June 2017 – Gringa of the Barrio

Why Won’t Physics Give Ghosts A Chance?

Darn those scientists. They have gone and spoiled it for the gringa again. I mean, who doesn’t love a good ghost story? The reason such a tale is so tantalizing is because no one really knows if ghosts are real or not. Until now. Yeah. Thinks Neil Degrasse Tyson and Brian Cox, you ol’ fun-spoiling physicists, you.

The dear reader would probably like to know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about an experiment that took place with the Large Hadron Collider. And the results are being interpreted to prove that ghosts just don’t exist. At least according to the laws of physics. According to Cox, a British theoretical physicist, he explains that if there were information zipping about after a person’s dies, the Large Hadron Collider would detect those bits of data. This is how his theory goes:

-For a ghost to exist, after death, a pattern of information from living cells would travel through some other medium.

-The traveling pattern would interact with particles of matter from the human body it leaves while it makes the transfer from one medium to the other.

-The Large Hadron Collider has detected nothing like this.

Is it possible that there is a physics law not yet known by today’s scientists which might then make it possible for ghosts to be real?

Cox’s answer for this is that scientists would need to invent a new model for Particle Physics. But, considering the energy scale by which particles interact with the human bodies, this is not conceivable with today’s knowledge or technology. So the gringa remains hopeful that ghosts still have a chance.

Tyson, however, likes to rain on the gringa’s ghost parade. He says that just because there are gaps in what physicists do know doesn’t mean that what they don’t know will automatically support the existence of things like ghosts. Darn it. In fact, he believes that Cox’ work at the European Centre for Nuclear Research is sufficient to definitively conclude that ghosts don’t exist.

Tyson references the law of entropy as proof. There is a complicated physics law related to entropy in thermodynamic states. In a nutshell, what it means for ghosts is that energy is simply lost, whether it is man-made energy or natural energy. Energy simply expends itself and is lost and you can’t get it back.

But the gringa says, “Whoa, there, Nellie!” I mean, entropy is about the relationship of matter and energy. There is also the principal that, although matter may lose energy and experience entropy, energy doesn’t cease to exist. Energy may simply change into another form and never cease to exist.

The gringa thinks that Tyson errs to use entropy to kill off ghosts. Entropy is what happens to the physical body when energy leaves the body. If the energy is consciousness, the inspiration and existence of thought and individuality, that energy would not cease to exist simply because the human body of matter lost control of it.

Cox answers this idea with the assertion that if consciousness exists as an energy that animates the human body, then it must interact with the particles the human body is made of. So far, with the precision instruments that he has at hand, he sees no evidence of such interaction. But does that mean it doesn’t happen? After all, there was a time when man couldn’t “see” an atom or a blood cell, but they still existed.

So, the gringa started out disappointed but, in the end, I find myself right back where I started from. Believing that ghosts might possibly be the consciousness energy of inspiration of each unique human being’s individuality. After death, this energy may very well transform into another existence, possibly residing in a dark matter universe. The gringa is still a believer in ghost possibility until physicists can come up with something better than “so far with what we know and the instruments we’ve got we have to say no to ghosts”.

After all, Cox nor Tyson were able to explain whether or not consciousness exists. They cannot explain why humans have individuality and how though originates. In other words, the only thing they do know are the laws of physics that relate to matter. A “ghost” has no matter. These guys need to get back to the drawing board. And the gringa suspects Tyson may secretly be a believer in ghosts:

Sources:

Physics-Astronomy

Image Credit: WDFYFE

Video Credit: StarTalk Radio

The Horse & His Boy, Chapt 5’s Concl

Shasta and the horse discuss the details of their escape only to discover Shasta doesn’t know how to ride! Shasta also learns the horse’s name, which was strange so Shasta just calls him Bree.

Image Credit: Library Thing

Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 2, Pt 1

Find out how Malcolm fared as an athlete in basketball and boxing.

Image Credit: Pinterest

Watership Down, Chpt 37, Pt 2

Hazel, Kehaar and the rest are worried when Bigwig doesn’t show up as planned. What should they do? A storm is coming!

Image Credit: Alchetron

The Mayans Wrote Books, Too

Mention the Mayan civilization and you probably think of strange celestial calendars carved in stone, Meso-American pyramids and human sacrifice. You probably wouldn’t think about an ancient library book. Well, the gringa says, “Think again.” And what scholars have translated from the pages of this 17^th century Mayan book might have a plan of strategy for those Americans engaged in the Trump resistance of today. Who knew?!

During the time the manuscript was written, European colonialism and Christian religious oppression was in full swing over the indigenous people of pre-Columbia America. Although the entire manuscript is comprised of entries by different authors, it does open a very revealing window to how the influence of Pope Urban IV affected the Mayans.

The manuscript itself is a map of linguistic evolution. Four different languages are represented. It would be only natural to find Latin and Spanish. But two native tongues of the Mayan Empire, K’iche’ and Kaqchikel, are also part of this written record.

The K’iche’ language was already thousands of years old by the time European invaders arrived. But the K’iche’ dialect was what was commonly spoken between the Spanish speaking Europeans and the Mayans. Even today K’iche’ is still used in parts of Guatemala and Mexico by more than one million people, although the influence of Spanish and Latin can be detected in the most current versions. Thousands of immigrants to the United States also speak this ancient language.

The existence of this language into the modern age is a testament to a people who vehemently resisted the Catholic Church’s attempts to convert them and the efforts of Europeans to assimilate them. K’iche’ eventually lost status as an official language in Guatamala. Priests tried to convert Mayans through catechisms and confessionals performed in Latin and Spanish. But the Mayans wanted none of it.

By refusing to assimilate to European customs and the Catholic religion, Mayans were able to preserve their culture. They defended their beliefs by adapting certain elements of their public spaces. This compromise, a public recognition of the political and cultural sovereignty of the Europeans and the Catholic Church, created a buffer, allowing the resistance to live wholly Mayan in private, unmolested.

The religion practiced by the K’iche’ speaking Mayans evolved over time. It eventually became a hybrid with indigenous and Christian elements easily recognizable in their tenets, documents and art.

One example is the most fundamental concept of sin in Christianity. No such concept existed within Mayan beliefs. Dominican missionaries introduced the concept through a play on words. The K’iche’ word “mak” literally translates “will”, as in personal desire or impulse. The missionaries used the idea of personal impulse to illustrate sin because man is not to follow his own impulse but, rather, the will of god.

Even today, when visiting a Catholic church in Guatamala one will find a very different religious environment than a traditional Catholic setting. The effectiveness of the Mayan religion was a heritage that has reached far, even into our own current era.

To satisfy the Church that they were being compliant, the K’iche’ speaking Maya simply picked and chose the elements of Catholicism that seemed interesting or agreeable. Visiting Catholic officials would see an amalgamation of rites and rituals, many they easily recognized, and would go away satisfied. It was a resistance perpetrated through appearing to appease the oppressor.

Many people, especially Catholics, prefer to visualize the Catholic Church for its many charitable works it performs today. It is easier on the Catholic conscience to overlook the history of cruelty and brutality. But the reality of violent measures to mandate conversions are the reason the Church was met with such virulent resistance. Who wants to love and serve a god who is represented by something like that?

And it wasn’t just a cruel example of god that turned off the Mayans. The Europeans enslaved them. They, a proud, free and dignified people, a wealthy empire that had built massive monuments were forced into labor, slaves for their invaders. To refuse to serve their taskmasters and worship their overlord’s god often meant imprisonment, torture and, eventually, death.

Although the need for a slave class prevented the physical genocide of the Mayans, a cultural genocide was attempted as a means to force their religious conversion. Prized artifacts and relics were destroyed. Sacred shrines desecrated and razed to the ground. Any written text burned. So, it isn’t that ancient Meso-Americans intelligent enough to build pyramids were illiterate. It’s that their conquerors were effective book-burners. But one amazing book escaped their fires.