Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts

Sunday, May 3, 2020

Vampires:Three Scientific Explanations

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Chillers and Thrillers has devoted quite a bit of space to several articles on Tzvetan Todorov's insightful analysis of the literary fantastic. At this point, despite the oversimplification that results, we can say, for Todorov, the fantastic usually resolves itself into the explained and the unexplained. The former he calls “uncanny”; the latter, “marvelous.” Only when there is no resolution, one way or another, does the fantastic remain fantastic.


In our first post in this series, “Ghosts: A Half-Dozen Explanations,” we include a few examples of each type of story.


We also noted that, to write such a story, an author must allow either of two understandings of the action: either reason or science can explain the phenomena, bizarre though they may, as natural events or the strange phenomena are beyond explanation and, as such, may actually be of an otherworldly or supernatural origin. The tension between these two alternatives creates and maintains suspense. It is only when the story shows that the action is natural (explicable by reason or science) or supernatural (inexplicable by reason or science) that the story itself is no longer fantastic, but either uncanny or marvelous, respectively.

It helps, therefore, to know how scientists explain seemingly fantastic phenomena, such as (for example) ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and zombies.


First, “Vampires: Fact, Fiction, and Folklore” explains why human vampirism is unlikely: imbibing blood on a regular basis would probably result in the imbiber's development “of haemochromatosis (iron overdose),” which is apt to lead to such serious health problems as damage to the nervous system and the liver. Drinking blood for a living is not advised, to say the least!


Another interesting refutation of human vampirism is mathematical in nature: If, at the end of a month, a vampire transforms a victim into a second vampire, and they both then transform two more people into vampires at the end of the next month, and so on, in two and a half years, everybody would be a vampire, and there would be no humans left to supply the blood the bloodsuckers need to survive. (Math can be pretty scary stuff!)


Although actual human vampires do not exist (or, at least, there is no proof that human corpses can be possessed by demons and go about their day “undead,” without eventually rotting, subsisting only on the blood of their living brethern—“Happy Meals with legs,” as Spike, a vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, calls his human hosts)—it is true that some people claim to be vampires; they may even truly believe that they are vampires.

They aren't. Here's why.


Porphyria may explain the belief, by some, in human vampirism. This condition causes sensitivity to light due to “irregularities in the production of heme, a chemical in the blood,” which produces “toxins” that erode “the lips and gums,” creating a “corpse-like, fanged appearance.”


Another explanation for the belief in human vampirism is found in some of the effects of tuberculosis. This disease causes pale skin, an aversion to sunlight, and the coughing up of blood due to lung damage. The highly contagious disease easily spreads from one person to another, a fact which might explain the belief that vampirism can be “transmitted” from vampire to victim through a bite.


Catalepsy, which causes victims to become rigid and immobile, was sometimes mistaken, in times past, for death, as it is in Edgar Allan Poe's short stories “The Premature Burial” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.”


There's also Renfield's syndrome, or clinical vampirism, an obsession with drinking blood. People who suffer from this psychological malady believe that drinking blood is beneficial to their health. The condition is marked by stages. First, a prepubescent child is sexually excited by blood or by consuming blood. Next, at puberty, the child begins to indulge in sexual fantasies concerning the consumption of blood and starts to devour his or her own blood; practicing autovampirism. Finally, the child preys upon animals or, perhaps, other human beings.

Sounds about as reasonable as anything in Freud, right?

And it is, which is to say, Renfield's Syndrome is 100-percent fake. Clinical psychologist Richard Noll invented Renfield's Syndrome as a parody of the psychobabble characteristic of the psychiatric and psychological professions' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.


In doing so, Noll seems to have inspired his colleague, Katherine Ramsland, who is a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania, to invent her own “diagnosis,” “vampire personality disorder (VPD)” for her book The Science of Vampires.

And now we know how psychology is actually practiced, behind the scenes.


For more background reading (i. e., “research”) regarding social vampirism, check out “The people who drink blood.”

As is the case with ghosts, scientific explanations of vampirism suggest both fictional settings and characters.


Let's start with characters. Phlebotomists might be advisable, as might therapists, psychologists, or psychiatrists. (A writer might even toss in a mathematician or two.) There's certainly a place for a general practitioner and a few specialists, such as a hematologist, a neurologist, a pulmonologist, and maybe a dermatologist. There could even be a journalist or an author writing a series of articles or a book on vampirism. The police might be involved as well.

Obvious settings, for scenes if not entire stories, are laboratories; offices of therapists, psychologists, or psychiatrists; medical doctors' offices; mental institutions; and, possibly, jails or prisons.


Of course, thinking outside the box is often one of the things that distinguishes a writer like Poe from other authors of horror fiction. For him, a man aboard a ship is one of his victims of catalepsy, a berth on the ship the victim's actual resting place, and the grave in which he believes he's been buried alive an effect of his nightmares. Writers should be aware of their colleagues' treatments of themes and tropes, but they should also conceive of new treatments, perspectives, and approaches.

In our next post, we'll take a peek at what science says about werewolves.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Scientist Turned Ghostbuster (and Vampirebuster)

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman



Are you afraid of vampires?

Do you sleep with a cross or a crucifix around your neck?

Does your house (and your breath) smell like garlic?

Do you keep a bottle of holy water on hand?

Are you careful to be home by dark every day?

Could an unsuspecting guest stumble upon a few wooden stakes and a mallet stashed in your dresser?

If so, you need not fear bloodsucking dead people any longer!

A scientist has come to the rescue with a mathematical proof against the possibility of the existence of vampires!


University of Central Florida physics professor Costas Efthimiou starts with the human population on January 1, 1600, which was 536,870,911. On this day, the first vampire appears and bites one person each month. On the first day of February, there are two bloodsucking freaks. On March 1, 1600, there are four vampires. In 2.5 years, there are no more humans to feed on, because everyone on the planet has been turned into a vampire! There's no food left for the bloodsuckers, so they die of starvation. (On the downside, there are no more people, either.)

Not even doubling the human birthrate (if such a gambit were possible) could save the human species, Dr. Efthimiou says: “In the long run, humans cannot survive under these conditions, even if our population were doubling each month. And doubling is clearly way beyond the human capacity of reproduction.”

So, there you have it, thanks to Professor Efthimiou: there's no need to fear the existence of vampires. If there were, both vampires and humans would have disappeared in mid-1603. Since we humans, at least, are still here, there obviously are no such things as vampires.




For some folks, ghosts are scary phenomena, too, but there's no need to worry about these spectral beings, either, another scientist says.


Dr. Brian Cox, a physicist, has proved there aren't any ghosts, either. If they did exist, they'd be entities of pure energy, since, by definition, they're incorporeal. According to the second law of thermodynamics, energy is always “lost to heat”; therefore, ghosts, as beings of pure energy, would soon drift apart and cease to exist. 
 

Monday, July 7, 2008

Scientists: Ghosts and Vampires Need Not Apply

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Physicists have lowered the boom on ghosts and, while they were at it, vampires.

According to Professor Costas Efthimiou of the University of Central Florida, a theoretical physicist, ghosts can’t both walk and pass through solid objects, such as walls, any more than, presumably, they can talk and chew gum at the same time. To walk requires the exertion of force to propel oneself forward, because a stationary object will remain stationary unless an exterior force is exerted upon it.

When we (and, presumably, ghosts) walk, we exert force on the floor or ground, and this downward-directed force (an action) causes an opposite and equal reaction, the lifting of our foot, which propels us forward.

The exertion of such a force requires a material body (here, represented by the foot, which is attached to the ankle bone, which is attached to the shin bone, and so forth), and material bodies, alas, cannot pass through solid objects. However, if ghosts are spirits and, as such, have no material form, they cannot exert the force necessary to walk.

Dr. Richard Lord, a British acoustic scientist has also come up with a way to explain (or explain away) haunted houses. Low-frequency sound, which is usually inaudible to humans, can cause people to experience anxiety, grief, chills, and other bizarre sensations. He theorizes that such sound may be associated with allegedly haunted sites.

Mathematics proves vampires are impossible, because, if they were real, and they went around biting people to turn their victims into fellow vamps, even at the rate of one victim per month, in two and a half years, their whole supply of victims (the human race) would have been converted into pantry (or maybe freezer) items.

Fortunately, horror writers, fans, and critics have a powerful counter to these eggheads: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s famous law of counterphysics: the willing suspension of disbelief, so there!

Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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