Fusion

photo: Asia Financial

If the Chinese succeed in cracking fusion, the world order will be changed. Once scarcity is no longer the issue, Saudi Arabia will truly become a third world country. It already rivals the Sudan in brutality as the hacking to death of the dissident journalist Jamal Khasgoggi demonstrates. Fusion will be the Ice Age for OPEC countries. Next is light. The closer to the speed of light one travels  the more time slows down—at least according to the notion of "time dilation" in relativity theory. When you return from some Kepler Star 1200 light years from earth, you will have out lived generations of your counterparts back on earth. 

read the review ofThe Wormhole Society by Francis levy and Joseph Silver in The East Hampton Star 

Non-existence

You won't have to worry about spheres of influence or something as small as someone not doing what you want. You know how your mood can often depend on that action taken or not taken by someone else. Imagine in 1, 2, 5 or 10 years no longer being, no longer peering out at the world through your eyes, no longer having memories, expectations, hopes flowing through your head! Still despite all the advantages, non-being is a hard idea to swallow. Once you cross the line, there's no going back. One of the many salutary advantages of youth is to make one almost entirely immune to the notion of mortality. It's faint, distant and unbelievable. However, like a cold shower, the unavoidable imminence of the inexplicable lurks irremediably in everyone's future. Even a person who jumps out the window may entertain the notion of a soft landing, but somewhere along the way, they'll no longer be there to notice. 

read the review ofThe Wormhole Society by Francis levy and Joseph Silver in The East Hampton Star. 

Fear and Trembling

There are three stages of being: reason, intuition and counter intuition which roughly correlate to Kierkegaard's esthetic, moral and religious categories. Kierkegaard, who could have been a great counterintelligence agent, illustrates the religious in Fear and Trembling where he addresses Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, an act which requires the ultimate leap of faith. Such an act can only be described as counterintuitive since no parent sacrifices their child. There are the exceptions you read about where mothers abandon their children. Of course scripture deals with that too in the story of Moses. Counter-intuition also resembles counterintelligence and hermaphroditism. In all of these you play both ends against the middle.

read the review of The Wormhole Society by Francis Levy and Joseph Silver in The East Hampton Star

Deaccessioning the Enlightenment

David Hume (1711-1776)

Erosion of the shoreline is a product of global warming, Coastlines shrink. The same might be said of the Humanist Project which began with Hume, Hobbes and Locke. It's not only Project 2025 and the threat to democracy but the whole notion of education. Rousseau’s Emile (1762) is a broadsheet for “Le Gai Savoir,” the joy of learning which Godard appropriated as the title of his 1969 film. The thrill of Goethe’s Faust is something you might find yourself experiencing in isolation, ditto any number of the classics which themselves depend on an inurement to literature. The great books whuch were once part of the core curriculum constitute a palette. Knowledge has always been a lonely pursuit with its satisfaction deriving from discussions on the way out of the carrel. With AI libraries and dictionaries, the repository of history and language have all been swept up in a maelstrom of data bytes.

read the review of The Wormhole Society by Francis Levy and Joseph Silver in The East Hampton Star

Trump

Stay tuned for Trump weather. Lonnie the Trump weatherman formerly known as Quinn. It’s Trump o’clock. Trump FEMA announced it is handing out 3 rolls of paper towels to every country hit by a hurricane. DHS secretary Christy Trump announced that not only immigrants will be detained indefinitely in their local Trump detention center. Trump Tower graces the avenue formerly known as Fifth and you may find yourself requiring a bar of Trump formerly known as soap."Trump," is the way most conversations will begin. "Two diamonds, three spades, three No Trump." Give Trump for Life, Trump Centers across the Trumpoverse. The Trump formerly known as moon. The Trump Way formerly known as Milky, both candy and star. Trumpty Dumpty had big fall. All the king's Trumps and all the Trump's men..."

read the review of The Wormhole Society by Francis Levy and Joseph Silver in The East Hampton Star

QED

Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995)

Why readers enjoy mysteries lies in resolution. The crime is solved, the villain apprehended. In real life, there often isn’t any resolution or if there is one, it occurs long after all the cast of characters have departed the earth. Are you the kind of person that likes everything to fit in place? Have you been accused of wanting everything tied up in a neat little bow, with the pieces of the puzzle fitting together too precociously for believability? Perhaps you want answers that are not within reach, not within the ken of the doctor, lawyer, financial consultant (no one can ever look into a crystal ball as far as markets are concerned) or scientist. About this latter, no heavenly body is asteroid proof. If you really want certainty, read a book!

read the review of The Wormhole Society by Francis Levy and Joseph Silver in The East Hampton Star

Cotard's

Jules Cotard (1840-1889)

Cotard’s Syndrome is a neurological condition where the victim suffers from the delusion they’re dead--"the delusion of negation" is another way this disorder is described. It’s the country cousin of Capgras where there's the haunting suspicion that a familiar persona is a guise for a imposter. Deep REM sleep can sometimes result in amnesia. Essentially you awaken on a profoundly wrong side of the bed, where you’re skating without blades so to speak. Temporary amnesia of this kind is akin to what a woman experiences, when she's left hobbling cause her heel’s fallen off. Their world falls apart unless they’re lucky enough to find a shoemaker.

read the review of The Wormhole Society by Francis Levy and Joseph Silver in The East Hampton Star