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Notes

[Notebook: DB 57 Language]

[Sunday 3 April 2005 - Saturday 9 April 2005]

Sunday 3 April 2005

[page 105]

Monday 4 April 2005

Back from Adelaide

[page 105]

The Pope is dead. Long live the Pope>

The pope is the CEO and Chairman of the board of the biggest and oldest corporate entity every to exist on our species, the Roman Catholic Church, which claims about a billion adherents, exerts a strict discipline over them and claims that its central ideas have been revealed to it by God and are infallibly true, ie the probability of error is zero.

The suite of 'defined' doctrine is rather weird (ie a product of a somewhat deranged imagination) A straightforward and widely held succinct statement of Christian doctrine is the Apostles Creed.

Is this a diary or an article. A superposition of both, a frequent attempt to find forms of words that satisfactorily capture an idea an element of a theory, that is a dynamically interacting set of ideas (like a car engine) capable of taking on a life of its own (starting and running).

We are built on a mystery. Even if we arrive at a complete explanation of the Universe, we must ultimately accept that is is so because it is so. From experiencing this fact, we are led to constructing stories to explain why this is so. Just So Stories. Kipling

INFALLIBILITY. The Roman Catholic Church is circular. We are infallible because we have infallibly defined ourselves o be infallible. To a scientifically minded person, this

[page 106]

[is]an hypothesis to be tested , not an absolute truth to be asserted with fire and sword. Since it became the institutionalized religion of the Roman Empire (in the time of Constantine the Great, Emperor from 306 to 337 ad) the Roman Catholic Church has had a tendency to become more and more normative and less and less responsive to its environment. The general term for this is conservative. The declaration of the doctrine of infallibility by the first Vatican Council was the apogee of this process. Denzinger para 3074

The liberalizing tendency of the second Vatican Council (Pope is first among equals, the bishops) has fallen before a renewed definition of the Papacy by the Pope as an absolute monarchy, Mugabe style.

Gravitation (by definition) is a candidate for the binding of all possible entities into one Universe, ie it is a representation of the soul of the Universe. The unifying factor. Gravitational communication exists between all entities which may be part of the Universe. This, we postulate, is all possible entities, represented in our model as all possible permutations of the elements of some ordered set. The order of a set is a property of its elements. By examination (measurement) either by itself or an outside agent, each element of an ordered set can find its own position in the order.

In one given order. The principle of requisite variety tells us that individual elements of a set can only form themselves into all possible permutations of each element knows its place in a number of permutations, which from the point of view of the element, is

[page 107]

transfinite. In other words (as we might expect) each point in a space carries as much information (entropy) as the space itself., so that the aggregate of points carries more information that the space. But now we reverse the argument, taking all the point sin the old space as one point in a higher space with enough entropy to compress all the information in a subsidiary space onto one point of itself. Such a space is a phase space.

Much of my time is spent creating order, feathering my nest, especially after I have been away for a long time. This work makes me feel happy and secure, a minimum of dirty dishes and not too much dirt on the floor, windows clean enough to let in light and an impression of the outside world. This project is moved by similar feelings, to create some order in my wider world, to suppress its repulsive elements like mass murder, torture and deprivation.

. . .

The Theology Company is a defence industry contractor. How to defend oneself more cheaply and securely suing theological principles.

Tuesday 5 April 2005
Wednesday 6 April 2005

To me, the most blatant modern exercise of the infallible attitude has been the papal, response to the question: may women be Roman Catholic Priests.

To Christians, theology is a science committed to the acceptance of the body of data contained in the Bible. Attached to this body of data is a received interpretation of its meaning (or a set of such) that constrains the beliefs of the faithful.

Another hard won (long awaited) sentence from the bath. We see the same fanatical theological fundamentalism in the personality of Verwoerd in his construction of the South African system of apartheid between whites and non-whites. The church distinguishes men and not-men - celibacy/chastity. .Sampson pp 119-20

There is a sunny side to this growling cloud of determinism. The sunny picture is described most clearly by the mathematics of quantum mechanics and communication theory. From this we can derive a new foundation for optimism, other than that based on an arbitrary, sometimes loving, sometimes vicious, Father who protects his own and murders the others (Canaanites), although he did murder his own son.

Sampson pp 137-138: '"Diplomats are always looking for glimmers of hope: they have to find a reason for doing nothing" said the Afrikaner commentator Stanley Uys, "so Pretoria has a special department to supply glimmers."'

[page 109]

A ground for optimism. Despite the shonky nature of established religion, scientists, humanists, pragmatists, environmentalists etc are still making steady progress toward healthier humanity.

Thursday 7 April 2005
Friday 8 April 2005
Saturday 9 April 2005

 

Related sites

Concordat Watch

Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty


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Further reading

Books

Denzinger, Henricus, and Adolphus Schoenmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum, Herder 1963 Introduction: 'Dubium non est quin praeter s. Scripturam cuique theologo summe desiderandus sit etiam liber manualis quo contineantur edicta Magisterii ecclesiastici eaque saltem maioris momenti, et quo ope variorim indicum quaerenti aperiantur eorum materiae.' (3) 'There is no doubt that in addition to holy Scripture, every theologian also needs a handbook which contains at least the more important edicts of the Magisterium of the Church, indexed in a way which makes them easy to find.' back

Edelman, Shimon, The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life, Basic books 2012 Jacket: ' "The ancient injunction to 'Know thyself' gets a lively update in Shimon Edelman's eclectic examination of 'knowing' and 'self' through the lens of twenty-first century cognitive science. Its human to wander thoughtfully through real and imaginary landscapes, learning as we go—this is happiness, embodied in Edelman's witty odyssey, which provokes the very pleasures it describes.' Dan Lloyd, Brownell Professor of Philosophy, Trinity College 
Amazon
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Kipling, Rudyard, The Complete Just So Stories, Viking Books 1993 From Booklist: 'Of all the editions of Kipling's stories available, this is surely one of the most splendid. Each page carries either text with a narrow, vertical border of painted geometric figures on the outer edge or a full-page illustration within a wide, richly patterned frame in related jewel-bright hues. The richness of colors in the paintings is heightened by the use of gold throughout the artwork. Handsomely designed and beautifully illustrated, this is a book that children will treasure for its opulent look as well as its opulent language.' Carolyn Phelan 
Amazon
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Rubin, Jerry, Do It: Scenarios of the Revolution, Simon & Schuster 1970 'A Frenzied Emotional Symphony for the New Disorder: Simon & Schuster published it and that in itself is incredibly amazing because the book is utter filth in the eyes of the Mainstream. They published it because Rubin had the x-factor and was the highest profile radical of the 60s. They published it because they knew they would make money. The book sold over 250,000 copies in its first year. It went on to have at least 5 printings.' Amexander T. Newport 
Amazon
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Sampson, Anthony, Black and Gold: Tycoons, Revolutionaries and Apartheid, Pantheon 1987 Introduction: 'In this book I have tried to trace the erratic relationships between ... two groups of actors in the South African drama -- the international business leaders and the black politicians -- since they first encountered each other a century ago. I try to show how the story developed from both sides, to explore some of the characters and their motivations on the way, and to convey the flavour of each period without hindsight. I do not attempt to analyse with the same closeness the changing attitudes of Afrikaners and their governments, except insofar as they affected the whole climate and legislation of the country. But from 1978, when P W Botha became prime minister, I look at the story in more detail, to try to trace the stages towards the current tragic deadlock, and to show the viewpoint from America and Europe as well as South Africa.' 
Amazon
  back

Links

Aristotle, Metaphysics VI I, 8-11, 'That physics, then, is a theoretical science, is plain from these considerations. Mathematics also, however, is theoretical; but whether its objects are immovable and separable from matter, is not at present clear; still, it is clear that some mathematical theorems consider them qua immovable and qua separable from matter. But if there is something which is eternal and immovable and separable, clearly the knowledge of it belongs to a theoretical science,-not, however, to physics (for physics deals with certain movable things) nor to mathematics, but to a science prior to both. For physics deals with things which exist separately but are not immovable, and some parts of mathematics deal with things which are immovable but presumably do not exist separately, but as embodied in matter; while the first science deals with things which both exist separately and are immovable. Now all causes must be eternal, but especially these; for they are the causes that operate on so much of the divine as appears to us. There must, then, be three theoretical philosophies, mathematics, physics, and what we may call theology, since it is obvious that if the divine is present anywhere, it is present in things of this sort. And the highest science must deal with the highest genus.

Thus, while the theoretical sciences are more to be desired than the other sciences, this is more to be desired than the other theoretical sciences. For one might raise the question whether first philosophy is universal, or deals with one genus, i.e. some one kind of being; for not even the mathematical sciences are all alike in this respect,-geometry and astronomy deal with a certain particular kind of thing, while universal mathematics applies alike to all.' back

Camilla Nelson, Friday Essay: the ilterary canon is exhiliarating and disturbing and we need to read it, 'Of course, literature is not just a pile of musty old books. It is also a dense network of cultural allegiances and class beliefs. Nowhere does this become more apparent than in the processes of list-making that have been fuelled by curriculum building and accountability projects.' back

Hermit - Wikipedia, Hermit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A hermit (adjectival form: eremitic or hermitic) is a person who lives in seclusion from society.' back

Paul Daley, Lachlan Macquarie was no humanitarian: his own words show he was a terrorist, 'Australia has long revered the fifth governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, as an enlightened humanitarian who brought civilisation to the colony. But it’s time for a rethink. Macquarie is the Australian leader who used terrorism and slaughter to quell hostile Indigenous resistance to invasion and dispossession.' back

Via Dolorosa - Wikipedia, Via Dolorosa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Via Dolorosa (Latin for Way of Grief or Way of Suffering) is a street, in two parts, within the Old City of Jerusalem, held to be the path that Jesus walked, carrying his cross, on the way to his crucifixion. The current route has been established since the 18th century, replacing various earlier versions. It is today marked by nine Stations of the Cross; there have been fourteen stations since the late 15th century, with the remaining five stations being inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The route is a place of Christian pilgrimage.' back

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