OSCILLATIONS IN MIND WHERE THEY MATTER

PRELUDE

Hopf Bifurcation Theorem

A multidimensional dynamical system displays spatio-temporal oscillations when the
trace of its J acobean matrix, A, vanishes.

ABSTRACT ( and REAL)
History in the Footprints of Future (Introduction)
Mr. Hopf had hoped (hopfed?) to witness the Hopf Bifurcation in two-dimensional
systems when the trace of A vanished without a trace. That Hopf himself vanished
without an opportunity to observe his necessary and sufficient bifurcation to the
boundless and beyond was arguably not due to a serious flaw in his theorem, but a
synchronization of the fuzzy space that pervaded all J acobian-like entities in all the
spaces condensed from here to maternity. Einstein too, in his pristine youth,looked
for it, but failed due to a singular singularity of the space-time warp at the very
center of his super-dense logic ( viz., God does not play dice with mice......).
Much beyond the confining space-time of the hyper- general theory of relativity; in
fact, in pretty close proximity to the God herself, a theorem willed himself into
existence, and gradually percolated down to the very warp and woof of the human
mind, from where it meandered its way to the human science. The fingerprints of
the theorem in the tortuous connections of the brain-cells could not be deciphered in
any known finite physical space, but its shadow could be represented in a 4-D linear
verbal space to a very good approximation as follows.
No two variable system can ever be DESIGNED to display the much publicized,
much hopfed for, greatly dreaded, but eagerly awaited, Hopf bifurcation to chaos.
The ancient human mind conjured a myriad of quasi-arguments for the theorem, all
of which are now lost in the mists of time. The last of the Greek wisdom on this
subject went up in flames with all of nine thousand Alphas and a fair number of
Omegas at the sack of Alexandria. The proofs of antiquity harked back to even
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older days, but to a modern mind, it is certain that they were little more than
variations on the following themes: If it is old, it must be true, or Cogitonio ergoner
summa..., or Everybody must die, so maybe even I will too. Of course, they
sounded much better in classical Greek and Vedic Sanskrit. Everything does.
Scholars of the yore, much like their progeny today, readily reverted to the old
maxims, When in doubt, mumble or You may be a fool, but dont be humble, and
so could not be prodded beyond the perimeter of their logic.
The modern proof followed close on the heels of the first Great War of the worlds.
Mathematicians were once again using the Greek imagery and symbolism
(=[}=g]) with abundant abundance and great flourish, and
interpreters of various hues were making a quick buck explaining it to the public.
The most popular interpretation of the proof endorsed by the intellectuals, politicians
and the Pope proceeded along the following lines reminiscent of the Sicilian-Dragon
variation. If it be real, it must exist, and so be existential. Everything existential is
subjective and therefore not subject to verification by all IMPARTIAL observers
moving relative to each other at variable velocities. Therefore, Norm N Curvature in
the Events Matrix prohibits......, and so on and away went the proof along the rows
and stacks of books never twice visited in criss- crossing labyrinths of libraries
across the globe.
There the matter stood for nearly seven decades and some, despite frequent but
unverified claims to the contrary, heated exchanges and ruined academic careers
spanning over countless dissertations, international conferences and peer-reviewed
journal articles.
A connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls was often suspected, but never
conclusively demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Christian biblical scholars.
Efforts to link the theorem with the super-quantum theory of mind proved equally
futile in the little minds of philosophers and physicists alike, busy as they were with
the present and immediate emptiness hovering near the tips of their noses.
Carbon Dating was often suggested, but never carried out, partly due to the
marriage vows of the scholars, but largely due to the looks of carbon.
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Pure mathematicians opined the problem to be ill posed in that it either lacked
consistency or completeness, or possibly both! The last, neo-Godelean possibility
was but the World itself in its entire splendor, and therefore could not possibly form
the basis of a serious scientific discussion; not in the opinion of the tenured flock
anyway. So, the once young impatient proponents of this option now inhabited the
happily-ever-after-land of the monasteries or factories.
In their anxiety to be useful, the applied mathematicians devised clever finite order
approximations of the original problem; trashing in little gaps precisely the elements
that made the problem interesting and undefinable in the first place. So it was no
surprise it satisfied no one but their engineering counterparts in academia who
craved the glamour promised by a little sprinkling of pseudo-Science to their
otherwise dull and dreary lives. It was inevitable that the Anxiety-to-be-Useful joined
hands with the Glamour-of-Science to float a new Society named the Association
for the Advancement of Applied and Frontier Sciences of Hidden Variables
(TripleAFroSoHiVa). TripleAFroSoHiVa, with its own flagship journal, proudly
counted a fee paying global membership of over hundred thousand in its heydays.
The big exodus however occurred with the advent of the Society for Artificial
Neuronal Experiments, members of which called themselves SANE, and promised
solution of everything unresolved by the human mind by means of the Artificial
Intelligence. But that, as they say, is another story to be told leisurely in another
time.
There the matter stands for nearly seven decades and some.
Kanpur And Beyond ( Materials And Methods )
Spontaneous meditations engendered by the forty-five degree hot Kanpur-summer
revealed TWO key aspects of the mystery. The theorem excluded the possibility of
carefully DESIGNED experiments, so the clinching evidence would have to be
something akin to CONTROLLED CHAOS. The popular proof argued against the
suitability of IMPARTIAL observers, so the burden would have to be MINE.
Rudely awakened from the creative dreams (dreams of creativity?) and catapulted
into the dark ages by the failure of electricity for the fourth time in a single night, it
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then finally came upon me in Kanpur ( ! ) with such great force so as to sufficiently
upset and render immobile the swarm of mosquitoes busy with their dreams of
nourishment, reproduction and longevity. Why, I already had a system: a humble
glasslined batch reactor resting on a dusty bench and hoping (hopfing?) for the
days of wine and roses never witnessed in its long and useless, but otherwise
happy life. Others of its kind, in abler hands than mine, had their pictures and
schematics printed in awe inspiring journals, where their features were debated,
and sometimes, even appreciated by the doting scientists.
A cynical old leaky reactor can be a wonderful thing on an uneven creaky bench.
The only trick was to force the trace of A to vanish, and things should happen just
as the mighty Hopf had hopfed. The very clue was there all along in the theorem of
Subjective Absurdity, which had by now been proved quite objectively, and beyond
any reasonable shadow of a doubt by a most distinguishably visible group at the
Advanced Center for Anything-Which-Brings-In-Money. You really had to trust and
admire these hard-hat-wielding fellows at the ACAWBIM; they certainly knew their
business; an inscription in old Gothic encircled their holographic emblem in gold:
When the going gets tough, the tough get money. If you didnt believe in it,
then you couldnt understand their science, and you were just an unreasonable old
romantic.
I fitted the bill to the last cent (why else would I be in Kanpur?). So, blindfolded and
taking the utmost care, I peeled back the label from the bottle of a randomly
selected chemical, and with equal care, renamed it Chemical A, and then
proceeded to dump it carelessly in the glasslined reactor (the blind was now off). An
unaimed punch on the control panel had the stirrer purring like a professor at the
sight of a research grant (power was back). A flying kick unclogged the reactor exit
and yours truly waited for the last trace of A to vanish, thereby unleashing a
sequence of events where PARTIALITY conspired with CONTROLLED CHAOS to
produce a sight heavens had waited for the time immemorial. Here was the
unfolding of the quasi-causal chain leading to the Hopf bifurcation.

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Results and Discussion
The last pretensions of the impartiality went flying out of the window with shock
waves engendered by the wild steps of the Hula executed without a Hoop on the
bench that barely supported the reactor. Reckless like its owner, and well out of its
warranty, the stirrer fell on its knees through the Reactorian Space now rendered
null, and transmitted the shear joy of release to the reactor walls. Lo(o) and behold !
The reactor started to rotate, rapidly doubling its periods prodded by a ratcheting
stirrer, but due largely to the ecstasy of wildly fluctuating Kanpur power supply.
Admittedly, the Hopfian oscillations lasted only a short while, before it all turned
pretty (and) chaotic. But then whoever heard of chaos in a two (one too many?)
variable system? A passive onlooker no longer, the reactor-bench, carefully
mounted by our technical staff, began to sway and rotate too. It was a most delicate
and perfectly orchestrated dance of the stirrer, reactor and the bench; all swaying,
gyrating and grinding in unison as if there was no tomorrow. Not even the legendary
Hopf ever came close to postulating, let alone witnessing, three widely separated
but synchronized time scales with intermittent bursts of creative chaos in a two
variable system one too many.
As a fitting tribute to the most extraordinary prelude, orbits suddenly diverged to the
infinity and soared beyond from there. Shattered glass covered my feet. Monkeys
outside chased the indifferent onlookers of this, happened--but--not--of--history,
happening. Peacocks chased their peahen. Men, sealed in their hermetic containers
and serious as monkeys, chased their dreams in the far away streets or in the
nearby offices; the two spaces being differentiated only by the substance that filled
them: fog, wheels, neon lights and the shimmer of ideas.
Nothing unusual and of no immediate concern.
Morals, Dollars and The Big Picture (Conclusions)
Hopf and Einstein were only partially right, because by the shared conventions (are
there any other kind?), half of them had to be left. The experiment that HAPPENED
on that fateful morning IS objectively verifiable, as any researcher who got any stuff
fabricated at a government run workshop in India would readily attest to. However,
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the interpretation of the condition, Let the trace of A vanish, was arrived at by the
purely existential means at the disposal of us humanoids. Again, was it a mere
chance, or does it support the strong version of the anthropomorphic principle, that
the author always thought of them chemicals as A, B, C.... This would explain the
earlier failures of the clever, but conventional academicians who call chemicals by
names like X, Y, Z..., or worse still, by uranium, nerve-gas, DDT and TNT.
Be as it may be, a precedent has been set in coming together of the subject(ive)
and object(ive). Other researchers will no doubt follow meanings closer to their
hearts and purses, should the funding continues to remain great in this area. That is
certainly hopfed, for truly great experiments such as the one reported here, raise
more questions (and funds) than the accounts they settle. A menopausal hen is
either a sitting duck or a dummy. In summary, if this seminal experiment keeps
many generations of the globe trotting scientists in business attending conferences
and delivering lectures; if it inspires creation of Advanced/National Centers of
Excellence in Science through Absurdity, then the objectives (subjectives?) of the
experiment have met their mark. But then again, if they havent, THAT may be a
question that begs an immediate further attention and funds.
FORGET THE HYPE, TAKE THE SONG AND LET IT GROW.
Yours sincerely,
aseran
Doc Prof Ash Sherman, D.Ab., FLEECE
Director General-in-Chief at Large et al.
Advance Laboratory for the Advancement of Science through Hyperabsurdity and
Ultramontanism (AL--ASHU)
PS I. Full text of this paper with supporting equations and photographs is available
from the author by coercion or kickback.
PS II. C-_gO]4E4)O+=]+pO-._: