The Love Argument.

I had a mild disagreement about love recently. No biggie, nothing to fall out over, but it got me thinking, and that, eventually, got me writing.

I think (hope) it goes without saying that love is important, and that life is better when you have somebody to love, and to love you back.

I'm not sure that it's important what kind of love it is; traditional "romantic" love, familial love, the platonic love of true friends, even the brainless adoration of a pet, but I am sure that some kind of love is important.

But, and here's where the disagreement came in, how do you let them know?

My friend maintains that you can only say "I love you" so often before it loses its sheen, and start to sound like emotionless rote, a box ticked in the daily routine. My friend believes her partner knows she is loved by my friend's actions, the little things she does extra, but I think that they can become just as habitual as the perfunctory phrase.

So, what I do with my wife and sons is that, at least once a day, I stop what I am doing, stop them doing what they are doing, give them a hug, look them in the eye and tell them that I love them.

They seem to get the message.

But what about my friends?

That's a different matter. Partly, I don't have many actual, close friends. I care about them, and their well-being, but that caring doesn't really cross the line into full-blown loving. Partly, though, it is frankly embarrassing to turn to somebody you are related to and say "I love you". It's the word. Love. To most people, it's a deep word, full of commitment and responsibilities. It's not a word you say to your mates over a pint.

There ought to be extra words in the English language, to differentiate the different kinds of love. The Ancient Greeks did - the non-romantic love, between close friends and companions was known as "agape". That's more like it, I definitely have friends that fall into that category, but it's an awkward word to use.

"Dave, I have feelings of agape for you."

Hardly rolls off the tongue, does it?

I can't think of a better word, though. Can you? If you can, the comments are open below.

Since I'm waffling on the subject of love, I can't help harking back to another discussion I had with the same friend, about the exclusivity of romantic love. Here in "the developed world", romantic love has strong monogamous overtones. We are expected to be able to romantically love, to be in love with, only one person at a time. If we don't, if we fall in love with a second person at the same time as another, then we are seen as betrayers, selfish, evil. Groups that think otherwise, that condone or encourage polyamorous relationships are seen as weird, fringe even cults.

For most people, maybe the vast majority of people, monogamous romance is their natural state. I, though, think that polyamoury is both possible and natural, as long as those involved are honest about their feelings, and willing to put in the work required to make the overlapping relationships work. It would be hard work, because though A may be in love with both B and C, B and C may only feel agape towards each other, which would make the physical expression of romantic love awkward at best.

I have been happily, monogamously, married to the same woman for over 23 years, and was with her for four years before marriage. For the purposes of writing this blog, I tried imagining my reaction, should I find that my wife had become romantically involved with another person. I was surprised at what I found within myself; I honestly do not think that such a revelation would end our marriage. I don't mean that I would be instantly happy with the new arrangement, or that I would not be hurt, but I also would not expect to go through the clichéd process of her breaking off the other relationship, going through some sort of counselling or reconciliation programme, and then going back to how things were.

Instead, I see within myself the ability or potential to be polyamorous. I think I would end up, eventually, welcoming the other person into the family. It would scandalise both sets of our parents, cause a lot of gossip, but I would prefer that to losing my wife, and to forcing our sons to have to share their time and affection between us.

Of course, that scenario has an incredibly small probability of occurring, since my wife is strongly monogamous, and we are both in love with each other.

Still, it's an interesting thought experiment.

I wonder what your results would be?

Goldilocks - the Deceitful Harlot of Science.

I love Science, and I hope you, dear reader, agree with me that, as well as a proper basic education in the facts and processes of Science, it is important to be able to keep up to date with news and developments in Science.

Most people have neither the time nor inclination to be regular readers of the main Science journals,  so we rely on good Science journalism, in the news and documentaries.

Tabloid media are notorious in their narrow focus on the disastrous side of Science; before the LHC was switched on, tabloids fovused on the possibility that it would create planet-eating black holes. Now the Higgs is all but identified, the same journalists raise it as proof that our Universe will be destroyed by the imminent emergence of another Universe within our own.

One particularly annoying, and wide-spread feature of Science reporting (and, I fear, of certain branches of true Science, and thus the focus of this rant) is an ongoing obsession with Goldilocks.

Two of the great motivations in Science are the search for the origins of Life on Earth, and the hunt for Life elsewhere in the Universe. Every time tge discovety of an extra-solar planet is reported, somebody mentions alien Life, and finds some reason for it to be impossible - too hot, too cold, spinning too fast, too much radiation, too little light, all of these get cited as reasons for Life to be unique to our home planet.

Scientists happily reel off lists of factors required for Life to be possible - a temperature just and so, an atmosphere made up of this and that, a particular chemical make-up of the crust.  These Scientists present themselves as experts, as "astrobiologists".

Even tonight,  Brian Cox, a man for whom I have a great deal of respect as both a Scientist and as a populariser of Science, has fallen for the allure of the Harlot of Science; Goldilocks.

There is a persistent meme within astrobiology that there exists a "Goldilocks Zone", a set of conditions, only within which can Life meaningfully exist. Brian Cox's slip was to claim that an atmosphere of free oxygen is essential for complex Life.

I'm sorry, Brian, and all the others with a claim to expertise in astrobiology, but that's bollocks. The Goldilocks Zone doesn't even exist here on Earth. Life thrives in temperatures
from tens of degrees below freezing to hundreds of degrees above,  from pressures of tonnes per square centimetre to almost vacuum, in conditions from corrosive alkali to acid strong enough to strip the flesh from your bones. Inside solid ice, on the surface if Sun-seared rocks. Wettest swamp to driest desert. In months-long daylight to eternal darkness.

You get the idea.

We have yet to find a set of conditions that is naturally devoid of Life.

True, if you transplant a soft coral from the North Sea to the Atacama Desert or the mineral pools of Yellowstone, it won't last long, it won't last long, but that's not the point. It not that there is something that can live everywhere, but that,  everywhere,  there is something that can live.

The Goldilocks Zone is an illusion. It's an attractive illusion, one that panders to humanity's sense of pride, but an illusion all the same.

So, what's the truth?

Simply, to lift a quote from Jurrasic Park; "Life will find a way".

It will be Life, Jim, but not as we know it (sorry, I couldn't resist that one).

Astrobiologists, and the popularisers of Science, have a very narrow definition of Life; mainly water-soluble biochemistry, based on complex carbon-spined molecules, running on glucose metabolised with oxygen.

I prefer, though, a different, simpler definition; it has a reproductive process which involves a mechanism for heritability of traits, and there is, within that mechanism, the possibility of mutation and, thus, evolution.

Life (as we know it) makes exclusive use of DNA, but past forms, we believe, used the simpler RNA. Why could it not employ chemistry based on other molecules? Or a stream of digital information? Who says the mechanism of heritability is even required to reside within the actual organism?

I put it to you, dear reader, there is but one limitation on the existence of Life across the Universe; simply,  whether, should we encounter it, we would recogise it as Life at all?

One thing I do know; it won't have curly blonde hair.

Mortality

The end, as they say, is nigh.

Hopefully not very nigh, but, eventually, nigh it will be.

That bothers me. I would be stupid if it didn't.

Of course, most people don't know when the end will come. Stray buses,
badly-earthed wires, lightning, there are many ways to shuffle off this mortal coil without actually noticing.

That's slightly attractive, because what bothers me is not the aftermath (being an atheist, there's no reason for me to be bothered about any post-corporeal consequences). What bothers me is knowing. Seeing it coming more than a few seconds in advance.

I do not look forward to having thoughts of mortality forced upon me for any length of time, say with illness or encroaching age. I expect to end up (if I keep my faculties) in some sort of state of mild, but permanent, panic.

It's bad enough now, when the thought of The End crosses my mind (as it does, when events remind me of my mortality, such as friends losing relatives, or I have a close call myself), to consider a world without me in it. The mental picture doesn't work. The best that I can do is to think of a me-less world in which I am some sort of powerless observer, like a television viewer with no remote.

It is easy to see, at times like that, where the idea of life continuing after death came from. It's just so much easier to go into denial and delude yourself into thinking that dying is just a temporary inconvenience, then you just carry on as before, just a it more ethereal.

But, in these modern days, there arre extra things to worry about.

When I die, my family and friends will know. They will grieve (hopefully), but they will go on and remember me with affection.

But what about you, dear reader?

There are hundreds, possibly thousands of people who know I exist through other websites, particularly Instructables. Pardon my ego, but I'd like to think they like my work, and would miss me when I'm gone. But, if I die, how would they know?

If you are in the habit of checking my stuff (or anybody else on the web) every few days or weeks, how long would it take you to notice I had stopped posting? How long would you keep checking before deciding I wasn't going to post again? Would you even consider the possibility that something was more seriously wrong than a laxness on my part?

And, maybe, you are reading this for the first time. Browsing the bloggosphere, you have only just happened upon this rather morbid post. Am I, to you, dead, alive, or maybe even neither? Am I inhabiting a timeless limbo?

I tell people who ask me; When I die, all that will remain of me will be the memories held by those that knew me. Does this count as a memory? And whose memory? Post-mortem readers did not know me. Do you remember me by reading this?

Is this, then, the afterlife I have never believed in?

Days

Mornings are... zombie time.

Children sit and stare blankly until filled with cereal and chased to get washed and dressed. Adults stumble around, muttering, snatching food whilst ironing and putting packed lunches together.

Around 07:30, everybody is awake enough be trusted behind the wheel. The family parts, to schools and to childminders.

Sometime between home and school, spinning mental gears catch, and you notice you are in the car...

...the working day happens...

Home again.

Meals happen. Conversations happen. TV happens. Hobbies happen. Cubs, Scouts, Hip-Hop dance classes happen.

Children go to bed, reading happens.

Adults have calm time, TV time, internet time.

Bed happens.

The alarm goes off...