The dissolution of dissolution

 

Overheard on the interwebs:

>>>Pralayāntaka Bhairava, the Ender of Dissolution, is that which remains when even cosmic destruction ends.

>>>Pralayāntaka means "one who ends pralaya (cosmic dissolution)." This paradoxical name points to the consciousness that witnesses even the end of the universe. When everything dissolves, matter, energy, space, time, what remains? Pralayāntaka Bhairava is that ultimate witness, the awareness that observes even the dissolution of dissolution. He is the teaching that you are not what appears or disappears. You are the unchanging awareness in which appearance and disappearance occur.

>>>Pralayāntaka represents the philosophical principle of sakshi (witness consciousness). Even when the entire universe dissolves at the end of a cosmic kalpa, the witness remains. This is your true nature, not the body that was born and will die, not the mind that comes and goes, but the eternal observer that was never born and can never die.

The day of her wrath

 

The demise of the (non-avian) dinosaurs was truly apocalyptic and even worse than we imagined, essentially hell on earth. It seems the Destructrix is a hard task-master...

Progress is uncertain

 

Or at least the expansion of the universe. So maybe *we can´t even know* if the universe is expanding or contracting. Kind of ironic that this comes up in my feed *now*, I mean, dude! 

Run for cover

 

Hmmm...

On Friday, it´s 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It´s also a dark moon. And a Tantric Hindu festival to celebrate Tara in a huge cremation ground somewhere in West Bengal. 

I see.

String them up

 

Sabine doubles down on the crisis in science / physics. Enjoy! Power move from the mama. I didn´t know string theory is still a thing, btw...

129 days

 

For a moment I assumed this was going to be a *hard* climate denialist clip, but it seems to be mostly anti-AI. But perhaps that was a joke? Zabine strikes again! 

Oh, and what are the consequences for biological evolution...?

UFOs on the Moon

 

Sabine Hossenfelder debunks some new (alleged) evidence for UFOs (as in extraterrestrial craft). One piece deals with some Ukrainian scientists who claims to have discovered UFOs on the Moon (!), whereas the second video is about the ubiquitous Avi Loeb. 

Hossenfelder belives the "warp drive" some scientists speculate about are indistinguishable from mundane meteorites. But ahem, what about the strange orbs discussed by Loeb? Interestingly, the US military actually tested some kind of infrared light at the same time, but claims that it *didn´t* cause the orbs. But surely that *is* the most likely explanation? 

What is really going on here, I wonder? And who is psyopping who? 

Full moon again

 

Full moon again, guys. Run for cover!

Well, akshually, para-dimes are good, akshually

 

A little reminder. A propos the recent blog post on Sabine Hossenfelder and the role of mathematics in the hard (oh-so-hard) sciences.

Quantum questions

Inside out

 

Some scientists apparently un-ironically speculate that we may live *inside* a black hole. Well, that would explain a thing or two, I suppose...

Note what Sabine is saying here: there are several competing theories about black holes, each mathematically "correct". Yet, only one of them can be true - or none of them are. So naaah, you can´t just "shut up and do the math", as some midwits are trying to tell us.

Shut up *and do the empirical research* is the bottom line here. Note also that many scientists themselves suspect that the simplest explanation (a black hole is a singularity) simply can´t be true...and so the speculations continue. 

I actually see that as a singularly good thing! 

Crystal clear

Vacuum birefringence something-something. Magnetars turn nothingness into transparent crystal. Schwinger limit. Bizarre stuff. Therefore G-d? Or the interface between purusha and prakriti...

Crystal clear!

Current mood

 

A bit disappointed that I didn´t see this somewhere, LOL. 

Darkness at noon

 

Credit: Luc Viatour

I wouldn´t call the recent solar eclipse a nothing-burger, but it wasn´t as dramatic as the one on August 11, 1999. 

That was apparently the most-viewed such event in human history, since it moved over large parts of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. I saw it from an undisclosed location in Central Europe (hence not from Sweden). It was quite dramatic, despite not being total at the place where I was staying. The sunlight became dimmer and weird, the temperature dropped from hot summer to almost cold in a matter of minutes, and all birds stopped singing, giving rise to an eerie silence. Then, everything went back to normal again!

Thousands of people had congregated around Lake Balaton in Hungary, a popular tourist destination, where the eclipse was total. This included large contingents of Neo-Pagans who supposedly went there to "worship the sun". Ahem, the sun is eclipsed, asshats. A lot of revellers had joined the crowds, as well. The distinction between them and the "spiritual" people wasn´t clear. (Compare Stonehenge at Midsummer.) Several TV networks transmitted live from Balaton. It did look very, very weird when all of a sudden, everything went almost pitch dark!

So what happened here in Sweden earlier this evening? First, only a few people came out to watch the eclipse in my neighborhood. Were the rest looking at it from indoors? The sunlight did change from normal to dim in a matter of seconds, but the temperature drop didn´t feel as dramatic as in Central Europe back in 1999, and some crows were still cawing! On the other hand, I didn´t see any birds actually flying around, and the local cat was sitting still in the middle of a pedestrian walk. The ending wasn´t very dramatic either, since the partial eclipse happened just before sunset. 

And for some reason, my right eye still hurts...

That was that, I suppose.

Framtiden är vår

Credit: TheGoodEndedHappily

Från Illustrerad Vetenskap: "Det kommer inte att bli någon solförmörkelse i Skandinavien igen förrän år 2126. Och nästa totala solförmörkelse som kan iakttas i Sverige inträffar dessvärre först den 25 maj 2141 klockan 10.04."

Vi får väl åka ut i viking som vanligt, då...

Current mood

 

Shiva and Shakti under a solar eclipse. 

Total eclipse

 

I don´t reeeeally believe in astrology, but surely a total eclipse of the Sun in the Sun sign Leo must mean something? I don´t know, the end of the world or shit of that nature? Or at the very least the end of Leo! 

Yet, there is relatively little apocalyptic speculation on YouTube related to the eclipse - at least as far as I can see. OK, let me guess. The eclipse isn´t visible in the United States? And "America" is the world. Or the universe? 

Is the next lunar eclipse (28 August) visible in the US of A? If so, I suppose *that* will be the next doomer extravaganza, hah hah. 

Solar eclipse

 

Will happen soon, apparently. Haven´t checked the doomer porn on YouTube yet, but I suppose I have the rest of the day cut out, LOL. 

A universe in a grain of sand

 

Or 9 out of 10 on a bullshit meter? Sabine isn´t *terribly* impressed by the recent headlines about some scientist creating a "mini-universe" in a lab, und so weiter. 

Death star

 

While the hypothesis that our sun has a dark evil twin (Nemesis) which periodically enters our solar system is currently unproven or disproven, alien stars do come close to the solar system on a semi-regular basis. 70,000 years ago, Scholz´s Star came close enough to the Oort cloud to (perhaps) create havock, but we won´t really know for another million years or so. That´s the time it takes for a displaced object from the Oort cloud to reach Earth...

A recent paper proposes that another star, somewhat un-poetically known as HD 7977, made a fly-by already 2.5 million years ago. This was during the time of Homo erectus. It seems the erecti may have been indirectly aided by HD 7977, since it would have been the second brightest object in the night sky, perhaps making it easier to hunt during the wee-hours!

Fascinating. Now, go ye forth and find me Nemesis. 

Ahem

 

No?