[ExI] The Higgs Boson *is* the singularity

[Will Steinberg]

Use Theosophy.  Everything is a little bit right, you just have to tease it
apart from the crazy.  I'm sure "the higgs boson is the singularity", a
totally unfalsifiable sentence, could inspire some physicist somewhere to
realize a true and innovative idea.  Maybe the secret of mass is the secret
of the universe, crystalline automata, simulations, sudden consciousness
shifts...yadda yadda. ;)
 On Mar 28, 2012 3:49 PM, "Tom Nowell" <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Before you skip this message, let me assure you I have never advocated
> such a thing. Let me tell you how I heard this immortal sentence in my
> local library.
>
> I became unemployed two weeks ago. After firing off a few online job
> applications, I like to go to my local library to peruse books and read
> newspapers. I was reading the Financial Times for the energy news, when I
> overheard a man say "The Higgs Boson *is* the singularity!" My first
> reaction was "did he just mention the singularity?" My next reaction was
> "That doesn't make sense! It's not even wrong!" Perhaps I was being
> uncharitable - perhaps he meant it in a purely mathematical way and was
> describing mathematical physics. No, it became clear on listening the
> white-haired man was telling the younger man a mix of cosmology, theology
> and technobabble. "Is God matter, dark matter, antimatter? You understand
> these things, you read." Being British, I was of course far too reserved to
> interrupt their conversation and point out that a creator deity / great
> simulator is free to construct their universe as they see fit and can
> emulate it on whatever substrate they feel like. As the conversation runs
> on, I wonder how the thoughts and jargon got into the older man's head to
> construct these arguments.
>
>  He tries to get the younger man to look at a website on the library
> computer - at this point I suddenly get the urge to return the newspaper to
> the stand and walk past the computer they are looking at. I see in white
> the word "ZEITGEIST" against a black background and it becomes clear - the
> old guy has seen the Zeitgeist movement's material, tried to mesh it with
> his own cosmology and is making a really bad job of explaining it to a
> stranger in a library.
>
> Brothers and Sisters and post-gendered relatives in Extropy, I had a
> failure of nerve and did not take this chance to steer the two men towards
> a more solidly Transhumanist viewpoint. I have failed in the great
> commission to evangelise our beliefs. That, and I'm not sure directing them
> to H+ magazine's website would make an effective quick answer, and I didn't
> want to spend hours carefully explaining the finer points of philosophy to
> them, especially when the older guy made me wonder if he was on
> antipsychotic medication.
>
> I have a feeling that when singularity thinking meets the local eccentric
> folk, this sort of thing could happen quite often.
>
> Tom
>
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