Unfortunately, though the IQ of a person changes day to day, and hour-to-hour within the day (although it is very minor for some people), the EQ of people changes rapidly. Little things can “set people off”, changes in diet can change the chemical levels in the body and hormones can get slightly askew, etc.

The EQ seems so much harder to pin down than the intelligence. But why?

I think it goes back to the subject of my last entry: non-quantifiably of all things emotional. There is something about it that does not lend itself to being measured.

Sure you can measure the levels of the hormones or the muscular reactions, heart-rate, etc. but the essential core of emotion remains unmeasurable. It is not something you can grab hold off, pin down and get a yardstick near.

It is akin to the start of subatomic particle physics that does not allow the researcher to measure the wavelength of a particle while trying to measure a different aspect of it. Like the blind men and the elephant, you can sense a part of the puzzle but the whole will elude you.

EQ tests are good to measure you current emotional health but against what? Measuring your current emotional state against another human being does not mean much, as you may quickly change. In fact, some researchers found the tests themselves could change the EQ of the taker, either making them realize life wasn’t so bad (they got happier) or putting them into a funk.

It’s just another reason why coming up with a new way of viewing and thinking about these non-quantifiable issues might be helpful.

Perhaps it is time to create a completely new science (or “non-science”, as it were, since we would not actually measure things) that studies qualities of things rather than quantities of things. So rather than being a quantum physics it would be a qualum physics, I suppose.

It is a difficult thing to wrap your mind around, perhaps, thinking of things in a manner that is not quantifiable. And yet we always speak of these things. People do no talk of “quantity of life”, they speak of “quality of life”. Admittedly, everyone hopes for more quantity as well, I am sure, but not at the cost of quality.

So, how would one go about deriving a new “science” based on constraints such as this? Better yet, can such a thing actually be done?

Since we tend to think in quantities of some sort – either by nature or by our scientific upbringing – we might have to create some sort of scale. Funny thing, most of us already have a scale we use. We find one piece of music “more enjoyable” than another, and perhaps another one is our “favorite”.

This might not be the right approach but it is all I have come up with at the moment.

The really hard part about this – and the thing that makes it so deliciously unscientific – is that it differs from person to person. In other words, there is no quantifiability at all. And even for one person, it changes over time. All our tastes change as we change, grow, develop, and so on. The qualum theory would have to adjust to fit the changing person we apply it to.

This might be a waste of time or it might be an advantageous exercise in futility. As I said in my last entry, perhaps we have been given two ways to look at the world for a reason.

Or course, that might imply some form of “intelligent design” or it could just be that we evolved even more intelligent than we know. Except that somehow we have gotten the strange notion to value only one-half of our abilities.

Perhaps we could get a better grasp on a real view of the universe if we started using all our faculties, the quantitative as well as those from the qualum side of the brain.

Physical beauty – remember something about it being in the eye of the beholder? – has now been quantified. Yes, some scientists have measured the parameters of what people have called beautiful and actually quantified the results.

Poetry has been examined under their microscope as well and reduced to mathematics.

Still with all the categorizing and quantifying, no one has yet been able to produce anything from the formula. Computer programs written to reproduce the process usually result in music, poetry, or artwork that seems to miss the truly essential element in all these things: transcendent emotions.

Truly great works of art in any medium are, essentially, an emotional comment on part of our existence. Theirs is some part of that equation that cannot be reduced to numbers. Some part of it that is unquantifiable.

And that really drives mathematicians nuts!

Everything should be quantifiable, they argue.

What if that is not quite correct. What if it is only true that the truly meaningless things can be quantified and the really important things can only be experienced and measured only by the recipient. The beholder, if you will.

There seem to be too halves to our brain, for different purposes. Perhaps, like with our two eyes, we can view the world in more than a single dimension.

But which half is connected to the heart?

Did Hitler really have the ‘final solution’ as the Zionists would have us believe, or was he more interested in a ‘final territorial solution’ as the documents seem to show?

People seem to forget that at the start of the war Hitler was shipping the Jews out of Germany. Most of them went to Poland. After his invasion of that country, he had the problem of the Jews again.

Many Jews fled to England and France, but those countries soon closed their doors to any more Jews. One ship full of the Jewish refugees even made it to America only to be refused admittance. They too were turned away.

Even America could not open its arms to these refugees.

Hitler had promised to rid Germany of the Jewish “problem” and Britain and America threw them back on Germany. So what was he to do about his campaign promise?

The Nuremburg trials looked long and hard for anyone who colluded with the enemy or aided and abetted their “evil designs”.

Why did no one mention the role America had to play in the affair?

Oh, that’s right, we wrote the history, didn’t we?

To many people it truly would seem that these are the final days, as things rush forward seemingly beyond our capabilities to slow things down. People are getting shorter on the fuse, quicker to grab a gun and defend what priorities they claim for themselves. The “me” generation has given way to the generation of “MINE! NOW!” and there seems no let-up in sight.

It seems we are more interested in ‘quantity of life’ rather than ‘quality of life’ — retired persons doing whatever they can to prolong life. And younger people (40-50 yr olds) are trying to get as much done to their bodies as possible to retain their youth — as if that will actually make them younger, prolong their lives.

And MONEY!! Boy, how everyone strives for it with a passion! Everyone juggling things so they can get the best paying job (or jobs) so they can have a bit more of what the Joneses have. And most really think that money can buy them the things that will make them happy. If so, why are their so many successful people killing themselves — finding out that a heap of cash still won’t cure what ails the soul?

And some say that time itself is speeding up. I remember my grandmother talking about everything she accomplished every morning: waking up, chopping wood, getting the stove warmed up, baking bread, making breakfast, then the day’s laundry, cleaning the house, maybe plucking some chickens or cooking up fruits or vegetables, but some form of canning, then making more bread for dinner and maybe a couple of pies before starting on cooking dinner.

Wow! That’s a lot! My mother lamented that there seemed to be more time in the olden days because no one could do all that much even given the conveniences of modern life.

So there seems to be something to the time shortening theory…

Until you look at the Amish. They still do all that stuff everyday.

Maybe the theory is wrong, then…

And that was the trick, you see. The diseases they had been “living with”, not dying from.

Actually, I thought the exact opposite: if they have been living with these dire diseases and NOT gotten infected, their immune systems must have been strengthened against it by exposure. Bubonic plague… no problem. Ebola? No problem!

Yes, these people had been living with potentially terminal ailments for years without a problem. Some of the people had some congestion or runny nose or such – which are quite often not a sign of an infection but rather the body’s defenses fighting off an infection.

But in our modern world of combating symptoms rather than diseases, we view the process from the backward angle.

When you get sinus congestion do you find out what it is and treat it? No, you usually get some medicine to treat the sinus congestion. This masks the problem and allows you to get on with your life while the problem persists.

Usually the problem is nothing on the order faced by these dirty-house people. And yet after several years of living quite cozy with the terminal illnesses, most are the picture of health.

Boggles the mind, doesn’t it? And it almost makes one think our perceptions of diseases are a little bit skewed, doesn’t it?

Nah! Not a bit.

Well, it has been forty-eight years and he’s still going. Not as strong physically, as before, but still going none-the-less.

His brilliance has only been equaled by his passion for the mathematically challenged trying to understand his work. For many people to whom such things as quantum gravity would be completely off their radar, he has published A Brief History of Time in a language that makes the high-level mathematical concepts completely understandable.

An interesting side-note: in 1962, before Hawking was stricken by his ailment, the Gravity Foundation had a competition offering a thousand dollar prize for the best “theory of gravity”. I know about this because my brother entered his essay, hoping for the prize.

Needless to say, the prize was awarded and it was not to my brother. However, he did get an Honorable Mention. Not bad for a twelve year-old. Oh, and three names beyond his was a twenty-one year-old grad student from Cambridge: Stephen Hawking.

Okay, enough of the trip down memory lane, now back to the Hawking of today. My brother did not continue on that track, but Hawking certainly did, as we all know. And he knows quite a bit more today than when he was a grad student.

But, now, he admits a subject about which he understands “nothing”: women.

Well, from his very mathematical perspective, it would tend to be a little difficult. But using math would make it difficult to understand men as well. In his case, however, being of that gender increases the learning curve.

There are several interesting books out that could help him in his understanding. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray is a good read and some helpful insight can be gained from The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

One further item might be mentioned.

Just as Hawking realized when he wrote his book for the lay reader, realizing most people did not speak the “language of math”, he understood that we all utilize different “languages” or viewpoints in our lives.

This can be taken a step further to show that there are two varying frameworks on which the universe rests: quantitative and qualitative. It can be understood through both views, though only once is currently measurable. I suppose no one has yet come up with a measuring scale for the qualum side as they have for the quantum side. But if you understood the qualities, why would you need to physically measure anything? Measurement is for quanta.

We can measure the length of our lives, certainly, but how can you measure what makes a really good year?

Quantity of life is good, but quality of life is better.

I recently came across information about an archaeological site in Mexico that reportedly pre-dated the Clovis culture. Hueyatlaco was investigated in the sixties and, though the publication of the results was delayed for years, it created quite a firestorm.

The Wikipedia article on Hueyatlaco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hueyatlaco) has a link to an oppositional article (http://www.xmission.com/~tlacy/mom.txt). The Wikipedia article stated:

“Counter Claims

“An article refuting the claims of Virginia Steen Mcintyre and other claims made in the TV program ‘The Mysterious Origins of Man,’ narrated by Charlton Heston can be read here: http://www.xmission.com/~tlacy/mom.txt”

In the linked article, posted by Frank Steiger in 1996, he complains about the one-sided-ness of the show’s producers and complained that the scientific community did not get its chance to present its evidence. What? Are there no scientific publications?

If not for programs like this, where would the other view ever get a chance to be heard? In the scientific publications? Not bloody likely! They delayed publication of the Hueyatlaco finds for years because it did not fit the accepted model. And this is not the only case of such “suppression” of data.

Mister Steiger would have us believe that the scientists have completely debunked the findings of Steen-McIntyre but such is not to be the case. Surely, there are different interpretations of the data (as there always are) but absolutely no refutations of the data itself. (Data is nice that way, it does not change from viewer to viewer.)

Unfortunately, from the name-calling done by Steiger in this article, he does the scientific community a disservice. The image of unyielding, fixated thinkers is reinforced by his diatribe.

The truth is that the proponents of both sides in this argument have overstated their case, both ridiculed the opposition, demeaned the work done by others. Yes, both sides are entirely human. But for Steiger to say these people should have not had a voice is part of the problem. Scientific publications have marginalized anomalies over the years and any writing about things that run contary to their pet theories, regardless of the evidence presented and scholarship of the author.

Just as in the Velikovsky Affair, as I mentioned earlier, scientists publicly admit their treatment of the debate was rather shoddy and unprofessional. I said in that article that though they say this publicly I am certain they would do it again in a heartbeat. Why? Because they have done it many times and will continue to do so as it infringes on what they consider to be their turf.

Some scientists state that their biggest complaint, one Steiger re-iterates, is that these people did not publish in a venue that would allow some peer review of the data before making a public splash. But seeing how some of these articles and subjects have been suppressed in the peer-reviewed publications, how else can these people find a venue other than the popular press and television?

If there were some better system for airing these theories perhaps neither side would become so heated that they devolve into derision and name-calling.

But that might require us to rise from the very humanness that created such a scenario.

Many people rag on shows like Paranormal State, even stating rather bluntly that the entire thing is staged to appear like something different is happening. So what? This is television we’re talking about! Entertainment, remember? Ghosts and psychics exist, but neither can be made to perform on cue.

Even the “news” shows are not a true reflection of reality. (Recall the movie “Wag the Dog”? That’s only the tip of the iceberg!) I attended a news conference for a radio station years ago and there were only a handful of reporters there, but when I saw it on TV news later, the reporter said there were a lot of people there and the camera panned the group from two angles to make it look like there were more people there. Yeah, whatever.

One time, a friend from work was invited to go golfing with us. He loved playing a golf game on the computer and was interested because he was very good at it. When he got to the golf course, he was surprised how different the game really was. He kept calling it “stupid” and the clubs did not cooperate. He did not get to the back nine. Disgusted, he went back to the computer version because it was better.

If you want to see reality, turn off the tube and get outside. If you want to see paranormal, go look for it.

If you want to be entertained, stay tuned.

And then there’s the biggest “reality” bonanza around, “American Idol”. The premise for this was brilliant: it cost the record industry a lot of money to make new talent a recognizable commodity so why not have someone else foot the bill and get the talent recognized in a different way? It’s a win-win situation. In the early days of the show, it was announced that your vote actually decided the outcome. Nowadays, they state that your vote will be used to determine the winner. It may sound like the same thing but they do not tell you what other factors will also be used to determine the winner – which is a more accurate statement of the facts. They decide who the winners will be, the people they decide are most marketable.

Of course, their judgment has been found to be a bit faulty at times, but that was the state of the industry even before AI altered the landscape. Still, the leaders in record sales did not come through the AI factory so it is not a fantastic money-maker but it does foot the bill for finding and promoting some other acts.

This is reality for the creating.

Experiments sometimes produce anomalies that seem to disappear when the experiment is repeated. There are these anomalies seen in the world around us. Most of these things do not seem to be repeaters, happening only once or at least not very often.

William R. Corliss, a scientist, started collecting reports of anomalies years ago. I used to have a subscription to his updates but that lapsed years ago. He now has the data on a website: http://www.science-frontiers.com/sourcebk.htm – it’s not free but then most things aren’t.

He has covered anomalies in archeology, biology, geology, physics, astronomy… in fact practically every field of human enquiry.

I wondered years ago if these could be used to better help our understanding of the world. I mean if some pattern was seen in these anomalous events, we could perhaps gain a glimpse of the true universe around us.

A friend from university was involved in the early stages of work on the GUT (Grand Unified Theory), where mathematicians were going to sum up all the knowledge we had about the universe into one massive construct and then use it to help us understand more about the parts we cannot see, or simply cannot understand at present.

I mentioned Corliss’ work on the anomalies and thought it might help if they used that data as well. His reply was that there were really so few anomalies that it would not be worth their time. He said that once the GUT was constructed they could fit the anomalies in.

Hmm. And exactly how would one “fit an anomaly in” a construct that does not predict such? If it did, they would not be anomalies.

If the GUT is a compendium of all current data and the anomalies are already outside that data, how can they possibly be made to fit?

And as for there being “only a few” anomalies, check out Corliss’ data. Not just a few!!

Wouldn’t it make more sense to utilize the anomalies in configuring the model of the universe?

Otherwise, I wonder what universe you would actually be making a model of.