Unit Delta Plus

There is something very satisfying about the ambience of the Radiophonic Workshop. I have to admit that I had not heard of either Delia Derbyshire or Daphne Oram (who has just died). The only names I do remember from that band of heroes are Paddy Kingsland (Hitch-Hiker's Guide) and Elizabeth Parker (everything else). All the earlier stuff from Delia and Daphne reminds me of the jingle and electronic based music of Raymond Scott. His album - Manhattan Research is probably the most beautifully packaged CD I own. There are two CDs with labels like reel-to-reel tape spools, each slipped into a plastic sleeve inside the front and back covers of a CD-sized 144 page book.



(From http://raymondscott.com/mripr.html)

I have started and deleted many sentences at this point over the last few minutes so my mind is in that chaotic state. I wonder if epilepsy is a consequence of classical chaos within the brain? I suppose it must be really. A small change in the exterior conditions results in a build up of patterns which overflow until the structure of the brain cannot cope with the extra messages. I have never come close to feeling like my brain was going to overflow but I have felt that it could not cope with some concepts I was thinking about. I mentioned this before. My mind can quite happily take on concepts which logically are totally ludicrous. In short, my mind is fuzzy rather than well defined. It stays within acceptable parameters for all possible thoughts from 'ticking-over things' like hunger and other basic needs to nonsense poetry to cosmological ideas (even if the detail eludes me). That is an amazing thing to be able to do when you think that even the most sophisticated computer cannot 'get' a joke or appreciate music other than on a purely mechanical level. Is our fuzziness just a by-product of our complexity? I seem to remember some people suggesting that Autistic behaviour was an evolutionary step towards removing emotion from our species. This fills me with horror but maybe that is because I am fuzzy anyway and any possible Homo-Sapiens-Sapiens-Sparta (for want of a species name) would not have the capability to be horrified by it. This reminds me of the bit in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide where Arthur finds out what the mice want to do with his brain in order to read 'The Question'.

"In other words,'' said Benji, steering his curious little vehicle right over to Arthur, "there's a good chance that the structure of the question is encoded in the structure of your brain --- so we want to buy it off you.''
"What, the question?'' said Arthur.
"Yes,'' said Ford and Trillian.
"For lots of money,'' said Zaphod.
"No, no,'' said Frankie, "it's the brain we want to buy.''
"What!''
"I thought you said you could just read his brain electronically,'' protested Ford.
"Oh yes,'' said Frankie, "but we'd have to get it out first. It's got to be prepared.''
"Treated,'' said Benji.
"Diced.''
"Thank you,'' shouted Arthur, tipping up his chair and backing away from the table in horror.
"It could always be replaced,'' said Benji reasonably, "if you think it's important.''
"Yes, an electronic brain,'' said Frankie, "a simple one would suffice.''
"A simple one!'' wailed Arthur.
"Yeah,'' said Zaphod with a sudden evil grin, "you'd just have to program it to say What? and I don't understand and Where's the tea? --- who'd know the difference?''
"What?'' cried Arthur, backing away still further.
"See what I mean?'' said Zaphod and howled with pain because of something that Trillian did at that moment.
"I'd notice the difference,'' said Arthur.
"No you wouldn't,'' said Frankie mouse, "you'd be programmed not to.''

See! I would be programmed not to. This is a sort of sub-clause of the Anthropomorphic Principle isn't it. We only see the Universe the way it actually is because if if was any other way we would not exist to be able to see it. What is 2+2 did not equal 4? Would the universe be the way it is? Can there be a Universe where 2+2 does not equal 4? The upshot of basic number theory is that numbers are independent of the Universe. Even if there was no time or space, 2+2 would still equal 4. Or maybe not. Oh! I am dragging random and un-related sentences out of "God and the New Physics" This is the point where my fuzzy brain becomes close to overflow but my error checking routines kick in and I bail out.