September 24, 26 - thundergodblog

The Argument From the Big Bag

We heard the world began in flame,
Then heard the flame was just a bag;
We blamed the stars, then named a name,
And waved our certainty like flag.
A man with fragments in his hand
Can build a kingdom out of dust;
He calls the missing pieces “planned,”
Then asks the crowd to share his trust.
He sees one photograph go wrong,
And ghosts are clearing banks by night;
A rumor learns a marching song,
And every loud voice makes it right.
We take a fact, remove its bone,
Then dress the skeleton in pride;
The part we cannot quite have known
Becomes the truth we won’t divide.
The man who cannot spell the case
Explains the court, the law, the crime;
He puts a solemn mask in place
And makes confusion sound sublime.
A screen declares the danger near,
A slogan gives the panic shape;
We pass the borrowed dread and fear
As if a share were an escape.
In politics, the bags go bang,
The ghosts endorse the candidate;
Each tribal bell begins to clang,
While facts are kept outside the gate.
We call it research, call it sense,
Call every doubt a bought-out lie;
Then build a fence around the fence
And praise the walls we cannot see by.
Perhaps the wiser mind would pause,
And leave one question unapproved:
Not every noise becomes a cause,
Not every claim is therefore proved.

…

DCG

Philomena Cunk: You heard of DNA?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: Yes.
Philomena Cunk: Do we all have DNA, or does some of us have D or A but not both?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: No, it’s not D and A. It’s three letters: DNA.
Philomena Cunk: Can you tell by looking at me whether I have DNA?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: Well, I know you have DNA because you’re a living organism, and all life has DNA.
Philomena Cunk: My mate Paul tried to create a new life form by inserting his DNA into a grapefruit. But halfway through the experiment, the greengrocer started hitting him. Why is science so controversial?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: Sorry, that question didn’t follow from your story of the—
Philomena Cunk: No, it changed, yeah.
Philomena Cunk: Should we move on to more hardcore scientific stuff? Okay, so: ghosts. When a human body dies, which hole does the ghost come out of—north or south?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: I don’t regard ghosts as a hard scientific subject, I’m afraid.
Philomena Cunk: Let me tell you something: don’t dismiss it. In 2021, my Aunt Carol got engaged to a man called Bob Collins. But one day, he just vanished and cleared out a bank account. And when she looked up the name Bob Collins, she discovered he died in 1958. He’d been a ghost all along.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: Could he not just have been someone impersonating Bob Collins?
Philomena Cunk: No, no. There were photos of Bob Collins in 1958 and he looked totally different, which proves he’d disguised himself so she wouldn’t know he was a ghost. You can’t explain it, can you? It’s terrifying.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: Isn’t the easy answer that he doesn’t look like him because it’s a different person altogether?
Philomena Cunk: No, it’s a ghost. Why do people say the universe came out of a big bag?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: I think you mean “Big Bang.”
Philomena Cunk: A big bag that went bang.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: No, no. Just a big bang—no bag.
Philomena Cunk: Has anyone ever claimed responsibility for the Big Bang?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: It just happened.
Philomena Cunk: So we’re no nearer finding a culprit. What’s the point of atoms? You know, do we really need them, or could we just do without?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: We do really need them because we’re made of atoms. Everything in the world is made of atoms, so without them we wouldn’t be here.
Philomena Cunk: Are our eyes made of atoms?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: Yes.
Philomena Cunk: Because my mate Paul did ketamine once and he said he started counting all the atoms in his eyes. Then he tried to eat a towel and he ended up in hospital.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: Okay.
Philomena Cunk: Are our feet made of atoms?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: Yes. I mean, I could save you the bother by saying everything—all stuff—is made of atoms.
Philomena Cunk: Are our thoughts made of atoms?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: Well, no—well, no, thoughts are—
Philomena Cunk: Well, there you go then. Okay, that’s all. Okay. People worry a lot about AI. What about you?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: You mean, am I worried about—
Philomena Cunk: No, I mean should they worry about you?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: I hope not. I hope not. I mean, people are worried about artificial intelligence because they think maybe one day it’ll replace us human beings. I’m a human being. Why should they be worried about me?
Philomena Cunk: No, no, no—the letter U. They’re all vowels, aren’t they? A, I, U. What does the U in AI stand for?
Professor Jim Al-Khalili: There isn’t a U in AI.
Philomena Cunk: So it’s a secret, then. The computer’s hidden it.
Philomena Cunk: Have you ever stopped to wonder about how you could watch more of this sort of thing? You know, more hard-hitting questions, and more standing near impressive locations before the shot cuts away to some archive of stuff that doesn’t exist anymore, or was too expensive to film up. Well, there’s more on BBC iPlayer, apparently. Do I get paid extra for that?