Inside

I am currently blogging from just outside the New York Public Library. It's quite a beautiful day, barely even cold, and no snow or water at all. I am sitting between beautiful views of the Chrysler Building


and the under-construction Bank of America Tower.



The library and other buildings shoot above me while the subway rumbles below me. I am being passed by dozens of people and cars per minute.



I'm waiting for an Objectivist meet-up to start. So excited!

-Alex Scott

Exploration

On Christmas my first action was to sleep in. 1) I have no money, 2) the only person I love is very far away, and 3) I don't feel any obligation to adhere to arbitrary social conventions. My second action was to go to FAO Schwartz. Just to look around. It was pretty neat, and almost completely full of people, but I think I missed some parts, because it wasn't grand. And the Big Piano was surrounded by people and was being rationed. How lame. I might go back at a less busy time to improvise on it and watch the performers.

Then I wandered into Central Park, which was surprisingly enjoyable in the winter. I absolutely love seeing the buildings contrasted with the natural setting, because I love being reminded how wonderful the city really is. This counter-intuitive comment comes from my recognition that the buildings and city support millions of people, allowing and enhancing their lives, in a way that took untold effort from an untold number of men, acting in accordance with principles of rationality and freedom. I took a video showing the buildings on all sides.



After totally getting lost in Central Park, and taking as long to find my way out as it took to get tired in the first place, it was pretty late. Apparently things are closed on Christmas?

The next day (after some more "The Art of Fiction", which is really high quality), I went to a FREE SCIENCE MUSEUM, known as the New York Hall of Science. Can it get better?? So it turns out this place was really for little kids, but there was still plenty of cool in it. They had an exhibition on "Is there life elsewhere?", which contained very contemporary concepts such as life on Europa, and extremophiles. I was also very impressed by a whole section on networks, a very important and fast-growing subject relating things like mathematics, computer science, neuroscience, and social sciences. Their diverse exhibits included: behavior of groups of animals, a kinetic sculpture that distributed stresses, a floor that dynamically projected a network between the people standing on it, a model of how power grids are redundant,

many pretty pictures of real-life and important networks,

a web of pulleys that could be manipulated with the wheels below,

and a visualizer of Conway's Game of Life!

This may be my personal favorite part of the museum. Not only is this an important and modern model in mathematics, game theory, and emergent behavior, but it's also really fun! On the computer you could input initial states, or choose from a selection of interesting ones discovered by scientists (including the Glider Gun shown here), and then hit play to see the Game resolve on the large board in front of you. I could play with this for hours.

Another really impressive exhibit for this particle physicist was a one meter square cloud chamber. This showed tracks left behind by fundamental particles in real time. This was awesome to watch because there were on the order of 100 particle tracks at any given time, and you could see distinctly different tracks for particles of different energies. Now I can say that I've seen direct evidence of the particles I've spent so much time studying. I want to go back with a bunch of lead to show that the particles can be blocked, or a radioactive thing to see a bunch of trails explode from it. Or a giant magnet to curve the electrons! How cool would that be!

I ended up staying until closing, but didn't get to see the whole museum, largely becasue an employee stated talking to me after he discovered that I am a physics major. This was okay though. It was interesting to talk to someone who worked in a Science museum, and lived in New York City.

And for the walk home, a very amusing sign.

-Alex Scott

Drafting

This is where I live!


My first action yesterday was to go read the only copy of Ayn Rand's "The Art of Fiction" in New York City accessible to me. Which was in Queens. Really far into Queens. This far into Queens.


But this was good because I got to see a whole different neighborhood of New York. All throughout Queens the subway is actually a superway, that is, it's above ground. So I got to see views of Manhattan as we rode away from it, and I got to see lots of brick houses with lots of graffiti. The Queens library was also pretty cool, and different from the other two libraries. It's neat how they each have a personality. "The Art of Fiction" was definitely worth it. It's amazing how much her philosophy explicitly affects her teachings about writing. And it's great to see philosophy in action. On the subway home I started writing a short screenplay. I also almost got severed from my backpack. "Please stand clear of the closing doors." They're serious, people.

After lunch I went almost to the end of Manhattan Island, to see the WTC. After 7 years, it's still mostly a big hole.


It's painfully obvious that there's something missing; it's surrounded by big, beautiful buildings of the World Financial Center, the Deutsche Bank, and others.

(This picture doesn't do it justice.)

Wandering around the perimeter leads you into the World Financial Center, but the only parts you can see are big, beautiful, empty halls and stairways, like the Winter Garden, which has it's own wiki page for some reason. Yes, those are real palm trees.


After that I went to the Rockefeller Center. The centerpiece, the GE Building, surprised me with how attractive it was. Many pictures were taken.



These two pictures together show you the full height of the GE Building from the side. I'm gonna say it's about 100 times more beautiful than the tree.

Doesn't this just scream Gotham?

The Rockefeller Center has lots of Art Deco murals and artwork around. Here are a couple of examples.

Here's the GE Building sneaking out from behind the Atlas Statue.

And the Atlas Statue in full.

Here's the inside of the Rockefeller Center. This sign is telling you the floor is wet--with class.

Below this was a subway, so I took it as a sign from Rockefeller that I should go home.

-Alex Scott

Approach

Recently, before this trip, an Objectivist friend and I determined a very probable cause of my inability to do schoolwork. This is the first time I have been able to attempt to solve the problem by addressing the cause. We considered both that a break from school may help and that it may be best to try to solve it while in school. I'll at least have this break.

So I went to the (science and business) library to do some quantum mechanics. It was a very good-looking library. At the top of the stairs there was a long wavy banner with lots of quotes.


There were more homeless people on the subway today. They're pretty good at making their speeches asking for help. They are practiced, refined, and aimed for maximum guilt. They make it clear that they have nothing to offer but their gratefulness. After reading Atlas Shrugged, it's clear how horrific this is. Afterward I unrelatedly found this quote from Galt's speech that sums it up pretty well.

Suffering as such is not a value; only man's fight against suffering, is. If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still a trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim—is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values. A man who has no virtues is a hater of existence who acts on the premise of death; to help him is to sanction his evil and to support his career of destruction. Be it only a penny you will not miss or a kindly smile he has not earned, a tribute to a zero is treason to life and to all those who struggle to maintain it. It is of such pennies and smiles that the desolation of your world was made.

It seems I'm not eating enough, but my body isn't good at telling me that I'm hungry. I'm sleeping too much, because I'm getting tired too late. I'll set an alarm tomorrow, because I want to get going at 900.

The Empire State Building is gorgeous. When I see it peeking up from behind other buildings, I am drawn to it. I stand by my statement that it doesn't look as big as I thought, but I'm not sure why this is. The middle section doesn't seem to be as tall. When I stop and evaluate it analytically, it's certainly more than twice as tall as any building around it. Maybe humans aren't used to the distance-length distortion applied vertically. I'd like to see it from the top of another building about halfway up.



I'll visit the top of the Empire State Building eventually. The officials said I can stay up on the observatory deck (including an enclosed heated part) as long as I want, and that I can bring a laptop. I plan to write at the top. Look forward to it.

-Alex Scott

Day 2

Today I

• stepped in lots of puddles and slush
• shopped around for low priced food
• perfected my subway skills
• and was shocked by the fact that things close on Sunday in New York.

Here's the view out my window during the day,

and during the night.

I found an Objectivism meetup group online and will be joining them on December 28th!

-Alex Scott

First Day

In this most wonderful first day I;

• talked to a philosopher on the bus ride
  
• got lost in the subway and proceed to emprically derive it's workings
• witnessed subway dancers and musicians
  
• knocked a guy over accidentally by looking up at buildings all the time
• and saw a wall of M&M's.
  

I also learned that

• You can hear the subway from the streets
• The Empire State Building doesn't look that huge from the ground
• My apartment is two blocks from the Apollo Theatre.

Good day!

-Alex Scott

New York City in Atlas Shrugged

"Where do you come from?"
"Buffalo."
"Got any family?"
She hesitated. "I guess so. In Buffalo."
"What do you mean, you guess so?"
"I walked out on them."
"Why?"
"I thought that if I ever was to amount to anything, I had to get away from them, clean away."
"Why? What happened?"
"Nothing happened. And nothing was ever going to happen. That's what I couldn't stand."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, they . . . well, I guess I ought to tell you the truth, Mr. Taggart. My old man's never been any good, and Ma didn't care whether he was or not, and I got sick of it always turning out that I was the only one of the seven of us that kept a job, and the rest of them always being out of luck, one way or another. I thought if I didn't get out, it would get me—I'd rot all the way through, like the rest of them. So I bought a railroad ticket one day and left. Didn't say good-bye. They didn't even know I was going." She gave a soft, startled little laugh at a sudden thought. "Mr. Taggart," she said, "it was a Taggart train."
"When did you come here?"
"Six months ago."
"And you're all alone?"
"Yes," she said happily.
"What was it you wanted to do?"
"Well, you know—make something of myself, get somewhere."
"Where?"
"Oh, I don't know, but . . . but people do things in the world. I saw pictures of New York and I thought"—she pointed at the giant buildings beyond the streaks of rain on the cab window—"I thought, somebody built those buildings—he didn't just sit and whine that the kitchen was filthy and the roof leaking and the plumbing clogged and it's a goddamn world and . . . Mr. Taggart"—she jerked her head in a shudder and looked straight at him—"we were stinking poor and not giving a damn about it. That's what I couldn't take—that they didn't really give a damn. Not enough to lift a finger. Not enough to empty the garbage pail. And the woman next door saying it was my duty to help them, saying it made no difference what became of me or of her or of any of us, because what could anybody do anyway!" Beyond the bright look of her eyes, he saw something within her that was hurt and hard.
"I don't want to talk about them," she said. "Not with you. This—my meeting you, I mean—that's what they couldn't have. That's what I'm not going to share with them. It's mine, not theirs."


It seemed to him that the skyline of New York, when it rose before him, had a strangely luminous clarity, though its shapes were veiled by distance, a clarity that did not seem to rest in the object, but felt as if the illumination came from him. He looked at the great city, with no tie to any view or usage others had made of it, it was not a city of gangsters or panhandlers or derelicts or whores, it was the greatest industrial achievement in the history of man, its only meaning was that which it meant to him, there was a personal quality in his sight of it, a quality of possessiveness and of unhesitant perception, as if he were seeing it for the first time—or the last.

-Alex Scott

Through the Golden Door

In three hours I get on a bus to go to New York City for the first time. I chose this because

I'm not happy with where I am.
--School may not be for me.
----I have forever had difficulty doing schoolwork. Not understanding it, but simply doing it.
----It is singularly my largest problem, and may prevent my success in life.
----I don't see this improving. I've tried every solution I can think of.
--WPI may not be for me.
----Even if I were to stay in school, WPI is too strongly for engineers, not theorists, like me.
--Worcester sucks.
----The best thing in Worcester is WPI.
----There aren't many jobs or fun things to do, even though the city is populous.

This schoolwork problem only applies to schoolwork. I've had an increasingly strong desire to do productive work. I chose New York City because

I am already going there with Paul for vacation.
It's close.
--Therefore the culture won't be very different.
New York City is the biggest city in America.
--This means that it is the center of production and life.
--It will have thousands of job opportunities.
--I can make it anything I want.

The beauty of New York City comes from the values that created it. This journey isn't a horrible idea because

It's reversible.
--I can go back to WPI at the beginning of C term, D term, summer classes, or even A term.
--If I fail to make it what I want, I can try school again.

But instead of continuing something that hasn't worked for 14 years, I'm going to try something new.

-Alex Scott