Bleeding Edge- Renormalization

[jody2.718]

Can't say that I have much of the math down, but I think I grasp the spirit of the process, and it seems to me that the cyclic psychic journey of Maxine through the real-cum-virtual world of Bleeding Edge is analogous to the reconciliation process- i.e., of the virtual with the real, the imagined with the actual, the theoretical with the measured, the universal with the individual, etc., etc.,- known as Renormalization.

The portrayal of a "normal" slice of life of a few key New Yorkers leading up to the horrendous rupture, by 9-11, of all that was taken for granted, and then scrambling to make sense of it in order to proceed one day to the next with some sense of normalcy- strikes me as an exercise in Renormalization. Although I wasn't at ground zero that day I could see the towers from Jersey. On my way to work, I saw the first one in flames before the second one got hit. From then on in my office, as for most people outside of NYC, it was all virtual.

Renormalization at first seems like another example of conspiratorial thinking; fitting an explanation to a series of observed events in order to make sense of inherent contradictions; smoothing them out so they fit in with some preconceived notions.

In a way it is. But unlike conspiratorial thinking, scientific theory doesn't throw out measured reality. It respects it. When the next rupture comes it recognizes the need to adapt, questions it's very tenets.. It keeps adjusting until it does a reasonable job of prediction. It recognizes that all explanations of reality are quasi-virtual and incomplete- fraudulent, if you will, but life, with it's practicalities, goes on.

But with the acceptance of the possibility that there are no absolute truths the door is opened a little further to the merchants of misinformation and those who would use and abuse conspiracies to further their own aims; especially those who would create a reality to fit their own needs and then provide their own conspiratorial explanation for it. I encourage everyone, who hasn't already, to listen to This American Life's chilling podcast on Vladimir Putin:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/763/the-other-mr-president

If you're interested, here's something on Renormalization:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-renormalization-saved-particle-physics-20200917/