Me and My Life

My name is Reece.  I am a PhD in physics, a father of two, and a husband (to one).  I have been authoring this blog irregularly since 2012.

When I began blogging, I was an unmarried graduate student who spent most of his time reading books, solving math problems, and programming computers.  I had a lot more time to write, but also more interesting things to write about.  And maybe I felt more cocksure about posting any silly thing that came to mind.

Now I have two children and a career.  I don't really have time to write, and even when I do I have to write other stuff instead.  I have even less time to read, and even when I do, I have to read other stuff instead.

I'm not going to turn this into a rant about not having free time.  I instead just want to leave a note for the handful of people who might read this: I'm sorry I can't post any more.  These are the things I would post about, or started writing posts about, and never finished; but at least you can see what they were.

Firstly, now that I've finished graduate school, I spend a lot less time thinking about ideas in fundamental physics.  Most of my day is spent programming computers that process data from a national laboratory.  So ideas about probability swords or alternate spacetime geometries occupy fewer of my own compute cycles.

Actually, in the time I have to think about anything, I usually think about questions of theology, not science.  Which means most of the things I have to talk about are related to religion, and in particular to Christianity.  Things like, should I baptize my children?  Or what is the meaning of the Lord's Supper?  While I think these are fascinating questions, probably most people don't, and people smarter than myself have already applied all of their brainpower to the issues.

I would love, though, to go back to the days of writing about the probabilities of alien life, of faeries in phase space, of interpretations of quantum mechanics, time travel, field theories and speculative physics and the rest.  I still have some things I've never said.

For instance, I have been planning since the 2010s a blog post titled "All the Multiverses" that walks through all of the different ideas floating around today that all go under the name "Multiverse" or speak of a "parallel universe", and try to clarify how these ideas are distinct.  I see way too much confusion on it, the most egregious being the confusion of Everett's many-worlds hypothesis with some sort of multiverse of counterfactuals, or confusing the quantum interpretation with time travel, or other things.

I have been planning since 2023 a blog post in the "Positions I Don't Hold" series about quantum interpretation, specifically about Everett's hypothesis.  I think the name of the blog and some posts maybe give the idea I hold to a many-world's view.  I don't, and I have reasons I don't, but the main reason I don't is that I favor the Bohmian interpretation of quantum mechanics, because I think it just makes sense.  So since the Bohmian view just makes sense, I don't bother with other views that are weird, quantum-woo-woo, mystical nonsense.

I have a blog post I started authoring in 2014 dissecting evolution, not particularly trying to prove or disprove it, but to illustrate the multiple ways that people who do believe in it misinterpret it to give a teleology to events, or see things from some view of a direction of human progress.  The main point was that just because someone claims to believe in an idea called "evolution," it didn't imply the person was actually any better educated on the actual science of evolution; usually it only means the person is willing to accept cultural norms from authority figures without really  thinking about them.  I have I think the entire thing written, but I never posted it.  I guess I felt it needed more editing, but I didn't want to do whatever was left, and it got forgotten.

I started another post in 2015 titled "On the Operation of DeLoreans" where I tried to actually examine the multiple-timeline theory of time travel from films such as Back to the Future, from the perspective of physics.  In physics, we know exactly how time travel would work and it'd work according to ideas in GR, which I've written about before.  But most people don't care what GR says and want to hear what Hollywood says, and Hollywood says timelines would bifurcate and you could change the past and etc.  So what would that mean, that timelines bifurcate?  And could it mean anything less than the creation of a new universe, with all of the mass-energy present in that new universe?  I wanted to flesh that out as a means of finally putting that idea to rest, in some place, that actually physically analyzed the concept.

I never spoke much about the actual science things that interested me.  Those relate to general relativity, and in particular to the emission of gravitational waves from compact stellar objects.  That was my thesis topic.  I generally jealously guard these ideas, as I think they might actually lead to publication and I want to be the one to publish them.  But also, if I'm honest, I don't have time and I never will. So why be so guarded?   These ideas would relate to novel methods of calculation, or potential measurements of gravitational waves from the interiors of stellar objects.

When I started the blog, I was actually mostly motivated to share theories about the Kingkiller Chronicles and A Song of Ice and Fire.  I actually re-read all of the ASOIAF books (that were then published, and, as it happens, which are still the only ones published) and took extensive notes in my kindle to use in the post and then... my kindle just lost all of the notes, to the great bit bucket in the sky.  I don't even remember what I had to say about ASOIAF, and all I'd have to say today is, don't read the books expecting a conclusion, and if you do read the books then consider it a trilogy and pretend the others after Storm of Swords don't exist.

I have no energy to write out speculation on what's going to happen, because it has become clear to me that Martin doesn't know what's going to happen and is just making it all up; or he does know, and it really sucks and is infuriatingly unsatisfying.

I also wanted to speculate on the King Killer Chronicles.  I have a few posts up, and my post on Dena and her Patron still gets some traffic.  I haven't gone back to it because... I wrote those posts 13 years ago and Rothfuss still hasn't updated the series.  Once, on a Reddit AMA someone asked about why he chose to give the map that he did,  and Rothfuss promised to write a blog post about it... but that was ten years ago and I never saw the blog post.  On a later AMA the next year I asked him why he didn't write the blog post, but he didn't answer that question (in fairness I probably missed his window of attention).  According to Rothfuss, the entire trilogy was finished before the first book was published.  So how does it take over 13 years to get the last one out?   Was he just lying?  Does he also not know what happens?  Or (worst of all) he does know, and he did have it written out, and devoted fans who were paying attention guessed or deduced a lot of details, and now he's trying to change everything.  Because that would be a sucky way to punish fans just for paying attention.

For instance, I really believe Rothfuss wanted the reveal about Bredon being Dena's patron to be a huge surprise.  And I think for most people it still will be.  And for the fans who paid attention, it will be a satisfying confirmation that they saw the right clues, and that the author had a direction.  If Rothfuss is delaying because he doesn't want to write that reveal anymore, then it's not worth reading even the books that were "good".

But I actually have two more posts I wrote at the same time as the original three (back in 2012), one about the nature of angels in the series, and another about the identity of the king Kvothe kills.  But I don't have the energy to continue with that series, either.  I've been meaning to write something explaining my theory for why Rothfuss hasn't finished the series, similar to my post about Martin, but since KKC isn't frequently in the news, I just don't even have the motivation for that.  

My theory for Rothfuss isn't the same as for Martin.  For Martin, I think he always intended an ending that will piss off fans, got a preview of how fans react with the TV series, and is deliberately stalling getting to that point.  But with Rothfuss, I think he's firstly milking the status of being an author, but also trying to find some "out" in a rewrite that will still have all the clues but point to different resolutions than the ones fans guessed.  But I don't have the time or motivation to explain why I think that.

I've written about some other book series, and sometimes do movie reviews, but actually, lately I don't even have time to watch anything.  That's about two hours on some specific night, and I don't even have that amount of time.

For a while I was on a DnD kick and posted some ideas related to that.  But I was never able to really get the game that I want, and with the lack of realization of it the ideas sort of dried up.  Maybe I should write a post about my difficulties finding a way to play my ideal game.  I actually feel like I'd have motivation for that.

But lately I mostly think about theological questions.  And for some reason, I feel some kind of guilt posting too many theological posts in a row.  But that's really all I have the motivation to think or write about.

I have two children, so the main issue I've been considering lately is about infant baptism.  I came to faith in the South, and down here even the Methodist churches are Baptist churches.  However, infant baptism is an ancient practice, and the majority of Christians historically, and the majority alive today around the globe, and the majority of Christian traditions, all practice it.  So it's probably worth seriously considering it, and looking at the arguments for and against.  And I did, from several traditions, and looked at it historically, and have conclusions. But I think it's only worthwhile to express my conclusions by also expressing the contrary views, and summarizing those views accurately.

Last August I started writing a blog post about the Shroud of Turin I think conclusively disproving its authenticity.  It was a more serious post than my others (this and that), which were pretty flippant; here I actually scrutinized the primary arguments for authenticity, including its historical provenance as the Image of Edessa (or Mandylion).  All I really have left is some editing and adding citations -- but I haven't found a lot of time to do that.

Most of my life is as a computer programmer.  I write software used at a national laboratory, unrelated to my thesis research.  When I get off work, I'm a husband and father.  I am a part-time student, studying theology -- I can take about 1 class per semester, barely, turning all assignments in late.  I usually go to bed around 2 in the morning, and wake up again at 8.  And while I used to blog about cool stuff, I just can't any more.  Something in my life had to give.  The blog was one of the first things.

I wrote this just to mostly update whoever reads it.  I do think about the blog, and have ideas.  I just don't execute.  But at the same time, in writing this out, I had some ideas for things I might be able to post with less effort.  Or this blog will just become a series of posts of me complaining about my lack of time.