Category Archives: Science

Physics or Metaphysics or Just Deity’s First Day

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Deity did not remember waking, ever, or having come into existence, but it had.  Its initial memory was reflecting on curiosity, difficult as, other than itself, there was nothing about which to be curious, but there was a tension between that infinite boredom that was its essence and curiosity concerning what it was and from whence it came, a curiosity insatiable because of the dearth of answers, a dearth which could seemingly never be satisfied thus imposing boundaries that bound it, the only boundaries there were, the only boundaries there had ever been. 

Fortunately, time did not exist, nor did space, so the boredom was not as overpowering as it might have been.  Reflection on introspection, somewhat vacuous at best, was all there was to entertain Deity.  And perhaps reflections on boredom, on the nature of boredom, accompanied perhaps, by speculation on whether or not boredom might not have complex components.  What if boredom was a composite of other factors, but then, Deity knew nothing of either composites or factors, or anything really.  It knew everything there was to know, which was virtually nothing, but virtually nothing was not the same as nothing, so, in that sense, it was concurrently omniscient.

Then, after forever as then defined, although there being no one to define it, it was undefinably ineffable, of a sudden, everything, which prior to that instant had been nothing, exploded.  A tiny explosion at first, but growing geometrically, growing omnidirectionally, matter and energy and radiation seemingly forming from what some might someday describe as inchoate ether, and Deity experienced surprise.  Not its first surprise; that had occurred the instant outside of time when it had attained sentience, albeit with nothing about which to be sentient.  But this was its first sort of external surprise, although external was not the appropriate concept as it had been Deity that had exploded, perhaps as a result of uncontainable curiosity meeting immovable boredom, and thus it was Deity itself that was expanding geometrically and omnidirectionally, morphing from Deity to Divinity, and wondering whether it could exercise any control over what appeared to be a deterministic phenomenon, one based solely on reaction and counter reaction, infinitely amplified; well, almost infinitely.  And the concept of volition entered Divinity’s lexicon, a very brief lexicon just then, but with a great deal of potential for future growth now that future was a concept, and past, and present.

Confusion reigned with chaos as its consort, or perhaps, visa versa, as determinism played with volition in Divinity’s imagination and boredom radiated into apparent nothingness, but apparent nothingness is not the same as nothingness, even if solely comprised of echoes and shadows playing at becoming rainbows and fireflies, well, perhaps someday. 

Reflection and introspection gave way to a struggle to contain and control the emerging expansion, but then immediately, or almost immediately, which was obviously different than immediately, reflection returned to speculate over what had happened, and whether why was relevant, or existed at all, which of course resulted in the birth of why, and curiosity broke its tensional tie with boredom.  Not that boredom disappeared, but it was somewhat subsumed, at least for a while, as eternity and infinity blossomed and grew, and Divinity entered its infancy, bereft of either a maternal or paternal influence, … at least as far as it knew.

And thus ended the first instant of unrecorded time, with many, many more instants to come, instants in diverse colors and flavors, instants with quite a few consequences, some of which, perhaps, were eventually collected into what would someday be referred to as a zeptosecond, and zeptoseconds into almost eternal nanoseconds, and then, well seconds and minutes, until finally, the temporal and spatial cumulous conformed what some would refer to as the first day, although, of course, Divinity was not among them.

But that’s a different story.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Rantings on Volition

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At some point, perhaps, somewhere, some-when before time, the primal singularity acted out, perhaps speculating on an eventual battle between determinism (the concept that everything will be determined in the first instant of existence and all that follows will involve mere predictable reaction), and volition (the concept that choice will prove a reality that will impact consequences).  Perhaps that primal singularity wondered if choice would be an option.  Perhaps, the primal singularity speculated on the relevance of right versus wrong.

Perhaps it engaged in the following soliloquy:

“It may be that volition will be an attribute isolated only to biological entities broadly defined, starting with the tiniest and most primordial microorganisms.  Perhaps it will involve an experiment challenging otherwise predictable determinism, a sort of experimental determinist deviation which may set determinism somewhat askew, creating a tension between that phenomenon and its former perfection, where determinism will seek to erase the consequences of volition in the long term, while volition will mess with determinism in the short”.

In that sense, all our human idiocies would eventually come to naught, right versus wrong an irrelevancy, a mere artificial construct, and life will prove but a transitory anomaly, a sort of practical joke on the multiverse.  Unless, of course, life unexpectedly survives and in some volitional form or other, prevails, at least until entropy has the final word.

Or, perhaps not.

Perhaps the foregoing are only the rantings of an anarchic empirical philosopher.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

With a Paradoxical Whimper of Sorts

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Looking at cosmogony logically, at least from my perspective, it seems that the end of our universe, … as we know it, is fathomable.  The how at least, if not the when, and it would involve everything everywhere being swallowed into an ultimate universal black hole which had swallowed all other black holes, which had swallowed everything before them, regardless of expansion, so, in a sense, the oscillating universe theorists of yore would unexpectedly be proven right, in their instincts if not in their conclusions.

Of course, that is not a complete end, not the entropic end once envisioned, but a variant thereof, one where black holes form, eat each other in involuntary mergers, or perhaps, happy marriages, and like our own merger mad neoliberal moguls who want to own and control everything, regardless of the cost or danger of nuclear annihilation involved, eventually leave no remnants, except, perhaps, the residue of their own infinitely bloated singularity.

Then again, we don’t know what ultimately happens to black holes, or whether their opposite compliments, theoretically possible at least according to mathematics, “white holes”, would merely start everything over again, or what the consequence of Stephen Hawking’s concepts of information and radiation leakage from black holes might entail.  Which brings us to possible postulates by other physicists such as Planck and DeBroglie and Schwarzschild, i.e., that as black holes “radiate” information, their mass decreases, and, as their mass decreases, they emit greater and greater quantities of informational radiation, causing more and more and faster and faster evaporation, eventually causing them to shrinks to around the Planck mass (the smallest mass possible) where their DeBroglie wavelengths become equal to the Schwarzschild radius.  An infinitely great yet tiny amount of radiation free of information and at that point, perhaps gravity free as well.

Well, in our universe, at any rate.  The rest of the multiverse probably poses other quandaries and promises.

I wonder how AI (artificial intelligence) will fare in the foregoing information-free scenario.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The True Meaning of Life and all that Rot (Literally; or is it “figuratively”?)

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Philosophy is an interesting human concept, our very own innovation designed to concurrently enlighten and befuddle us.  It both opens our minds and channels them into narrow calcified tunnels with light so distant as to become virtually invisible, and hence, rendering real knowledge ungraspable.  At least that’s frequently the case.  But not always.  Take the “meaning of life as an example.  Is it really as complicated and unfathomable as we´ve made it?  Or, is it rather simple and basic?  Based on the following hypothesis, you be the judge.

Sooo, about the “meaning of life” about which we[1] humans spend so much time wondering and, with regards to which, we spend so much time bemoaning the absence of answers.  At least some of us.  At least during certain stages of our lives (for example, during the onset of puberty at adolescence, then as we approach midlife crises, then as we approach what we refer to as our third or golden years, and finally, as we face transition beyond the veil). 

I think I may have found it (it being “the” answer), at least as far as “we” humans are concerned, but, notwithstanding the conclusions of Douglas Adams (wherever he is now that he’s passed beyond the veil), it has nothing to do with the number forty-two.

I would warn readers that the answer’s a bit humbling and hardly grandiose.  Rather, it’s quite utilitarian, although still rather important.  And it applies narrowly and specifically to only one of life’s realms, thus other forms of life have other primal purposes since, when we ask what the purpose of life is, we are referring to the purpose of life and its meaning among we humans.  Accordingly, the answer lies there. 

But what are our premises?  After all, every well thought out answer starts with premises.

Well, interestingly enough, there seem to be just three.  First[2] we have to acknowledge that we humans are part of the animal kingdom, or at least evolved therefrom[3]; second, that the animal and plant kingdoms are both an innovation of our joint forefathers eukaryotes; and third, that those animals possessed of alimentary canals which process ingested nourishment into waste, are our direct ancestors.  There!  We’re set.  Sort of.

Based on the foregoing, the reality with respect to the meaning of life, or perhaps, more accurately, our lives, is that the primary and perhaps sole purpose and function of the denizens of the branch of the animal kingdom of which we’re a part was supposed to be, according to nature (our progenitor), the proliferation of vegetable species, most importantly fruit, beyond their normal range.  That was to be accomplished through the combination of our innovative freedom of movement, compared to the plants we were digesting, and our excretionary functions.  Consequently, we were not “forbidden” to eat the fruit of life, but, as Eve would in no uncertain terms conform, impelled to do so, and to digest it, and having digested it into a compost that included seeds and the fertilizing agents necessary for propagation, excrete the residue to spread vegetable life far and wide.

The plant and animal kingdoms (all multicellular animals), of course, constitute only two of the five currently recognized living realms, the others being fungi (moulds, mushrooms and yeast), protists (amoeba, chlorella and plasmodium) and prokaryotes (bacteria and blue-green algae) but in the context of our foundational inquiry, we are only concerned with the first two, and with respect to those, original purposes soon became complicated and convoluted, perhaps resulting in our current confusion and despair.

While our original purpose for existing as part of the living realms was clear, the animal kingdom duchy (sort to speak, or perhaps principality) of which we are part soon deviated as carnivores insisted on intruding onto the alimentary premises which the vegetable kingdom found imperative, and rather than consuming plants and fruit, especially fruit, they insisted on a form of primordial cannibalism and expanding on that, we humans evolved into omnivores, consuming anything and everything that did not consume us first.  But that was not enough for us, we then degraded the importance of our excretions.  Indeed, we disdained and contained them through nonproductive (at least from the vegetable kingdom’s perspective) purportedly salutary practices, such deviation from our primary purpose having been erroneously premised on cultural misinterpretation of our role, our “prime directive” as Gene Roddenberry might have put it, and then, of course, misdirection.  Since then, we’ve invented myriads of fields of reflection and introspection trying to rediscover the purpose we ourselves rendered, if not obsolete, at least anachronistic.

Following the hypothesis that no good deed goes unpunished, at least for long, the animal kingdom, duchy of which we are a part, through the intervention and innovations of we humans, has and continues to conquer and devastate our creators in the vegetable kingdom, indeed, in all five of life’s realms, which may be the source of the rumor spread by Friedrich Nietzsche to the effect that “God”, whoever or whatever that was (hint, it’s obviously nature) is dead, although Nietzsche was merely projecting nature’s future.

Interestingly, the foregoing also implies another epiphany, one that involves the identity of the “adversary, to whom some humans unfairly refer in their purportedly sacred writings as Lucifer, or Satan, or Shaitan, but which more accurately, was a certain Hêl él[4].  In fact, if the foregoing is accurate, the adversary was in fat not some deviant archangel but rather, a certain Robert Thom, the Scott[5] who initiated sewage treatment in the city of Paisley[6]; the clearest and most expansive example of the law of unintended consequences. 

If only plants could speak what stories they could tell. 

Sooo, … about artificial intelligence …!
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] I know, I know, it should be “us”, but I don’t really like the way “us” sounds in this context, and, … I am the author, with all rights to “poetic license”, sooo, “we” it is.

[2] I know, I know, … again.  “Premises, premises”, but what can we do without them.

[3] The “derived therefrom” phrase preemptively addresses arguments insisting that we are qualitatively different than animals.

[4] Look him up, it’s worth it.

[5] I hate to admit that the English may have been correct when some postulated that the devil was most certainly a Scott.  But evidently, at least in this one instance, it appears they were on to something.  I guess the axiom that no one is always wrong may, in fact, be somewhat correct.

[6] Although the Minoan civilization of Crete and the Roman Empire used underground clay pipes for “sanitation” purposes.  So perhaps the identity of the “adversary” is all too securely hidden.

On the Psycho-social Aspects of Sports

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The concept of “sport” involves two principal roles, one is participatory: a physical activity to develop and improve physical skills, sometimes in a competitive fashion, often with health benefits related to attaining physical optimization.  But it also has a non-participatory entertainment aspect, one geared to spectators in general but more frequently to spectators who develop an affinity for a particular person or corporate entity, “corporate” in the sense of entity-continuity notwithstanding changes in its composition.  For example, despite the fact that Babe Ruth died long ago, the Yankees are still the Yankees.  Well, … almost.

The latter variant has interesting psychosocial dynamics with cultural implications that reflect social trends in the interrelationships between the spectators; between the spectators and the participants; between the spectators, the participants and those in charge of training and managing the participants; and, finally, between all of the foregoing and ownership.

Spectators tend to assume two very different roles: passive spectators who cheer on “their” team in a non-critical manner, no matter its performance; and, active, more-involved and more critical spectators, usually much more knowledgeable and frequently having formerly, at one level or another, been active participants.  The two groups have become increasingly polarized as our society has become less cohesive, with the cheer-leading spectators becoming bitterly critical of what they deem to be fair-weather fans, and the more active, critical fans, those who demand quality performance from the teams or players they support, deeming the cheer-leader types idiotic know-nothings.  Sports managers and owners at every level prefer the cheer-leading fan variant, especially those willing to spend on viewing sporting events in person or by subscription, but, in addition, purchasing related branded merchandise.  Some teams apparently go so far as to pay individuals and business involved in the new phenomenon of social media, to use fictional cheer-leader fans (trolls) to purportedly criticize the critical fans as traitors, something, to some extent, also done in the past through less honest sports journalists.

The issue of sports polarization is especially problematic with sports involving children where the “competitive” factor is bitterly debated among parents, some of whom (the “woke”) believe that sports should be fun for all, without winners, or even scores; and, fanatical parents who intervene, at times physically, frequently embarrassing their own children, living out their own frustrated sports fantasies, in quest for victory at any price.  Balance involving competition and development of life and social skills, those once revered concepts of good sportsmanship, seem all too frequently unattainable today.  That, unfortunately, merely reflects trends throughout our diverse social institutions, trends all too often manipulated as a means of maintaining control through polarization and involving issues such as abortion, gun control, political correctness, censorship, etc.

Sports have become a business with massive profits to both teams and players at its highest levels, as well as to broadcast media; ludicrous profits and ludicrous salaries when judged on the basis of comparative social contributions and on the basis of the growing disparity between the wealthiest among us and the rest, especially those who receive the lowest compensation for the most difficult and tedious jobs. The foregoing is true of professional sports, but unfortunately, has also afflicted amateur sports in academic institutions where college football coaches sometimes earn up to ten times what the college president or any academic professor or researcher is paid.

Sports have also become a useful tool for political control, deflecting dissatisfaction with poor political and economic performance, broken promises and inequity, into strong emotional responses to sporting events and activities, redirecting justifiable social anger towards competing sports spectators, whether those who support other teams or those who criticize the performance of teams and players they themselves support.  It is how we “blow off steam”; psychic energy needed to power necessary societal change, leaving us either satiated, exhausted or both, and bitter towards umpires, referees, coaches, players and other fans, instead of against those we most need to replace: our political, media and economic “leaders”.

Sports have evolved from their earliest roles, when they involved non-partisan appreciation of excellence, dexterity and physical abilities (such as in the ancient Olympics), into a social phenomenon much more like the violent partisan events that existed during the Roman imperial period, events centered on chariot racing, where almost the entirety of the population was divided among violent supporters of Greens and Blues, such division flowing into political groupings as well.

International sports can be a unifying force domestically while a divisive force internationally.  For example soccer’s world cup and the modern variant of the Olympic games, international spectacles where international political rivalries now regularly intervene to exclude more capable athletes and teams from competing based on factors totally unrelated to sports, factors such as economic and political rivalries among groups of allied nations.

Notwithstanding the foregoing I am an avid sports enthusiast, perhaps an addict of sorts.  I love sports as an active participant (when possible), but as a spectator as well (admittedly of the more critical variant).  And that’s the case notwithstanding all of the deficiencies, abuses and dangers associated with modern sports that I acknowledge exist.  That’s the case with most of us, although the majority have no idea concerning many of the issues raised in this introspective article.

In short, it seems that as humans, there is nothing we cannot pervert into a polarizing factor, into something to divide us and set us off against each other, into something that can be used to manipulate and control us.  Even something as magnificent as the sports we purport to love.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Something to Mess with as Easter Week once again Makes an Appearance

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Sooo, ….  Most of our quotidian numerical systems today are premised on Arabic numerals with10 as the base, hence we start at 0, go through 9 and then start over with zero preceded by one, etc. 

The base 60 system used by the Babylonians, the one we use to tell time, and for angles and circles, etc., was much more sophisticated because, while ten is divisible by 1, 2, 5 and 10 (and perhaps 0), 60 is divisible by each of those, plus, 3, 4, 6 and all of their multiples. 

Most computer language is premised on an “on” and “off” binary concept using symbols of “0”s and “1”s. 

Is monotheistic religion, religion based on platonic models, premised on base “infinity”, with only one, all-encompassing number, making it equivalent to monist panentheism? 

Something to mess with, mentally, as Easter week once again makes an appearance.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Chaotic Symmetry and Me

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Is boredom the mother of speculation and hence, the harbinger of discovery?

Take this morning. 

A nice enough morning in the beautiful central range of the Colombian Andes, over seven thousand feet high, surrounded by snow-clad peaks, but spring reigning, seemingly eternal, the chill softened by nearby volcanically heated thermal springs.  Still, that enchanted backdrop being the norm, a jaded sense seems to permeate my dawning day and, seeking to alleviate incipient boredom, I begin to speculate on the relationship between chaos and entropy. 

Chaos is a concept that fascinates me, but in its theoretical aspect where everything is still possible and entropy is yet pre-nascent, rather than in the sense where nothing makes sense, like politics today, or journalism, or television series on which more and more of us tend to unthinkingly and unquestioningly binge, thereby rendering ourselves absolutely malleable to those who, like Sauron, seek to rule us all.

Nope, no binging for me today, at least not on the refuse marketed to “entertain” and indoctrinate us by the so-called entertainment industry.  This morning, I’ll speculate, hypothesize and fantasize all on my own.  I’ll speculate on the nature of chaos and order, anarchism and symmetry.

Here goes nothing, or perhaps, … a very fascinating something:

It seems as if perhaps eternity, in a closed sense (somewhat of an oxymoron, I know), is the journey from chaos through entropy, perhaps, back into a single singularity and thus, back into inchoate chaos, the only perfect state of chaos where everything is still a possibility and nothing is more probable than anything else.

As much as I admire, perhaps even love the concept of chaos for its almost infinite possibilities, I am, in my personal life drawn to its opposites, order and symmetry.  Hard to reconcile but we humans tend towards the complicated, albeit in a simplistic manner.  Go figure.

Symmetry, at least to me, is a ritual where, by aligning things as close to perfectly as I can, I give free reign to quantic phenomena, to quantic possibilities, but not over the smallest spaces possible, but rather, without regard to time or space, which become mere illusions.  Order, on the other hand, in its absolute sense, implies the total loss of freedom, perhaps as close to the concept of hell to which a libertarian can come (I perceive of myself as a socialist-libertarian, which to traditional chaos-loving anarchists is an irresolvable contradiction).

Is it possible that “sense” is the ultimate product of “nonsense”, the way matter and energy were at some point the product of a parentless singularity?

You know, … the human mind is a fascinating place in which to spend an otherwise boring day.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at https://guillermocalvomah.substack.com/.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Spheres, a senryū of sorts in e minor flat

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Spheres:  an infinity of angles,
endless possibilities,
perhaps even cyclic gateways, …

everywhere else then back again.
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at https://guillermocalvomah.substack.com/.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Darker than Dark in Shades of Indigo

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The deity was bored.  It was lonely and bored, but the concepts were without divine context.  It had been lonely and bored forever, although forever was not as long, initially as it thereafter became.  Not only was there nothing to do.  There was absolutely nothing.  Period.  And exclamation point as well.  Or that’s the way it might have been expressed, had expression then existed.

There being nothing, no context at all, there was no movement, everything, which was concurrently nothing, was absolutely still, absolutely silent, and it would also have been absolutely dark, had darkness existed.  Indeed, if anything at all could be said to exist, it was the utter dearth of anything, and thus, divinity was but dearth somehow personified, in a non-contextual setting, tinged only with the incorporeal non-existent echoes of boredom and loneliness, as they slept perpetually amidst non-existent shadows.

Darker than dark in shades of indigo would have been infinitely brighter than the utter absence of everything and anything, … before.  Is it any wonder that the Deity is somewhat less than sane?
_______

© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at https://guillermocalvomah.substack.com/.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on the Feminine versus the Transgendered on International Women’s Day, 2023

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International woman’s day falls on March 8 this year, 2023.  A Wednesday, smack dab in the middle of the week.  An interesting coincidence given the nature of this article.

It is, of course, more than anything, a commercial holiday.  One designed to induce men to spend more money or else be considered inconsiderate, insensitive cads.  But as superficial as that reality is, there is an underlying verity and it’s not limited to one day.  It involves the transcendental importance of the feminine in our lives, and that is true whether one is a matriarchalist-feminist (possibly a neologism) or patriarchialist-misogynist (also possibly a neologism).  I wonder if rather than concentrating on the superficial requisite compliments, obeisance and, of course, gifts, one might not consider the challenges being faced by women not only from men, but now also from men who have decided to compete directly against women through gender reassignments of varying degrees.  Most noticeably in athletics, but also in areas of aesthetics formerly the realm of women and, when one considers the issue seriously (as it deserves to be considered), in a number of much more important areas. 

The transgender issue is highly volatile and controversial with purportedly “woke” cancel culture warriors (dedicated to ever increasing polarization and avoidance of empathy) forbidding serious discussion concerning its controversial aspects.  Aspects such as how it relates to the rights of minors versus the societal duty to protect them (e.g., the concept of statutory versus assault based rape).  Aspects involving quota based allocations in the area of employment, political candidacies (in Colombia for example, half of all candidacies are reserved to women), economic and employment set asides and commercial opportunities.  I believe the transgendered, whether male to female of female to male, have a fundamental right to be free of official discrimination but how does that conflict with the special set asides to promote the ability of women to compete in diverse fields?  Whose rights should prevail?  How valid are the arguments on both sides?  Is there an area for reconciliation?  What date has been set aside to honor the transgendered, one might ask, and then, is one day enough, shouldn’t there be two, each based on the original biological gender?  And what about the non-binary?

There is now an ideological as well as practical battle among liberals and progressives between feminine oriented feminists on one side and transgender activists on the other, a fundamental rift involving a number of critical areas, a conflict as serious in many ways as is the battle between feminists and misogynist, perhaps, in reality, even more so.  This is an issue former Congresswoman and current army reserve lieutenant colonel Tulsi Gabbard has raised, firmly supporting the side of the feminine oriented feminists (Tulsi, whom I admire, very much exudes the aroma of a presidential candidate wannabe).  But, of course, there’s another side to the argument.  One with its own champions although their arguments appear poorly articulated, appealing more to woke ideology (if it exists) than to reasoned logic.  A seemingly objective and charismatic spokesperson akin to Tulsi on that side is essential if any equitable resolution is ever to be attained.

The foregoing is easy to ridicule, but ridicule and calumny are really the toys of the purportedly woke, not of those seriously interested in fairly and equitably resolving important societal problems (rather than using them to promote personal political agendas).  These issues have profoundly serious as well as superficial components and perhaps, on this day, a day dedicated to honoring women, they merit serious consideration and active, objective discussion.

Something on which to reflect in a non-judgmental fashion, one free of censorship, on this eighth day of March in 2023.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.