natural theology

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vol VII: Notes

2018

Notes

Sunday 2 December 2018 - Saturday 1 December 2018

[Notebook: DB 83: Physical Theology]

[page 22]

Sunday 2 December 2018

Monk page 249: Ottoline Morell: ' "I found myself swept up with indignation at the intellectuals who elaborate such aloof theories about life and religion and who seem to ignore the everyday lives and needs of such people who surely need a religion or philosophy that can be interpreted and fused with their everyday lives." ' Monk: Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude

page 285: Wittgenstein: 'Philosophy = "all those primitive propositions which are assumed as true without proof by the various sciences." '

page 310: 'Russell: "Understanding os the solution of all difficulties." '

page 317: Russel, Conrad and the Heart of Darkness: uncontrolled self reference can lead to paradise and madness: Kurtz's soul. Heart of Darkness - Wikipedia

[page 23]

The divine world is our salvific reference.

Monk page 325: Self reference leads to the transfinite numbers.

page 327: 'Russell "I don't think tame well-behaved people ever know anything of the mad fire just below the smooth surface of life. But whether it is worth while to know of it, I don't know." ' A quantum field theory sort of thing. The initial singularity drives everything.

page 329: The wealthy are preyed upon by unscrupulous medicos who invent diseases and then recommend expensive cures, just like the modern wellness industry.

Perhaps the quantum mechanics give too much ontological power to the uncertainty principle which is really just a statement about measurement and communication which says in effect that a measure graduated in integers a certain distance apart cannot give precision measurements of quantities smaller than the distance between graduations. This may explain why they think that there is energy in zero point motion and therefore vast difference between the observed and computed values of the cosmological constant. We see Russell, Wittgenstein and their ilk endlessly arguing about the relationship between language, logic and reality and see that in many ways this is the central question of philosophy, which is answered, in effect, that all information is physical and so we have to be careful when we create a dichotomy between information and physics. My desire to create a physical theology is motivated by the need to move away from the pure formalist vision of God dreamt up by Plato and his

[page 24]

tribe and replace it with an embodied god, the world made flesh. Throughout my monastic career I was fascinated by the first chapter of John's gospel and I rejoice now in the pleasure of being an incarnate mind. Russell spent a lot of energy, as I did, trying to suppress the flesh with logic and mathematics and it drove him a bit mad but it is time to get over all that, another ruling class ploy to keep the peasants quiet, as Plato needed to do. Cosmological constant problem - Wikipedia, Plato - Wikipedia

Virtual particles Monk page 344

Monday 3 December

Doing philosophy. So much of it is linguistic analysis, like Russell's paper On Denotation. The elephant in all this is that the human mind and consciousness is somehow sui generis [the last vestiges of the ancient idea that we are the crown of creation]. I am looking for a wider view that there is a symmetry in the world I might call the mental symmetry which operates at all levels from the beginning and is best modelled by a layered network. Spent last night reading a few articles by Reginald Cahill and co and can see traces of this idea in their worked, but am a little bit unconvinced by their rather extravagant claims to solve all the problems of physics. Nevertheless the notion that the universe as a whole is a self training neural network is very attractive and consistent with my view. The next step really is to write a critique of their work and see what arises form a synthesis. Another ingredient we need to consider is bit string physics, so there is a rich and exciting forest of ideas to philosohize in. Bertrand Russell: On Denoting, Reginald T Cahill, Christopher M Klinger and Kirsty Kitto: Process Physics: Modelling Reality as Self-Organizing Information, Noyes & Van Den Berg: Bit-String Physics: A Finite and Discrete Approach to Natural Philosophy

The process physics people make the point that they are moving

[page 25]

from a formalist view of the universe to a dynamic process view but they seem to overlook the fact that the partial differential equations at the heart of modern physics, even though they are static forms, describe dynamic, and the outlines of the process approach are also static forms, and if they were not it would be impossible to describe them in static formal scientific articles as they purport to do. The perennial tension between Parmenides and Heraclitus remains with us and lies at the heart of every scientific effort to write about the world. All writers are trying to represent the fixed points in the moving world be it quantum mechanics or the perennial tragedies of human life so beloved of dramatists. Parmenides - Wikipedia, Heraclitus - Wikipedia, Greek tragedy - Wikipedia

The uncertainty principle is often expressed by the equation ΔEΔt = ℏ, which carries the implication that if we have precise knowledge of E we have no knowledge of t and vice versa, so we see this relationship as a relationship between real numbers of which ℏ is now defined as precisely as a base unit. This approach means that the uncertainty principle establishes fixed relationships between errors in energy.time and momentum.distance, giving it some ontological significance. 2019 redefinition of SI base units - Wikipedia

General relativity looks like the theory where formalism and ontology are most closely connected insofar as the very observable forces of gravitation and acceleration map precisely onto the mathematical formalism, which is in effect arithmetic applied to a complicated four dimensional space-time bookkeeping system which enables us to compute the local values of the metric which convert directly to inertial forces. I feel that this structure is so simple that quantization is unnecessary, but fitting this onto the structure of spacetime is not so clear, except perhaps that continuous mathematics is appropriate here as in Shannon's theory

[page 26]

whose continuity may be a consequence of the law of large numbers applied to both noise and signal. Einstein's strength was in his ability to move from mental feelings to a mathematical structure.

The philosophers have a big problem coupling linguistic formalism to natural dynamism but it has all been solved in reality by the coupling between potential and action first twigged by Aristotle which seems to remain the root of the perennial philosophy. The big problems these day are trying to find a formalism that maps the natural universe and which produces a consistent finite tractable linkage between the large and the small scale of universal structure. Symmetry with respect to size / complexity seems sure to play a part in this.

Tuesday4 December 2018

Read the morning news and feel a bit like weeping, but remember that it is the role of negative feedback to indicate that the ship is running off course and act to steer it back. First we need to know where the pain is, then find the source and finally correct it. Since individual people are the ones who feel pain it is essential that the corrective mechanism have the bandwidth to listen to and act for everybody, which is the essential role of democracy as opposed to monarchy and all its equivalents, where the only one sensitive to pain and with the power to correct it is the monarch itself, which, in general, is probably the source of other people's pain resulting from the tendency of everybody to look after themselves.

The pope and his minions believe that they have the right to hurt

[page 27]

anyone who does not agree with their perverted notions of human sexuality. Barbie Latza Nadeau: Pope Francis Goes Full Homophobe, Now 'Very Worried' About Homosexuality in the Church

The principal role of the media is to break the secrecy surrounding evil doing, and the Vatican remains one of the most secretive and most evil actors in the world, using its huge reach to pervert the minds of people everywhere.

Am I thinking anything, or should I go to sleep?

Text of the day: joining dots = establishing causes. As noted above, propinquity does not necessarily mean causality, [think of a bearing] but when we say joining the dots we usually mean a sequence of clues which a Sherlock Holmes would be able to arrange into a coherent narrative that points to the criminal. This is true in crime novels in general, part of the art being to weave the clues into the metanarrative and dare the reader to find the actual casual sequence of the crime. In physics, where things are very simple, contact may be considered as causality. The ε - δ process that we use to establish contact and continuity works because the sequence of operations that bring us to the limit are all instances of the same algorithm instantiated by smaller and smaller values of certain parameters [ eg x] expressed is the phrase limit of f(x) as x approaches zero which we use for instance, to define the differential at a point. Overall, however, this is just a relatively trivial example of logical continuity which we may take to be the definition of causality. So we say the bullet through the heart was the cause of death, backed up by a lot of science about bullets and physiology, just as we say the absorption of a photon raises the energy of an electron. So nap time. Age is catching up a bit. (ε, δ)-definition of limit - Wikipedia

Meaning can be coded as juxtaposition, as in a dictionary, or equivalently by computing memory addresses, as in a machine.

Wednesday 5 December 2018

Russell History page 13: 'Philosophy as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between thelogy and science. Russell: A History of Western Philosophy, and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from Earliest Times to the Present Day

On the political consequences of a divine universe. The power of ideology in politics.

Democracy is scientific and empirical insofar as the control of lawmaking is exercised by those whom the law affects rather than some formal authority whose legitimacy, from its own point of view, arises from a god that shows its favour by giving power to the wealthy and wealth to the powerful.

Vaughan: Language and Politics. Jill Vaughan: Meet the remote indigenous community where a few thousand people use 15 different languages

Einstein noted that often we have to invent new languages, as Kepler did, to explain things. One can see Plato's point that first mathematics had to be invented before we could see its role in the world and it now serves as a universal language to understand the world. Cantor generates the vocabulary and the logical development of theorems selects it down to consistent structures that are found to model the world. At present the big problems lie in finding a universally complete language for physics that unites gravity and the other three forces in a unified vision, and given that language, to extend it to the whole of human politics embraced by theology.

[page 29]

Paul Duggan Paul Duggan: Sins of the Fathers

So we take the view that mathematics is first invented by mathematicians and then finds application, as with Riemann's differential geometry. Sometimes things are the other way around as with Dirac's delta which began as a physical fix ad then found itself naturalized in mathematics. Sometimes new inventions may not tell the whole story, or they might say too much. The rational numbers might be enough for physics from a practical point of view, although mathematicians like the real numbers to express the completeness of geometric continuity which may not be capable of realistic embodiment [in the rational numbers]. So what of the transfinite numbers, which seem altogether too big if we begin with the infinite set of natural numbers, but we can start the structure off with a smaller set of natural numbers, eg 2, and watch it grow by the same exponential rule that makes the transfinite numbers grow. Bernhard Riemann - Wikipedia, Dirac delta function - Wikipedia

Some transfinite arithmetic (1992):

ta 1: m + 1 ≈ m + mm
ta 2: m × 2 ≈ m × mm
ta 3: m + nn, n > m
ta 4: m × nn, n > m
ta 5: 2mmmm +1
ta 6: log2m ≈ logmmm - 1

The introduction of the logarithm is problematic, since there exists a smallest transfinite cardinal 0, whose logarithm is undefined. Let us remedy this deficiency by supplying a transfinite null D analogous to 1 and a sequence of cisfinite cardinals -m defined by the relationships:

ta 7: log (0 ) ≈ D
ta 8: log (D) ≈ -0
ta 9: log (-m ) ≈ -(m+1)
ta 10: -m × m ≈ D

and their exponential inverses. We write the extended sequence of transfinite cardinals : ... -n ... -1, -0 , D, 0, 1, ... n ...

Russell page 17: 'The Church . . . represented order in place of anarchy, and consequently won the support of the rising mercantile class. In Italy, especially, this last consideration was decisive.

'All power is ultimately from God' ‐ very specifically in the divine universe.

page 19: From the sixteenth century onwards the history of European thought is dominated by the Reformation.' Revolt of North against South. Protestant Reformation - Wikipedia

Protestants rejected the Church as the vehicle of revelsation (good) but went back to the Bible (baddish).

page 20: 'Modern philosophy begins with Descartes, whose fundamental certainty

[page 30]

is the existence of himself and his thought, from which the external world is to be inferred. This was only the first stage in a development through Berkeley and Kant to Fichte for whom everything is an emanation of the ego. This was insanity and from this extreme philosophy has been attempting ever since to escape into the world of everyday common sense.

Russell page 32: Fate exerted a great influence in all Greek thought, and perhaps was one of the sources from which science derived its belief in natural law.'

page 90: 'What was amiss, even in the best philosophy after Democritus, is an undue emphasis on man rather than the universe. . . . It was not until the Renaissance that philosophy regained the rigour and independence that characterize the predecessors of Socrates.

Written music, like written drama, is a triumph of formalism.

page 95: 'One of the defects of all philosophers since Plato is that their enquiries into ethics proceed on the assumption that they already know the conclusions to be reached,'

Euripides: Trojan Women. The Trojan Women - Wikipedia

One excellent feature the the divine universe is that not only is it the source of evil, but that its evil can be worked around as the existence of extraordinarily complex and meaningful creatures proves. Nevertheless all very complex systems eventually fail from a surfeit of irreparable errors as I will in the next 30 years.

[page 31]

Russell page 131: 'a philosopher is to be, for all time, a man who understands and agrees with Plato.' Philosophy: organized insanity.

page 135: 'Plato's philosophy rests on the distinction between reality and appearance . . . .' One of the many refuges of scoundrels.

page 151: 'To the empiricist, the body is what brings us into touch with the world of external reality [it is us], but to Plato it is doubly evil, as a distorting medium causing us to see through a glass darkly, and as a source of lusts which distract us from the pursuit of knowledge and the vision of truth.

The transfinite permutation group is naturally closed, there is nothing outside it.

page 198: 'The [political] views of the philosophers, with few exceptions, have coincided with the pecuniary interests of their class.'

page 242: 'Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully.

Thursday 6 December 2018

Russell page 291: 'Among the men who have been unhappy in the mundane sense but resolutely determined to find a higher happiness in the world of theory, Plotinus holds a very high place.'

Despite many greedy and stupid politicians unhappiness resulting from poverty and lack of security and health care is on the wane as Pinker claims, so the time is ripe to emphasize the gospel of prosperity that is consistent with the divine world, as against the gospel of eternal reward that has been the answer to the painful life up to now. Pinker: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

[page 32]

Russell page 303: 'The Church brought philosophic beliefs into a closer relation to social and political circumstances than they have ever been before or since since the medieval period, which we may reckon to be from about AD 400 to about AD 400.

'The Church achieved power and wealth by means of its creed.' Intellectual property a la Google, Facebook. Apple etc.

My creed: scientific faith in the divine universe.

page 304: 'It is not until we come to Dante that we find a layman writing with full knowledge of the ecclesiastical philosophy of his time.'

page 306: '. . . the Renaissance and the Reformation disrupted the medieval synthesis which has not yet been succeeded by anything so tidy and so apparently complete.

page 326: 'In proportion as Christianity became hellenized it also became theological.'

page 400: John the Scot: 'When it is said that God created things out of 'nothing', this 'nothing' is to be understood as God Himself, in the sense in which He transcends all knowledge, . . . the substance of all finite things is God.'

page 403: Church discipline and unified ecclesiastical government were . . .

[page 33]

essential to the power of the clergy. These ends were served during the eleventh century as part and parcel of the moral reformation of the clergy.' Simony and concubinage.

Russell page 413: 'Eastern Empire survived until 1453, nearly a thousand years longer than the Western . . . the main attacks on the Eastern Empire were made by the Mohammedans.'

page 435: 'Innocent III was the first great Pope in whom there was no element of sanctity.' Pope Innocent III - Wikipedia, Pope Innocent III: The papal bull annulling Magna Carta

page 444: Thomas Aquinas is recognised as the greatest of the scholastic philosophers.

There are exactly six philosophical terms: being (ens), thing (res), aliquid (something), one (unum), true (verum) and good (bonum).

page 490: 'A stable social system is necessary, but every stable system hitherto devised has hampered the development of exceptional artistic or intellectual merit' says Russell.

page 491: Machiavelli: ' "all armed prophets have conquered and unarmed ones have failed." ' Jesus of Nazareth was murdered and suffered for it, not being the military messiah people expected, but ultimately he was taken up by the Roman Empire, the most powerful war machine available.

page 493 [Machiavelli (Discourses)] holds that religion should have a prominent place in the state, not on the ground of its truth, but as social cement.'

Bonding requires that the bonded particles possess the codecs necessary

[page 34]

to interpret their binding messages. How does this work between, say, electron, photon and proton? Can there be a codec in an electron or photon which are point particles. We say space is built on inconsistency, in that it enables the simultaneous existence of p and not-p, but can a point particle, containing no space embody a string of code made of discrete symbols? Can the fact that the code is internally consistent in some way condense it into a point [logically, I am a point, with a lot going on inside me]? Since the electron and the photon have energy, they have process? Can this process be in some way "logically confined" so that it does not occupy space [because it does not need explicit representation]? Or is the notion that photons and electrons are points false? Or does the velocity of light in some way make these particles appear as points even though they are extended in their own frame [or does the internal process operating at the velocity of light mean that they are not extended even in their own rest frame]? Is it electron's spin that makes it look like a point? All thee questions have worried me for a while, but we will just use the usual technique and shake them all round until they fall into place. Perhaps science, structure and writing are all self assembling like a jigsaw whose pieces fit easily together if adequately shaken [and wrong assemblies are selected out].

page 495: Machiavelli: "Power is for those who have the skill to seize it in free competition."

page 499: 'In northern countries the Renaissance began later than in Italy and soon became entangled with the Reformation.

page 512: 'Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century,' (Written in the early 1940s)

[page 35]

Russell page 515: Churches everywhere opposed as long as they could potentially every innovation that made for an increase of happiness or knowledge here on Earth,'

page 535: [Hobbes] ' "Covenants, without the sword, are but words." '

page 537: Hobbes ' "Liberty is the absence of outside impediments to motion" '

page 577: 'What has been the influence of political and social circumstances upon the thoughts of eminent original thinkers, and conversely, what have been the influence of these men [sic] on subsequent political and social developments?

The answer is similar to the relationship between physics and engineering.

'Early liberalism was a product of England and Holland, and has certain well marked characteristics: It stood for religious toleration; it was Protestant; it regarded the wars of religion as silly. It valued commerce and industry and favoured the rising middle class rather than monarchy and aristocracy; it had immense respect for the rights of property; rejected divine right of kings; importance of education; and a bias against government.

I would like to think we can derive all these properties from parallel processing network theory and human symmetry.

Science vs trial by battle.

page 581: First comprehensive statement [of liberalism] Locke 1632-1704. John Locke - Wikipedia

page 584: the apostle of the revolution of 1688. Glorious Revolution - Wikipedia

page 601: Aquinas: "Every law framed by man bears the character of

[page 36]

law exactly to the extent that it is derived from the law of nature. But if on any point it is in conflict wth the law of nature, it at once ceases to be law; it is merely a perversion of law. Aquinas, Summa II I, 95, 2: Is every human law is derived from the natural law?

Russell page 606: Social contract vs divine right of kings.

page 657: 'Revolt of solitary instincts against social bonds is key to the philosophy of politics and the sentiments not only of what is commonly called the romantic movement, but of its progeny down to the present day (1940s).

page 684: 'The most important part of the Critique of Reason is the doctrine of space and time.

page 693: 'Academic philosophy has often been out of touch with the most vigorous thought of the age, for instance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when it was still mainly scholastic. When this happens the historian of philosophy is less concerned with the professors than with the unprofessional heretics.

page 697: 'From the historical point of view what is interesting is Darwin's extension to the whole of life the economics that characterized the philosophical radicals. The motive force of evolution according to him is a kind of biological economics in a world of free competition.

[page 37]

Russell page 702: 'it is though by Hegel that the nature of reality can be deduced from the sole consideration that it must not be self contradictory.

page 705: Hegel ' "the absolute idea is pure thought thinking about pure thought." ' Given that information is physical, this is neat representation of the divine universe.

page 728: Nietzsche; Will - potential - gradient - force: think of man as a force, a force of nature even [there are 4 species of physical force, endless species of chemical and biological force].

734: 'It never occurred to Nietzsche that the lust for power with which he endows his superman is itself an outcome of fear. Those who do not fear their neighbours see no necessity to tyrranize over them.

page 783: Weierstrass . . . showed how to establish calculus without infinitesimals . . . Karl Weierstrass - Wikipedia

page 784: 'Georg Cantor defined an "infinite" collection as one which has parts containing as many terms as the whole collection contains.' ie infinite = indefinite.

page 785: Carnap: ' "all philosophical problems are really syntactical." '

page 786; events, not particles, must be the 'stuff' of physics = acts, where an act is a communication, ie a bonding [a measurement, a reading].

Friday 7 December 2018

The million dollar philosophical question: language and reality.

[page 38]

It is easiest if we confine ourselves to scientific discourse, where the target is to produce executable representations of reality. This is relatively easy to judge in the physical and biological sciences where we can test our representations by execution and observe the result. Already in quantum mechanics our best representations do not produce completely predictable results, and when we get into the regions of psychology, sociology and politics we have to face a fair degree of uncertainty which we can combat, to some extent, by oberving many instances of a given event. We find in quantum mechanics that the predictions of the nature of the events that we observe can be quite precise, so that we can base clocks on quantum mechanical events that keep time accurate to one second in the age of the universe. The statistical predictions that quantum mechanics makes for the frequency of such closely specified events are verified with high precision when we are abe to execute enough trials, so we conclude that the linguistic representation of the nature of the world we call quantum mechanics is definitely on the right track. The same can be said for the predictions of the special and general theories of relativity. One area where things are a bit murky is the relationship between quantum mechanics and relativity where the results are good but the theory, that is the language, leaves a lot to be desired. W. F. McGrew et al: Atomic clock performance enabling geodesy below the centimetre level

My plan has for a long time been to build a scientific theology starting with relativity and quantum mechanics and working towards a picture of the whole via a layered network model based on a combination of technological computer networks like the internet on the one hand and Cantor's transfinite numbers on the other. The plan is chugging along quite nicely and my [hope] is to get an essay on leading theology into Cantor's paradise finished by Christmas.

[page 39]

The current point of work is interfacing a finite computer network with the transfinite mathematical system modelled as a layered transfinite permutation group. The idea is that each element of each group is modelled by a Turing machine that executes a group operation taking input from the output of another operation, transforming it and passing it on to the next. These local operations are finite and computable, although we allow for an infinite number of, 0, of [different species of] them, corresponding to the natural numbers and 1 machines constructed by permuting strings of the 0 deterministic machines and so ad [trans]finitum. This vast system serves both as a paradigm for coupling the simplest logical operations in the universe to the whole, and is coupled to the physical world by the principle of conservation of energy which enforces a process of natural selection which picks out finite subsets of this structure which are capable of managing their own survival in the space of all the possibilities represented by the Cantor universe [their particular power is the ability to reproduce themselves]. This structure uses the role of networks as copyists to explain the increase in complexity. The next task is to illustrate this task by first applying it to special and general relativity and then to quantum theory and finally to the unification of the two into a quantum field theory that generates particles of all sizes from fundamental particles to the universe as a whole, including me, the Earth and so on.

Each particle, insofar as it has energy is [a] self executing [event].

How do we naturally select out of the current crop of fundamental particles? We use a combination of conservation of energy and Hamilton's principle as explained by Neuenschwander. All this remains t a level of considerable vagueness, but the principal task is to generate a general picture that can then be particularized by the sequence philosophy → science → theology. Hamilton's principle - Wikipedia, Neuenschwander: Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem

[page 40]

Saturday 8 December 2018

Thomas: Quid est hoc quod est esse?

Russell page 783: ' The Philosophy of Logical Analysis ' ie me.

'in philosophy, ever since the time of Pythagoras there has been an opposition between men whose thought was mainly inspired by mathematics and those who were more influenced by empirical sciences.' Not to mention those who took both into account.

page 784: Principia – importing formalism into mathematics and philosophy. Carnap followed Cantor to an emphasis on 'order' ie syntax, so we encode meaning as ordered sets of 'bits', the simplest imaginable symbol (mark). Whitehead & Russell: Principia Mathematica, Rudolf Carnap - Wikipedia

page 786: 'events the stuff of physics' and the stuff of every narrative: 'they met', 'they loved', 'they had children' etc etc [a typical network event]. A theory of everything is a theory of event. Events have two qualities: 'to be' which we call pure act, esse and to be something, essence. It is the essence that can be capture by formalism [since there is nothing to be said about esse] so Thomas kicked off his career with De ente et essentia and came to the mystical definition of God that the essence of God is to be. This means in effect that every event is an instance of God, quite simple really. Paul Halsall: De Ente et Essentia

'continuity of motion, which has always been assumed, appears to have been a prejudice.' More likely an empirical take on the continuity

[page 42]

of motion overlooking the fact that every motion has a beginning and an end, or at least a beginning in the case of the universe.

Russell page 787: 'I suspect that [the philosophy of quantum mechanics] will require even more radical departures from the traditional doctrine of space and time than those demanded by the theory of relativity.' This departure is that the dynamic expression of the essence of the universe is a computer network, as proposed by me. So my thesis that the universe is divine can be expressed as a philosophy of quantum mechanics.

Gentle rain to replace a couple of 40 degree days. Solar power is the obvious answer to global warming.

'while physics has been making matter less material, psychology has been making mind less mental' converging on William James "neutral monism". 'This doctrine effects a great simplification in our picture of the structure of the world. Leopold Stubenberg (Standord Ecyclopedia of Phiosophy): Neutral Monism

Logic = the essence of causality, ie an expression of the meaning of an act, what historians of all types are trying to capture from physics to politics.

page 788: 'Modern analytical empiricism' . . . I have no doubt that by these methods, many ancient problems are completely soluble.' Scientific method is the essence of science, identical to evolution by natural selection or intelligent design which is tautologically associated with the growth of networks in a region of limited resources.

So a question: if money and energy can be created by borrowing

[page 42]

why is there any limit on them? Hall Steven Hall: Explainer: What is modern monetary theory?

Russell page 788: 'There remains, however, a vast field traditionally included in philosophy, where scientific methods are inadequate. This field includes ultimate questions of values: science alone, for example, cannot prove that it is bad to enjoy the infliction of cruelty. Whatever can be known, can be known by the means of science; but things which are legitimately a matter of feeling are outside its province.' So how did feeling evolve? Feeling is a potential whose gradient increases the probability of certain actions, and as a gradient falls ultimately into physics.

Philosophy, throughout its history, has consisted of two parts inharmoniously blended: on the one hand a theory of the nature of the world, on the other an ethical or political doctrine on the best way of living. Philosophers from Plato to William James have allowed their opinions as to the constitution of the universe to be influenced by the desire for edification . . . For my part I reprobate this kind of bias.

page 789: 'In order to make their proofs seem valid they have had to falsify logic and made mathematics mystical and to pretend that deep-seated prejudices are heaven-sent intuitions.' Silly man. Maybe read Darwin again, and Axelrod etc. An Essay on Value. Darwin: The Origin of Species, An Essay on Value

'All this is rejected by philosophers who make logical analysis the main business of philosophy.'

[page 43]

Russell page 789: So now he contradicts himself [maybe]:

'The habit of careful veracity acquired in the practice of [logical analysis] can be extended to the whole sphere of human activity, producing wherever it exists, a lessening of fanaticism with an increasing capacity of sympathy and mutual understanding [emotion?]. In abandoning a part of their dogmatic pretensions, philosophy does not cease to suggest and inspire a way of life.'

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Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Applebaum, Anne, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956, Doubleday 2012 'At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.'  
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Christie, Agatha, The Pale Horse, Bantam Books 1986 'This is a dark offering from the queen of crime. This represents the world-famous author's most successful foray into the dark world of murder and black magic. To understand the strange goings on at The Pale Horse Inn, Mark Easterbrook knew he had to begin at the beginning. But where exactly was the beginning? Was it the savage blow to the back of Father Gorman's head? Or was it when the priest's assailant searched him so roughly he tore the clergyman's cassock? Or could it have been the priest's visit, just minutes before, to a woman on her death bed? Or was there a deeper significance to the violent squabble which Mark Easterbrook had himself witnessed earlier? Wherever the beginning lies, Mark and his sidekick, Ginger Corrigan, may soon have cause to wish they'd never found it!' 
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Darwin, Charles, and Greg Suriano (editor), The Origin of Species, Gramercy 1998 Introduction: 'In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that each species has not been independently created, but has descended, like varieties, from other species.' 
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Feynman, Richard P, and Albert P Hibbs, Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals, McGraw Hill 1965 Preface: 'The fundamental physical and mathematical concepts which underlie the path integral approach were first developed by R P Feynman in the course of his graduate studies at Princeton, ... . These early inquiries were involved with the problem of the infinte self-energy of the electron. In working on that problem, a "least action" principle was discovered [which] could deal succesfully with the infinity arising in the application of classical electrodynamics.' As described in this book. Feynam, inspired by Dirac, went on the develop this insight into a fruitful source of solutions to many quantum mechanical problems.  
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Feynman, Richard, Feynman Lectures on Gravitation, Westview Press 2002 Amazon Editorial Reviews Book Description 'The Feynman Lectures on Gravitation are based on notes prepared during a course on gravitational physics that Richard Feynman taught at Caltech during the 1962-63 academic year. For several years prior to these lectures, Feynman thought long and hard about the fundamental problems in gravitational physics, yet he published very little. These lectures represent a useful record of his viewpoints and some of his insights into gravity and its application to cosmology, superstars, wormholes, and gravitational waves at that particular time. The lectures also contain a number of fascinating digressions and asides on the foundations of physics and other issues. Characteristically, Feynman took an untraditional non-geometric approach to gravitation and general relativity based on the underlying quantum aspects of gravity. Hence, these lectures contain a unique pedagogical account of the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity as the inevitable result of the demand for a self-consistent theory of a massless spin-2 field (the graviton) coupled to the energy-momentum tensor of matter. This approach also demonstrates the intimate and fundamental connection between gauge invariance and the principle of equivalence.' 
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Monk, Ray, Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude, Vintage 1997 '"the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair." ... The aim of this book is to chart this course ... To understand the course his life took is to understand the power of each of these great passions and the tensions that existed between them, forcing him, on occasion, to abandon, in turn, philosophy for love, politics for philosophy, love for politics, and so on.' pp xviii-xix. 
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Monk, Ray, Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness, Free Press 2016 ' In the second half of his life, Bertrand Russell transformed himself from a major philosopher, whose work was intelligible to a small elite, into a political activist and popular writer, known to millions throughout the world. Yet his life is the tragic story of a man who believed in a modern, rational approach to life and who, though his ideas guided popular opinion throughout the twentieth century, lost everything. Russell's views on marriage, religion, education, and politics attracted legions of devoted followers and, at the same time, provoked harsh attacks from every direction. On the one hand, he was stripped of his post at New York's City College because he was thought to be a bad influence on his students, and on the other, he was awarded the Order of Merit, the Nobel Prize in literature, and a lifetime Fellowship of Trinity College, Cambridge. He lived to be ninety-seven, and as he became older he became increasingly controversial. Monk quotes Russell's telegrams to Kennedy and Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis, an influence that Russell and his followers believed tipped the balance toward peace. Russell devoted his last years to a campaign organized by his secretary to lend support to Che Guevara's call for a globally coordinated revolutionary struggle against "U.S. imperialism." Until now, this last campaign has been misunderstood as a -- perhaps misguided, but nevertheless innocent -- plea for world peace. Monk reveals it was no such thing. Drawing on thousands of documents collected at the Russell archives in Canada, Monk steers through the turbulence of Russell's public activities, scrutinizing his sometimes paradoxical and often outrageous pronouncements. Monk's focus, however, is on the tragedy of Russell's personal life, and in revealing this inner drama Monk has relied heavily on the cooperation of Russell's surviving relatives and access to previously unexamined legal and private correspondence. A central player in Russell's life was his first son, John. Russell applied the methods of the new science of child psychology in his parenting, believing that a new generation of children could be reared to be "independent, fearless, and free." But instead of being a model of this new generation, John became anxious, withdrawn, and eventually schizophrenic. Nor was John's daughter Lucy (who was Russell's favorite grandchild) to be a model of the new generation; gradually she grew so emotionally disturbed that, at the age of twenty-six, she took her own life. The Ghost of Madness completes the most searching examination yet published of Bertrand Russell's unique life and work. Together with Ray Monk's highly praised first volume of the biography, The Spirit of Solitude, this is the classic account of an extraordinary man who championed the great ideas of the twentieth century and was all but destroyed by them. It is a portrait of the mind of a century.' 
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Neuenschwander, Dwight E, Emmy Noether's Wonderful Theorem, Johns Hopkins University Press 2011 Jacket: A beautiful piece of mathematics, Noether's therem touches on every aspect of physics. Emmy Noether proved her theorem in 1915 and published it in 1918. This profound concept demonstrates the connection between conservation laws and symmetries. For instance, the theorem shows that a system invariant under translations of time, space or rotation will obey the laws of conservation of energy, linear momentum or angular momentum respectively. This exciting result offers a rich unifying principle for all of physics.' 
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Noyes, H. Pierre, and J. C. Van Den Berg, Bit-String Physics: A Finite and Discrete Approach to Natural Philosophy, World Scientific 2001 'We could be on the threshold of a scientific revolution. Quantum mechanics is based on unique, finite, and discrete events. General relativity assumes a continuous, curved space-time. Reconciling the two remains the most fundamental unsolved scientific problem left over from the last century. The papers of H Pierre Noyes collected in this volume reflect one attempt to achieve that unification by replacing the continuum with the bit-string events of computer science. Three principles are used: physics can determine whether two quantities are the same or different; measurement can tell something from nothing; this structure (modeled by binary addition and multiplication) can leave a historical record consisting of a growing universe of bit-strings. This book is specifically addressed to those interested in the foundations of particle physics, relativity, quantum mechanics, physical cosmology and the philosophy of science 
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Pinker, Steven, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Viking Adult 2011 Amazon book description: 'A provocative history of violence—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Stuff of Thought and The Blank Slate Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly enlightened world.' 
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Polya, George, and Gordon Latta, Complex Variables, John Wiley & Sons Inc 1974 Preface: 'After having lectured for several decades on complex variables to prospective engineers and physicists, I have definite and, I hope, not unrealistic ideas about their requirements and preferences. . . .

I hope that this book is useful not only to future engineers and physicists, but also to future mathematicians. Mathematical concepts and facts gain in vividness and clarity if they are well connected with the world around us and with general ideas, and if we obtain them by our own work through successive stages instead of in one lump.' 
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Russell, Bertrand, A History of Western Philosophy, and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from Earliest Times to the Present Day, Routledge 1946, 1991 Amazon ditorial reviews: Ray Monk: 'A History of Western Philosophy remains unchallenged as the perfect introduction to its subject. Russell . . . writes with the kind of verve, freshness and personal engagement that lesser spirits would never have permitted themselves. This boldness, together with the astonishing breadth of his general historical knowledge, allows him to put philosophers into their social and cultural context . . . The result is exactly the kind of philosophy that most people would like to read, but which only Russell could possibly have written.'  
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Whitehead, Alfred North, and Bertrand Arthur Russell, Principia Mathematica (Cambridge Mathematical Library), Cambridge University Press 1910, 1962 The great three-volume Principia Mathematica is deservedly the most famous work ever written on the foundations of mathematics. Its aim is to deduce all the fundamental propositions of logic and mathematics from a small number of logical premisses and primitive ideas, and so to prove that mathematics is a development of logic. Not long after it was published, Goedel showed that the project could not completely succeed, but that in any system, such as arithmetic, there were true propositions that could not be proved.  
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Zee, Anthony, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, Princeton University Press 2003 Amazon book description: 'An esteemed researcher and acclaimed popular author takes up the challenge of providing a clear, relatively brief, and fully up-to-date introduction to one of the most vital but notoriously difficult subjects in theoretical physics. A quantum field theory text for the twenty-first century, this book makes the essential tool of modern theoretical physics available to any student who has completed a course on quantum mechanics and is eager to go on. Quantum field theory was invented to deal simultaneously with special relativity and quantum mechanics, the two greatest discoveries of early twentieth-century physics, but it has become increasingly important to many areas of physics. These days, physicists turn to quantum field theory to describe a multitude of phenomena. Stressing critical ideas and insights, Zee uses numerous examples to lead students to a true conceptual understanding of quantum field theory--what it means and what it can do. He covers an unusually diverse range of topics, including various contemporary developments,while guiding readers through thoughtfully designed problems. In contrast to previous texts, Zee incorporates gravity from the outset and discusses the innovative use of quantum field theory in modern condensed matter theory. Without a solid understanding of quantum field theory, no student can claim to have mastered contemporary theoretical physics. Offering a remarkably accessible conceptual introduction, this text will be widely welcomed and used.  
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Papers

Benford, Gregory, "Where might it lead?", Nature, 414, 6862, 22 November 2001, page 399. back

Links

2019 redefinition of SI base units - Wikipedia, 2019 redefinition of SI base units - Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia, 'The kilogram, ampere, kelvin, and mole will then be defined by setting exact numerical values for the Planck constant (h), the elementary electric charge (e), the Boltzmann constant (k), and the Avogadro constant (NA), respectively. The metre and candela are already defined by physical constants, subject to correction to their present definitions. The new definitions aim to improve the SI without changing the size of any units, thus ensuring continuity with existing measurements.' back

Aquinas, Summa II I, 95, 2, Is every human law is derived from the natural law?, ' Unde omnis lex humanitus posita intantum habet de ratione legis, inquantum a lege naturae derivatur. Si vero in aliquo, a lege naturali discordet, iam non erit lex sed legis corruptio.' back

Aristotle, The Internet Classics Archive | Works by Aristotle, A comprehensive database of Aristotle's works. back

Barbie Latza Nadeau, Pope Francis Goes Full Homophobe, Now 'Very Worried' About Homosexuality in the Church, ' Now it seems Francis isn't mincing his words on the topic. He told Spanish Claretian missionary Fernando Prado that in reality he's actually “very worried” about homosexuality in the church. Prado, whose book La Forza della Vocazione (The Strength of Vocation) comes out in multiple languages on Monday, spent four hours interviewing the pontiff in Vatican City this fall about problems in the priesthood. Italy's Corriere Della Sera newspaper excerpted parts of the book on Saturday.' back

Bernhard Riemann - Wikipedia, Bernhard Riemann - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (17 September 1826 – 20 July 1866) was an influential German mathematician who made lasting and revolutionary contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry'. back

Bertrand Russell, On Denoting, ' By a `denoting phrase' I mean a phrase such as any one of the following: a man, some man, any man, every man, all men, the present King of England, the present King of France, the center of mass of the solar system at the first instant of the twentieth century, the revolution of the earth round the sun, the revolution of the sun round the earth. Thus a phrase is denoting solely in virtue of its form.' back

Claude Shannon, Communication in the Presence of Noise, 'A method is developed for representing any communication system geometrically. Messages and the corresponding signals are points in two “function spaces,” and the modulation process is a mapping of one space into the other. Using this representation, a number of results in communication theory are deduced concerning expansion and compression of bandwidth and the threshold effect. Formulas are found for the maximum rate of transmission of binary digits over a system when the signal is perturbed by various types of noise. Some of the properties of “ideal” systems which transmit at this maximum rate are discussed. The equivalent number of binary digits per second for certain information sources is calculated.' back

Cosmological constant problem - Wikipedia, Cosmological constant problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In cosmology, the cosmological constant problem or vacuum catastrophe is the disagreement between measured values of the vacuum energy density (the small value of the cosmological constant) and the zero-point energy suggested by quantum field theory. Depending on the assumptions[which?], the discrepancy ranges from 40 to more than 100 orders of magnitude, a state of affairs described by Hobson et al. (2006) as "the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics." ' back

Dirac delta function - Wikipedia, Dirac delta function - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Dirac delta or Dirac's delta is a mathematical construct introduced by theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. Informally, it is a function representing an infinitely sharp peak bounding unit area: a function ?(x) that has the value zero everywhere except at x = 0 where its value is infinitely large in such a way that its total integral is 1. In the context of signal processing it is often referred to as the unit impulse function. Note that the Dirac delta is not strictly a function. While for many purposes it can be manipulated as such, formally it can be defined as a distribution that is also a measure.' back

Eigenvalues and eigenvectors - Wikipedia, Eigenvalues and eigenvectors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'An eigenvector of a square matrix A is a non-zero vector vthat, when the matrix multiplies yields a constant multiple of v, the latter multiplier being commonly denoted by λ. That is: Av = λv' back

(ε, δ)-definition of limit - Wikipedia, (ε, δ)-definition of limit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In calculus, the (ε, δ)-definition of limit ("epsilon-delta definition of limit") is a formalization of the notion of limit. It was first given by Bernard Bolzano in 1817. Augustin-Louis Cauchy never gave an (ε, δ) definition of limit in his Cours d'Analyse, but occasionally used ε, δ arguments in proofs. The definitive modern statement was ultimately provided by Karl Weierstrass.' back

Eugene Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, 'The first point is that the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and that there is no rational explanation for it. Second, it is just this uncanny usefulness of mathematical concepts that raises the question of the uniqueness of our physical theories.' back

Fourier analysis - Wikipedia, Fourier analysis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, Fourier analysis (English: /ˈfʊərieɪ/) is the study of the way general functions may be represented or approximated by sums of simpler trigonometric functions. Fourier analysis grew from the study of Fourier series, and is named after Joseph Fourier, who showed that representing a function as a sum of trigonometric functions greatly simplifies the study of heat transfer. Today, the subject of Fourier analysis encompasses a vast spectrum of mathematics. In the sciences and engineering, the process of decomposing a function into oscillatory components is often called Fourier analysis, while the operation of rebuilding the function from these pieces is known as Fourier synthesis.' back

Glenn Greenwald, CNN Submits to Right-Wing Outrage, Fires Marc Lamont Hill Due to His "Offensive" Defence of Palestinians at the U.N., ' CNN on Thursday afternoon fired its commentator, Temple University Professor Marc Lamont Hill, after right-wing defenders of Israel objected to a speech Professor Hill gave at the U.N. on Wednesday in defense of Palestinian rights. CNN announced the firing just twenty-four hours after Hill delivered his speech." back

Glorious Revolution - Wikipedia, Glorious Revolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England (James VII of Scotland) by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III, Prince of Orange, who was James's nephew and son-in-law. William's successful invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his ascension to the throne as William III of England jointly with his wife, Mary II, James's daughter, after the Declaration of Right, leading to the Bill of Rights 1689.' back

Greek tragedy - Wikipedia, Greek tragedy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Greek tragedy is a form of theatre from Ancient Greece and Asia Minor. It reached its most significant form in Athens in the 5th century BC, the works of which are sometimes called Attic tragedy. Greek tragedy is widely believed to be an extension of the ancient rites carried out in honor of Dionysus, and it heavily influenced the theatre of Ancient Rome and the Renaissance. Tragic plots were most often based upon myths from the oral traditions of archaic epics. In tragic theatre, however, these narratives were presented by actors. The most acclaimed Greek tragedians are Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.' back

Hamilton's principle - Wikipedia, Hamilton's principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, Hamilton's principle is William Rowan Hamilton's formulation of the principle of stationary action . . . It states that the dynamics of a physical system is determined by a variational problem for a functional based on a single function, the Lagrangian, which contains all physical information concerning the system and the forces acting on it.' back

Heart of Darkness - Wikipedia, Heart of Darkness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the so-called heart of Africa. Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and Africa as places of darkness. Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between so-called civilised people and those described as savages; Heart of Darkness raises questions about imperialism and racism.' back

Heraclitus - Wikipedia, Heraclitus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Heraclitus of Ephesus (Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος—Hērákleitos ho Ephésios; c. 535 – c. 475 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. . . . Heraclitus is famous for his insistence on ever-present change in the universe, as stated in his famous saying, "No man ever steps in the same river twice" (see panta rhei, below). He believed in the unity of opposites, stating that "the path up and down are one and the same", all existing entities being characterized by pairs of contrary properties. His cryptic utterance that "all entities come to be in accordance with this Logos" (literally, "word", "reason", or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations.' ' back

Jamie S. Farnes, A unifying theory of dark energy and dark matter: Negative masses and matter creation within a modified ΛCDM framework, ' Dark energy and dark matter constitute 95% of the observable Universe. Yet the physical nature of these two phenomena remains a mystery. Einstein suggested a long-forgotten solution: gravitationally repulsive negative masses, which drive cosmic expansion and cannot coalesce into light-emitting structures. However, contemporary cosmological results are derived upon the reasonable assumption that the Universe only contains positive masses. By reconsidering this assumption, I have constructed a toy model which suggests that both dark phenomena can be unified into a single negative mass fluid. The model is a modified ΛCDM cosmology, and indicates that continuously-created negative masses can resemble the cosmological constant and can flatten the rotation curves of galaxies. The model leads to a cyclic universe with a time-variable Hubble parameter, potentially providing compatibility with the current tension that is emerging in cosmological measurements. In the first three-dimensional N-body simulations of negative mass matter in the scientific literature, this exotic material naturally forms haloes around galaxies that extend to several galactic radii. These haloes are not cuspy. The proposed cosmological model is therefore able to predict the observed distribution of dark matter in galaxies from first principles. The model makes several testable predictions and seems to have the potential to be consistent with observational evidence from distant supernovae, the cosmic microwave background, and galaxy clusters. These findings may imply that negative masses are a real and physical aspect of our Universe, or alternatively may imply the existence of a superseding theory that in some limit can be modelled by effective negative masses. Both cases lead to the surprising conclusion that the compelling puzzle of the dark Universe may have been due to a simple sign error.' back

Jill Vaughan, Meet the remote indigenous community where a few thousand people use 15 different languages, 'On Australia’s remote north-central coast, the small community of Maningrida is remarkable for many reasons. It boasts dramatic coastal scenery, world-renowned bark and sculptural artists, skilled weavers and textile printers, and unique local wildlife. But Maningrida is extraordinary for another reason: it is one of the most linguistically diverse communities in the world, with 15 languages spoken or signed every day among only a couple of thousand people.' back

John Burnet, John Burnet's Early Greek Philosophy: chapter IV, Parmenides of Elea: 85: The Poem, back

John Locke - Wikipedia, John Locke - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' John Locke FRS (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.' back

Judy Maltz, 25 Years On, Would Spielberg's 'Schindler's List" Still Be a Hit if It Were Made Today?, Ash tends to believe, though, that a bigger factor in the film’s success was the fact it was based on such an unconventional character. “Here’s a man who was a Nazi, a hedonist, a profiteer, a man who loved women and booze,” she notes. “He just wasn’t the stereotypical, saintly rescuer. He shocks and surprises you. Sometimes the film has been criticized for focusing on a non-Jew – but I think that’s precisely what makes it so powerful. He’s a real human being, like the rest of us.” ' back

Karl Weierstrass - Wikipedia, Karl Weierstrass - Wikipedia. the free encyclopedia, 'Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (Weierstraß) (October 31, 1815 – February 19, 1897) was a German mathematician who is often cited as the "father of modern analysis".' back

Leopold Stubenberg (Standord Ecyclopedia of Phiosophy), Neutral Monism, ' Neutral monism is a monistic metaphysics. It holds that ultimate reality is all of one kind. To this extent neutral monism is in agreement with the more familiar versions of monism: idealism and materialism. What distinguishes neutral monism from its monistic rivals is the claim that the intrinsic nature of ultimate reality is neither mental nor physical. This negative claim also captures the idea of neutrality: being intrinsically neither mental nor physical in nature ultimate reality is said to be neutral between the two.' back

Louisa Lim and Julia Bergin, Inside China's audacious global propaganda campaign, ' For western journalists, demoralised by endless budget cuts, China Global Television Network presents an enticing prospect, offering competitive salaries to work in state-of-the-art purpose-built studios in Chiswick, west London. CGTN – as the international arm of China Central Television (CCTV) was rebranded in 2016 – is the most high-profile component of China’s rapid media expansion across the world, whose goal, in the words of President Xi Jinping, is to “tell China’s story well”. In practice, telling China’s story well looks a lot like serving the ideological aims of the state.' back

Moriah Balingit, Does 'In God We Trust' belong in schools? More and more states say yes., ' God “is the light. And our schools need light in them like never before,” the Jacksonville Democrat said Feb. 21. “It is not a secret that we have some gun issues that need to be addressed. But the real thing that needs to be addressed are issues of the heart.” Her proposal? Ensuring every Florida public school student is educated in a building where “In God We Trust” — the national and Florida state motto — is prominently posted. The bill passed and was signed into law.' back

On Denoting, On Denoting - Wikisource, ' By a 'denoting phrase' I mean a phrase such as any one of the following: a man, some man, any man, every man, all men, the present King of England, the present King of France, the center of mass of the solar system at the first instant of the twentieth century, the revolution of the earth round the sun, the revolution of the sun round the earth. Thus a phrase is denoting solely in virtue of its form.'
Originally printed in Mind, new series, 14 (1905): 479--493; text from Logic and Knowledge, ed. Robert Marsh, 1956. back

Parmenides - Wikipedia, Parmenides - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Parmenides of Elea (early 5th century BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, his only known work is a poem which has survived only in fragmentary form. In it, Parmenides describes two views of reality. In the Way of Truth, he explained how reality is one; change is impossible; and existence is timeless, uniform, and unchanging. In the Way of Opinion, he explained the world of appearances, which is false and deceitful. These thoughts strongly influenced Plato, and through him, the whole of western philosophy.' back

Paul Duggan, Sins of the Fathers, ' By spending time with Frank Earnest], I thought I might learn something about the persistence of monument defenders and the origins of their beliefs, which many Americans (me included) regard as offensive nonsense. In 2018, against all moral logic, why do Confederate sympathizers cling to debunked nostalgia? And can their attitudes be changed or tempered — in a museum or elsewhere — by evidence and facts? back

Paul Halsall, De Ente et Essentia, English Text: 'This translation follows the Leonine Edition of Aquinas' works, vol. 43 Sancti Thomae De Aquino Opera Omnia 368-381 (Rome 1976).: Prologue: A small error at the outset can lead to great errors in the final conclusions, as the Philosopher says in I De Caelo et Mundo cap. 5 (271b8-13), and thus, since being and essence are the things first conceived of by the intellect, as Avicenna says in Metaphysicae I, cap. 6, in order to avoid errors arising from ignorance about these two things, we should resolve the difficulties surrounding them by explaining what the terms being and essence each signify and by showing how each may be found in various things and how each is related to the logical intentions of genus, species, and difference.' back

Pep Candeli, Corinne le Quere, Glen Peters, Robbie Andrew and Rob Jackson, Carbon emissions will reach 37 billion tonnes in 2018 a record high, ' Strong energy demand is behind the rise in emissions growth, which is outpacing the speed at which decarbonisation of the energy system is taking place. Total energy consumption around the world increased by one sixth over the past decade, the result of a growing global middle class and the need to provide electricity to hundreds of millions of people living in poverty.' back

Plato - Wikipedia, Plato - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Plato (. . . Greek: . . . Plátōn, "broad" 428/427 BC – 348/347 BC), was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of natural philosophy, science, and Western philosophy. Plato was originally a student of Socrates, and was as much influenced by his thinking as by what he saw as his teacher's unjust death.' back

Pope Innocent III, The papal bull annulling Magna Carta, 'As overlord of the kingdom, and protector of a king who had taken a crusader’s vow, Innocent III had already sent a string of letters to England berating the barons. Now he explained how, ‘by such violence and fear as might affect the most courageous of men’, they had forced John to accept an agreement ‘illegal, unjust, harmful to royal rights and shameful to the English people’. The Pope declared Magna Carta ‘null, and void of all validity for ever’, a judgement which reached England the following month.' back

Pope Innocent III - Wikipedia, Pope Innocent III - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Pope Innocent III (1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni . . . reigned from 8 January 1198 to his death in 1216. Pope Innocent was one of the most powerful and influential of the medieval popes. He exerted a wide influence over the Christian states of Europe, claiming supremacy over all of Europe's kings. He was central in supporting the Catholic Church's reforms of ecclesiastical affairs through his decretals and the Fourth Lateran Council.' back

Protestant Reformation - Wikipedia, Protestant Reformation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to ("protested") the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led to the creation of new national Protestant churches. The Reformation was precipitated by earlier events within Europe, such as the Black Death and the Western Schism, which eroded people's faith in the Roman Catholic Church. This, as well as many other factors, contributed to the growth of lay criticism in the church and the creation of Protestantism.' back

Reginald T Cahill, Christopher M Klinger and Kirsty Kitto, Process Physics: Modelling Reality as Self-Organizing Information, ' The new Process Physics models reality as self-organising relational information and takes account of the limitations of logic, discovered by Godel and extended by Chaitin, by using the concept of self-referential noise. Space and quantum physics are emergent and unified, and described by a Quantum Homotopic Field Theory of fractal topological defects embedded in a three-dimensional fractal process-space.' back

Rudolf Carnap - Wikipedia, Rudolf Carnap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Rudolf Carnap (/ˈkɑːrnæp/;[15] German: [ˈkaɐ̯naːp]; May 18, 1891 – September 14, 1970) was a German-born philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. He is considered "one of the giants among twentieth-century philosophers." ' back

Schindler's Ark - Wikipedia, Schindler's Ark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Schindler's Ark (released in America as Schindler's List) is a Booker Prize-winning historical fiction novel published in 1982 by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally, which was later adapted into the highly successful movie Schindler's List directed by Steven Spielberg. The United States version of the book was called Schindler's List from the beginning; it was later reissued in Commonwealth countries under that name as well. The novel was also awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction in 1983.' back

Steven Hall, Explainer: What is modern monetary theory?, 'There are three core statements at the heart of modern monetary theory. 1) Monetary sovereign governments face no purely financial budget constraints. 2) All economies, and all governments, face real and ecological limits relating to what can be produced and consumed. 3) The government’s financial deficit is everybody else’s financial surplus. ' back

The Trojan Women - Wikipedia, The Trojan Women - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Trojan Women (Ancient Greek: Τρῳάδες, Trōiades), also known by its Latin title Troades, is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. Produced in 415 BC during the Peloponnesian War, it is often considered a commentary on the capture of the Aegean island of Melos and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians earlier that year (see History of Milos).[1] 415 BC was also the year of the scandalous desecration of the hermai and the Athenians' second expedition to Sicily, events which may also have influenced the author. back

Tom Scott, Why the Government Shouldn't Break WhatsApp, 'Encryption backdoors - breaking WhatsApp and iMessage's security to let the government stop Bad Things - sounds like a reasonable idea. Here's why it isn't. A transcript of this video's available here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/tom-sc... CREDITS: Filmed at the Cambridge Centre for Computing History: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/ Camera by Tomek: https://www.youtube.com/tomek Thanks to everyone who helped proofread my script!' back

W. F. McGrew et al, Atomic clock performance enabling geodesy below the centimetre level, ' The passage of time is tracked by counting oscillations of a frequency reference, such as Earth’s revolutions or swings of a pendulum. By referencing atomic transitions, frequency (and thus time) can be measured more precisely than any other physical quantity, with the current generation of optical atomic clocks reporting fractional performance below the 10−17 level. However, the theory of relativity prescribes that the passage of time is not absolute, but is affected by an observer’s reference frame. Consequently, clock measurements exhibit sensitivity to relative velocity, acceleration and gravity potential. Here we demonstrate local optical clock measurements that surpass the current ability to account for the gravitational distortion of space-time across the surface of Earth. In two independent ytterbium optical lattice clocks, we demonstrate unprecedented values of three fundamental benchmarks of clock performance. In units of the clock frequency, we report systematic uncertainty of 1.4 × 10−18, measurement instability of 3.2 × 10−19 and reproducibility characterized by ten blinded frequency comparisons, yielding a frequency difference of [−7 ± (5)stat ± (8)sys] × 10−19, where ‘stat’ and ‘sys’ indicate statistical and systematic uncertainty, respectively. Although sensitivity to differences in gravity potential could degrade the performance of the clocks as terrestrial standards of time, this same sensitivity can be used as a very sensitive probe of geopotential. Near the surface of Earth, clock comparisons at the 1 × 10−18 level provide a resolution of one centimetre along the direction of gravity, so the performance of these clocks should enable geodesy beyond the state-of-the-art level. These optical clocks could further be used to explore geophysical phenomena, detect gravitational waves, test general relativity and search for dark matter.' back

Zahra Zsuzsanna Stardust, Sexual cultures ar collateral damage in Tumblr's ban on adult content, ' The social networking and microblogging site Tumblr announced on Monday that from December 17 it will no longer host adult content on its platform. . . . But the move will affect more than just porn. Over time, Tumblr has become a haven for fanfiction writers, artists, sex workers, kinksters and independent porn producers who have built subcultural community networks by sharing and discussing their user-generated content.' back

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