vol VII: Notes
2015
Notes
[Sunday 12 July 2015 - Saturday 18 July 2015]
[Notebook: DB 79: Galileo Wins]
[page 23]
Sunday 12 July 2015
Bogged in transfinite oscillator. Do we need it at all? Does it add to the story? One thing to remember here is that we are trying for a theory which is symmetric with regard to complexity so that the states described by the oscillator may be anything from the absorption or emission of a photon to the creation and destruction of a galaxy. Really the only thing we can say about this is implied by the principle of requisite variety which is that complex systems can control simple ones but not vice versa, which gives the oscillator a direction toward increasing complexity in that complex systems are able to make themselves more durable by making their hardware more reliable, as computers have done, for instance by making the transition from thermionic valves to transistors, and living systems by developing means to control error in the molecular mechanisms upon which they depend. Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia
Establishing spacelike separation = establishing independence = establishing orthogonality [happens, eg, in football, when at running speed, the ball is too far away to get to]
Advocacy / Politics: say the same thing over and over again, creation, striving to be forever new.
[page 24]
The vacuum appears to be the modern ether, the ground upon which the world is built, as the ether was the medium for the vibration of [light]. Here, however, we seem to have a surfeit of formalism, as with gauge invariance 'real' continua invented to fill in the details, as with coordinate systems. Einstein said you will never be free until you ditch global coordinate systems and stick to local things, in fact events, contacts or communications.
There is something hiding here. Our preoccupation with mathematical continuity has blinded us to quantized logical continuity, even though we use quantized (symbolic) texts to prove our theories about continuity.
I might claim that fate saddled me with the theologcal problems I have, and I have spent my life trying to arrive at viable solutions. The root of this viability is the notion that the Universe is divine and my problem is then clearly defined as finding a model of God that fits both the observed Universe and ancient mystical notions of God [which are parts of the Universe, embodied in certain human minds].
Goddard, Dirac: The Dirac equation and geometry: Michael Atiyah. Is all this trying to imitate logical structures with continuous functions? Can we say that the real numbers do not exist? Only if they are inconsistent. Can we say that real physical continua do not exist? Only for the same reason. Goddard
Goddard page 108: The differential operator introduced by Dirac in his study of the quantum theory of the electron has turned out to be of fundamental importance both for physics and for mathematics.
What we are looking for is a society which respects the symmetry of its constituents. Is is possible. It is what my body does
[page 25]
with all the atoms that constitute it. It works because it maximizes entropy and stability.
Monday 13 July 2015
Simple things are complicated by their inclusion in complex things but the task of abstraction is to find underlying symmetries before they are broken. So we say gravitation is very simple but it becomes quite complex when it is implemented in 4-space, ie used to build said space.
Tuesday 14 July 2015
Wednesday 15 July 2015
The Universe is locally Lorentz and locally Turing, ie locally flat and locally computable.
Inertial frames cannot communicate since any communication requires a transfer of energy / momentum, which results in accelerated motion of both transmitter and receiver. [Except in general relativity, where geodesic deviation does not involve momentum transfer?]
Can we think of gluons as 'enhanced' photons?
The basic idea behind the theory of peace is that we will not fight if we have as much of any resource as we need. It is only when our needs are not met that violence becomes an option.
An alphabet is a set of symmetries. Each layer of the network provides an alphabet of procedures to the next layer above it, and the higher layers, to ensure their own integrity, have an interest in curating their alphabet to maintain its orthogonality and reliability.
Lebesgue integration. Wiener: Cybernetics, Lebesgue integration - Wikipedia
[page 26]
Myths are invulnerable to mere facts. Barthes [?]
Freedom requires space and the transfinite network shows how societies can generate enough space to allow everyone to expand to their full size without Procrustean / Stalinist repression. As I look back I feel that the Theory of peace was on the right track here, showing us how to tap the enormous resources of God to set us all free. Procrustes - Wikipedia, Stalinism - Wikipedia
In the long run I must thank my divine penis for dragging me out of the Catholic hell and pointing me to reality (now that it appears to have retired from active service).
A superposition in a symmetry that does not distinguish between the superposed states until an observation (interaction) occurs. All the information about the superposition is contained in the differential equation ∂ψ = E.
What the denialist fools are telling us is that we have a better chance of knowing what is going on if we just make it up ourselves instead of taking a careful and prolonged look.
Thursday 16 July 2015
Friday 17 July 2015
Saturday 18 July 2015
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Copyright:
You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.
Further reading
Books
Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)
Berndt, Ronald M, Love Songs of Arnhem Land, 1978 Jacket: Love Songs of Arnhem Land is a contribution towards an increasing interest within and outside Australia in understanding Australian Aboriginal Culture. . . . The song-poetry itself is hauntingly beautiful. Its traditional imagery creates a special and unique atmosphere. Men and women are agents in a divine plan in which they play a crucial role, working in harmony with the forces of nature symbolized by the mythic beings. . . . '
Amazon
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Butler, E M, The Myth of the Magus, Cambridge University Press 1993 Amazon product description: 'The Magus, a legendary magician of superhuman powers, is an archetype central to myth and religion across many cultures. Identifying its anthropological origins in ancient rituals performed by a shaman or wizard to ensure the prosperity of his tribe, E. M. Butler goes on to trace its subsequent development in pre-Christian religious and mystic philosophers, in medieval sorcerers and alchemists, and finally in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century occult revival. From Zoroaster to Solomon, Merlin to Faust, Cagliostro to Rasputin, legends of the Magus are explored and where possible compared with the historical record in this fascinating account, first published in 1948, of one of the major figures in religious and occult mythology.'
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Comparetti, Domenico, and E F M Bernecke (translator), Vergil in the Middle Ages, Princeton University Press 1872-1996 Amazon Product Description
'From its first complete Italian printing in 1872 up to the present day, Domenico Comparetti's Vergil in the Middle Ages has been acknowledged as a masterpiece, regarded by some critics as "a true and proper history of European consciousness from antiquity to Dante." Treating Vergil's poetry as a foundation of Latin European identity, Comparetti seeks to give a complete history of the medieval conception of the preeminent poet. Scholars of the time had transformed Vergil into a sage and a seer, a type of universal philosopher--even a Christian poet and a guide of a Christian poet. In the mid-twelfth century, there surfaced legends that converted Vergil into a magician, endowing him with supernatural powers. Comparetti explores the ongoing interest in Vergil's poetry as it appeared in popular folklore and legends as well as in medieval classical scholarship. This great synthesizing work, which has been unavailable for over twenty years, is now back in print, based on E.F.M. Benecke's 1895 translation of the Italian second edition.'
Amazon
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Geoffrey of Monmouth, The Life of Merlin, Vita Merlini, Forgotten Books (January 9, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1605064831
ISBN-13: 978-1605064833 2008 Amazon product description: 'Vita Merlini, or The Life of Merlin, is a work by Geoffrey of Monmouth composed in Latin around AD 1150. It retells incidents from the life of the Brython Merlin, and is based on traditional material about the character. Merlin is referred to as a prophet, king and law-giver in the text. There are multiple episodes in which he losing his mind and lives in the wilderness like a wild animal, similar to Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel. It is also the first work to describe the Arthurian sorceress Morgan le Fay, as Morgen.'
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Goddard, Peter (editor), and Abraham Pais, Maurice Jacob, David Olive, Michael Atiyah and Stephen Hawking, Paul Dirac, The Man and His work, Cambridge University Press 1998 Amazon Product Description
'Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac was one of the founders of quantum theory. He is numbered alongside Newton, Maxwell and Einstein as one of the greatest physicists of all time. Together the lectures in this volume, originally presented on the occasion of the dedication ceremony for a plaque honoring Dirac in Westminster Abbey, give a unique insight into the relationship between Dirac's character and his scientific achievements. The text begins with the dedication address given by Stephen Hawking at the ceremony. Then Abraham Pais describes Dirac as a person and his approach to his work. Maurice Jacob explains how Dirac was led to introduce the concept of antimatter, and its central role in modern particle physics and cosmology. This is followed by David Olive's account of the origin and enduring influence of Dirac's work on magnetic monopoles. Finally, Sir Michael Atiyah explains the deep and widespread significance of the Dirac equation in mathematics.'
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Monk, Ray, Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, Vintage ex Jonathan Cape 1990 1990 Review: 'With a subject who demands passionate partisanship, whose words are so powerful but whose actions speak louder, it must have been hard to write this definitive, perceptive and lucid biography. Out goes Norman Malcolm's saintly Wittgenstein, Bartley's tortured, impossibly promiscuous Wittgenstein, and Brian McGuinness's bloodless, almost bodiless Wittgenstein. This Wittgenstein is the real human being: wholly balanced and happily eccentric . . . ' The Times
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Popper, Karl Raimund, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1972 Preface: 'The way in which knowledge progresses, and expecially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests.' [p viii]
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Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, The Divine Milieu, Harper Collins 1989 Jacket: 'Not a single thought in these pages is the result of computation; everything that is expressed is the fruit of the writer's inner life. In fact this extraordinary book can be read on different levels. There is here, as in all the writings of Father Teillhard, the expression of a scientist who takes delight in the descriptive method and the ultimate meaning of all physical exploration.' Karl Stern
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Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine, MIT Press 1996 The classic founding text of cybernetics.
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Papers
| Mlot, Christine, "Antibiotics in Nature: Beyond Biological Warfare", Science, 324, 5935, 26 June 2009, page 1637-1639. Science: Microbiology: 'A body of evidence emerges that the infection-quelling miracle drugs of biomedicine play more basic roles in the metabolism of microbial communities.'. back |
Links
| Adam Gartrell, Julie Bishop v Malcolm Turnbull on Islamic State threat, 'Of course, Turnbull wasn't just taking aim at Bishop; he was responding more broadly to the overblown national security rhetoric his government – from the Prime Minister down – can't seem to resist.
The Lowy Institute's Sam Roggeveen put it best.
"Terrorism is a tactic of the weak designed to provoke over-reaction from the strong," he wrote recently. "And rising to such provocation – even if only rhetorically – helps the terrorists." ' back |
| Allesandro R Demaio, Planetary and human health- one coilm two sides, 'Released this week in the global medical journal, The Lancet, is the The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health. A major piece of research and the outcome of 2 years of work from a global team of scientists, this commission focuses on the health of the planet and its links to our own health as humans. It outlines the serious consequences for us all should we allow Climate Change to continue unchecked, and puts it in clear global health terms.' back |
| Apostolic succession - Wikipedia, Apostolic succession - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Apostolic succession is the doctrine in some of the more ancient Christian communions that the succession of bishops, in uninterrupted lines, is historically traceable back to the original Twelve Apostles[1] Within Catholic Christianity it "is one of four elements which define the true Church of Jesus Christ" [2] and legitimizes the existing sacramental offices, as it is considered necessary for a bishop to perform legitimate or "valid" ordinations of priests, deacons, and other bishops. Apostolic succession is transmitted during episcopal consecrations (the ordination of bishops) by the laying on of hands of bishops previously consecrated within the apostolic succession.' back |
| Barak Ravid, Nuclear restrictions and inspections in echange for lifting of sanctions: The details of the Iran deal, 'Implementation of the deal will begin no later than three months after the resolution is passed. A crucial part of the implementation phase will be the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report on whether Iran has met all its commitments regarding the limits placed on its nuclear program. Only after the IAEA confirms this will international sanctions on Iran be removed.' back |
| Ben Hubard and Mayy El Sheikh, Wikileaks Shows a Saudi Obsession with Iran, 'BEIRUT, Lebanon — For decades, Saudi Arabia has poured billions of its oil dollars into sympathetic Islamic organizations around the world, quietly practicing checkbook diplomacy to advance its agenda.
But a trove of thousands of Saudi documents recently released by WikiLeaks reveals in surprising detail how the government’s goal in recent years was not just to spread its strict version of Sunni Islam — though that was a priority — but also to undermine its primary adversary: Shiite Iran.' back |
| Chris Buckley, Chinese Authorities Detail and Denounce Rights Lawyers, 'HONG KONG — At least five Chinese lawyers from a firm that specialized in rights cases have been detained by the police in Beijing and accused of running a criminal syndicate to smear the Communist Party and “create social chaos” through their litigation, state-run news media said on Saturday.
The accusations bear the hallmarks of a concerted operation, and signaled one of the most high-profile efforts by the party under President Xi Jinping to discredit the “rights defense movement,” which has tried to challenge state power through litigation and publicity, said experts and rights advocates.' back |
| David Olusoga, The history of British slave ownership has been buried: now its scale can be revealed, 'The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 formally freed 800,000 Africans who were then the legal property of Britain’s slave owners. What is less well known is that the same act contained a provision for the financial compensation of the owners of those slaves, by the British taxpayer, for the loss of their “property”. The compensation commission was the government body established to evaluate the claims of the slave owners and administer the distribution of the £20m the government had set aside to pay them off. That sum represented 40% of the total government expenditure for 1834. It is the modern equivalent of between £16bn and £17bn.' back |
| Euripides, Bacchae, 'First production posthumously in 403BCE At City Dionysia 1st Prize Translated by George Theodoridis © 2005 back |
| Galileo Galilei - Wikipedia, Galileo Galilei - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Galileo Galilei (. . . 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly known as Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science".' back |
| Giles Parkinson, The Coalition's push against renewables is bizarre, contradictory, risky nonsense, back |
| Gilles de Rais - Wikipedia, Gilles de Rais - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Gilles de Rais (1404 – 1440), was a Breton knight, the companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc, and a Marshal of France, but is best known as a prolific serial killer of children. He was born in late 1404 to Guy de Laval and Marie de Craon, but grew up under the tutelage of his maternal grandfather Jean de Craon following the deaths of his parents in 1415.' back |
| Honore de Balzac, Father Goriot, back |
| Ibrahim Al-Marashi, The 3 myths: how the Iran deal impacts the Middle East, 'The nuclear agreement signed in Vienna is a major breakthrough for the United States-Iran relations, and despite warnings, it will not result in further instability in the Middle East.
However, if you listen to political elites and media commentators, both in the US and the Middle East, you would believe the world is about to enter into an age of utter catastrophe - a catastrophe centred around Middle Eastern instability - prompted by Iran and its array of influential powers.
These myths are not grounded in any actual understanding of regional history or political dynamics, but rather are the products of fear tactics with the underlying intent of appealing to domestic constituencies - particularly those of the US and Israel.' back |
| Jim Yardly and Binyamin Appelbaum, In Fiery Speeches, Francis excoriates Global Capitalism, 'The Argentine pope seemed to be asking for a social revolution.
“This is not theology as usual; this is him shouting from the mountaintop,” said Stephen F. Schneck, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic studies at Catholic University of America in Washington.' back |
| Lebesgue integration - Wikipedia, Lebesgue integration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, Lebesgue integration refers to both the general theory of integration of a function with respect to a general measure, and to the specific case of integration of a function defined on a sub-domain of the real line or a higher dimensional Euclidean space with respect to the Lebesgue measure. This article focuses on the more general concept.' back |
| Matthew Beard, Ethics isn't just useful, its our only hope for moral progress, 'Moral progress refers to the idea that although we live in an unjust society in many respects, it is at least growing - slowly - less unjust thanks to growing awareness of and recognition for our moral responsibilities toward others. This is precisely the conclusion that Kwame Anthony Appiah deals with in The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, which focuses not on the presence of unjust social practices, but on the fact that these were eventually rejected. That they ever existed is rightly the subject of criticism, but the fact that they were overthrown should give us faith in ethics, not despair of its usefulness.' back |
| Matthew Boudway, Piketty, Sachs, Wren-Lewis: Stop bleeding Greece, 'As most of the world knew it would, the financial demands made by Europe have crushed the Greek economy, led to mass unemployment, a collapse of the banking system, made the external debt crisis far worse, with the debt problem escalating to an unpayable 175 percent of GDP. The economy now lies broken with tax receipts nose-diving, output and employment depressed, and businesses starved of capital.
The humanitarian impact has been colossal—40 percent of children now live in poverty, infant mortality is sky-rocketing and youth unemployment is close to 50 percent.' back |
| National Cancer Institute, Angiogenesis, 'Cancer researchers studying the conditions necessary for cancer metastasis have discovered that one of the critical events required is the growth of a new network of blood vessels. This process of forming new blood vessels is called angiogenesis.' back |
| Procrustes - Wikipedia, Procrustes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In Greek mythology, Procrustes (Προκρούστης) or "the stretcher [who hammers out the metal]", also known as Prokoptas or Damastes (Δαμαστής) "subduer", was a rogue smith and bandit from Attica who physically attacked people by stretching them or cutting off their legs, so as to force them to fit the size of an iron bed. In general, when something is Procrustean, different lengths or sizes or properties are fitted to an arbitrary standard.' back |
| Stalinism - Wikipedia, Stalinism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Stalinism is the means of governing and related policies implemented by Joseph Stalin. Stalinist policies in the Soviet Union included: state terror, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, a centralized state, collectivization of agriculture, cult of personality, and subordination of interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—deemed by Stalinism to be the most forefront vanguard party of communist revolution at the time.' back |
| Tensor - Wikipedia, Tensor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Tensors are geometric objects that describe linear relations between vectors, scalars, and other tensors. Elementary examples of such relations include the dot product, the cross product, and linear maps. Vectors and scalars themselves are also tensors. A tensor can be represented as a multi-dimensional array of numerical values.' back |
| The Bacchae - Wikipedia, The Bacchae - Wikipedia, 'The Bacchae (Greek: Βάκχαι / Bakchai; also known as The Bacchantes) is an ancient Greek tragedy by the Athenian playwright Euripides. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BCE as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which Euripides' son or nephew probably directed. It won first prize in the City Dionysia festival competition.' back |
| Tim Dunlop, Tony Abbott's stretegy to bring an end to Egalitarian Australia, 'But this is where the Abbott Government is qualitatively different, even from previous rightwing governments. This Government does not accept the premise of Egalitarian Australia and from day one has sought to destroy it.
The three prongs of the strategy to do this are: (1) actual attacks on the institutions of equalisation and redistribution, from healthcare to education to retirement; (2) closing down wherever possible the means of democratic debate; and (3), the demonisation of political opponents in ways more ruthless than any government of the modern era has dared.' back |
| University College London, Legacies of British Slave-ownership, 'Colonial slavery shaped modern Britain and we all still live with its legacies. The slave-owners were one very important means by which the fruits of slavery were transmitted to metropolitan Britain. We believe that research and analysis of this group are key to understanding the extent and the limits of slavery's role in shaping British history and leaving lasting legacies that reach into the present. The stories of enslaved men and women, however, are no less important than those of slave-owners, and we hope that the encyclopaedia produced in the first phase of the project, while at present primarily a resource for studying slave-owners, will also provide information of value to those researching enslaved people.' back |
| Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia, Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The term Variety was introduced by W. Ross Ashby to denote the count of the total number of states of a system. The condition for dynamic stability under perturbation (or input) was described by his Law of Requisite Variety. Ashby says:
Thus, if the order of occurrence is ignored, the set {c, b, c, a, c, c, a, b, c, b, b, a} which contains twelve elements, contains only three distinct elements- a, b, c. Such a set will be said to have a variety of three elements.
He adds
The observer and his powers of discrimination may have to be specified if the variety is to be well defined.
Variety can be stated as an integer, as above, or as the logarithm to the base 2 of the number i.e. in bits.' back |
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