Less ado about less than nothing
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 18/Jun/2011 22:20, 34 days ago
Where did this blog title come from?At one time I seriously thought about trashing everything, it seemed so inconsequential and would not lead to anyone wanting to visit Kingston, Jamaica. I didn't think my blog was going to be as weighty as "Much Ado about Nothing" so I changed to the humbler "Less ado about less than nothing".We all can work out that "less" is less than "much", but what is less than nothing? Google search turned up some possible leads and I even worked out a theory of my own. One writer, who will be anonymous for reasons of potential law suits, put forward the idea that quantum information can be negative, and in that way be less than nothing.Here's a flower picture to break up the heavy stuff. I wonder why stuff is not spelled stough?I have a sometimes empty but always open mind (at least I think do) so I thought I would give it a the quantum text a read. I swallowed my pride at certain suggestions that there was no way that readers who weren't into quantum stuff, could understand what was being written. I got through a few inconclusive sentences, and lo and behold, I saw a link to an executive summary.Guess what? I clicked on the executive summary link. And guess where it took me? Nowhere. So I thought to myself. This guy knows nothing. Not less than nothing, but nothing. I had arrived at nowhere, so I thought it was time to board the train to somewhere.Being a former accountant, I looked sequentially at the second offering from Google. This one was interesting even for somebody from the wrong generation. "Less than nothing" is the name of a song from the Goth group Demon Hunter. There was great poetry in this although the words read like an anthem to negativity. The title came from the chorus which went like this:We all live in fear of something.We all disappear like nothing.We all live in fear of something.We all equal less than nothing.There was no explanation of the last time, but I decided to listen to the actual music. I could hardly make out one word of that was sung, even though I knew the words. Truly, I am from the wrong generation.What generation owns me? If I am not an time traveler for eternity, like a Dr. Who, then I am a child of the sixties. One of its great philosophers, Julie Andrews in the "Sound of Music" summed up nothing succinctly:Nothing comes from nothing.Nothing ever couldSo somewhere in my youth and childhoodI must have done something good.So nothing contains something. Therefore nothing is at least something. Therefore there is no nothing, so there can be nothing less than nothing. Ow, my brain hurts!But if we can't define things then maybe we may at least see them and try imagining. Possibly my little walk around town could come close to less than nothing, but then we can always extract something out of it.Here are some busier-than me-workers on the roof of the Holy Cross church on Half Way Tree road. Theirs is a hot job but at least the roof is not black for maximum heat absorption, but the waterproofing below it is pretty black. Hot feet!My photo book told me to take photos of the signs so I would know where the places were, so I did.The front of the church and the more usual subject of a photo.A reminder that I have a dental appointment coming up next weekend, although not at this dentist.Almost at the Pegasus Hotel now where I planned to go for a swim. This photo was taken from in Emancipation Park across the street from the hotel. Strangely I forgot to take a picture of the swimming pool. The swim was the whole point of the long hot walk.And here's the hotel through the trees.Here's a self-photo to build up a case for a hot person deserving a swim. There was a distressing lack of perspiration on my forehead, although I did conclude I do look a lot like my brother Hugh from certain angles.After the swim I journeyed on northward and saw this Ackee tree along the way. The fruit was not yet open so it's poisonous to eat.A photography tip for me - photographers shouldn't aim towards the sun and get washed out pictures.So all that's left now is to close off. I will delete the cut and pasted lyrics from the Demon Hunter's song. I don't want people to think I am becoming suicidal. Although, possibly some of the wording is no worse than what some of Shakespeare's wackier monarchs were prone to say. This would mean that in a few hundred years our Goth group will receive the recognition it deserves.I have nothing but praise for JA's philosophy, but for the quantum guy I have adapted the Goth closing chorus to suit quantum philosophy. You've got to hand it to those Goths, they can be as economical with words as the best of them.I'm not quite sure why their second chorus was not the same as the first one. But maybe I'm not as imaginative. Here it is in a quantum slant.QuantumBunkumIt's nonsense.Borrum