Toward a signal model of perception
Synchronicity anecdotes
Please send corrections and comments to Krypto78@gmail.comThe experiments cited here must be regarded as little more than anecdotes. Not only do my temperament and circumstances make a rigorous experimental approach unfeasible, replicability is a big issue because of the variability of the proposed reality signals. As with the anecdotes of Appendix A, we cannot say that statistical analysis would reveal a non-random covert correlation.
Hopefully, more talented investigators will devise experiments that will be, if not altogether convincing, at least more suggestive than the results I have obtained. In fact, I have obtained a number of remarkable "manufactured synchronicities" in times past but either took no notes or lost them. What remains is, alas, not the strongest stuff.
Techniques for achieving a degree of control over reality projection are centered on belief and focus. However, the unconscious strongly influences these actions and so we may often find somewhat goofy synchronicities, as with Jung's "fish story" related in my main article.
The experimenter will be able to devise endless varieties of "interference" experiments but will find that if the pattern mix is overly complicated, the resulting phenomenon signal may very well show no noteworthy signs of blending, interference or coherence.
I have found, and anecdotal accounts from history tend to confirm, that the use of a mirror or mirrors can have a major impact on setting off a burst of similarly constructed reality subsignals. Also, it seemed plausible that visual symmetry might have import. Yet I wished to limit the number of variables. So in one set of experiments, I chose two- or three-digit numbers by a pseudorandom process; drew the resulting number and its mirror symmetry; and then placed a mirror before this inscription such that I viewed the inscription and its reflected image simultaneously. I also rocked the mirror because previous tests had indicated that that might add to the effect.
Though I cannot say why mirrors might be useful, it is notable that quantum effects are often associated with photon interference. I know that sounds like hocus-pocus, and I admit to feeling my way along here.
I decided to use low integers because of their simplicity, which I believed might reduce variability and because they usually (but not always) had a low E-value. I also wondered what might happen using prime numbers of low E-value.
Later I would pair a prime with a pattern carrying a relatively high E-value, again using the mirror process.
I qualitatively determined that when low E-values are used for every element of an image, the aftermath is usually unremarkable.
Eventually, I used a method I'd developed a while back of studying mathematics while keeping some images -- such as books -- on my desk. The synchronicities are easily as strong or stronger than anything done with mirrors. My thinking is that math study, which requires sharp concentration and focus, is effective in bringing about "echoes" from the images.
A note of caution is in order. Tinkering with the reality stream could easily yield unpleasant results, analagous to the manner in which LSD can bring on a bad experience. It may help to include in the experiment some image associated in the experimenter's memories with goodness. However, I cannot guarantee experimenter safety. Such experiments are akin to Ben Franklin touching a key during a lightning storm; he just got a bit of a tingle whereas an imitator was electrocuted.
Another note: the system crashed while I was working on this page, killing about two hours worth of work. When I went to rewrite the material, the notes concerning the segment at which I left off went missing, and remain so. There is no reason to think those notes were dropped or pilfered. I have omitted further discussion of that experiment (which was about nothing sinister or spectacular).
In retrospect, many of the "echoes" are anything but spectacular, but often my subjective impression at the time was that the echo "jumped out" at me, as if there was something strange or unusual about it. Clearly, though, one can always find a routine psychological explanation for such a sensitive reaction.
As of June 30, 2009, the final experiment on this page is dated June 3, 2009. In future, I will no doubt perform more experiments and include them on this or a related page. I likely will try to increase the E-value and, at least for a few tests, simplify the symbolism.
February 2008; day missing
I focused on this pair [31, RED] for less than a minute at about 3 p.m.
About 45 minutes later, I was in a local library and noticed a 12-year-old neighbor busy with a school project. She was doing some sort of survey and asked a fellow pupil: "What is your favorite color?" (The reply was inaudible.)
I had a sense that this was an echo. Victoria's question was about color, even if not red. And she was working on something numerically oriented, even if not specifically about the number 31.
Later, I went to stay at a friend's apartment and upon reaching the doorway, I noticed that the building number was 131. Of course there are 10!/8! = 90 permutations of two digits, giving a 1/90 chance of encountering the number 31. But there is also a 1/90 chance for any other two digits, so in probability terms, this is unspectacular.
Also, there was no particular echo of the color red in this observation.
Feb. 8, 2008
At about 5:30 p.m., I obtained the number 978 from the last three calculator digits for 51/2 and flexed a mirror in front of a symmetrical image composed of these digits.
The image took this general appearance
9
7
9 7 8 7 9
7
9
except that the top two numbers were facing the other direction, as were the two right-most numbers.As I was interested in checking a symmetrical design, I also drew the 8 as two circles and the 9's as a circle with a straight line segment tangent to it.
Later that evening I attended a seminar in which three very fine women reported on life-changing experiences. One speaker, who was one of seven siblings, described how her husband had died unexpectedly from three blood clots "in the lungs," though he had been taking Lipitor for high cholesterol.
Several echoes:
I tend to associate the numbers 9 and 78 with good things (a numerological idea I've picked up that I admit is hard to defend rationally). The women struck me as of especially fine character.
The two backward 9's were like P's, representing "pulmonary."
The 8 and the 9's looked like pills, representing the Lipitor.
Feb. 8, 2008
At 10:44 p.m. I chose the last two calculator digits for 110.71, which were 69.
This time I inscribed 6969 on a piece of paper, but had the second two digits facing the other direction.
I flexed the mirror about 10 times while looking at the figure and its reflected image.
After I had gone to bed, a teenage daughter of a close friend text-messaged me, asking that I fetch her some fast food. Her friend, a daughter of another close friend, also wanted food. (I had known both of them for years.)
I dropped off the food, and one of the girls, when she came downstairs, was a bit inappropriately attired (though not in her view). She told me her report card had two A's, three B's and three C's, a substantial improvement.
In our culture, of course, the number 69 is sexually suggestive. However, the incident was harmless.
I thought an echo had occurred because, though these girls were always asking little favors, the lateness of their call was a first.
There were other things I might report that could indicate echoes, but they are too nebulous to be worth detailing.
Feb. 11, 2008
At 10:02 a.m., the number 51 was chosen randomly from a book page. I inscribe 515 on a piece of paper with the last 5 facing the other direction and then rocked a mirror in front of the figure several times, using four rotations.
At about 11:30 a.m. I ran into a woman I know at a local library, a place I had never before seen her before. She had, unknown to me, recently moved into town with her husband and daughter.
I had used a book discarded by that library to select the "random" page number for my experiment.
Any other echoes, if any, are too nebulous to report.
Feb. 11, 2008
I first obtained 116, the last three calculator digits of the fifth root of pi. The prime decomposition of 116 is 2229 and so I used 29.
My notes record that a prime has an E-value for me because of my association of a prime with "hardness."
At 5:14 p.m., I inscribed on a piece of paper 2992, with the last two digits facing the other way and then put that paper in front of a large mirror. I then flexed a hand-held mirror in such a way that I could see the inscription in the hand-held mirror as reflected from the large mirror. I flexed the large mirror several times and also tried different positions for the hand-held.
During the mirror-flexing, I caught a glimpse of my abdomen and I wondered whether an echo concerning my belly or my body would occur.
After a nap, I went to the bathroom and found that a roommate had moved a sign reading "please wash out the shower, don't forget" to a spot under the mirror. The sign was intended for me.
I sense this as an echo though not a very pronounced one.
Later -- notes unclear about time -- I had to break an engagement with a friend set for the 19th because I had forgotten that I already had booked that date for another purpose. Apart from the number 9, there is little here.
Feb. 11, 2008
Unsatisfied with most results thus far, I tried another method in an attempt to get a more pronounced coincidence.
Using a pseudorandom process, I paired these two prime numbers thus:
(7)(19)
and then flexed the hand mirror about 15 times such that I could see the inscription doubly reflected, but stood aside so that very little of my image was seen.
The next day, there were several possible echoes but only one seems worthy of reporting. About 3 p.m., I read that Katherine Graham had been appointed publisher of the Washington Post. She was to report to her uncle, Post company CEO Donald Graham.
A "bit of me" is echoed here because I once served alongside Graham as an Army combat correspondent.
Weymouth and Graham are both "primes" in the Post company. Their family ties correspond to the pairing. Their independence is emphasized by the parentheses around the numbers. The ratio 7/19 approximates their age ratio.
Though these associations seem nebulous, at the time my subjective sense was that they were strong echoes.
Feb. 12, 2008
I flexed my hand mirror such that I could see reflections of this inscription:
E = ymc2 K = 1/2mv2 5,997(The y was the Greek gamma.)
The number 5,997 was chosen by a pseudorandom process.
My thought was that perhaps the energy equations would have a higher E-value than mere numbers and hence yield a more pronounced coincidence.
I have notes concerning a possible echo in Abraham Pais's biography of Einstein, Subtle is the Lord, but I do not think it is worth including.
Feb. 12, 2008
I covered the back of the hand mirror with white paper, because I was concerned that its smoky design was muddying outcomes. At about 7:05 p.m., I flexed the mirror several times at an image I had taped to the wall. I am not sure what that image was, but was probably the inscription above.
I then held the mirror in front of the image and flexed it a few times in such a way that I couldn't see the reflection.
The following day, I spent most of the time in bed, sick with a cold. Checking my cell phone at one point, I found two text messages from one of the girls mentioned above. One was typical, asking that I bring her lunch to school (which I didn't, having been asleep). The other one was odd, asking if I had the number for Mr. Ice Cream.
I then realized that the white-backed mirror I had flexed looked rather like an ice cream cone.
I considered this coincidence to be a rather strong echo.
Feb. 18, 2008
By a pseudorandom process, I selected the prime 23 and performed a test with it. My notes of the test details are missing.
However, my notes record that sometime after 9 p.m. I was at a service organization meeting where various outreach opportunities were presented, including one for March 23. There was a short discussion about that date, as it was to fall on Easter.
This also seemed a rather pronounced emergence.
After this test, I ceased from experimenting with mirrors. Instead, I would put books with interesting titles on a table where I would study mathematics and check for rebounds. I have often done this in the past, getting numerous compelling echoes, but have no notes of those tests.
March 10, 2008 For an hour or two before 3:24 p.m. I did drill questions for second order differential equations. On the library table were these books: Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe by Martin Reese and The Nine Numbers of the Cosmos by Michael Rowan Robinson. I only glanced at their content.
After finishing my study session, I checked the internet at saw that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had been implicated in a prostitution ring. The numbers 6 and 9 (from the book titles) are, in American culture, considered sexually suggestive when written as 69. I recall thinking before checking the news that something sexy and maybe tawdry would show up as an echo. Interestingly, Spitzer was code-named "Client 9."
March 11, 2008
Did differential equations drills in the library between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. or so. On the table were The Golden Ratio: The Story of the World's Most Astonishing Number by Mario Livio and The New Time Travelers: A Journey to the Frontiers of Physics by David Toomey. I glanced inside both books and sometime during my study session I noticed in Livio's book on the use of the number 666, which can be plugged in to a formula to get a close approximation of the negative of the golden ratio. I did some calculator manipulations but beyond that my notes are unclear.
In my mind, Middle Eastern events are often associated with the "number of the beast," because of the fact that much of the book of Revelation focuses on that region. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars, stemming from the insider atrocity known as the 9/11 attacks, make me think of the beast and the last days.
And so I saw an echo in the report that the top Middle Eastern commander had been fired for apparently emphasizing a moderate policy as opposed to the highly aggressive Bush-Cheney policy. The "666" is represented by the removal of a restraining hand.
As for any "time travel" or "golden ratio" echoes, my notes contain nothing worth reporting. This is not to say there are no echoes, but only that they are insufficiently pronounced to be useful.
March 12, 2008
At 1 p.m. I began to study differential equations with these books on the table: Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics by David Berlinski and A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram.
I penciled in a cross inside NKS and took a brief look at Wolfram's cellular automata graphs (I had read most of the book some months earlier). Peeking inside Berlinski's book, I noticed he referred to NKS.
I noted a personal experience later that day but I think it unworthy to include, though I may reconsider in future.
However, the next day (time not noted) I read in the New York Times an obituary for the last French veteran of World War I. The cross in the "cellular automata" book is echoed by the fields of crosses in France and the low countries where the dead of World War I are buried. Armies reflect NKS's cellular automata and war reflects NKS's discussion of the mathematical topic of chaos theory.
French Premier Nikolas Sarkozy expressed "infinite sadness" in his tribute to Lazare Ponticelli, reflecting the "infinity" in the Berlinski book's title. That book also has the word "history" in its title, and the obituary concerns a momentous historical event.
The cross is also reflected in Ponticelli's comment on war. It is "stupid," he said. "You shoot at men who are fathers."
March 18, 2008
Sometime between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. I was studying differential equations in a library. On the table were Extreme Waves by Craig B. Smith, showing on the cover a sailboat in peril; Blow the House Down, a novel by Robert Baer, a "bestselling N.Y. Times author"; Physics of Waves by William C. Elmore and Mark A. Head.
An orthodox Jewish man joined me at the table, where he placed three novels: The 5th Horseman, The Greatest Battle, and Sins of the Assassins. The first two were Apocalyptic fiction. He read from at least one of these books and also read the New York Times and the New York Sun.
About 10:45 p.m. the following day I read in the Times the obituary of Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote noted Apocalyptic science fiction novels. For example, Childhood's End features a race of aliens who look like devils.
Clarke was known for his efforts to steer humanity away from war, an echo of Sins of the Assassins. The writer had degrees in physics and mathematics, echoing the wave physics book and the math book. A scuba diving buff, he lived on Sri Lanka, which was struck by the devastating (almost Apocalyptic) tsunami of 2004. The Extreme Waves book discussed that tsunami, which killed 40,000 Sri Lankans.
Also, a very large rainstorm struck the central states today, causing massive flooding and killing 9 persons.
March 19 or 20, 2008
At about 6 p.m., I noted that I had been doing differential equation drills over the last 3 1/2 hours. I solved some easily but, because of mild fatigue, had difficulty with others.
On the table:
1. The Anchor Bible commentary on the gospel of John (I - XII), Volume 29, by Raymond E. Brown. I peeked at that and found it interesting.
2. General Relativity, an Einstein centenary collection of papers, S.W. Hawking and W. Israel, editors. The math looked difficult, I noted, but the book might be worth reading anyway.
3. Abstract Algebra by Lloyd R. Jaisingh and Frank Ayres Jr., a Schaum's Outline book (second edition).
Also on the table for a time was my folder full of math theorems, algorithms and formulae.
At any rate, during my study session, and after I had chosen the books, I got an email from a friend John telling me he was stranded in Atlantic City, several hours drive away, and needed a lift.
We fixed a time and place to meet the following morning.
The next day my breakfast and coffee was disrupted at a local eatery by a woman noisily complaining of having lost her wallet and wasting a trip. She then added that she'd been assaulted. I suspected that the high E-values imputed would have a negative affect during the day.
Echoes from the previous day: My friend "John" echoed in the book topic; perhaps my doing a Christian deed echoed in the book title; and "Atlantic City" echoed by the word "Anchor."
As it turned out, we missed each other at the casino and I wasted my trip. It later emerged that my friend had been assaulted and robbed of his wallet. So the woman's negativity echoed in these details.
My notes disclose nothing echoing relativity, other than the fact that we couldn't get our times and places to match up. Apparently, I was at one entrance and he at another, and when I went checking the other entrances, he was elsewhere.
My other notes concerning potential echoes concern things which are simply too nebulous to report.
March 26, 2008
Notes from March 25 are missing.
Mildly edited notes for March 26 have this to say:
"This morning I read on the New York Times front page a story about a new electronic fingerprint identification system introduced at a New York airport. Two Englishmen were interviewed, each with an opposing reaction. One, a businessman, had no problem with the testing; another, a writer, was offended by the intrusiveness.
"I remember thinking yesterday that an airplane echo was likely, since I wrote '7,127' and thought '727'."
The dualism of two prime numbers is reflected in the reporter's choice of two persons with contrasting views. Whether identification is also echoed is now unknown, my notes being lost.
April 22, 2008
I tried to study differential equations in the early afternoon, but was stymied by an allergy attack from accomplishing much. On the library table was the book Codes, Ciphers and Other Cryptic and Clandestine Communications by Fred B. Wrixson (Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 1998). Also on the table was a library survey form for April 12-27.
Later on I resumed study and placed on the table the book Star Wars Death Star by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry.
The next day, it was reported that a retired U.S. Army engineer had been accused of spying for Israel.
Espionage and counterespionage are strongly reflected in the title and the name Levanthol is Jewish, a link to the spy suspect, 87-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish, and the state of Israel. The spy case stemmed from the Star Wars era. There was a sudden supernova of exposure of a dark matter. The suspect couldn't have been far from death.
April 24, 2008
At 12:09 p.m., I noted that on the library table were The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells (a Tor Classic paperback); The Nomad of Time a three-novel collection by Michael Moorcock: The Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar (Daw Books/Doubleday).
The Wells book concerns a man who takes a potion that makes him invisible and then into a psychotic killer. The Moorcock stories are about a former captain in the Royal Lancers who visits alternate realities.
I studied differential equations.
At 10:47 a.m. the following day, I noted: "re 'invisible man,' 'nomad of time' the echoes were either too personal or too nebulous to report." (I now don't recall, but I don't suppose they were anything terrible.)
April 25, 2008
At 11:38 a.m. I noted that I had leafed through Great American Deserts by Rowe Findley, photos by Wll? Meayers Edwards, National Geographic Society. I left that on the table while I was studying differential equations.
A note of 10:07 a.m. the next morning, recounts that the prior night was full of incidents of being deserted. By doing a favor for one of the teens mentioned above, I forsook an event that a friend had desired to attend with me. It was apparent that he felt deserted. The teenager, focused on her own agenda, deserted me without even a text message or phone call. Later, I realized I had told someone I would meet her at the event I had forsaken -- and hoped she didn't feel deserted. In sum, the evening turned out to be boring and lonely -- somewhat desert-like, that is.
Nov. 6 or 7, 2008
At about 3:30 p.m., I had on the library table the book The 23rd Cycle, which discusses solar flare activity.
I used my calculator to perform these operations:
(1 - 23-1 + 1 - 23-2)2 = 3.820583832
(1 + 23-1 + 1 + 23-2)2 = 4.18352732
----------
8.004116624
I repeated the calculations and noted that the interval for these exercises was about 10 minutes. I then busied myself with other matters.Later that day I wrote a bit of fluff on my blog about "number 23" whimsies (I have since deleted it).
At between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. that day, an acquaintance told of a man whose son, only in his twenties, had just died. The man had overcome cancer as a teen, but it had recurred a year ago and had hit full force.
Comments: "Son" is a homonym for "sun." The cancer was a sonspot; the cancer flareup echoes the surge in sunspot activity, which goes in cycles. There was an eight- or nine-year interval between the cancer remission and flareup, echoing the sum between 8 and 9 calculated.
Prior to that, at roughly 6 p.m. and after my calculator exercise, a teenage girl sent me a text message reading "SON!", something she'd never done before or since. I checked the internet for a possible meaning and came up with "signing off now." As I recall, she later told me she'd intended that message for someone else."
Also, it should be noted that my reality formulation may have been influenced by the alleged "badness" of number 23, even though that was something I attempted to refute in my little blog post.
There is a break in my notes of about a year. I had done few experiments and hadn't bothered to record anything. I resumed recording results once I began to prepare to publish online Toward a signal model of perception.
April 13, 2009
On the 14th, I recalled that on the 13th I had been using scrap paper found in a trash container. On the printed side was some sort of legal document.
I was doing exercises in complex numbers, specifically trying to calculate 120.5 correctly, eventually getting it right.
During a walk, I happened upon an expensive graphing calculator, which I turned over to the university police. These happenings echo, of course, the slightly advanced math and the legal papers.
Later that evening, I was working out the complex number (1 + i)i and then (3 + 5i)i. My erroneous answers were 20.5/e and (34)0.5e-5i. Moments after arriving at the wrong answers, my young friend called to say that she was lost on Route 34. Shortly thereafter she was pulled over by a policeman for driving too slowly on that road. On the 14th, I noted, she told me she had also been robbed of her wallet, which contained $50.
The clearest echoes are the number 34 and the things going wrong, associated with my wrong calculation.
April 14, 2009
At 2:01 p.m., I wrote that I would use the back of scrap legal documents to do complex analysis drills, and that on my apartment desk I had placed a Bible and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.
About 4 p.m., I quit working. For an exercise, I worked on the solution to (9 + 11i)i, choosing the numerals because of high E-value and not specifically out of any desire to wreak mayhem.
I then turned on the television, where I watched a news story about a woman Sunday school teacher charged with raping and killing an eight-year-old girl. The woman wept at her arraignment.
The story had been running for several days, but this was the first I knew of it.
So we have these associations: legal papers --> law court, 9 and 11 --> a heinous act, Bible --> Sunday school teacher, Crime and Punishment --> the whole scenario, including the remorse of the killer.
Curiously, I didn't actually compute the correct answer.
Later that evening, I watched a snippet of Law and Order and noticed some echoes. But as the echoes are typical of TV melodrama I have decided to omit them.
However, I wrote, at 8:59 p.m. I returned to trying to correctly compute that quantity with the Bible and the Dostoyevsky book still in place.
I also tried to compute (9 + 11i)i(11 + 9i)i.
As soon as I ceased studying and turned on the TV, there was this return: A melodrama about a 12-year-old girl and Satanic stuff with a cop saying about some beastly thing: "The spell is real." I turned the TV off.
May 12, 2009
On the library table as I studied complex analysis during the afternoon were the books Hitler's Scientists by John Cornwall, Jungles of Randomness by Ivars Peterson and Coincidences, Chaos, All That Math Jazz by Burger and Starbird, and Elementary Differential Equations by Lyman M. Kells. Also on the table was the newspaper The Jewish State, a fairly militant publication.
About 5 p.m., I picked up the day's Wall Street Journal at the library and scanned a story at the bottom of page one raising the question of whether amateur gene-splicers posed a threat to national security. The headline included this phrase: "Let out your inner Frankenstein." Concern was expressed over the idea that genetic technology might fall into the hands of terrorists who might unleash some plague virus, but the experts quoted didn't seem very troubled.
We see the echo of evil in science here, possibly muted by the fact that I found the Hitler's Scientists book to be only mildly interesting. And any evocation of international terrorists carries with it the association of pro-Israel militancy.
Amateurs getting involved in gene-splicing might be construed as an echo of randomness. The probability of a catastrophe becomes so unpredictable as to be essentially random.
May 16, 2009
During the morning and afternoon I studied complex analysis, and on the library table I had placed Essential Topology by Martin D. Crossley (Springer) and Explorations in Topology: Map Coloring, Surfaces, and Knits by David Gay, both of which I glanced through, and Teach Yourself Sanskrit, a Complete Course for Beginners, which I also scanned.
On the table for a brief period was A Beautiful Math, a book about John Nash, game theory and the "quest for a code of nature." Also for a short time there was a flyer about local jazz and arts, which I put away.
At 6:59, my notes say, three women sharing a train compartment with me struck up a conversation about a woman who, on seeing her deceased husband's soul enter another body, swiftly marries this man.
This "random" chatter concerns transmigration of souls, a subject of the Upanishads and Rig-Veda. The Sanskrit book's stated intention was to help people to read these Indian writings in the ancient language.
At 7:57 p.m., my notes say, I had watched a public television travelogue, "Adventures with a Purpose," about the marvels of travel high in the Swiss Alps. I was struck by the intensity and vividness of the scenery and discussion. It occurred to me that topology might be thought of in terms of the cool climes of abstract spaces, and space was a very strong theme of this travelogue.
Sometime after I got off the train but before I watched this show, I stopped into the supermarket. One cashier, referring to a promotional gimmick, said to another: "You have to tell the people about the game we have." The response: "I don't know anything about that game." Then the clerk asked whether I wanted a game sheet and, on learning what it was about, I replied, "I'm not too interested."
It was only an hour or two later that I suddenly recalled that I had initially included the game theory book on the table, but then, thinking better of it, put it on another table. (Other experiences, which I have not chronicled, suggest that game theory can bring unpleasant echoes; also the more one uses for interference, the more probable a muddy result.)
I had visited this store often but, for me, the game materialized only that evening. After I brushed off the game theory book, a clerk and I each gave the game the brushoff.
May 19, 2009
The two topology books and the Sanskrit book mentioned in the previous segment were on the library table as I studied complex analysis, beginning at about 2 p.m.
At 10:14 that evening, I began a note concerning a NOVA special I had just watched: "Parallel Worlds/Parallel Lives," concerning Mark Everett, son of the late physicist Hugh Everett. An independent producer had prodded Mark, an alternative rock musician, to learn more about his dad and his dad's many worlds interpretation of quantum physics.
A lack of emotional bonding troubled the family, and so Mark, though he had loved his father, felt as though he hadn't really known him.
I must say that I wasn't very interested in the day's experiment and its symbolism and so perhaps the result wasn't quite as vivid in my mind as in the previous episode. In fact, I didn't look at those books that day. My emotional vacuum may have been echoed by the family's emotional vacuum.
Anyway, the many worlds scenario echoes the strange realm of topological spaces and also the astonishing worlds of the Indian classics. The parallel lives and worlds of father and son are echoed by the two topology texts.
The special included a scene of Mark looking at a string of math symbols which was counterpointed with his slowly gaining new insight about his father's work. We may regard this as an echo of the study of the strange-looking symbols of Sanskrit. His sister, it was reported, had killed herself in order to go to be with her father, also a possible echo of Indian theology.
May 20, 2009
On my apartment desk are two Bibles -- a King James version and a New American Standard version -- and the chilling chronicle, The War Against the Jews by Lucy S. Dawidowicz (Holt, Rhinehart and Winston; Bantam edition June 1976), which I read decades ago. Inside that book was a Catholic devotional card with a prayer to Michael and a painting of the archangel slaying Satan. My notes give the time of this observation as about 3:45 p.m.
Feeling a bit unwell, I was able to do only a few routine complex analysis problems, quitting at 4:59 p.m. Shortly before putting down the math book, my roommate had called out to invite me to watch what he thought would be an interesting movie; it was about pedophilia in the Catholic church in the 1960s.
At 11:27 that evening, I noted that the news program World Focus included a brief item about pedophilia and child abuse in Catholic institutions in Ireland. (The show is prepared before 6 p.m. daily.)
The next morning's New York Times contained a major story on the child abuse report. Another page one story was headlined "4 Accused of Bombing Plot at Bronx Synagogues." Another, "Lawyer's Ways Spelled Murder..." concerned a former prosecutor and defense attorney accused of suggesting that witnesses be murdered.
Echoes: Michael image and the Bibles --> struggle against evil in the church; Michael image in The War Against the Jews --> the plot to bomb synagogues averted; Michael slays Satan --> murderous lawyer exposed; also, implicitly, Hitler defeated.
June 2, 2009
I returned to my mirror method on this day. At 1:28 p.m., I wrote that I had taped to the wall the page one segment of a New York Times story headlined, "Plane Vanishes Carrying 228; Cause a Puzzle." Next to the story I inscribed the numbers 22.57, 225.3.11 and 2352. The first is the prime decomposition of 228 and the latter two stem from the numbers found in A330-200, the model number of the Airbus that vanished off Brazil.
I flexed a folding double hand mirror in front of the report, with the two mirrors at about a 45 degree angle or less.
I initially caught a glimpse of myself, but then mainly noticed two blobs of light playing over the type for about 30 seconds.
An hour or so later, my roommate returned and showed me a set of photos taken at a rustic retreat that we'd visited a few weeks previously. The pictures were almost all of trees, the lake, cabins and so forth. A very few pictures had familiar faces in them.
There may have been some minor echoes, but the most notable one was the matter of the missing people. There had been some 200 people at the conference but hardly any were in the photos. It would be days before a few bodies were recovered from the Atlantic; all others remain missing as of June 29, 2009. If the numbers had any echoes, they were insufficient to be worthy of notice.
June 3, 2009
The following was written on a piece of paper:
8
71 + 17
8
Just after 2:14 p.m., I flashed the hand-held folding mirror in front of the inscription above, which I had taped to a wall in my apartment. I flexed the mirror in various ways, continually observing the reflection of the numbers.Later, while sitting on a bench in a vest-pocket park I glanced at my cell phone and saw the time: 7:17; suddenly two girls emerged and were frolicking around the fountain of around a Civil War monument in front of me. Each appeared to be about 7 or 8 years old.
About a half hour later a friend gave me some phone numbers of some people I might need to be in touch with. I had trouble distinguishing her 8's from her 3's and had to ask her to verify an 8.
A bit later, someone else I know told me of newly discovered heart artery problems. I recall him mentioning that one artery had an 80 percent blockage.
A note of June 5, (may mean June 4) 2009, says that I checked the obituaries of David Carradine, who died June 4 in a Bangkok hotel. One story related that the 72-year-old had recently begun shooting a film (Stretch), which concerns a 17-year-old who publicly announced that he was going to kill himself before doing so.
Carradine's body was found hanging with a rope around his neck and genitals. Death apparently resulted from "auto-erotic asphyxiation."
Echoes: 71 --> age 72 (close but not exact); 17 --> age 17; two 8's symmetrically placed --> nooses about neck and genitals and suicide of 72-year-old and 17-year-old.
Now this may seem unpleasant, but let us recall the fine echoes of the two girls. The issue is not the creation of life or death, but the tuning in of reports. As an analogy, all sorts of things are broadcast on TV or via the internet, but one can't process all reports. Similarly, many "histories" are enfolded into reality, but only some are "energized" insofar as the observer is concerned.