Drove Nachum to the airport, July 28, to make his 10:00 PM flight. He told me an amazing story! A store near Seventh Avenue and 4th Street is selling a beer called, “He-Brew.” This is a name I suggested two/three years ago. Nice of him to point it out.
I told him I had other “undisclosed” inventions, such as, instead of burying people, put the bodies on satellites and send them into the sky. You can say, “lets go out tonight and watch Dad fly by.” Wherein the satellite loses momentum, NASA can tell you, watch tonight as your Father becomes a “shooting Star.” Develop an orbit instead of an obit. I talked about this maybe 5 - 10 years ago, but it took Timothy Leary until (what?) three years ago to actually fo it.
Another idea I had in High school. When I learned that sound was actually a series of compression waves in the air, I suggested, why not develop a machine which “red” the waves, and produced an opposite series of waves. would “silence” unwelcome noise. The teacher agreed. These machines have now been developed and are on the market.
Then we got to the airport, early, so we sat down and ate ice cream bars. I told him about the Bill Moyers show on religion, thinking that would interest him. I mentioned the panel members, and told him the Budhist, the Shinto representative and the Islamic were very cogent, with the Protestant less so. Jews were representation by a female Rabbi heading a large Reform congregation in Beverly Hills, plus Bill Buckle.
I said the topic that interested me the most, was, if Christians believe in one supreme being, and the Native Americans believe in Manitu, above all lesser spirits, is this necessarily the same one G-d that the Jews believe in? Nachum thought no, since the practices, and concepts were all different. I pointed out the one participant (the Islamic?) said since G-d in inscrutable, unknowable, what we rally have here, is incomplete knowledge of G-d by any faith, and by anh being, but we are left with different paths toward understanding the “non-understandable.” That there is some equality of not knowing. Nachum rejoined that Jews are atheists, since they don’t accept and specific concept of G-d. They can only say what G-d is not. I pointed out that the one cogent statement of the Rabbi was, “Show me the G-d you don’t believe in, and I will tell you, I do not believe in that G-d either.” Nachum said this was a paraphrase of Rabbi Kook.
I returned to the idea that if G-d in unknowable, maybe the different faiths are simply different w ways of seeking truth? Moyers asked Buckley if he agreed, and Buckle took a strong, separatist position, saying , he believe his faith t[was the one true faith and he was not particularly interested in other faiths or ideas. Moyers asked if theis was because other ideas might “seduce” believers away?
We segued into esp, and Nacum seemed caught up with the questioon of proof: pragmatic, physical evidence (you see something) does not depend on logic, but whae you deal with what others say, you must be logicakl, I told hinm aboiut “seeing” a rock in New Jersery, whichil I spoke on the tlelephins with Sarah in New York -- she, holding such a rock. He pointed out that whether you bleieve what someone tells you also depends on how well you know then, and so forth. Seemed like a lecture o=i logicv instead of using logic to have a conversation.
He said the Artitotle beieved in ideal forms, since iwhen you see a cat, how do you know it is a cit, unless you have an idea (form) of a cat in mind? “Is it a cat?” he asked. so I borrowed a pen adn wrote, “Was it a cat I saw?” backwards. Nachum was not impressed, and told me that . “Rats live on no evil star.”
So I switched topics inot his work, and asked him waht he did. He maintained the School’s computers, he said, including the Web Site, but did not work on content. In other words, I asked, if I know of someone who wanted a web site built, he could do it technically, but had no special training oiin wording, graphics aor other “content.” He agreee, thensaid that an example of what he did was, one day his boss told him to reprogram th4 computer system so the any complter could print from all the printers.
I asked why they would want to print ALL computers at once? Surely his boss meant to reprogram them so that nay computer could print fro any printer? Nachum said, both things meant thesame thing -- once anh printer could print ALL printers, it could print ANY single printer. U suggested this might not be enevitable. Nachum said it would follow -- but admitted it woul dnot follow necessarily. I said, I din;t know much about programming, and was not even asking about that -- what I wanted to know, was, what was the functional reason his boss would want all cocomputers to be able to activate allprinters, at once? During an emergency? For a fire drill? Or maybe, he meant any computer could print from any printer?
Nachum said it was really an example, hi was n’t sure what he said, maybe he really had said any computer could print from any printer? He didn’t remember. Frustrated, said, surely, if he had said that , I wouldn’t have mis-heard him that the boss had asked to have each computer to print ALL printers.
So we ewere near the ticket area, and said goodby. Nachuj asked, did I plan to visit soon? I said iareound suckot -- October. He said that was soon. I said two-thre onths. I asked him to think about taking a trip with me -- to Petra, Turkey, Egypt or elsewhere. He said I should gibe him a long lead-time. I asked, was three months long, or not? He pointed out he just had taken his vacaation, might not have time so soon. I must have looked hurt, because Nachum asked me why I looked like there was a difficulty? Iofreced a lught, said there was no problem, gave hi a hug and left.