This is what Fred Alan Wolf said in his Taking the Quantum Leap with regard to Zeno’s Paradox and Aristotle’s explanation of motion. With regard to a subatomic entity, the Aristotelian philosophy applied: “Motion was continuous and smooth, provided it was unseen.” From a Zenonic perspective, however: “Motion was discontinuous, whenever it was observed, provided we looked hard enough to see it.” * Wolf is speaking about the wave-particle duality of the quantum world, where electrons and photons, for example, can appear to be both waves and particles, smooth and discrete, continuous and discontinuous. Observing collapses the wave into a particle. The phenomenon of duality might apply to current social trends.
Modern TVs and computer monitors don’t afford the perspective that those older models did. If you rapidly wagged your finger between your eyes and those screens, you would see the finger appear in discrete positions, the product of a stobe-like “painting” of the image on the screen by a cathode ray tube (CRT). To get the same effect, you have to use an actual strobe light in a darkened room. The rapidly flashing light captures the waving finger in discrete positions, erasing the brain’s idea of an uninterrupted smooth motion. To see something similar, you could watch a very old black-and-white film, one that shows motion in a jerky fashion, or you could take a length of film—not easy to come by these digital days—to see that older movies are seen as a sequence of twenty-four frames, or photos, per second, just the right number for a viewer to perceive continuous motion; fewer frames per second show a jerkiness. The “motion” is an illusion created as the brain sees twenty-four still photos of people and objects in progressive positions. The 24 frames per second was a product of experimentation by early film makers who tried to eliminate the “jumps” or “jerks” in the film while still not paying for excess footage.
But what’s this have to do with social trends? And why bring Zeno and Aristotle into the mix?
It might seem paradoxical to say, but in the midst of any social trend, motion largely seems smooth. It’s difficult to observe when one is part of the film of life. Only when we can see from the perspective of history do the discrete changes appear in stop-action, in individual frames. That’s what historians do when they try to discover causes of events and movements; they apply the strobe light of retrospect. They take the film out of the projector and look at it frame by frame. But those who live the causes often see only an uninterrupted smoothness to life.
Let’s keep the analogy light, even skimpy, for example. Consider women’s swimwear. At almost any beach or pool today, one can see bikinis so “kini” that they reveal complete hind ends, a narrow strip of cloth separating the buttocks. But the movement toward the thong was decadal in most places. Now, you might ask what does this have to do with discrete particles or smooth waves and with being observed or not being observed.
The change in swimwear went from the abrupt shock of the first bikinis, which by today’s standard fashion would be modest swimwear to the tiny minimalist string of a thong accepted in “polite society” almost everywhere. A complete revealing of a butt would have been scandalous in the 1940s and 1950s in a more Puritan America. After that original bikini, the increased skimpiness (or decreased coverage) was to those who lived the change a rather unobserved phenomenon, as bikinis had less and less material in successive summers (but seemingly cost more).
Now, you might think this is a rather silly example, but consider the same kind of unobserved movement in the smooth transition from capitalism in America toward increasing socialism and fascism. Consider the compliance of those who said they relished the freedom of capitalism, but gradually began to adopt more government controls over the economy and other aspects of life.
Consider in this context the mandates for vaccines and the arguments many have smoothly accepted. Media’s know-it-all pundits, bureaucrats, and many others have during 2021 claimed that vaccines should be mandated because they protect others. The cry went out: The unvaccinated were “murderers.” Eventually, Big Pharma admitted and experience with increasing infections revealed that vaccines and masks might protect individuals getting jabs and wearing N-95 masks, but that neither did anything to prevent the spread of COVID-19 variants. Yet, as I write this in February, 2022, there are still those who accept the premise that the unvaccinated are murderers and that anyone who speaks against either jabs or masks should be cancelled (censored). They have accepted the smooth transition into a populist fascism in the context of an ever-increasing socialist America. Didn’t millions of us accept those government handouts at the beginning of and during the pandemic’s first 18 months? Didn’t millions accept the closures as they still accept restrictions? (Yet, the “elites” in government party maskless and in close company. Listen to an open mike comment by Pennsylvania’s Governor Wolf as he said to an aide that they should keep their masks on for appearance’s sake as they walked to the podium).
Look at the what the smooth transition has done to the economies of formerly “free enterprise states.” At this time the Canadian government is thinking of using its military against protesting truckers who were driving in a convoy toward Ottawa. In California and New York, restaurants and entertainment venues are required to prohibit the unvaccinated and the maskless from entering. A school district in Virginia is threatening unmasked students with arrests and fines for trespassing. And on and on and on. For many the smoothness of the process occurs because they cannot see the discrete particles, the children and adults who prefer not to be part of a wave, but want, rather, to be considered as discrete individuals.
Of course, like those who gradually accepted that shrinking bikini, those who wear the cloth of socialism and fascism cannot understand why those discrete particles out there exist and why they are not part of the wave. They don’t have a Zenonic philosophy that recognizes in movement a jerkiness that Zeno’s followers see.
The reality is that in any movement, as Zeno pointed out, an object (or person) lies in a specific place for an infinitely small moment and in another place for the next infinitely small moment. To see the particle at rest requires an observation. Those who object to the gradual movement toward socialism and fascism are observers of discrete particles. They see the jerks, the jumps in the film. Those who ride the wave are blind. But then, that’s understandable because “seeing” is really done by the brain and not by the mere lenses of the eyes. So, when the brain is already under an illusion like the smoothness of a social trend, that’s what it “sees.”
*Wolf, Fred Alan. Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists. New York. Harper & Row, 1981. P. 23.
Modern TVs and computer monitors don’t afford the perspective that those older models did. If you rapidly wagged your finger between your eyes and those screens, you would see the finger appear in discrete positions, the product of a stobe-like “painting” of the image on the screen by a cathode ray tube (CRT). To get the same effect, you have to use an actual strobe light in a darkened room. The rapidly flashing light captures the waving finger in discrete positions, erasing the brain’s idea of an uninterrupted smooth motion. To see something similar, you could watch a very old black-and-white film, one that shows motion in a jerky fashion, or you could take a length of film—not easy to come by these digital days—to see that older movies are seen as a sequence of twenty-four frames, or photos, per second, just the right number for a viewer to perceive continuous motion; fewer frames per second show a jerkiness. The “motion” is an illusion created as the brain sees twenty-four still photos of people and objects in progressive positions. The 24 frames per second was a product of experimentation by early film makers who tried to eliminate the “jumps” or “jerks” in the film while still not paying for excess footage.
But what’s this have to do with social trends? And why bring Zeno and Aristotle into the mix?
It might seem paradoxical to say, but in the midst of any social trend, motion largely seems smooth. It’s difficult to observe when one is part of the film of life. Only when we can see from the perspective of history do the discrete changes appear in stop-action, in individual frames. That’s what historians do when they try to discover causes of events and movements; they apply the strobe light of retrospect. They take the film out of the projector and look at it frame by frame. But those who live the causes often see only an uninterrupted smoothness to life.
Let’s keep the analogy light, even skimpy, for example. Consider women’s swimwear. At almost any beach or pool today, one can see bikinis so “kini” that they reveal complete hind ends, a narrow strip of cloth separating the buttocks. But the movement toward the thong was decadal in most places. Now, you might ask what does this have to do with discrete particles or smooth waves and with being observed or not being observed.
The change in swimwear went from the abrupt shock of the first bikinis, which by today’s standard fashion would be modest swimwear to the tiny minimalist string of a thong accepted in “polite society” almost everywhere. A complete revealing of a butt would have been scandalous in the 1940s and 1950s in a more Puritan America. After that original bikini, the increased skimpiness (or decreased coverage) was to those who lived the change a rather unobserved phenomenon, as bikinis had less and less material in successive summers (but seemingly cost more).
Now, you might think this is a rather silly example, but consider the same kind of unobserved movement in the smooth transition from capitalism in America toward increasing socialism and fascism. Consider the compliance of those who said they relished the freedom of capitalism, but gradually began to adopt more government controls over the economy and other aspects of life.
Consider in this context the mandates for vaccines and the arguments many have smoothly accepted. Media’s know-it-all pundits, bureaucrats, and many others have during 2021 claimed that vaccines should be mandated because they protect others. The cry went out: The unvaccinated were “murderers.” Eventually, Big Pharma admitted and experience with increasing infections revealed that vaccines and masks might protect individuals getting jabs and wearing N-95 masks, but that neither did anything to prevent the spread of COVID-19 variants. Yet, as I write this in February, 2022, there are still those who accept the premise that the unvaccinated are murderers and that anyone who speaks against either jabs or masks should be cancelled (censored). They have accepted the smooth transition into a populist fascism in the context of an ever-increasing socialist America. Didn’t millions of us accept those government handouts at the beginning of and during the pandemic’s first 18 months? Didn’t millions accept the closures as they still accept restrictions? (Yet, the “elites” in government party maskless and in close company. Listen to an open mike comment by Pennsylvania’s Governor Wolf as he said to an aide that they should keep their masks on for appearance’s sake as they walked to the podium).
Look at the what the smooth transition has done to the economies of formerly “free enterprise states.” At this time the Canadian government is thinking of using its military against protesting truckers who were driving in a convoy toward Ottawa. In California and New York, restaurants and entertainment venues are required to prohibit the unvaccinated and the maskless from entering. A school district in Virginia is threatening unmasked students with arrests and fines for trespassing. And on and on and on. For many the smoothness of the process occurs because they cannot see the discrete particles, the children and adults who prefer not to be part of a wave, but want, rather, to be considered as discrete individuals.
Of course, like those who gradually accepted that shrinking bikini, those who wear the cloth of socialism and fascism cannot understand why those discrete particles out there exist and why they are not part of the wave. They don’t have a Zenonic philosophy that recognizes in movement a jerkiness that Zeno’s followers see.
The reality is that in any movement, as Zeno pointed out, an object (or person) lies in a specific place for an infinitely small moment and in another place for the next infinitely small moment. To see the particle at rest requires an observation. Those who object to the gradual movement toward socialism and fascism are observers of discrete particles. They see the jerks, the jumps in the film. Those who ride the wave are blind. But then, that’s understandable because “seeing” is really done by the brain and not by the mere lenses of the eyes. So, when the brain is already under an illusion like the smoothness of a social trend, that’s what it “sees.”
*Wolf, Fred Alan. Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists. New York. Harper & Row, 1981. P. 23.
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