COGNITIVE RESONANCE

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:37:00 +0000

DREAMING SPIRES

As inadvertently blogged below, I'm back in Oxford this week, pretending to be a computer scientist (or at least a software engineer) once more. I already established that one of the other guys had to be an instance of a specialization of me, since he could finish a milkshake in less time than me. (The post-condition of a subclass operation, like a class invariant, can be stronger than the superclass version, or equally strong but never weaker. The principle is called covariance. Any practicing programmer knows about polymorphism and the like, but �bergeeks take things to another level.)

Speaking of other realities (in a city that houses David Deutsch, Philip Pullman, and dozens of homeless drug addicts... er, that is, people from two distinct subsets of humanity), I wrote a rather gruesome story set in an alternate world, for Lou Anders' anthology, as pictured.

Writing in SFX, Jonathan Wright praises the Jon Courtenay Grimwood story in the same anthology, before adding: "Also holding up the British end, John Meaney�s �Via Vortex� is built around a gory idea of how near-instant teleportation might be achieved. If we didn�t know him better, we�d be worried� "

Ah, well. You all know me by now.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:28:00 +0000

SELF-REFERENTIAL SEQUITUR

Hi, Chris... I'm glad that Paradox kept you reading late into the night. Would Penrose tiles become curved Penrose snowflakes (asymmetric Koch snowflakes) in mu-space? I'll have to think about that...

I don't know Professor Penrose, but we do have the same agent, and I am hanging around in Oxford University's computer labs this week. So I really shouldn't take his name in vain. But I did.

Oops. This was supposed to be a reply to a comment in the post below. But I'll let it stand, with this amendment. Without the previous sentence, this would be a non-self-referential post that would appear to be a non sequitur. So I'll just add the title to this post, which you may have read first, but I'm about to add as the chronologically final words I'm writing in this post.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:55:00 +0000

SINGULAR STROSS

Now you already know this man is brilliant, but when I met up with him at Easter (not pictured -- that's from Glasgow, 2005), and I pointed out a particularly unique achievment of his, he said no one else had spotted it, as far as he knew...

So look, you've bought Halting State, haven't you? Take a look at the cover, if you have the UK edition from Little, Brown, and see if you don't recognize one of the pixellated guys on the cover.

I mean, has any author of any genre, never mind SF, been the model for his own cover art before?

All hail Charlie, king of the posthumans.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:04:00 +0000

OLD FRIENDS, NEW FRIENDS

...I'd say mature friends, but heck, that makes it sound as if we have to grow up. That is optional, isn't it?

So less of the philosophical essay and more of a dear-diary kinda post, this time round.

Last weekend I caught up with friends from way back -- Justine Fidler (as she is now) and new hubbie Steve -- and Sally Burns and Bill Hamilton. Good to see y'all. Also Sylvia and David. Hugs, everyone...

Earlier that week, I got to meet that excellent thriller writer Barry Eisler, breezing through London on yet another global jaunt. Apparently he has to do loads of exotic travel in order to be able to write.

Also met up with writer/editor Bridget McKenna (close friends from way back when) and screenwriter Adrian Reynolds (first meeting in realspace).

And of course at Eastercon, there was renewal of old acquaintances. Great to catch up with China Mi�ville and Jessy, with Joe Abercrombie, Chris Wooding (that's the three of us, pictured) with our minds completely unaffected by the evil spirit summoned by the three witches overhead -- er, I mean the three princesses of fantasy fiction -- Jaine Fenn, Suzanne McLeod and Alex Bell. Also great to hang around with Ian McDonald and his missus Enid. And everyone else.

I also made contact with some harder hitting friends, having found a new kickboxing gym to train in. Cuts and bruises heal, I'm glad to say. Especially when you're young like me...

Keep healthy, all.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:45:00 +0000

NEW INTERVIEWS

That's Yvonne with Orion publicity manager (guru) Jon Weir. This was Eastercon, where altered states abounded.

So speaking of publicity, here are some recent interviews with yours truly. First, I talked with John Joseph Adams about Bone Song at SciFi.com.

And then Sandy Auden and I chatted about Dark Blood at the UK SF Book News Network.

And I had a very nice time. Ta lots to John and Sandy, both.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:23:00 +0000

YOU CAN'T STEP INTO THE SAME RIVER TWICE.

That was Heraklitus pointing out that every situation is unique, and change is constant. You've read van Vogt's World of Null-A, right? (Or maybe not, and I'm showing my age...) Non-Aristotelian logic recognizes that uniqueness, while Aristotelian logic is about generalizations and categorization, which are essential to human reasoning. Both forms of logic are essential for rational thought.

Yep, it's gonna be one of those posts again...

"Red" is an abstraction of a common feature recognized in different objects in the real world. "Colour" is an abstraction at a higher level. And so on... By "abstraction" I mean a noun that does not refer only to one unique object in the world, one that you can point at or hold in your hand.

In the world of NLP (which is close enough to the World of Null-A) abstractions are often treated in a particular way, as "nominalizations". In the context of personal changework, of removing past barriers to what you wanted to achieve or the way you wanted to be, this is very useful. If "fear" stops someone from being the person they want to be, perceiving "fear" (or "depression" or "anger") as an active process is a sudden (and disconcerting) change of viewpoint that allows change. If someone has an "irrational" phobia, asking them questions like "How do you know when to be afraid?" opens up sudden new possibilities.

But I really wanted to talk about logic and paradigms, and the way science changes, as we filter our world through new metaphors in order to understand it more.

Because "science" is a nominalization, that balances scepticism with an open mind (to paraphrase Carl Sagan). Every scientist is concerned with testable theories, and progress is partly defined by the theories that are thrown away.

No one needs the concept of phlogistons to model combustion, or vortices (as per Descartes) to model gravity -- they are outmoded metaphors or models. But even among the metaphors in current use, there's no single correct model (unified theory), and the things which are unexplained or lie at the boundary between two different theories are so often the puzzles that drive understanding forward.

Before Newton, time was not a "geometric" dimension in scientific models. Before Faraday, fields (of force) were not a core concept (although they were a vague metaphor to understanding), whereas since Faraday's time, physicists have "absorbed the concept of fields with their mother's milk", to quote Albert Einstein...

Here's a list of some important understandings which have arisen in my lifetime:

- from microfossils, evolution began 4 billion years ago (up to 1 billion years earlier than previously thought)

- stars have planetary systems (over 1700 such systems detected so far, with different observation methods that agree with each other -- previously, no one knew whether this sun was the only star with planets, now it's likely that planets are everywhere)

- symbiosis is as important as predator/prey relationships in evolution (The mitochondria in every cell of every animal (incl. human) species, the powerhouses of the cell, contain DNA that is nearly always -- not always, as most people think -- inherited from the mother. The nuclear DNA (half from each parent) is quite separate. It's now widely accepted that early unicellular animal life was the symbiotic pairing of two distinct species of bacteria, hence the two separate sets of DNA in all our cells.)

- quantum physics can be observed at the macroscopic level (the next huge leap forwards -- happening right now -- large collections of atoms are being put into quantum states that effectively make them a single quantum particle, and so the weirdness is about to be seen in large physical objects. Teleportation has already been achieved, in physics labs under verifiable and reproducible conditions.)

- I'm going to add neurolinguistic programming, which is just the beginning of various models that will have different names in the future, being powerfully verified by cognitive neuroscience now, such as: the 20th century discovery of mirror neurons (it's not news!) and the more recent discovery of the neural spatiotemporal grid (which I hypothesise is a hugely powerful mechanism, responsible for "timelines" and "submodalities" and other aspects of the way we structure our subjective experience of the world)

- emergent properties arise from complex systems regardless of the properties of the underlying substrate.

- human beings are dissipative structures thermodynamically, locally increasing complexity while obeying the second law of thermodynamics (Prigogine won the Nobel prize for this in 1976)

- black holes are real and there's a big one at the heart of our own galaxy (when I was an undergraduate, Prof. John Taylor visited and gave a talk on black holes, prompting one 3rd year student to stand up and say: "Do you seriously call yourself a physicist?")

- dark energy and dark matter, the latter being a codename for the huge majority of the mass in the universe, that is made up of something we can't see and whose nature we don't know. Talk about unknowns and boundaries!

And of course humanity will model reality in new ways in the future. Wolfram's book, A New Kind Of Science, is just one possible vision of mathematical models that don't use equations (they're replaced by local rules for cellular automata). What else haven't we thought of yet?

Because beyond that, Newtonian physics implied a metaphor that was the-Universe-as-clockwork, while current physics (and neuroscience in a sense) consider the-Universe-as-computer (Wheeler's "it from bit"), so in five centuries time, perhaps that metaphor will be quite outmoded. I wonder what the new ways of thinking will be?

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:12:00 +0000

HAPPY EASTER

Have a wonderful relaxing holiday, everyone! And if you happen to be in the UK and attending Eastercon, please come and say hello. I'm going to be on a 9pm panel on Friday, and signing books at 5pm on Sunday in the dealers' room. At other times, I'm usually not far from a source of coffee, so you can always find me to chat and have a laugh.

See you there!

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:36:00 +0000

REACHING THE FINISH LINE

...Is only the beginning of the next journey, don't you think?

Have you noticed how movie actors often appear in interviews to promote their latest release, and yet their appearance is quite different from their movie character's? It's great that they're enthusiastic about the movie as ongoing project, even though filming wrapped up long before, and their altered appearance is for the part they're currently working on, in something new.

And so as I hold gorgeous wonderful copies of Dark Blood in my hand, newly unpacked from their box, I'm bowled over and excited, and it's your story now when you buy it and read it, while I'm already working on the next.

It's not just a goal, it's a direction that you need, my friends. Be well.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:11:00 +0000

ON VIEWPOINTS....

There is, or used to be, a long-running ad in some US martial arts magazines for a system called Target Focus Training. What's interesting is the provocative headline, which goes something like: IMAGINE TWO PEOPLE LOCKED IN A LIFE-AND-DEATH STRUGGLE, ONE PERSON'S HANDS TIGHT AROUND THE OTHER'S THROAT. WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT?

Along with the sub-heading of: Whatever you've answered, you're probably wrong.

Anyway, as I think about writing, I'm reminded how rarely SF uses the first-person viewpoint compared to other genres. Private-eye fiction used to be entirely first person; nowadays there's a new form, wherein one character's story is told from first person (through their eyes, feeling their feelings) while others are from third person (not omniscient third person, but dipping into the thoughts and feelings of the viewpoint character).

The first time I came across this structure, I hated it... It seemed a lazy form of writing, to take a simple first-person story and pad it out with scenes from the characters' viewpoints. However, both Robert Crais and Barry Eisler switched to this technique at the same time as they raised their games to new levels, and I enjoy their books very much.

Recently, screenwriter Adrian Reynolds has been discussing with me the psychological processes involved in writing. One of the things I'm aware of is that I can visualize a scene, move around inside it (like a form of lucid dreaming... which it is) and when I'm moving into a character's viewpoint, I'm moving the observer/feeling part of me into that person's body. And I wonder how much our internal visualizations are influenced by cinema and other modern media?

I've also stated in a recent interview that music -- whatever you want to listen to, whenever you want to listen -- is the thing that separates modern writers from our antecedents, even more than using keyboards instead of pens. Because listening to music at the write time (!) every morning is a brilliant, powerful and effective way of dropping you into exactly the right state to continue with your story.

So what about that advert? Does it help if you know that the system being advertised is one that concentrates on real-life self defence, rather than traditional martial arts? (By the way, I think the actual advertised methodology is a good one, worth adding to other practices, not replacing them. That's just my opinion, though.)

Remember, the scenario was two people locked in a life-and-death struggle, one with their hands around the other's throat. The question was: What do you do next?

My answer, when I read it?

It was: SQUEEZE HARDER!!!

Be safe, be confident, be powerful, my friends.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:57:00 +0000

STUPENDOUS NEWS

If you, like me, get excited when new books come out and people say nice things about them, you can share my feelings about Bone Song's debut in the US.

Right now, Yvonne is in Los Angeles, featuring in one of Paul McKenna's TV shows (he's a household name in the UK, and the number-one non-fiction author, and poised to take the US by storm). So she rang me up on her cellphone (sorry, fellow Brits, I mean mobile, or Handy to my German friends) to say she'd just taken pictures of Bone Song on the shelves of a large bookstore. Excellent! And my most wonderful US publishers, Bantam, have put animated ads on various important websites, which I like very much.

Excuse the lack of blogging recently, and brace yourself for the deluge as the new-look website really is about to go live, and I've been storing up things to say...

Be well and fly straight, everyone.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:00:00 +0000

LEAN, FIT AMERICANS...

Had a wonderful visit to Arizona during January, failing to meet up with my fannish friends, but staying with my bro and his other half, the wonderful Leslie. Sometime during the visit, Yvonne ran her second marathon. I ran half and staggered half, which means I got to the finish on the same day I started...

The event was the PF Chang Arizona Rock'n'Roll Marathon, with live bands playing en route, and energetic cheerleaders to pass on their vigour by the magic of resonance. It was superbly well-organized. With a 7:40am start to avoid the worst of the heat (at least for the fast runners!), volunteers on race day were working from 3am to get everything set up. Terrific job.

Even knowing the theory of cold desert nights due to lack of cloud cover, it's still a surprise to have to wear extra disposable layers at the bitter, freezing start to a race in the Arizona. See? Palm trees in the background, and me well-wrapped up in extra gear.

It reminded me of the Boxing Day race in December, in the Welsh seaside town of Porthcawl, which Yvonne and I ran. That race was interesting, in that the organizers guaranteed -- before the event -- that a world record would be set by one of the runners taking part. How could they possibly guarantee such a thing?

No pressure, but Colm worked out the answer to that conundrum in under ten seconds. Nice one, bro.

He also took us out to explore the desert, which we've done before. It was nice to visit the saguaro cacti again. I love 'em.
That's Yvonne and Colm saying hi to a saguaro. The cacti don't even begin to grow branches until they're 75 years old, so you can estimate the age of these specimens

January was a month of wonderful events, and I'll tell you more later about the terrific writing workshops I led at St Margaret Clitheroe Primary School -- they invited me back, and it was an honour.

In the US, the paperback edition of RESOLUTION is now out, and you can order it online from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, of course.

Lots more happening in February and March book-wise, on both sides of the Atlantic.

And the race with the guaranteed world record?

The organizers swore it was the first official 38-furlong race, so whoever won it was going to hold the world record for that distance. (It's about 4.75 miles.)

For British readers aged 50 and over, who can remember how many perches, rods or furlongs make a mile? For everyone else . . . I swear I'm not making it up. Honest. Really.

Oh, and since January is now over, it's time to make the resolutions that you will be able to keep, within realistic limits. If you swore to train hard in the newly-joined gym and you've not been going, throttle back and consider exercising at home, with shorter, less intense sessions than you'd planned. Like that. Worth it, don't you think?

Take care. Ad astra, my friends.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:45:00 +0000

HAPPY 2008!

We've circled (ellipsed?) the sun again . . . And we haven't fallen off the world, even though it's spinning on its axis, zooming around the sun, and the galaxy is rotating around a massive black hole at its centre. We tiny patterns of self-aware stardust, we do alright, don't we?

Blast away the old limitations that used to hold you back. Change yourself -- not others: have goals that will happen as you transcend the illusory barriers that seemed so real in the past -- and make this your year. This is your time.

From Yvonne and me, may you realize the richness you already have in life, and enjoy every step on the journey this year. While your goals attract you and give you direction, it's the daily flow that matters.

Be happy, be well.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 11:56:00 +0000

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Have a wonderful day, everyone. Take care and be happy...

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:24:00 +0000

THE S*X PARADOX

I wonder if that caught your attention . . . Today I'd like to talk about unconscious communication, and while we're here there's a paradox that I find interesting. Are you up for this?

I was flicking through a Michio Kaku book, Parallel Worlds, which I've read before. This time I noticed, in the notes at the back, a time-travel paradox from philosopher Jonathan Harrison. Two well-known basic paradoxes that derive from travelling into the past are 1) someone travels back and kills himself/herself, or 2) he/she travels back and becomes his/her own father/mother . . .

This particular variant appears to combine both scenarios, but the murder happens to the man when he's older in the past, so it�s not a self-invalidating loop.

A young man (Dum) awakens from suspended animation, meets a young woman, fathers a child (Dee). Then Dee and Dum travel back in time together. The son (Dee) kills the father (Dum) and takes his place (after reaching the appropriate age) inside the suspended-animation capsule, and when he comes out of the stasis he calls himself Dum. (As an additional nice feature, the explanation for how to build the capsule and time machine is a manual carried by Dee/Dum in stasis and used when he awakens, and then handed to his son.)

Where does the S*X paradox come in? (Let�s call it the genetic paradox, to avoid internet-nanny filters.) Whenever two adults produce offspring, the DNA comes 50-50 from the man and woman, and yet the man and the son are the same person . . . So while part of you is pondering that, let's talk about unconscious communication.

I was watching an episode of The Apprentice (the Alan Sugar version) some time back, not the most recent season. Being nothing like a TV addict, I just occasionally caught the boardroom showdown, rather than whole episodes. Some other time we might talk about the lessons to be learned by people who have to work in teams and then betray each other . . .

In the boardroom, Sir Alan, having given a particular contestant a hard time, stared straight at him and said: "So should I make you my apprentice?"

And the guy said: "Yes," as he shook his head. I couldn't tell whether Sir Alan consciously recognized the incongruent signals, but he certainly reacted; and the guy lost it in that moment. Which was what the most important part of him wanted . . .

This kind of stuff happens all the time.

There's a deceptively simple technique for dealing with situations which give you a bad feeling. If you focus on the feeling and reverse it, spinning it backwards, you destroy the old representation of that situation. (That�s not enough information to tell you how to perform the technique. It�s derived partly from knowing that nerves habituate to a constant signal, just as you weren't aware of the pressure on the sole of your left foot until just this moment . . . So any persistent feeling, even an internal one, must seem to move.)

So I was talking to someone who�d seen a hypnotherapist to learn how not to have panic attacks, but with only limited success. The patient said the therapist knew �how to spin the feeling in my stomach,� while her left hand pointed unconsciously towards her own head. Too bad the therapist hadn�t noticed where the panic feeling really manifested. . .

. . . And how did your unconscious get on, pondering that paradox? Here's my take on it . . . Let's label Dum's total chromosome set (aka his karyotype) as A u A' (the union of A and A-prime); and the mother's chromosome set as B u B'. Let's further say that the lucky prizewinning Dum-spermatozoa carries the A subset of chromosomes (so A' is discarded). And the lucky egg is carrying the B subset from the mother (so B' is discarded). So the egg, which grows up to become Dee, has chromosomes A u B.

But A u A' (Dum) and A u B (Dee) are the karyotypes of the same person, therefore A' = B.

Whoooo . . . !

Remember that the splitting of each separate chromosome pair is random, unrelated to what occurs in the other pairs, so that a different spermatozoa and a different egg wouldn't have any of A, A', B or B' as their genetic complement . . . If that weren't true, then all siblings would be identical same-sex 'twins', regardless of age difference.

Now, the Dee/Dum paradox avoids the kind of strange loop that might cause a 'cosmic censor' to prevent the time travel from occurring (since he doesn�t prevent himself from being born � he fathers himself and also commits patricide). But it does require something peculiar to happen at the molecular level, doesn't it? It has to be the case that each chromosome pair splits �correctly�, in a very weird fashion.

So it�s not just a paradox at the level of human behaviour, but all the way down to the sub-cellular level at least, and really the quantum level, so that the requisite �random� events occur to fulfil the loop.

Mind you, I got an entire story (Timeslice) out of considering that time travel into the past might be impossible, but that travel into the future might still be allowed, and interesting . . . And speaking of unconscious cognition, my equally old story, A Bitter Shade of Blindsight, is really about dark matter and extra dimensions, and the idea that we can only perceive (maybe) a tiny portion of reality, as if we are ghosts drifting through a solid house filled with interesting people invisible to us, as we are to them. As a literary experiment, I left out huge chunks of that explanation (in line with the idea itself); and I don�t think the experiment worked, though there were aspects of the story that worked all right.

I�m not sure if this new novel I�ve heard about, Blindsight, uses something similar. In fact, I don�t believe I�ve read any first-timer�s SF novels this year. Anyone got any good recommendations?

In fantasy, I adored Joe Abercrombie�s first two books, The Blade Itself and Before They Are Hanged. I meant every word of the praise-filled blurb I wrote for the US editions. And in mystery, Gillian Flynn�s Sharp Objects is a nicely disturbing read. As for horror, Joe Hill did one heck of a job, and I�m a big fan of his dad�s work.

I�m going to sign off with one of my favourite quotations, which comes from Isaac Bashevis Singer: �We have to believe in free will. We�ve got no choice.�

Or as a long-term vegetarian, I might add (on my way out the cyber-door) another of his sayings: �I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.�

Be well, my friends

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:53:00 +0000

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE?

Hey, y'all...

With your indulgence, I'd like to insert here a posting I made in the NLP Connections forum, to a thread discussing the methodology behind science, and string theory in particular. It produced some nice reactions in that venue. So I thought I'd give you a minimally edited version, and then explain the jargon afterwards, if that's all right with you.

Most members of that forum will be familiar with the saying ('presupposition') that "the map is not the territory," and probably a sizeable percentage would recognize it as originating with Korzybski. What I wanted to demonstrate was that this presupposition, along with the spookiness of quantum physics, does NOT support the worldview that the nature of reality is determined entirely by our beliefs. Here goes...

Since every scientific theory (or hypothesis) is a model, when someone uses a list of criteria for judging whether a theory is good, they're utilising a metamodel. And I suspect most working scientists possess a metamodel that encompasses both Korzybski's presupposition and Popper's notion that a theory is never 'true', just not disproven. That de facto metamodel includes testability as a key criterion . . . or you've no way of knowing whether there's a structural similarity to reality. Isn't that empiricism the qualitative difference between scientific knowledge and all other forms of human enquiry?

There's an extra clause in Korzybski's original sentence, referring to the fact that the usefulness of a map lies in its structural similarity to the territory. That's extremely important . . . perhaps the difference that makes a difference.

Of course, the title of the thread contains a very generalised nominalisation -- "science" -- while making a point about string theory specifically. (That's fine . . . we're all friends here!) Just to broaden the scope briefly, it seems to me -- er, subjectively -- that some people take our favourite presupposition all the way to solipsism, as if any map is a valid one. That's not so.

Inaccurate maps aren't useful. Can I go off on a brief tangential rant? (Or is that a ranting tangent?) Let's say you're used to reading a map that depicts rail stations as black circles. Then you try to find your way around a strange city using a map drawn by a cartographer who uses black circles to represent something else entirely . . . You've gotten lost by presupposing that the symbol retained its meaning from another context.

I think this is one of the main reasons why popularisations of quantum theory and genetics are misunderstood. Just as 'power', 'force' and 'energy' have specialised meanings in classical physics, so (arguably) does the term 'uncertainty' in quantum theory, and 'a gene for a characteristic' in genetics. When a non-specialist goes off on a transderivational search to attach meaning to such words, they may come up with meanings very different from the intended message.

For example, [a forum member] reframed some of your first post to include the words "anything is possible". This is a natural inference from Korzybski's sentence; and some people infer something similar from quantum theory (since it deals with probabilities). And yet neither is so . . . "The map is not the territory" presupposes that there IS a territory; and there are many, many possibilties that quantum physics excludes. (Sodium lamps can shine only orange. There are always dark bands in an interference pattern, where photons/electrons may NOT go.)

Objectively speaking (!), subjectivity has to operate within external constraints, or it becomes delusional.

Back to tying string theory in knots . . . Experimentation is the act of sending out a surveying team to check that a small piece of territory is structurally similar (VERY similar) to part of a broader territory's depiction on some map. If some abstract piece of artwork can't be used to find a route around a landscape, then the artwork isn't a map, though it may be pretty to look at.

The question is whether string theory is like a crazy abstract painting, or merely a satellite photograph taken from so high up (using unusual wavelengths rather than normal colours, perhaps) that it's difficult to see where to start and what to survey . . .

Jargon translation: In General Semantics, there's the notion of a ladder of abstraction (if I remember the term correctly, from decades ago). You know what I mean. Er... "Apple" isn't abstract, "timeliness" is, "honour" even more so. How about "professionalism" or "robustness"?

All of these words conjure up different representations in different people's minds. When such abstractions are causing problems, they often come in this form: "I can't help my anger." "Fear prevents me from succeeding." In this case, it can linguistically be useful to think of these abstract words -- anger, fear -- as referring to processes more than things. In NLP, the jargon for this is 'nominalization'. (Fear is something you do, not something in the world outside.)

Those two sentences contain other 'meta-model violations' in addition to the nominalizations, but let's save that for another day, along with a discussion of how, precisely, being sensitive to nominalizations and other linguistic clues offers the possibility of changing someone's life with a few well-chosen words.

The 'meta-model' is one of the NLP models of language, which is itself a model. Have you come across the UML metamodel in software design? Same kinda thing.

Oh, there was another piece of jargon: "transderivational search." That's the mental process of attaching meaning to a word, on the basis of subjective experience. To someone trained in reading microexpressions (including the eye-movements known as "accessing cues") it's possible to watch the search in progress, as the person sifts through images (for example) and then accesses an internal feeling (a kinaesthetic reference) to check for correctness. Just think Hari Seldon, Second Foundation, with a dash of Bene Gesserit . . .

So back to the point of the discussion . . .

I understand why "reality is what you make it" can be empowering. For most practical purposes, it's an immensely powerful base to operate from. The symptoms of (unipolar) depression and the symptoms of learned helplessness (a condition first identified by Seligman, doyen of positive psychology) are identical. People who feel trapped in their jobs or other circumstances are operating within an impoverished model of the world . . . It doesn't matter whether you dream of being a writer, a philosopher, an athlete or a painter or anything else -- it is possible, because people facing the same challenges as you have achieved them.

And while it may take time to learn skills or train yourself to a sufficient level to realize your goals, any barriers to stepping onto the right path can be cleared away in an instant. At the speed of the thought.

So why am I arguing against pushing the principle all the way? There are two reasons. One is the incorrect use of science (or Korzybski's rational notion) to shore up a philosophy that it doesn't logically support.

About a year and a half ago, I was visiting Maggie and Eric Furey, and I was watching a film you may have heard about or seen, called What The Bleep Do We Know? When Eric and I started watching it, he framed the experience by saying that he'd be interested in what I thought of the quantum physics basis of the philosophical ideas. By the time Maggie entered the room, I was being negative (and I think she was taken aback, just a little).

But I'd started from the frame set by Eric, and so to me the ideas were pretty but not supported by physics in the way that I thought the film implied.

Beyond that, there's another reason. If the nature of reality is the result of our beliefs, then we're all directly to blame for the geopolitical mess and climate change. And just how do differing beliefs interact with each other? If the laws of physics operated according to human belief structures, why aren't the properties of spacetime different in different countries? It's a preposterous notion, of course.

The reason that quantum/string theories bring us to these discussions is because we're at the level of reality where the things we're observing are on the same scale as the things we're observing them with, such as photons. So the workaday explanation of the deep conundrums is simply that we're changing the things we're measuring, and that happens all the time.

Whew . . .

So take heart, my friends. I don't think you can jump a thousand feet into the air in the next five seconds just by having a strong belief, but I know your dreams can be true.

Last night I attended an impressive talk by a fellow called Gabe Guerrero, taking time out from teaching a course on advanced language patterns... in English, and his mother tongue is Spanish. At school, he was told he'd never be able even to speak English. But limiting beliefs are only illusions, and you can always learn new ways of doing the things you've tried to succeed at before.

And who, knowing the unathletic child I was, would have predicted a lifetime of martial arts and such weird practices as swinging a heavy yellow kettlebell around in the air?

Per ardua ad astra, everyone. The stars are yours.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:41:00 +0000

MISSING FROM BLOGSPACE

So did I miss October? Did we have one? What happened?

That's me ringing my bro Colm to find out . . . Well, okay, no, we were in a restaurant together acting grown up and sensible. Sober-minded as always.

So, what did happen?

I handed in Dark Blood (the final draft) on time, during September. Blogging while the book was in progress . . . that was fine, as you can see from previous posts. But October was the month in which to work out What To Write Next.

So, sorry, but no random thoughts made it as far blogspace, because everything went into the subconscious cookpot, until I was able to outline several new projects. One of them I almost had, but wasn't quite there. And when you're in that state, and Paul McKenna just happens to be on the phone and says, "I can help with that. It'll only take a few minutes," what can you do?

So a few minutes trance, a good night's sleep, and next morning I outlined a complex book called Resonance. Wow.

It's only one of several projects, and I'll keep ya posted as they develop.

And how are your dreams developing?

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:33:00 +0000

AN IT HARM NONE, DO WHAT YE WILL.

I was shocked to hear of Carol Philpott's passing away last week, so soon after our last meeting. Yvonne attended the funeral today, and I'm sorry I'm far away.

Well known in fandom, married to John Philpott, she was wonderful, and a terrific example of the virtues she believed in: mirth, reverence, honour, humility, strength, beauty, power and compassion. May the Goddess keep you safe until the time of rebirth, and beyond.

Be at rest, be well.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:31:00 +0000

BOOTSTRAPPING THE MODEL

Chicken or egg, which came first?

Where do you check the spelling of a word? Where do you check its meaning? Being transatlantically bilingual, or aspiring to that state, I'll check the OED or Webster's, depending on context. But did you realize that every single English word is defined in terms of other English words?

Well of course you did. As a kid, sensory referents (perceived real objects) became attached to referential indices (words) in your mental model of the world, as you began to learn your first language. Something outside the dictionary kickstarted your language acquisition.

Have you ever tried to make sense of physics as a logical system, without applying intuition to any of its concepts? Honestly, you can't. There's no fundamental axiom from which the other relationships (equations) and concepts are constructed. Distance, time and mass are referential indices to proprioreceptive, kinaesthetic and visual sensations of real-world referents. They're concepts that we learn from outside formal physics; without them, the full richness of our model of the universe cannot come into existence.

If that doesn't translate into specific examples, think of simple relationships like force = mass x acceleration, work = force x distance, power = work/time. Now see if you can derive a meaning for any of the fundamental concepts from the whole collection of equations. Good luck, and you can't!

And yet, even though physics requires the basic concepts to exist a priori, our understanding of force, distance and time are very different now than a hundred years ago, before Einstein twisted our minds.

So while your unconscious mind processes that, here's my recent news. I handed in Dark Blood, the final draft, on time. That was a big rewrite draft, followed by some polishing up. In the last few days of the rewrite, I was working on it 24 hours a day, near enough. At least, every dream seemed to be part of the book.

Of course I took out a little time to exercise. On Sunday Yvonne and I ran a 10K race which was hilly. I was slow, but then again I'd run late on Saturday and very late on Friday, and the cat ate my homework. After the race, my legs gave way (as illustrated).

Now about that chicken. I'm thinking of the usual species, gallus gallus. According to wikipedia, there are several ways of hypnotising chickens. Trained in powerful hypnotherapeutic techniques though I am, entrancing chickens is beyond my experience.

And finally, the answer to the question of which came first. Obviously every chicken grows from an egg, so my answer is -- the first chicken appeared on Earth before the first chicken-egg.

Why do you think that is? And what do you think I mean by 'chicken-egg'?

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 13:36:00 +0000

JEDI MIND TRICKS

Of course, there are trends in SF. Once, there were novels about the next stage in human evolution. Van Vogt�s Slan was a real paranoid adolescent�s fantasy. Often the new species � with whom the reader identified � had telepathic abilities.

Wyndham�s excellent Midwich Cuckoos had a different slant, with its inhuman children. Arguably, it belonged to a time when British writers shared none of the optimistic enthusiasm of their American counterparts.

Nowadays, fictional post-humans have accelerated from homo sapiens to something different with technological help, exemplified by Charlie Stross�s hard SF, in a trend begun by Vernor Vinge.

And yet there was another trend, back before the New Wave, of humanity improving via psychological disciplines, particularly General Semantics. The obvious example is van Vogt�s (rather bonkers) World of Null-A, which I could practically recite by heart when I was 14. Perhaps a truer example would be the more rational Heinlein. General Semantics arose from post-World War One determination to bring logic to an insane world, after the madness of the Somme and Ypres.

So that worked well...

Still, van Vogt�s book gave me a powerful dictum: �The map is not the territory.� It has the equally powerful corollary that saying a thing does not make it true... even when the speaker believes it. These are tools for the rational mind. I�m grateful to have learned these so young.

That saying became one of the assumptions-we�ll-keep-while-useful (aka presuppositions) of neurolinguistic programming. Another descriptive term that semanticists used was �false-to-facts�, and I wish it, too, had carried through to NLP in order to emphasise that not all maps are equal, and some are just plain wrong.

And yet I find that skilled NLPers have a really useful cognitive toolkit. I learned how to wield the techniques from Paul McKenna, pictured above, for which I am hugely grateful. Also, hypnosis is so cool.

I may, however, be jealous of Paul�s dog, Mr Big. If you find Mr Big�s blog � possibly written with the help of Paul�s partner Clare � you�ll see entries like: �Today I had my belly rubbed by Cameron Diaz.� Well, blimey.

Many of the best hypnotists don�t really �believe� in hypnosis. In the more advanced training, Paul teaches techniques that are generally known as Deep Trance Phenomena, but doesn�t consider �deep trance� a useful concept. If you�ve ever been lost in a book � and you have, haven�t you? � that state of mind is all that people mean if they use the word �trance�.

Anyone can turn up on such training courses, and some are delightfully bonkers, while others are rationalists, including lots of medical doctors.

Only this week, I was chatting to a neuroscientist about his research on neuroelectrical changes during hypnosis. Interesting stuff.

For me, if you want a philosophical framework for understanding the universe, you need more than that handy toolkit. A book that nicely links current academic psychology to established philosophical ideas is The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. It�s clear and logical despite the title (and the British cover could be better). A cynical Arena critic wrote that it looks like �one of those limp pieces of lifestyle philosophy� but is actually �a superbly argued, crystal clear and intelligent blend...� of psychology and philosophy.

A jolly overview of neuroscience is Johnson�s Mind Wide Open, and for deeper thoughts on the nature of mind, I turn to Pinker, Dennet and Hoftstadter. (Why, you cry, I�ve got all their albums!)

One reviewer of my novelette Sideways from Now (appearing in Lou Anders� Fast Forward 1) said I�d anticipated an idea of Douglas Hofstadter in his new book, I Am A Strange Loop. He was right.

Although it might have come from a throwaway sentence in The World of Null-A. Oh, good grief.

Still, I blame Hofstadter�s phenomenal Goedel, Escher and Bach for my long-abiding interest in self-reflexive statements, recursion and paradox.

Now, aged somewhat more than 14, I�m happy not to be a mutant (except to the extent that everyone of us actually is). I�ve settled for being human.

How about you?

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:24:00 +0000

GETTING PHYSICAL

I recently received a couple of reminders that practicing martial artists read my books and come here to the website. Thanks very much! Well, that's one thing... Another is, apparently I turned fifty earlier this year. Surely some mistake.

So I thought I'd talk about working out, just for one blog entry, since I've not discussed matters physical for a while. If my next blog is about psychological stuff, I'll maybe call it Going Mental.

This is my diary, not a training manual, and always see your physician before starting a programme of exercise, and you know all the rest of the legal disclaimer... Also bear in mind Mark Twain's dictum (which I got from Matt Furey): "Be careful what you read in health books. You might die of a misprint."

Actually, that reminds me, that I own several (otherwise decent) books on weight training that fail to properly highlight photographs of poor technique -- as in, do NOT do it this way -- alongside those showing the correct method. Hmm.

Personally, I don't do much scheduling in advance. Then again, I'm not a professional athlete; I'm someone who manages to train solo when there's no one around to motivate me. (And I used to do it while holding down a full-time day job that entailed over four hours a day commuting -- or else being away from home in a hotel somewhere -- and writing as well.) What I do is, select from a series of modules that fit together to form a workout.
I recorded a week's training, starting the Saturday before last, just to give you an idea. Another week will be different.

The week in question I trained solo, but with access to equipment, meaning my dungeon-like garage gym (which I used only one day) or just in the house, where I have dumbbells, plus running around the streets. There's plenty you can do with just your bodyweight and a pair of running shoes, and if you're in a hotel room you can always use flexible exercise bands -- use 2 or 3 together for proper tension, or buy one of the high-tension loops you can get nowadays, with up to 200 pounds of force to work against.

Well, this was John's training for 7 days. To begin with, my wakeup routine every morning was an exercise flow from Scott Sonnon's prasara yoga system. The main workout was later in the day (in fact, often late at night).

Saturday:

3 mile run

then 4 sets of the following mini-circuit (tri-set)

* push-ups x 25

* chin-ups x 5

* ab crunches x 50

light stretch

Sunday:

5 sets of the following circuit:

* Hindu push-ups x 50

* Barbell curls x 15

* Hindu squats x 100

* Ab crunches x 50

* Shadowboxing x 2 minutes
(total 250 Hindu push-ups, etc.)

then 3 rounds on the heavy bag under normal conditions (i.e., wearing gloves, ordinary lighting, techniques: punches/kicks/knees/elbows, all power shots)

then 1 round in darkness, no gloves (this tends to emphasise open-hand techniques)

then 1 extended round (over 10 mins) of groundwork on mats, with non-suspended heavy bag used as a wrestler's dummy (to practice striking techniques when lying on ground, and some body-shifting drills)

then wrestler's bridge (neck bridge) for 250 seconds,

finish with rolling breakfalls, then stretch into splits (1 minute left front splits, 1 minute right, 1 minute box splits),
followed by light stretch

Monday:

6 miles run; splits (3 mins), light stretch

Tuesday:

recuperation day (prasara yoga only)

Wednesday:

Hindu push-ups x 250

Hindu squats x 500

Neck bridge x 250 seconds

4 sets of mini-circuit (superset):

* ab crunch x 50

* dumbbell floor press x 20

(a floor press is like a bench press... but without a bench!)

followed by 4 sets of 1-arm dumbbell rows, x 20 repetitions with each arm

followed by4 sets of mini-circuit (tri-set):

*dumbbell squat x 20

*dumbbell shoulder press x 20

*dumbbell alternating hammer curl x 40 (20 per arm)

followed by 4 sets of triceps kickbacks x 10 reps each arm

then light stretch

Thursday:

3 miles run, then splits (3 mins), then light stretch

Friday:

5 mile run, splits (3 mins), then rest for 10 minutes before:

5 rounds of this circuit:

*kettlebell swing x 10 each arm

*Hindu squat x 100

*Hindu push-up x 50

*Shadowboxing x 2 minutes

(shadowboxing includes kicks, knees, elbows, some takedown moves and anti-takedown sprawling)

followed by

Neck bridge x 250 seconds

Ab crunches x 100

light stretch

And that was the week that was! So, am I showing my age? Well, I trained to music just once during the week, and that was to ZZ Top.

Next week: how to turn your Zimmer frame into a deadly weapon...

Or to quote the magnificent Rickson Gracie, just 'flow with the go.'

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 14:01:00 +0000

CARRIED OVER IN TRANSLATION...

You knew that 'translation' comes from 'trans' = 'across' and 'ferre' = 'to carry'. Well, obviously. (Actually the Latin verb's about as irregular as you can get, and the past participle is 'latum'.)

The little passage in my previous post, on transatlantic translation (ha!) was not an extract from any of my books or stories, but just a hasty example. Clunkiness disappears during rewrites -- we hope -- and right now I'm deeply into the Dark Blood rewrite.

A couple of days back, I received my copies of TRISTOPOLIS, being the Heyne-Verlag German edition of Bone Song, as translated by Peter Robert. Just dipping into the book tells me that Peter has performed a marvellous job, as I expected after we'd swapped emails during the process.

Just looking at the first page, when Donal looks up at the dark tower which is Police HQ, the English edition reads (three paragraphs down):

"Son of a bitch," he muttered.

From the shadows came a low growl.

"No offence," he added.

And in Tristopolis, we read:

"Hundesohn," murmelte er.

Aus den Schatten kam ein leises Knurren.

"Du doch nicht," setzte Donal, ebenso leise hinzu.

This isn't a literal translation, but it is an exact translation. And it was just the first example I noticed. (And I absolutely do not claim my German is good enough to pick up all the subtleties.)

I realized a while ago that if I bought DVDs of American movies while in Germany or Switzerland or France, I would have the local German or French soundtrack in addition to the American. A good way to practice languages. From home, I simply go to amazon.de, or amazon.fr. Technology rules.

See, my German might not be good enough to follow the movie first time, but if I've already heard it in English, then I'll pick up a lot more.

And here's the really neat thing. Once I've finished the Dark Blood rewrite, I'm going to sit down and read Tristopolis all the way through. What a fantastic treat, to be able to work through a language lesson based on my story!

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:43:00 +0000

ON BEING TRANSATLANTIC

I was overjoyed to get the chance to create a US version of Bone Song. The city of Tristopolis is such a Gothamesque setting that it deserves a proper US-English text.

When I tell Brits that I write my short fiction in American English when it's for a US market... they're horrified. Hmm. And the thing is, most people underestimate the differences. Change 'colour' to 'color' or vice versa, and they assume that's it. So how about examining the following story fragment.

First, in British English...

Jack ground out his fag beneath his heel, and looked around the darkened car park.

�Good enough,� he muttered.

Opening the boot of his car, he pulled out a jumper. Despite the chill autumn night, he was wearing just a vest, no shirt. He pulled the jumper on.

There was a sound behind him, and he span.

A motorbike, looking as if it had travelled far, had just pulled up. Beyond, on the street, a few pedestrians were walking on the pavement, but the tarmac was empty.

As the biker dismounted, Jack began to rethink his policy of �one hit, one kill�. This bloke was a big bugger. Some day, Jack might get to fight someone his own size. But not today.

And now, in US English...

Jack ground out the cigarette beneath his heel, and looked around the darkened parking lot.

�Good enough,� he muttered.

Opening the trunk of his car, he pulled out a sweater. Despite the chill fall night, he was wearing just a tank top, no shirt. He pulled the sweater on.

There was a sound behind him, and he spun.

A motorcycle, looking as if it had traveled far, had just pulled up. Beyond, on the street, a few pedestrians were walking on the sidewalk, but the pavement was empty.

As the biker dismounted, Jack began to rethink his policy of �one hit, one kill.� This guy was a big bastard. Someday, Jack might get to fight someone his own size. But not today.

You'll notice that period (full stop) immediately follows the word "kill" in the US version (following the same rule as for dialogue) but follows the closing quotation mark in the British version. And there's "someday" vs. "some day" and lots of other stuff.

In Britain, as in other European countries (!), a three-storey building consists of the ground floor, the first floor and the second floor. In the US, a three-story (note spelling!) building has a first, second and third floor. And so on.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:22:00 +0000

MY SPACE...

...is expanding. I've had the beginnings of a MySpace presence for a short while. Please do check out my MySpace page, which will continue to evolve.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:04:00 +0000

DARK BLOOD...

...is the name of the sequel to Bone Song, and I'm hammering away at revisions before a ghostly figure comes hammering at my door and howls: *IS IT READY YET?* Or perhaps that's the fear speaking.

In February, the UK paperback of Bone Song comes out, just as Bone Song makes its official US debut. Previews -- in the form of bound proofs -- appeared at ComicCon in SanDiego, thanks to Juliet Ulman and the wonderful folk at Bantam. And I've received most excellent feedback from the first US readers, thank you!

And my wonderful British publishers, Gollancz, with the gorgeous Simon Spanton (!) being my editor, already have the artwork for Dark Blood. What do you think of it?

Me, I love it.

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Fri, 25 May 2007 17:34:00 +0000

A WARRIOR'S ORDEAL

In the shining city of Singapore, I went through a gruelling test of determination... one that Westerners normally cannot contemplate. Those who go to Asia to train in martial arts come face to face with this challenge, and turn away, bitter and defeated.

On the final day of my second trip to Singapore, I did it.

It wasn't the prasara yoga warm-up, or the long slow run through the outdoor sauna of Singaporean streets. It wasn't even the Hindu squats and push-ups that I cracked through in a pavilion in Stanley Park, after hill-sprints up and down the outdoor steps. It was the true ordeal I faced afterwards, when I'd returned to my hotel room.

That was where I drank a can of Sweat.

Oh, yes, and the capitalization is intentional. In the Far East, you can buy cans of an isotonic drink called Sweat, but Europeans cannot -- normally -- bring themselves to drink the stuff. And there's a fantastically powerful reason for that, because...

...words are magic, aren't they?