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From: paul krassner < Sent: Monday, August 14, 2017 7:08 PM To: Jeffrey E. Subject: this HOME <http://www.timesquotidian.com/> BLOG VIEW ABOUT CONTACT SUBSCRIBE Times Quotidian <http://www.timesquotidian.com/> <http://twitter.com/TimesQuotidian> <http://www.timesquotidian.com/feed/> <=tbody> • ART * FILM • MUSIC * PERFORMANCE» * PHOTOGRAPHY» • TEXT&CONTEXT» YOU ARE HERE: HOME <http://www.timesquotidian.com/> / TEXT&CONTEXT / ESSAYS / TEEN AGE LUST AND FAR-FROM-EQUILIBRIUM =YNAMICS Teen Age Lust and Far-from-Equilibrium Dynamics July 31, 2017 I by Guy =immerman I Filed Under: Essays, Text&Context 13 Comments The History of =imelessness — Related =osts: Money and the Time Suck, Toward an Experimental Politics of =onviolence, Of Fargo, Dopamine and the Image of =ectar The first time = heard about Jeffrey =pstein it had to do with reading glasses. There was this rich =uy, I heard, who had built a huge house not far from Santa Fe, I was =old, and the staff had been instructed to stock each of the thirty plus =ooms with two pairs of reading glasses, one for Epstein and one for his =omestic partner. Epstein chose the location for its proximity =o Santa Fe =nstitute <https://www.santafe.edu/> (SFI), the influential think tank that had been =ounded in the 1980s by the physicist Murray =ell-Mann, a Nobel laureate. Epstein, you see, has a mad love for =utting-edge science, and, in fact, considers himself in many ways a =ontributor to the field. I heard about the house with the reading =lasses years before Epstein got himself jailed in Florida for having =ex with underage girls (this happened in 2005), and over a decade =efore his name would pop up in court documents also naming our current =resident for this same offence. But then I realized I probably =xperienced a much more direct and intimate connection with Epstein =yself when I was a teenager. Well, I can't swear to it, but as =he wretchedness of the current regime engulfs the entire nation the =ossibility haunts me more and more. I love this notion that concepts are born, =ive for a while, and then pass away, like everything else, into the =ong night of what has past. The concept of timeless truths itself, for =xample—by which I mean the idea that truths exist in an =ternal, immaterial or ideal realm above the world and are immune to =hange—arguably arrived some 5000 years ago, spread quickly like = virus of thought. Due to its outsized dynamism, this idea began to =teadily transform a collection of locally situated agrarian cultures =nto the hyper-dynamic global monoculture of today...and to =roduce, as a by-product, the collapse of living systems worldwide, =long with a round of species extinction unlike anything the planet has =ver seen. Today this problematic idea of timeless truths may well be =eading for the ditch, dragging in tow, one can only hope, all the =onsters it gave birth too. EFTA_R1_01344830 EFTA02358023 The source of the possible connection between =pstein and I has to do with a girl—K, I will call her. K had a =ierce presence, a full, round face and large green eyes, and, for =easons I do not understand, she could not resist the call of the =rotic, and surrendered to it with complete abandon whenever it arose, =s if salvation could be found there. I was alarmed at that time by how =ar K was willing to go without restraint or thought of =onsequence—without any thought at all, actually—but I =as also ready to walk through walls to be with her that way. Entering =er apartment building under the gaze of the impassive doormen my =eart would thump so hard I was sure it was audible. Crossing that =ausoleum-like lobby to the elevators I became fully transparent, deep =n the trance of the instinctive. That we were young was a part of =t—we were being called upon to actualize the instinctual =apacities of the body all over again on behalf of the species. Cultural =orces were at work too—this was the mid-1970s, a time still =nfused with the transgressive imperatives of the 1960s, despite the =act that the party had already moved on. It was not clear at the time, =ut in the back rooms of Max's Kansas City and at concert halls =round downtown NYC we were chasing ghosts— the action was =hifting back in the direction of wealth, privilege, the boredom of =ixed, extractive hierarchies. Also unknown to me, or to anyone else at =hat time, is that a man teaching mathematics at K's expensive =rivate school would soon shift to a career on Wall Street, and would =hen quickly blossom into the billionaire investor, science =hilanthropist and devotee of sex with underage girls known to many =oday as Jeffrey Epstein. Various =hinkers I've written about here have linked the idea of =imeless truth to the birth of metal coinage (David Graeber is especially good about this). =oinage gave people a direct experience of transcendent value—how the value of a cow =r a goat or a sharp axe could be quantified in an abstract =ealm above the fixed, localized world and =ts situated set of particular relations. The abstract aspect of =onetary values pointed in the direction of timeless truths— truths=that were not just true today, but true everywhere and always. =nspiring mathematicians and philosophers first, these ideas began to =xert a broad popular allure. The source for this allure is quite =bvious: if all things are time-bound that means we all must one day =ie, and we do not like the idea of dying one bit. And so, before long, =his idea of a realm of timeless, transcendent value morphed in the =opular imagination into an actual place we =ould access after dying, provided we have =een good boys and girls—heaven, in other words, the seat of =ngels and of the good father with the long white beard. Such ideas also =nspired the invention of material objects—machines and =ontraptions— designed to forever deliver identical results. We become affectively invested in the =eliable certainty of the light switch on the wall doing its thing to =he dark room, to the comforting cause-and-effect linearity of the phone =umber on speed dial connecting us with dad on father's day, and =o the quadratic equations that generate reliable, consistent =esults— these small certainties whisper to us in the voice of =mmortality. With K there was no issue of fidelity, nor any pretense of a =table arrangement. I never knew at all where I stood. How could one =now? There was little talk, just a semi-mute signaling through the =lames. When the right conditions presented themselves, our engagement =ould unfold, and this went on for several years before ending without =efinite closure. What haunts me most of all is the notion that they =ust have connected, these two beings, Epstein and K, despite the age =ifference (or, indeed, because of it), =hich nobody paid much attention to back then. I have no proof at all =ut it seems unlikely to me that a man so interested in sex with girls =ould not have noticed K; and it seems unlikely too that K would have =een anything but intrigued by such interest. Among those who =tudy science and technology it is generally accepted that science is =ever about truth so much as it is about who has the resources to =nforce certain perspectives. Since Isaac Newton first served as the =xchequer of England modern physics has been closely allied with money, =nd the reason for this has to do with a desire for control that hinges =n issues of causality and the temporal. Newton's remarkable =iscovery of laws governing the interactions of matter and energy =ere time reversible, for example—they =ould operate just as well describing events moving backwards in time. =n the "clockwork universe" Newton described one could =spire to a kind of deterministic control over the future, and that, of =ourse, was perceived to be very good news. If the radical developments =shered in by Einstein and Heisenberg in the twentieth century =hallenged this dream of control on one level—with our limited =erspectives there is only so much we were capable of understanding =bout the very large and the very small—relativity and quantum =echanics also re-affirmed the primacy of mathematical laws as a perfect =irror of nature. And so it remained possible to image the initial =onditions of all matter and energy could be known to some being not as =imited as we are, if not God perhaps a super computer. But off in the =orner of the palace of contemporary science lurks the equally radical =evelopment of thermodynamics, a bastard stepchild who shadows the =ontemporary scientific mind 2 EFTA_R1_01344831 EFTA02358024 with the horrific notion of entropy, and the unsettling implication that time is not =eversible at all but, like an arrow, moves =nly in one direction. A few years ago I would find out on Facebook =hat K had died. She was still quite young. Details were not forthcoming =ut my sense is that substance abuse was involved, and a long, difficult =ecline. With the shift to Wall Street and his philanthropic engagement =ith cutting-edge scientific research Epstein, of course, travelled an =pposite trajectory...at least until he didn't. The images =f Epstein facing the cameras after his conviction are deeply moving, at =east to me, due to the horror in his eyes. I do not think any of the =littering personalities who had attended his lavish and audaciously =ransgressive soirees in Manhattan in the 1990s, or the annual =illionaire's Dinner hosted by the Epstein-supported Edge =ublication—Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Sergei Brin of Google, not =o mention Rupert Murdoch and scores of leading scientists in all the =isciplines—made the trek to the Florida penitentiary to pay him = visit during the thirteen-months of his incarceration. I very much =oubt his old friend our current president would have been taking his =all. But before we let this fact move us to tears, let us not forget =he lasting impact Epstein's actions had on scores of vulnerable =oung women. The close relationships Epstein cultivated with leading =hysicists and theorists only underscores how deeply entangled =ontemporary research is with finance capitalism in its neoliberal mode. =iewed in this context, the issue of time links the domains of politics =nd physics to the technological dynamism that now rages like fire. The =ituated, embodied fact of death, and its slow, inexorable approach, is =egitimately terrifying, but, of course, pushing it away or repressing =t only makes things worse. If you are a scientist and you come to =nderstand this issue as a highly political one, you might want ally =ourself with a good political philosopher. This is the step =hysicist Lee =molin <http://leesmolin.comh took in 20O6 when he began to work with the =olitical philosopher Roberto Unger <http://www.robertounger.com/en/> on the =olitics of time. Together these two thinkers have been exploring the =dea of a "singular universe" based in a non-emergent =emporality, and opposed to the "many worlds" theories =urrently in vogue. In many worlds theory the paradoxes of quantum wave =unction collapse are resolved by embracing the idea that all possible =lternative histories and futures are equally real. Unger and Smolin =mphasize instead that, whatever else may be true on the quantum level, =e nevertheless live in a time-bound universe that is steadily and =rreversibly evolving from one state to another. To Unger and Smolin =ven physical laws evolve in time, shifting from what they are today =oward some new set of intricate alignments, and mathematics =oes not provide us with a perfect mirror =f nature. The death-fearing mind recoils from such ideas—even =f mathematical certainties shift on a cosmological time scale of =illions of year, the domain of the timeless has been undercut, and this =annot be tolerated. Our affective bonds with idea of a-temporal truth =un deep, and the effort to locate the One True Story and a unified =atural law is written in blood and backed up by money. As I conceded =t the outset, a sexual encounter between K and Epstein may never have =appened—devoid of anything resembling evidence I am guided =olely by a sickening "6-degrees" intuition. Perhaps =t's simply how haunted I remain by the last time I saw K, which =as during the most challenging portion of my life. In my late twenties = was living in Ft. Green in Brooklyn and working for a financial =oftware company writing technical manuals—the 1980s were =alloping along in a direction I could not find interesting. At the end =f a long week, dressed in coat and tie, loaded down with documents I =arried in a satchel on my shoulder, I caught a glimpse of her in the =rowd on the platform as I stepped onto the D-Train, and when I glanced =ack a moment later she was looking at me with a little smile and I said =othing and the doors closed. Cowardice? Exhaustion? The bewilderment =nd closure of my own history of trauma? The moment reminds me that =egret is all about time—specifically how the arrow of time =eans we can never take it =ack. Regret is humbling, and therefore healthy, today most of all. =egardless of our politics we are all implicated anyway. Our good =ntentions mean very little. We are participants in the trashing of the =Janet, and we cannot stop because we do not see clearly what is driving =s. Herein lies the value of sorcery as a =etaphor for our situation. We believe =urselves to be in control—but this is because we =re in a spell. I'm including myself in =his, and K too across the platform too, and also all the business =isionaries attending the annual Billionaire's Dinner, and the =ery serious philosophers of computation, and the complex systems =esearchers attending too—all of us are stumbling blindly toward =he cliff. And what is the source of the spell that has us so firmly in its =rip? An innocuous sorcery object we interact with all the time—mo=ey, the coin—that generates a mode of knowing within which its =wn influence becomes invisible...a self-cloaking sorcery object. In a time when =oinage—the dynamic forces of money and the financial—fuel=all of our various problems (in the domains of politics, the =nvironment, social justice, etc.) is it too much to think the answers =o our collective viability as a species involves this ideational aspect =f money—its effects on thought and the secret promise it seems =o make? The coin, we come to see, activates psychological and social =ynamics that have drawn us 3 EFTA_R1_01344832 EFTA02358025 inexorably out of balance into a kind of =yper-dynamic planetary death spiral. And yet the ratchet-like mechanism =tself is relatively simple, suggesting the beneficial changes that =ould immediately unfold were we to decide it is time to make =oney a servant rather than our demonic master. SharelSharel Tagged With: Albert Einstein, David Graeber, Guy =immerman, Isaac Newton, Jeffrey Epstein, Lee =molin, Roberto Mangabeira =nger Comments 1. Michael =lias says: August 1, 2017 at 3:30 =m This is a terrific article. Personal, challenging; it deserves =tudy and contemplation. I think it makes a real =ontribution to contemporary thought. Congratulations, Mr. =immerman! 2. Jeff LeBeau says: August 1, 2017 at 11:09 =m very thought provoking...atoms in a void...regret.. =ision, mortality,culteral trajectory, and inertia from a counter =ulture in transition...trance like passion in service of =ulfilling what? and the politics of time... wow! =ery thought provoking, and echoing Michael's sentiments =bove- personal and challenging..which in turn has challenged me.. Kudos =uy Zimmerman! 3. Michael G =inn says: August 7, 2017 at 9:52 =m I found this to be a very moving and stimulating article. I have =ndured depressing dinner table conversations with those who promulgate =he idea that "all possible alternative histories and futures =re equally real." Such advocates are usually on the Right of =he political spectrum. it is therefore heartening to read a defense of =hermodynamics and the concept of entropy. Your view chimes with my own =hat, in the lonely hours of darkness, when the distractions of the day =ave subsided, our regrets are mostly about the things we did not do, =nd less often about the things we did do. Speak Your = ind 4 EFTA_R1_01344833 EFTA02358026 5 EFTA_R1_01344834 EFTA02358027