TO: Prof. Dr. Mary A. Carskadon, Alpert Medical School, Brown University
Bradley Hospital Sleep Lab, 300 Duncan Drive, Providence, RI 02906
FM: Bruce E. Camber
RE: Your work to grasp the fullness of sleep, particularly your work with your new journal, SLEEP Advances, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2020 by Oxford University Press and your work with Sleep for Science (staff) and, of course, your homepage
URL for this page: https://81018.com/2020/10/30/carskadon/
Second email: 3 July 2023
Dear Prof. Dr. Mary A. Carskadon,
Coming up on three years since my first note to you, I notice in today’s report that our webpage about your work had been visited. When I can’t cite the work of that scholar, I go back to that page on our site to review and often to update it.
First, please allow me to wish you a delightful 4th of July! Our homepage today is tailored to it: https://81018.com/penultimate-revolution/
What color is sleep? was the title of a booklet we wrote back in the ’70s at Synectics Education Systems. We were exercising metaphorical thinking in connection with sleep, the unconscious, the brain, the mind, and the very nature of time. There are many today (Loop Quantum Gravity – LQG) who hold that time is necessarily an expression of space and defines the moment and there is no past or future. Except there is. We experience it everyday. We anticipate and hypostatize the future and it happens. I remember what I said over breakfast. Is it the past or encapsulated with this moment of time within the brain? If we take LQG as a given, then what is sleep? Remember the recompiles that we once did with the old computer programs? Some would have to run overnight. What if sleep is a recompile? After a certain duration, the computer would lock up if not recompiled. It is a stretched metaphor, but it just might be close to the real reality.
I’m just thinking out loud. Thank you.
Best wishes,
Bruce
First email: 30 October 2020
Dear Prof. Dr. Mary A Carskadon,
You have much better things to do with your time than to respond to this note; however, as an exercise, I need to get some thoughts down about circadian rhythms and the metaphor of an old computer’s overnight recompile. Of course, I found several references to your lifetime of work. Congratulations.
Yes, the kids need the most sleep. They are trying new things, absorbing a lot of new data, and de facto asking what-if questions. So, although the body rests, the mind remains active. I would postulate that the more organized our sleep becomes, the more creative our next day may be.
Further, if we take as a given that Max Planck’s base units are real (validated in many ways including dividing Planck Length by Planck Time to yield the speed of light), the circadian rhythms are profoundly part of the rhythms of the universe. That idea may well be worth exploring further. By applying base-2 notation to the Planck base units, we encapsulate the universe within 202 notations. Yet, simple logic tells us that only the current notation, Notation 202, is directional and asymmetric. The other 201 notations are complete and symmetric. My simple guess: Sleep, using the metaphor of recompiling, establishes a certain symmetry each day with and within our universe.
I often wonder if there is anybody within the scholarly sleep community who is asking such silly questions and who are attempting to couple it with the current dialogue about the very nature of time. Thank you.
Most warmly,
Bruce
PS. You look like my kid sister and project such a warmth and gentle spirit, I thought you wouldn’t mind my looking in on your work to further push my questions about circadian rhythms! Thanks. -BEC
PPS. I hope your trip to Adelaide happens this year. Disdain for the cold is a sign of maturity!