Well, here I go again, doing a blog post again, this time on a Tuesday morning.

I guess it’s mildly amusing that today, a Twosday, has a day number that’s twice the month number:  7-14 (or 14-7 in European style, but it doesn’t really matter, since either way the one number is two times the other).  It’s not exactly amazing, but as I said, it’s mildly amusing.

I meant to note yesterday that yesterday was a combination of the two most “popular” prime numbers: 7 and 13.  It’s not a great coincidence, which probably explains why it didn’t stick in my head as well as it might have.

It did make me think about other, more interesting dates, and I realized that this coming October 13th will have a fun pattern (if that’s really the right word):  the numbers of the month and day, when doubled, will give the year:  10-13 and 2026 (in this case the European ordering of the numbers slightly dampens the fun).  I know someone with this birthday, so that makes the coincidence slightly more amusing than it might be otherwise.

Geez, I’m such a weirdo, talking about date numbers and their coincidental patterns, which don’t actually mean anything at all.  I’m sorry.  At least I don’t delude myself that they have any true significance.  They are merely coincidences, of which there are potentially limitless numbers; a pattern-focused person will just tend to notice them.  In this (and probably only this) I have an advantage over Newton, who wasted a lot of energy on things like Bible codes and so on.  Then again, I have learned from Newton and from the oodles of other people who learned from Newton and added to his work, so I have some unfair advantages.

Of course, we hope that people later in history will always tend to have advantages over their predecessors, including us.  Unfortunately, this isn’t always nor automatically the case.  There have been numerous and lengthy periods of human existence‒even in historical times‒in which there was merely stagnation and even regression.  For much of history, and perhaps still, most people wobble between lives that are “nasty, brutish, and short” or are merely ones of “quiet desperation”.  I guess it’s up to each individual’s judgement which of those two lives would be preferable.

Right little rays sunshine I am, am I not?  Yes.  I am not.  I’ll paraphrase Jacob Marley as I have done before, saying “look not for comfort from me‒it comes from other regions and is bestowed by other ministers on other kinds of persons”.  It goes something like that, anyway.  These words, the ones I used, are the words I want to use, so if the original doesn’t match, well…I did say that I was paraphrasing.

I don’t know what else to write today.  I’ve hinted at how it’s good to feel appreciative of the fact that we know so much compared to even the most brilliant people of times past, and that hopefully our descendants, literal or figurative, will have even more advantages over where we are now.

It’s useful, I think, to remind oneself of the fact that one did not create the good or the bad that exists in the world into which one is born.  I may know much, much more about the way the universe works than Galileo or Newton or Laplace ever did, but it’s not because I’m smarter than they were.

The block at the top of a pyramid would not rest there at its current height, in midair, had not the blocks below it already been placed.  And if the current top block is subsequently part of the base of a larger structure laid atop the previous one‒a larger pyramid with the first as perhaps its corner or core‒then subsequent “blocks” should realize (if blocks are capable of such a thing) that their elevated position is what it is because of what came before.

Each block achieves roughly the same gain in height, whether placed on bare ground or on the top of a tower.  It’s how high their base is that determines how far they can see, ceteris paribus and exclusis improvisis*.

It’s also good to remember that it’s possible for edifices to crumble.  Indeed, all edifices will crumble unless maintained more or less constantly against entropy.

Whether entropy itself in the long run can be completely overcome is unclear, but it seems unlikely.  Still, if there is a way around the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (perhaps the deliberate creation of new universes) that way will only be discovered by those at the top of a pyramid greater than the current one, of which we will be lower, supporting stones.

That’s not ignoble by any means.  The top of a tower cannot stand without the foundation and the support beams and every floor that lies beneath it.  There are no skyhooks.  Everything has to be built from the bottom up, ultimately, unless time is somehow cyclical, and the far future eventually becomes the distant past.

I’m not aware of any reason to suspect that is the case, but it isn’t entirely implausible.  So, if that’s the case, I guess the past follows from the future and everything is built on nothing, since, as Luna Lovegood noted, “A circle has no beginning.”

Oy.  I’m quoting Luna Lovegood now (though at least I know this quote is accurate).  I think I should probably call it quits‒for today if not more completely.

I really do want to call everything quits.  I’m very tired.  And I’m quite weird, and I’m pretty much alone.  Whatever contribution I was destined to make to that pyramid, if any, I think I’ve probably already made it.

It doesn’t matter, I guess.

Anyway, I hope you have a good day and then more good days on all the days thereafter.  Why not?  There’s no law of physics that says it’s impossible, even if it’s unlikely.

Though, that unlikeliness is itself a law of physics, so don’t take too much irrational comfort in the “it’s not impossible” argument.  Likelihoods matter; someone will occasionally win the really big lottery jackpots, but I can confidently say, “It won’t be you.”  I could bet my life on that, in fact, and I would probably be safer than I would be when flying on a commercial airliner.

That’s another subject.  I’ll discuss it another time.

*Barring the unforeseen.