Talking Comanches, God and women.
Indian killer George "Comanche Bill" Porter interviewed by the Davenport Gazette in 1871:
There has been stopping in this city for a couple of days past one of those characters who have made for themselves a celebrant for their bravery and daring on the plains of the far West, among the Indians and the buffalo, in recounting whose deeds and hair-breadth escapes and peculiar lite the pages of romance are filled. The person to whom we refer is no less a character than "Comanche Bill," who is reputed to be the slayer of no less than 183 Indians.
He has been nine years on the plains, part of which time he has been in the employ of the Government as scout. He has hunted and killed Indians for the pleasure and sweets of revenge, and hunted and trapped of necessity. He us now on his return to his old life in the West, having been on a visit to his early home in Minnesota. He is about 28 years of age, of slender build, sandy complexioned, with a profusion of hair that he wears long on the neck. His dress is a pair of buckskin pants, ornamented from the outer seaius with a row of steel buttons, a coarse shirt, an old coat and a broad-brimmed hat. His eye is piercing keen, and he has a grip like a dozen blacksmiths. In response to our questions he said :
"My name is George W. Porter. I have been on the plains since '62. I was in the Minnesota massacre, near New Ulm, the 18th of August of that year. All my folks were killed except me and my little sister three years old, whom they took prisoner."
" Where were yon?"
"I was away at the military station on business; went the day before. " The first I knew of the massacre, I was coming along the road on my way home, when I saw a little way ahead of me a wagon filled with women and children, that the settlers had sent to the station for protection. Just then I saw the Indians pounce upon them, and I dodged into the woods. I could hear the hatchets crushing into their heads. They killed 'em all, every one."
" What did you do ? "
"They scalped 'em, and when the coast was clear, I got out and pretty soon along came a company of cavalry, and we buried them."
"Why didn't you follow after the Indians?"
"I had no horse, and the captain didn't want his men to go. You see that was in '62, and everything was topsy-turvy."
" Did yon visit the scene of the massacre at New Ulm?"
"Yes. I went there the next day, and saw my father and mother all scalped and cut up, and my sister was gone. I swore by the eternal God that I would never rest until I had had revenge — a bloody revenge."
"Did you get any traces of your sister?"
"Why, yes; they was the Yankton, Swanee and Sioux Indians, and I knowed them pretty well. I learned that they had her. I knowed what they'd do with her."
"'You have not been successful in your efforts to secure her?"
"No; you see, single-handed and alone, a man don't stand much chance. That's what I had been doing all the time. Once, in Arizona, I was right in sight of her. The way I knowed it was her was, I had been on the trail of the band of Sioux that had her a long time, and she was the only white person they had. This was in '65, and then she looked just like mother. I waited, and watched, and picked an Indian off every little while, when he'd get a mile or two from camp, but 'twas no use. They kept too close watch over her."
"Were you ever captured?"
"Yes. The Blackfeets captured me and Jim Braden in '64, when we were out hunting. They came on us with a rush, but they didn't get us, though, until I had killed one young buck."
"What did they do with you you?"For a minute there I thought Porter must have been the inspiration for a favorite film of mine as a child, Jeremiah Johnson, but no, that story is about a man of that name who's claimed to have killed hundreds of Crow Indians to avenge their killing his wife--a squaw.
"They marched about twenty-five miles to their camp, and there they stripped us of everything we had, and tied us up to a stake and let the women pound us with clubs. They did this every day tor eight days. We were tied with buckskin thongs, and one night it ruined and we slipped out of 'em when they got wet. Jim got away all right, but just as I 'was gettin' my things on, an old squaw woke up and gave the alarm. There was but four Indians in camp. The rest had gone on a hunt. I run, with only my knife. They came up to me, and I had a desperate fight. One shot hit me in the left arm (exhibiting scar. I cut and slashed the buck that got hold of me, and finally give him one under the ribs, so he wont tie any more thongs. And he cut me, too, here, and here, and here (showing the scars on his arm, neck and breast). The other buck never came near, for I'd got this buck's gun afore he'd reached us."
Guest Jennifer Scharf has a theory proving the existence of God through quantum physics. Claire Khaw passed along this communication she received:
"Hello Jennifer Scharf and Claire Khaw. I ran across your online dialogues a week ago, and despite having studied many extremes of human thought over the years, I found the two of you, both individually and together, to be a unique and arresting phenomenon: two women, alt-right-adjacent but with imperious and idiosyncratic intellectual agendas, fighting it out in an almost unnoticed corner of philosophy Youtube.
I've tuned into two or three streams by now, I made a few comments in the chat, but I wanted to get in touch in a more formal way. As well as hello, this email is a step towards goodbye, because I do need to return to my own intellectual universe. But I felt that it is more civilized to send a personal communication, rather than just slip away as an anon.
I feel that my most substantial remarks are for Jennifer. I hesitate to make them, since they are a criticism of her physics, which to a great extent seems to be the jewel in the crown of her intellectual pride, and it might be a net loss if she were to suspend her philosophical barnstorming, because of doubts about her personal theory of everything. Nonetheless...
I read "Quantum Chemistry Teaser" in an attempt to see what your point is, regarding the periodic table. What I see is that you have a kind of combinatorial scheme, which serves to generate a number of types of "atom", matching the the number of elements in the periodic table.
However, the variety of atoms in the world already has an explanation, in terms of possible electron wavefunctions, indexed by four quantum numbers; and there are specific reasons why those numbers can take the values that they do. I simply don't believe that your explanation is remotely compatible with that other explanation; and that other explanation is part of a larger framework which can, for example, explain the emission spectra of atoms, in terms of energy differences between orbitals.
What I believe you have done, is attempt to prematurely forge a connection between physics and metaphysics. Such a connection provides a qualitative and intuitive interpretation of physics that is missing from any purely calculational framework. But you're doing this in a way which negates large and verified parts of the calculational framework. Never mind skepticism about the standard model; despite your use of quantum notation, what you're doing appears to be something already inconsistent with the kind of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics that describes orbitals.
I never yet heard of someone who made a seriously deviant personal theory of physics, and then abandoned it for orthodoxy. At least, I can't think of any such person. I suppose one reason for it is the mathematical difficulty of advanced physics. If you really want to know the truth, but for whatever reason aren't willing to spend however long it takes to learn gauge field theory and similar formalisms, it must be tempting to just keep finetuning your own creation.
So, as a bridge between your efforts and the kind of physics that any actual university lab utilizes in order to understand Bose condensation and a hundred other phenomena, I would like to point out the work of Michael Atiyah on "complex geometry of nuclei and atoms" and "geometric models of helium". Atiyah was a very eminent mathematician who died earlier this year, and who in his final years, very sensibly decided to go for it, and began to speculate much more than in his previous works. Although physics contains a number of examples of surprising alternative descriptions of the same thing, I think it is very unlikely that this work of his actually connects to reality; but perhaps it will be stimulating for you to investigate.
And as for Claire... I regret that I have much less to say to you. As your interests are political and practical, they don't face the same kind of critique as a new theory of nature, and frankly my political thinking is not as evolved as my scientific thinking. I guess all I will say is that I think I understand your motives, and that secular Quranism is an ingenious attempt to use the material provided by humanity's historic civilizations and the current western situation, to restore patriarchy; but it probably has the most chance of being successful, in the places that need it the least.
One more thing, for you both. Are you aware of vixra.org? This is the free-for-all twin of arxiv.org, a site where academic physicists, computer scientists, and biologists post preprints of their papers. vixra was started by physicists who were being excluded from arxiv, but has since expanded to accommodate papers on all kinds of subject matter. Essentially anything can be posted, so long as it is not a work of libel or plagiarism. If either of you wishes to codify part of your thought in the form of a PDF, it could be another medium to use.
Best wishes to you both, Mitchell Porter"
No comments:
Post a Comment