Lev Lafayette's journal

With a last-minute booking, I attended the public lecture "Monsters in the math: Black holes at the end of physics" by Dr Matt O'Dowd on Friday night with Nitul and Jacinta. Dr O'Dowd is an astrophysicist at City University of New York, and most famous as the writer and director of the YouTube Channel PBS Space-Time. With some 500 people in attendance, it was a fairly high-level and historical presentation, covering many of the great contributors to the subject, including Newton, the under-rated Mitchell (who coined "Dark Star"), Cavendish, Eddington, Chandraseker, and concluding with Hawking radiation which, if true, means that everything is lost, which is an ultimate end of the universe.

The topic rather reminded me of another physicist whose presentation I attended over a decade ago, which included contributions to the return of a static universe. Expressed simply, the idea is that gravity will pull nearby galaxies closer together, whereas those that have sufficient distance and velocity will increasingly get further away, resulting in a universe of tightly packed galaxies (a very bright night sky), but with enormous distances between these clusters. An issue I have with this is that almost every large and mature galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at their centre, and they tend to be proportionate to the size of the galaxy. Combined with Hawking Radiation, one is drawn to the uncomfortable conclusion that ultimately everything reaches a complete thermal death where all matter eventually dissolves into a featureless sea of radiation.

Seriously, it's a very long time in the future (a mere 10^78 years according to recent calculations), and there are smarter minds than mine working on this problem, and many physicists think that quantum information will be retained. whether through the holographic principle, subtle quantum entanglements, or highly condensed quantum gravity cores. I readily admit I have not explored the issue in sufficient depth to form an opinion on the matter, but I do know, like with all scientific matters, the degree that we have advanced the modern age is nothing short of extraordinary, and what worries me more is that our moral reasoning instead moves in ebbs and flows over a more fixed range. If this is the case, then ultimately, as a species, there is a great possibility that we'll take ourselves out through our own technological progress. Happy Monday.

Last Sunday, I gave my long-awaited presentation on the political philosophy of Jurgen Habermas (transcript available, YouTube video available), the most important social theorist and philosopher of late twentieth-century Germany. Appropriately, I made a batch of German food for attendees: Kartoffelpuffer, Eier in Senfsoße, and Roggenbrot.

I didn't touch deeply on his philosophy of communicative action or universal pragmatics, which I covered quite extensively in my presentation to the Existentialist Society on May 2nd (transcript available). Instead, this presentation covered his earliest works on the Enlightenment public sphere, as well his comments on the "new public sphere" of the Internet, his concept of societies consisting of a combination of functional systems and cultural lifeworlds, his elaboration on theories of law and theories of justice, his interest in Europe and the European Union, and especially transnational bodies and a non-nationalist patriotism based on human rights. I had some critical words to say about his relative absence of environmental concerns, of imperialism, and most importantly, of political economy, classist and patriarchal issues. Still, after six decades of political theory, his truly vast knowledge is undeniable, as even his harshest critics readily admit.

As someone who has been a Habermas-spotter for decades now, I have a dozen or so of his books plus some of the best critiques, countless journal articles and a hefty notepad of one-hundred pages of hand-written material on the two-volume "The Theory of Communicative Action" that I scribbled thirty years ago; I have a red pen at the end noting that I finished the reading after six months or so on 2.15 am on Friday 24th June 1994! Overall, I think I have some 40,000 words that I have written on Habermas immediately on hand - including about 10,000 words written this year. Which makes me think that I should write a short book on his philosophy and politics. It is certainly true that I have a full year already planned ahead of me, and then some, but one cannot plan for when their favourite philosopher's life reaches its historically inevitable conclusion. Apparently, the time is right, and the circumstances demand it.

"What raises out of nature is the only thing whose nature we can know: language. Through its structure, autonomy and responsibility are posited for us. Our first sentence expresses unequivocally the intention of universal and unconstrained consenses"
-- Jurgen Habermas, inaugural lecture, Goethe University Frankfurt, June 1965.

"Pacific Island Countries are microcontributors of greenhouse gases yet they are likely to be affected most. Some large nations have blatantly shown their lack of concern on these issues and they seem to believe that their economy and well-being are much more important than the survival of the people from PICs. This sounds inhumane to us. How can we make our voice heard? Are we over-reacting? One thing is for sure: we are vulnerable."
-- Janita Pahalad, Fiji Meteorological Service (Gillispie & Burns, 2000, p223)

For a few years I've more than a usual interest in the climate affairs of the Pacific (including a master's dissertation from the University of Wellington), with the recent completion of a major research paper on energy production which, as the wheel turns very slowly, will hopefully be published soon in the Intergovernmental Research and Policy Journal. In the meantime, however, I have also been nose to the grindstone and have just completed another paper for the same journal, this time on the current and future modelling of sea level change in the Pacific. There are three major improvements in this area: firstly, the adoption of satellite altimetry rather than tidal gauges; secondly, the continued abandonment of the "bathtub" models; and thirdly, the very significant improvements in sheer computational power, especially with general-purpose GPU programming.

Satellites provide a much broader scope for measuring sea level rise, capable of tracking the entire planet rather than just where tidal gauges are located. Further, altimetry actually measures variations in sea-level height, whereas gauges can be subject to subsidence. As for the "bathtub" models, they were fine for predicting sea-level rise due to thermal expansion, but not so good at predicting the effects of storm and wave surges and erosion. Newer, dynamic models are doing a better job at this. Finally, with this additional quantity of data and the complexity of interactions, we are very fortunate to have improvements in computing power through GPGPU programming, which enables massive parallel computation.

Anyway, doing such research has taken up a sizeable portion of my non-working life for the past few weeks, so it's good have some light the end of this project, before I move on to the next topic, which will either be a study in mitigation and adaptation in developing countries or environmental economics, both areas that I know quite well - all depends what my supervisor thinks is best. On a more practical and immediate note, however, it looks like I'll be taking another (short, small) international trip in a couple of weeks to really knuckle down on a major, relevant project for Pacific Island Nations that covers both energy generation and sea-level rise. Who knew that after years of formal study and research, one might be able to make a significant and serious contribution to a chosen subject.

As a consistent, long-standing, albeit irregular contributor to Rocknerd, it is to my shame that I have not contributed anything since February (March Violets, Crocodile Promises). The stack of things that I should review has grown, and, having decided to take a day of rest from work, study, and politics, I turned my attention to art and worked my way through four reviews with an electronica focus:

* Rüfüs Du Sol, Inhale / Exhale (2025). Australia's most successful contemporary electronica-dance band for 15 years, this late review of their latest album notes mostly consistent positive tempo, coupled with a tale from euphoria to loss.
* Basement Jaxx, Sidney Myer Music Bowl. A live review of one of the biggest names in UK garage electronica, known for maximalist performances with high-tempo anthems. Great sounds, albeit with hefty ticket prices and sometimes questionable sound quality.
* Leftfield, Botanical Gardens. Previously reviewed on Rocknerd 15 years ago, Leftfield are an example of beauty in music: "Leftfield are the music of passionate defiance from people who have nothing but each other". Very loud and very clear, the concert would have been improved with length.
* Cut Copy, Botanical Gardens. Unpretentious, often understated, Melbourne's Cut Copy provided a good selection of the past and their most recent album, "Moments". Rather than dancefloor bangers, they provide a continuous joyful vibe.

Now for a brain-dump of some hypotheses on the music of physics, as speculated by a non-physicist. Following Louis de Broglie's hypothesis and Quantum Field Theory, it is fair to say that everything is a wave. From de Broglie was the hypothesis that what we think of as matter has wave-like properties, which has been confirmed through electron diffraction experiments (apropos, waves also exhibit particle-like behaviour). This is accepted as mainstream quantum mechanics; particles are described by a wavefunction, ψ. In Quantum Field Theory (QFT), the fundamental entities of the universe are quantum fields (e.g., electron fields, quark fields, photon fields, etc), and particles themselves are excitations in those fields. Unlike an "everyday wave", like a wave on the ocean, there is no external cause for this it's the fundamental force and motion from the universe.

When a quantum state occurs periodically in time, it can be associated with a frequency. A frequency measured over equal intervals is essentially an oscillation, or, in musical terms, a beat. For a state with definite energy E, the wavefunction evolves as: f=E​/H, the Planck-Einstein relation, where a particle of energy E has an associated oscillation frequency, f. Now, when there is a single eigenstate, a quantum oscillation is more like a single tone. However, the universe has multiple quantum states superimposed with interference, and from that beat frequencies appear. If everything is ultimately oscillating quantum fields, then the universe is an ensemble of coupled rhythms. How far I can push these hypotheses will be explored on another day; however, I am tempted to also map this to the insights between the relationship between music and psychology and the philosophical concept of harmony. But all that's for another day; two paragraphs on quantum mechanics and music is enough for today.

A couple of days ago, I was informed that my former partner, Kayo, had died in her sleep the previous evening. We had been friends, albeit mainly at a distance, for many years. The random moments we had spent together were frozen in time, capturing lightning, light, and colour. In the midst of COVID, I managed to rescue her from being trapped in Thailand as international flights were being cancelled, and got her on the second-last seat of the last plane leaving the country. Months later, we formed a relationship, a partnership, became engaged, purchased a home, and made plans for a future life together. Alas, it didn't work out as expected. Kayo was a person who could show an incredibly deep love, express delightful kindness to others (even and especially to random strangers), and really had a beautiful heart. But, it must be said, she was also a person with emotional and affective instability; in the four years of our partnership, she broke up with me five times (I literally lost teeth over this), and when it became clear that I wasn't going to take her back for a sixth attempt, we parted company and not entirely on the best of terms.

One cannot blame her for this; Kayo's brain was wired very differently as a result of trauma-induced CPTSD, and any recovery from such a condition is difficult, given the profound neurological changes to the amygdala. For my part, I believe I consistently went well beyond reasonable expectations to be helpful, generous, understanding, and to provide a point of stability in her life. Certainly, I educated myself a great deal on mental health issues and, following the completion of a psychology degree, was invited to do postgraduate research by Auckland University. Kayo would tell me that, despite my own fairly rough upbringing, my grounding was "inspirational", and that I was "compassionate", "dedicated", a whole range of other positive descriptors of a different nature; the most important being that she felt safe, secure, and that all her many fears about the world would melt away in my company. I don't think anyone has provided me with such positive and passionate affirmations as she did, and she was one of the few people who could shake me out of a persistent depressive disorder manifested in my own life as driven dysthymia, and that alone speaks volumes about the sort of person she was. It was appropriate that her consistent, decades-long nom de net was a science fiction character who saves the planet through light and love.

There are many wonderful memories of my time with Kayo. We had a couple of delightful nature-immersed regional holidays, innumerable picnics in the best of the local parklands, we would sing whilst preparing food together in the kitchen, dance with our respective cats (who must have thought we were quite mad), we engaged in detailed speculations both practical and ridiculous (such as how we would steal the Star Sapphire of India), and we would study together providing motivation and ideas; her assistance in my MHEd thesis at the University of Otago was especially notable and is recorded for all history. But all of these sweet memories are in the past tense and can never be repeated or elaborated on. I really feel for her family at the moment, especially her parents and her brother, who absolutely adored her. For my own part, I must thank those who have expressed sympathy and care to me, all knowing that Kayo was such a big part of my life. Valedictions, Kayo, there is some small solace for all of us knowing that you are at peace: "Dieu réunit ceux qui s'aiment".

Early last year, I became aware of the death of a young artist and environmentalist, Isla Bell. The circumstances were pretty awful, and it quickly became obvious that I had a few friends close to family who, with what I consider to be a passionate and inspiring response, had established a charity to support young women artists. I made contact with the family to seek permission to engage in a fundraising campaign through the sale of some tabletop RPGs, as I have done in the past (Medicines sans Frontiers, UNHCR, Effective Altruism) and, over a couple of months and helped by the Conquest games convention and co-contributors (especially Simon Stroud), over $15000 was raised.

However, two days ago, Isla's accused killer, Marat Ganiev, had the manslaughter (originally murder) charges dropped by the public prosecutor , as were charges against his alleged co-offender Eyal Yaffe. Using the grim calculus, I understand the OPP's reasoning; there was no reasonable chance of conviction, because it was not possible to determine the cause of death, "beyond a reasonable doubt", even though everyone is quite aware of what happened.

This Saturday, friends and family have organised an "Isla Bell Justice Rally" in front of the State Library. Isla is remembered, and one day there will be justice for her and others.

"Jurgen Habermas is the most influential thinker in Germany today". Thus begins Thomas McCarthy's 1975 translator's introduction to "Legitimation Crisis" ("Legitimationsprobleme in Spatkapitalismus", 1973), and he wasn't wrong. Whilst he may have fallen a little off the radar a bit in the last decades (especially after his attempted "post-secular" rapproachment with religion), fifty years as Europe's most important and serious philosopher is a fairly good innings. Habermas dies last month, aged 96, and I was fortunate enough to be offered to give a presentation to the Existentialist Society this weekend on his philosophy of universal pragmatics and communicative action, which was both well-attended and had many excellent questions. The video, alas, missed the first couple of minutes, but everything is available in the transcript.

The weekend was not only an afternoon of deep and complex emancipatory German social philosophy in the idealistic tradition, however. Marc C., joined me for dinner on Friday before we ventured to The Old Bar to see some music; opening act "Trappist Afterland" was a subtle one-man band with Indian sub-continent backing tracks and songs about dogs, Star/Time provided quasi-improvised space-funk, and headline act The Gruntled accurately describe themselves as "avant-medieval psychedelic noise combo"; it all helps when you know several of the band members. The following night, I caught up with Liza D., and we made our way to "Impossiblistic: A Night of Surreal Performances, which was poetry, theatre, music, costume, puppetry, clown shows, and more. It was less surreal than enjoyable nonsense and was just fine.

Between all this, I also managed to visit the "Creative Antarctica" exhibition at RMIT on its last day, on Australian artists and writers who visited that grand continent. Of course, my own emotional and intellectual attachment to said continent is very strong; not too many people can say that they've spent New Year's Eve there. The exhibition was quite delightful. I really like Janet Laurence's "Ice Remembers" and Sally Robertson's "Atlas Cove". But the standout image for me was Frank Hurley's photograph of 1916 of Shackleton and Worsley leaving Elephant Island on a tiny lifeboat that would somehow make it to South Georgia Island over a thousand kilometres away and would lead to the rescue of the crew of the Endurance. It is one the greatest stories of survival against all odds and, for what it's worth, Elephant Island was the last location of my own trip to Antarctica this year. As Sir Raymond Priestley, Antarctic explorer and geologist, poetically put it: "For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton."

As predicted, this entire week I've been buried in work and study, a stark contrast to the week prior, when I engaged in a myriad of artistic engagements. As part of my doctoral studies, I've powered my way through the University of Chicago's content on climate modelling. The professor, David Archer, understands the physics, the modelling, and even the trickier issues involved in translating one to the other, especially given the handful of uncertainties and modelling challenges at scales. His book, "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast" is a worthwhile introduction to the subject. I have not yet decided what my major paper will be for this study; although I must mention that my paper "Energy Production Under The Paris Agreement: Options for Developing Pacific Island Countries" from the course "Global Energy and Climate Policy" has been accepted for The Intergovernmental Research and Policy Journal; I just have to clear up some formatting issues (one day, we'll all use Markdown).

One fortunate side of my work in supercomputing is the access to some particularly big iron, which might be useful in these situations. The University's own system, Spartan, has grown from being an innovative experimental system on a shoestring budget to become one of the world's top supercomputers. But another part of my role is working with the West Australian Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, home of Setonix, Australia's most powerful system (named after the quokka, you know). This week, we had a visitor from WA, from Pawsey, to discuss the system, and I was involved in wrangling a lecture theatre full of Spartan researchers to come along and hear about how to get access to this grander system. It was a bit of a highlight for the week, as I'm also organising a major project which includes a couple of major transitions which I strongly disagree with on a technical level, which I know will come back and bite us in the future. But I have long been an advocate of not letting work decisions upset me, and I am all too familiar with people acting as if technical limits are negotiable.

I rather suspect that next week is going to be a bit like the past week; the combination of full-time work and full-time study often means there are periods when my social life suffers quite a lot, and this is one of those times when the pointy end of multiple deadlines is looming. It is times like these that I feel a great deal of gratitude for the especially calm and studious Rookery I've built for myself, and for finding myself in a profession where extended periods of solitude are highly beneficial for output. I guess in the past people found themselves in a secluded hermitage; instead, I find myself in the midst of a vibrant city with the plentiful beauty of art and nature, and it takes some willpower to stay focused.

Last weekend, a few hours after getting off the plane from Shanghai, I made my way to Conquest Gaming Convention, where I would staff the RPG Review Cooperative stall for two-and-a-half days. In the midst of this, however, I had previously been slotted to give a lecture at The Existentialist Society on "The Decline of French Philosophy". So for a couple of hours in the midst of the convention, I snuck backstage, and with soundproofing provided by heavy stage curtains, delivered the presentation. It was well attended, well received, and is viewable on YouTube , including the questions and answers session. A transcript is available in English and in French, albeit the latter hasn't been double-checked. The basic summary is that the French did some excellent philosophy to the phenomenologists and existentialists in the 1950s and 1960s, went downhill with the post-modernists and post-structuralists from the 1970s to the early 2000s (albeit with some good insights, especially relating to setting, and a definite improvement in artistry), but following the "science wars" of the late 90s and early 00s, there has been some new French philosophers who are a somewhat more useful.

At the end of the meeting I was asked by the convener what future talk I would like to deliver; I immediately suggested Jurgen Habermas, who died at age 96 whilst I was overseas. Habermas is a "second-generation" Frankfurt School whose major contribution to philosophy includes combining linguistic pragmatics with ordinary language philosophy, "the theory of communicative action". Habermas was a very important influence on my own political thinking since the early nineties when I first read "Legitimation Crisis", a careful study of potential areas of break-points in societies. Whilst I wasn't expecting to give this presentation for some months, I received an email from the convenor of the Society that the next allocated speaker for May was unavailable, and whether I could step in and give my talk on Habermas. I agreed and then realised (after a bit of suspicion) that I would be the first person in the history of the Existentialist Society, which has been delivering monthly lectures since Feb 1974 to be the speaker for two month's in succession. It is a significant, if accidental, honour, and hopefully I'll give credit not only to the Society, but also to the subject.

After Guizhou, the next leg of the China journey has involved a return to Sichuan for several days. Nicknamed "the land of abundance" it receives this appelation initially on account of fertile agricultural plains surrounded by mountains. This is still very important to the province, but these days it is also due to the bustling commercial activity in the capital, Chengdu, and the industrial heartland of Dujiangyan. Like other Chinese cities these have a marvellous mix of old and new and because of the way such cities are designed (i.e., no suburban sprawl) they also provide numerous opportunities for nature to flourish. Visited examples, in order, of such a combination include the Wuhou Temple, dedicated to Prime Minister Zhuge Liang and Emperor Liu Bei, political leaders of the Kingdom of Shu in the Three Kingdoms Period some 1800 years ago; Zhuge's story is particularly impressive.

China is famous for pandas, and no province more so than Sichuan, which is almost overwhelming in panda promotion. One particular site is "Panda Valley", a research, breeding, and rewilding centre that is home to dozens of giant pandas and scores of red pandas. The location, as expected, is quite scenic, with its lush, cool environment providing a pleasant home for these impressive and gentle beasts. Nearby is Mount Qingcheng, one of the most sacred sites to religious Taoism, specifically Zhang Daoling's "Way of the Celestial masters". The mountain area is astoundingly beautiful, with many Taoist temples and shrines well integrated into the environment. Our tour guide took some delight in her argument that giant pandas are Taoist because of their yin-yang colouration.

Nearby is a particularly grand example of ancient engineering Dujiangyan Irrigation System, built over 2,200 years ago and still in use today, a credit to the lead engineer, Li Bing, who managed to see this built without explosives. As the oldest and only surviving no-dam irrigation system in the world, it involved the building of an artificial island that redirected waters during the flood season and released them during the drier months. Since it was built, the Chengdu plain has been free from flooding, and the "water dragon" has been tamed. Unsurprisingly, it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sichuan is also home to numerous ethnic minorities, including the Qiang people who live in the forested mountains in western Sichuan, and have their own autonomous county, their own language, religion, and practise their culture, including colourful embroidery. After an interesting and lengthy bus trip, our group stayed at Shiyi mountain village, which included quite a greeting ceremony with local chanting, drumming, and firecrackers at our arrival, and in the evening, a bonfire and dance. It must also be noted that the village was reconstructed after the devastating Wenchaun earthquake. Finally, there was a visit to the Sanxingdui Museum, with its impressive collection of Bronze Age artefacts dating back over 3,500 years. It seems that Sichuan has been a "land of abundance" for many centuries.