste mall in Mexico City with my wife. After a day of shopping we settled into a restaurant to eat. I had paid heavy partience dues waiting on her all day and at this moment I felt entitled to a straight gin,, a double. Just as the meal ended while we waited for the check I noticed all the stores were lowering their steel curtains. It was too early. The waiter came over and advised us that we should stay because there had been a robbery of a jewelry strore with shots fired. I promptly ordered another gin as we waited at least thirty minutes for the supposed violence to clear itself. At that time I suggested we should go to the car. The restaurant was no more than 100 feet from the store that was robbed. We left hand in hand, bellies filled with a creamy dinner, strolling down the wide aisle. As we rounded the corner where the jewelry store had been robbed there were a group of gawkers milling about the broken glass.Surprisingly there were no police just a mall security guard. We strolled past them viewing the remnants of the act.towards Liverpool to exit the mall. I had all the bags in one hand and my wife's hand in my other. She, in an odd snuggly mood, said to me,  "If there is a fusilade at least we will go down together holding hands." Just as she finished her spontaneous valentine, we heard a stampede of feet coming towards us like wildebeasts spooked by a lion. My wife threw my hand down as if were made of plutonium, leaving me standing there with all the bags. She took off running into Liverpool to hide behind the Coco Chanel perfume counter. There was chaos in the store,, employees ushering us in one then another direction because of a rumor that the theives were still somewhere in the mall. I remember thinking that they were already halfway home by now. I walked calmly on for this seemed to me typical crowd hysteria. There didn't seem to be enough of them to crush anybody, so why get excited.  Anywhere there is a congregation of people shopping in an enclosed space,, moving like Stepford Wives half hypnotized,, sedated by consumerism guarded by three underpaid security guards,, I get nervous, but in this case I felt quite secure. I knew that if the herd perceives that a predator is near they will run over their grandmothers in order to survive, yet I was calm. My wife yelled to me crouched behind the perfume counter to get over here. The criminals could be anywhere she said. I thought,, well they could be over there behind the counter with you posing as shoppers. Fear subsided. My wife stood up and we continued toward the exit. Some workers in blue Liverpool blazers rushed towards us from another part of the store yelling that the criminals were still in the building. One of them held a walkie talkie to his ear like Sargent Fulano calling in an airstrike on the enemy, the antenna wiggling with his agitation. Some people panicked and rushed for the exit. The Liverpuddlian workers ushered us and a few others through one of those "Employees Only" doors into a room filled with all kinds of garments. We were standing there in silence with some other customers. I felt stupid. These other clients could have been the criminals, locked in there with us their pockets filled with Tagheur watches and Tous necklaces. I looked at all the clothes and began to think like a thief. We could have taken anything at this moment. The store was in confusion and mayhem all prompted by what I thought were most likely rumors and all the exits had been left unguarded.
 Eventually we left the building to a parking lot where people had gone to save their cars hopelessly jamming any exit. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. No one was permitted to leave because the police were checking all the cars. We re-entered the store to kill some time until the car horns and screaming wore the police down and they just let everyone go. I thought that any criminal would not have been quite shortsighted as to leave their getaway car in  a lot with paid parking. Any criminal with a half a brain would have left on foot.
     The next day I investigated the robbery on the internet. The thieves, at least 6, wore halloween type masks, and one was armed. They entered the jewelry store and with hammers, quickly broke glass cases and stuffed small bags with watches. The armed perpetrator guarded the escalator while the others did their thing. There were no shots fired. There was an accompanying video. It was quick. The heist had taken less than a minute and the thieves had escaped at least 45 minutes before our little stroll of love and the ensuing stampede. 
I sent this story to a friend in Mexico City and this was his reply:

"I read about the robbery in the newspaper. One story said that the Policia de Seguridad had  earned a share of the proceeds by doing nothing to stop the robbers. This sounds plausible."