Embedded Files
Created 10/04/2013, Changed; 13/05/2020, 18/06/2020
Old this webpage; http://ww1.andrew-lohmann.me.uk/engineer/dr-who-classic-estb-1963/dr-who---timelords-and-celestial-beings
Doctor Who No. 2 tells Victoria that he is about 450 in earth years. Jamie and the Doctor explains some of the TARDIS controls. The TARDIS brings the travellers to the most advantageous place and time.
Dr Who - The Tomb of the Cybermen
Apparently; Patrick Troughton (Facebook December 2013) says in his biography that he found himself playing the Doctor over the top (as he was direct to). A subsequent director agrees with PT that to play it "in his head" which I think means play it his own way. PT toned it down and in his own opinion his performance became warmer and more successful. - My view is that PT is particularly good from the start. It is generally true that to let someone do it (whatever it is) there way is usually best but guidance always helps even if only to help discovery of why one of the ways was not to be the best way.
Doctor Who, through science and imagination, shows a way that people could achieve a state of living like celestial beings. Space fiction is a more accurate description, as there is little science in the story's but the early story's took care about to be historically reasonably accurate this also true. Dr Who, Quatamass, Blake's 7, Star Trek used to portray the enthusiasm in science and technology in TV science fiction thereby reflected generally prevalent optimism of the time.
[Mr Spock, Zen and Orac from Blake 7 and the Guide in the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy play the same sort of role as the Doctor's dog K9 that is the tong-in-cheek computer voice that corrects it's master. The key to why these excellent companions worked so well was that they would set up a joke could be critical without causing offence because they are nominally neutral or explain part of the story]
Previously I explained eras change since 1963 but if you go back to the 1940s post war people wanted peace after war. Coined by the wish for a United States of Europe but also to debt owed to the people. The music in Singing in the Rain 1952, reflects that wish. But by the end of the 1960s things were fast moving but getting easier The Seekers - Georgy Girl-1968 reflects the start of that change. In truth though some in British and American Governments had wanted to continue war and the cold war caused the people of the Soviet Union suffered shortages as well probably more severely responding to threat of nuclear war. At the same time the 1960s was also psychedelic era as people visited India and brought back recreational drugs. The psychotropic drug LSD also started to be used as recreational drug during the 1960s.
Dr Who - Snakedance
Change from Rational science to magic and idealism;
Change from Rational science to magic and idealism;
During the 1980's marked an era changing to fantasy, rather than rational stories. Hypnosis and LSD trip type experience in Kinda and Snakedance stories. Doctor Who moved towards the conventional horror and supernatural stories these are good stories. This may be a hint as to what is to come after the 6th Doctor and to a lot of TV that becomes like Opium or Gin of the Victorian times becomes shallow, sparkly and populist.
There is a psychotropic drug called Ayahuasca that and has been used in South Americas for thousands of years. The drug is special and taken supervised by a Shaman you may experience a trip and the Shaman will help you through using tobacco smoke and words to guide you. It is possible to experience something much better than films and TV. I believe many South American people have experience one or two trips a very few people have experienced up to 8 trips in their lives.
[Dr No. 5, Peter Davison, and his companions worked hard and took the story seriously and the production is very good - Peter Davison is a particularly good and inclusive Doctor Who]
Dr Who briefly slips back to Technology in Time Flight to show off Concord. Many 5th and 6th Doctor story's are historically based but different to the first Doctor though.
Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor with Ace otherwise work as a team like the first two doctors did. By comparison William Hartnell was never key to the success or survival of the group of travellers, see for example The Crusades
Dr Who - Time Flight
A opportunity was missed or was not permitted in The Curse of Fenric to tell the story of World War II code breaking. Although it is general knowledge more-less that it had been known that Japan's Navy was on the way (at Midway) and was going to bomb Pearl Harbour much of the story of code breaking may have still been secret in 1989 when this Doctor Who story was broadcast.
The story of John Von-Neumann and Alan Turing's work on computing. A traditional Doctor Who story could have had Ace perhaps, not wanting the Germans to win the war, shows the two computer physicists a machine that is a virtual machine created from its vast computing power to direct waves forming its own virtual substance.
Dr Who - Curse of Fenric
Although widely know but the secret of code breaking started to be told in the 1970s in the TV series "All our Yesterdays" and "The World at War" with subsequent postscripts interviews of people when the 30 years had passed and some of the secrecy lifted on the operations they were involved in. The whole story was not told until the novel Enigma was published in the 1995. I understand that the women who did the code breaking were called "Rosie's". Some still say they were just secretaries working at Bletchley Park.
If the story does not fit make up your own story there are enough inconsistencies and ambiguity woven into Science Fiction to do that. It is good to create - the flaw in this article is that I try to rationalise a long story with many writers and special fictional rules of nature and is intensionally imprecise.
In Castrovolva again the TARDIS is sent back to the beginning of the Universe and everything but by a trick of the Master. This story is good and is the starting story for new Doctor Who No. 5 but after working together with the Master it seems unlikely that the Master would really kill his old buddy that he enjoyed tormenting. The Edge of Destruction had show us the machine was a virtual machine in this story we see the further use of the maths Block Transfer Computation to create Castrovalva. The story concludes one aspect of what Dr Who was about that is to stretch theoretic physics to its extreme in fiction.
In this place created by the Master What the people can see is distorted by the world they live in. A good general truth about life. In this case it is necessary for them to try and see further and so past the illusion. In life it is not just that money is corrupting but that what others around us do is corrupting and we chose to be deluded and fit in.
When you test astronomy and physics to its extremes it does not work. It just show us that it is beyond our understanding. Particle wave duality can not be tested to limits single particles, that is, even though people think they have done that. The age of the universe so on. In conclusion only use maths as far as you can see. Be very careful beyond that to call it educated guesswork. As an electronics engineer I apply maths to real problems. That is an art or a hunch to be honest and not precise.
Another difference between the two story's is the symbiotic (called telepathic in 1963, though possibly one of the lines the Doctor forgot to say) this machine timelord relationship is not developed further by Tom Baker - instead the machine is driven more than guided by a wish.
In Terminus - Space breaking through the TARDIS a spaceship that existed before the big bang could explode again causing the end of the Universe. It is too far fetched but there are good performances, and the TARDIS having been sabotaged invokes protection system that causes the TARDIS to latch on to a passing space craft allowing the travellers to escape into that space craft as the TARDIS begins to disintegrate. Nyssa becomes ill on the plague ship leaves the TARDIS having grown up (as all young companions do) to do something good using her skills. It is considered by cosmologists that there is no center to the Universe the theory that everything expanded from one singularity.
Battlefield - Another that I never watched originally. The Brigadier is good as always in this story he repeats the line from earlier to paraphrase - Doctor you are too valuable I shall risk my life. This is well produced but it not Doctor Who any more but changed to fantasy worlds. 1980's Idealism and fiction of everyone can have anything from oil revenue and virtual money without doing work shapes Dr Who, perhaps?
Big questions
Big questions
1. Who Created God?
1. Who Created God?
Dr Who - Invisible Enemy (The Doctor is given a dog to look after)
The Doctor is human and British after all, well maybe not but he likes this canine eventually (we first see K9 mid way through the second episode, not sure if he is TARDIS trained thought)
2. What Happened Before The Big Bang?
2. What Happened Before The Big Bang?
The questions are circular, who create god's god, was their a bang before the big bang...... - The answer is that you can only use tools, plans and prediction things as far as you can see. That goes for project planning - grand plans fail but stepped inclusive approaches tend to succeed because they carry the ordinance with them who therefore everyone is part of make the solution. Dr Who - Terminus.
3. What Happened at The Big Bang?
3. What Happened at The Big Bang?
The puppy challenges his refection then subsequently ignores the image of himself understanding that, perhaps it is himself or that this effect should be ignored.
There are many things that can be expressed in language but are entirely impractical. It is a type of bulling to use language and cultural norms to win an argument but leads to dreadful practical outcomes. For all practical purposes such argument won can only be ignored. Things spoken in such ways should be presented as discussion not absolutely so.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201107/does-my-dog-recognize-himself-in-mirror
Douglass Adams the author of a Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy and some Dr Who develops this point well in one his last talks. Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything
In the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy the human Author Dent who is talking to the luxury planet maker Slartibartfast is told the Earth was made 5 million years ago as a biological computer to find the answer to the Universe. The human says he thought humans were here for some important purpose. The Planet maker replies no all sentient life think that, I distract myself design coast lines I did Norway and won some awards for it.
Laws of Nature cannot be broken.
Laws of Nature cannot be broken.
Of cause this is so but the word "Laws" may be the wrong word they can be challenged and corrected if they are not entirely right. What is said however forcefully may not be so King Cnut (also known as King Canute) apparently tried, unsuccessfully, to order the tide not to come in, is a myth. There are a lots of natural limits broken in fiction, In Dr Who things are done by force of mind quite often. The point that King Cnut was making was that he could not command natural.
In the late 1970s a game called Dungeons and Dragons became popular with teenagers The youngsters went on quests, cast spells, some tried to fly off tall buildings to their death. There were a number of deaths, fighting for a cause your country or believing in magic can capture children and young adults at a vulnerable time when they know many things but are stupid in other ways.
In reality no natural law can be broken by force of mind, either, But physical well being, healing can be improved by state of mind and the support of other person. When one person allows another into them emotionally all sorts of healing are possible. Alternative therapies work when the person to be healed allows the healer into them if that does not start working in a matter of weeks and does not resolve the issue in two years then you have not selected the right healer for you. My father practised Reflexology when he retired advised me. I have experienced healing. I have also experienced powerful incite, but warned by my mum who is a fatalist it works but be careful, that is, don't rely on it.
The Earth was created 6,000 years ago
The Earth was created 6,000 years ago
Equally the creation occurred before this moment. If so nature as far as we could see until after the 1980s started 11-15 billion years ago and that is the best we could use to do science with so that is what we should use but with an open mind of cause. The figure for the Big Bang now (2013) is 13.85 billion years ago but some natural laws are broken to achieve this degree of understanding. In other words it is further than we can see but it helps us.
The evidence of a joke left by the creator that surely therefore proves creation theory Monkey Orchid of which some look like a monkeys face and others look like a naked man. But there would be no advantage in that flower having evolved naturally as far as I can see? But there is an advantage this random variation may cause a thinking mind to find that plant interesting and therefore worth protecting? Conversely the washing machine turns the washing inside out but surely that is not the hand of god but it seems inexplicable?
Be sceptical about all things and use what works. You get very good, Black and White, outcomes by understanding degrees of grey.
Intervention to save Doctor Who;
Intervention to save Doctor Who;
By the 6th Doctor the props, sets and the production quality is excellent. There was a marked changed with Jon Pertwee and colour TV which got to its best by the time Peter Davison is the Doctor. In The Two Doctors and reading parts of the BBC on that story. Douglass Adams says Patrick Troughton and Jamie were wasted on this story. There is also a comment on the BBC that Shockeye is excellent and in my view he is. The best is humour and side story includes the cowardly artist his adoring beautiful Spanish woman friend and Patrick with Shockeye in the restaurant.
Dr Who - Two Doctors
All those things happened without any of the modern excellent sets and props. Colin Baker is mistaken for undercover police working for inter-pole because he came out a police box. Colin gets them out of a considerable amount of explaining pretending to be that policeman. In amongst the run of the mill high tech stuff in the cellars Sockeye picks up a big rat starts eating it and discusses how should best it be served with Chessene his fellow Audrugum.
Jamie misses out of the kiss from the beautiful Spanish woman when they part. The best bit is the good old fashioned no props theatre once again. And the punch line is; Must be become a Vegan.
Probably a misunderstanding of temperament in casting or briefing Colin Baker as the lead actor; Doctor No.6. and Peri can work very well but they do not lead the story's' well so the characters get more exaggerated is fed back by the writers but not reigned in by the lead actor, in my view. See genuine (acted) anger, as good as it gets, it really matters to the Doctor 2 (Patrick Troughton) what Dastri is allowing as director of the space station Camera. Two doctors Dr. 2 and Shockeye outclass the other actors in the restaurant they are leading with the writers running with it on off on a very funny tangent. - that may be the point the Patrick is making take the lead don't wait for the writers because the writers the follow and write to the lead.
See Peri helping when they tied up. It is said that Patrick Troughton was the only actor who could follow William Hartnell. - In the 20th Anniversary Dr Who story Patrick Troughton fills in a lot of very thin story writing with his usual bit of clowning - he works with everyone to give the audience an excellent show whatever he has to work with. I think this trait is normal in humans like it is in animals but can and is suppressed by culture and training in "organised" civilisation. The World War Two Boffin was cultivated then because it was necessary but is not now. Jon Pertwee who is given some poor stuff to act in this 5 Dr story, requiring some physical agility but he is a really great old guy who did those abilities in 1983 for this Five Dr Story, which he did have in WW2 as a special operations officer.
Time and the Rani The Doctor Who's body dies as a consequence of the TARDIS being remotely driven at excessive speed - there is a plausibility because of the symbiotic tie between the TARDIS and the Timelord but we have only previously seen some thing of this degree of potentially harmful linkage in Edge of Destruction. The internal vibration within the control room is a type of tactile feedback, the pond in one room and the swimming pool in another of the many rooms would surely not spill. In Castrovalva the tactile feed to the TARDIS interior from the outside has to be turned off (turned to manual) because the TARDIS is getting too hot inside as it approaches the Big Bang (Nucleosynthesis period when the universe is at 1 billion degrees Kelvin (or centigrade) and before Atoms have formed). The real story is the end of Colin Baker's era as the Doctor.
It was always recognised that Dr Who followed the Football on TV and so having Peri play the damsel and the Colin Baker as the Dr play the Knight had an appeal to daddies and big brothers - both Peri and this doctor seem to say they were playing that role, but it was a departure from traditional Doctor Who. I am perhaps being unfair to them as they do work hard.
Debate or Conformity
Labour Party Political Broadcast 1987
The Labour Party was out of office 1979 - 1997 this part political broadcast is an excellent small documentary of the era.
I used to listen to Week-ending on Radio 4. Satire was at its best and political demonstration at a hight. Here is Spitting Image really got the point during the 1980s with the cabbages sketch. Lady Thatcher who died 08 April 2013 expressed regard for Mr Gorbachov genuinely and she also acknowledged Michael Foot as a kind man. There seemed to be mutual regard between her and Dennis Healey and the many who stood for their cause even if smashed all the same.
Michael Foot drew politicians into the commons to hear him speak. I heard him speak in about 1978 in Brighton once again holding the ordinance which I was part of. Enoch Powell & Michael Foot An era of debate that could have been revived by events but sadly passed after the 1980s.
It turns out that British people's bulldog spirit, when knocked back enough, is to role over and play dead when confronted. The same as the way sheep have been conditioned by breeding over many millennia to herd rather than scatter naturally, less so in the UK were sheep live a wild life with few interventions.
The Best people and The finest whisky
So what is it to be human or be endowed with a biological brain?
So what is it to be human or be endowed with a biological brain?
Biological brain processes all possibilities then focusses on a fewer (Lines of thought) feeding back and reinforcing those processes focussed on. Whereas a computer processes one step at a time to do many tasks it has to switch between them. [Reference Talk given in Radstock, Summerset September 2011]
Why is it that biologic brains has that beats machines? In Destiny of the Daleks robots are in a stalemate Doctor and Romanna II demonstrate why by playing stone, paper, scissors.
In about 1980 Wireless World once again published an insightful article Wafer Scale Integration. The idea was the many processor would be made on the silicon wafer but instead of being cut up and placed in individual Integrated Circuit packages they would be connected by a robust circuit block which would also isolate failed processors. Subsequently a British company launched the Transputer and concurrent programming language called Occam. The transputer was a complete microprocessor with four serial data ports for connection to four neighbouring microprocessor but was not left on the silicone wafer but on placed in an individual IC. The original article envisaged a computer used for aircraft control to predict and alter flight paths. Each processor would be assigned to one aircraft.
Much research on colonises of insects such as Ants shows that they collectively find, for example, shortest pathways between places beyond the capability any individual ant. Unfortunately the video has gone now but it showed many ants taking many paths and leaving many trails markers - the ants happened to used the most efficient trails markers encouraging other ants to follow the better paths (re-enforce the idea in brain function equivalent). Like the thought the trail with the strongest markers becomes the best one to use the best idea in though equivalent.
This is a positive feedback is system.
Insect Intelligence
Place Holder for a similar video. The brain develops an idea, tests it then pursues options by degrees of certainty.
There is a lot to be said for the collective conscious, not in a mystical sense, but that you state the problem And the answer comes back or the social change comes about. I play bat & ball, I don't actually, the ball comes my way and I hit it too far left - I say the ball went to far to the left - I can consciously try and corrected but it turns out that just stating the problem is enough a better correction will come by allowing it to subconsciously. Try saying to someone driving on ice, go with it you will be OK, difficult even when someone sees an experienced person stay off the ice but when necessary drive on it quite successfully meanwhile serious road injuries fall in icy weather (I have not current information) probably because people are more aware of the risk.
Working on and solving problems like this shortest path model shows that the solution is elegant and simple. So many things work out that way in nature and science is beautiful! I commend that message from the 1960's to you. Microbes have collective intelligence and know to attack a host when there numbers are large enough (the chemical signal is strong enough). That is when there numbers are great enough.
Shane - Classic Western (1953)
Celestial Beings perhaps but not Superior Beings
Celestial Beings perhaps but not Superior Beings
It might appear that the Doctor rides in like Shane in the classic western "Shane" and saves the poor farmers from the big bad large land owner. In the Western Shane lives and gets to know the family and share his skills to help them and receives the comforts home, food and friendship in exchange. Doctor Who similarly makes friends meets old friends then moves on but being made a decade or so more recently the televised bit cuts straight to the chase and that can change the impression. But do watch Doctor Who, he often already knows people or makes a point of getting to know be trusted rather than turned up fix something then leave.
In The Five Doctors, Patrick Troughton (No.2) visits the Brigadier his old friend because of something he has read in tomorrows newspaper. The Doctor is like a celestial being because of the technology from his home planet but he does not come as superman (enjoy 5 mins or so into the video genuinely excellent acting in an otherwise wooden acting name dropping anniversary story). Similarly in the Three Doctor's all three of them bounce off each other and make an excellent story using traditional story telling approach at it's best.
[I have included a Spaghetti Western as a bit of realism - to survive you shoot the other in the back first, of cause. These films were very successful for Sergio Leone and he was able to negotiate to have a free hand when he made Once Upon A Time in The West and others that followed. This is the one of the best Westerns and also I think Sergio's best. The villain Frank played by the blue eyed Henry Fonder and the good man but bitter and full of hatred Harmonica played by Charles Bronson. Equally staring the wonderful music by Ennio Morricone. The story is slow compelling, simple, clearly narrated in what people say tells you what is happening but also the story has few words.
Once Upon a Time in The West (1968)
The railway is coming, Mr Choo-choo either buys up land or has his paid killing Frank and his gang kill the farm owners in the way. The beautiful woman, Jill, former prostitute, and to be wife of the farmer, has inherited the rights to build a town conditional on having the rail station built before the rail line arrives. Frank is given good sex by Jill hoping to save her own life but expecting to be shot anyway. But she is humiliated with the auction fixed and the farm nearly sold for only $500. Harmonica sells his friend the Bandit for $5,000 reward on the Bandit's head who mutters Judas and some more things to buy the farm for the widow.
At the end we learn Harmonica is the boy with his brother standing on his shoulders head in a noose and the harmonica stuffed in the boys mouth, by Frank. Frank, the paid killer, who can not remember who he has killed. Not until the end (possibly) when Harmonica, driven by hate stuffs the harmonica back in Franks mouth as he dies of Harmonica's bullet.]
Star Trek Voyager - Q2
Star Trek Voyager also suffered visits from a celestial being but there's is called Q. Q will live forever like a Timelord can do anything but the equipment and technology he uses to do what he does is not apparent. He turns up and caused trouble because he had nothing else to do. In this story Q has brought his son who is equally troublesome. Fiction references other fiction but reinterprets it so Q is not like the Doctor but his council masters are like The Timelord's council.
In the British Hammer horror classic the Devil Rides Out, time is altered to undo events and the horseman of death who has taken a life but that life is returned and the wicked disciple of the devil, Mocata is taken instead by death. Just like in Doctor Who where some events that happen later never happened. Also like Doctor Who the power of mind is enormous with aid of super beings instead super technology of the TARDIS.
The Devil Rides out
https://mubi.com/films/the-devil-rides-out
So is there much difference? No they are both fiction and they both look for a super power of mind other than the explanation we know but can not, surely, comprehend. Our minds are ever so complex, have unimaginable number of connections and is adaptable. Dr. Who in fiction rationalises everything to science. In doing so unifies everything. Loves magic Block Transfer Computation and the power of mind not only over matter but to create matter and to keep virtual matter together.
Eyes Wide Shut - A chilling documentary as is true of all Stanley Kubrick's work
The film producer Stanley Kurbric also covers different aspect of ceremony’s that might look like devil worship in the film Eye's Wide Shut. That power to do wicked things is due to the unchecked vast wealth of the people portrayed. In reality Stanley Kurbric has been candidly allowed to observe and portray this. By comparison The Devil Rides Out does not put it as plainly. Both films are excellent. This truth is so with Q and timelords.
The medical hologram does real surgery and healing in Star Trek Voyager beyond anything a faith healing, Vodo, The Master in Doctor Who or Placebo effect can manage. Even so carries off the fantasy very well which is a credit to the story writing and production. Apparently the medical hologram has force fields to make it chose to be like a physical but unlike the TARDIS needs a machine to project the image.
Celebrity without pulling rank is fine.
Celebrity without pulling rank is fine.
Even, as Peter Purvis reminds us in April 2013, the doctor is not that sweet he would have bashed a sick caveman's head in with a rock if Ian had not stopped him in The Cave of Skulls of 1963. There was nothing celestial about Dr Who No. 1 or William Hartnell he played and was a very human character. In the Daleks the Doctor would have left Barbara behind but Ian had the TARDIS key and stopped him going followed up with a furious argument.
Dr Who - Gun Fighter
Dr No.1 has toothache (sounds like the doctor is mortal and human), is once again taken by the TARDIS not only to the Dentist but one that gives him a free tooth pulling as a opening special offer. It is Doc Holiday. The singer sings "it is your last day of living" on the day of the gun fight. The story is not really scientific or historically accurate but more stereotypically Wild Western. It is entertaining but not really anything, unlike Sergio Leone class of movies which set a standard in powerful telling how and why someone may become bitter twisted. The little boy left with his friend standing on his shoulders with his head in a noose in the story Once Upon a Time in The West, for example.
Ian, Barbara and Susan set a very high standard originally and with the Doctor are all mutual dependent on each other. A good reflection of the culture of the 1960s.
Doctor Says, in the middle of the first episode, that his name is, sounds like, "Kalihoon" BBC website says "Dr Caligari" but when asked Dr Who? he answers yes. So that's cleared up that old question - well maybe? The time travellers are using pseudonyms but the Dr could be using his real Gallifrayan name as it that name is unclear for the humans to understand and would be the best way to avoid the issue of him choosing a name that is inadvertent recognised.
At this stage the first Doctor had stopped kidnapping people and taking them for a ride. Susan The Doctor's fictional Granddaughter (Carol Ann Ford) said on Radio 4 in August 2013 that she had resisted celebrity for a long time but now all who take part in Doctor Who do it so she goes it as well. Susan also said they were not companions in her time. In the Gunfighter Dodo, who was kidnapped, seems to be a willing companion, the Doctor knew or guested that at the at the time of her inadvertent walking into what she thought was a police box.
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