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Notes

Sunday 11 July 2021 - Saturday 17 July 2021

[Notebook: DB 86: Hilbert / Minkowski]

[page 283]

Sunday 11 July 2021

Every particle embeds a quantum of action and is an agent.

The heuristic of simplicity applies to the traditional god and the unutual singularity. Itd power fades somewhat in modern physics where the world us very much more complec but the fundamental summetries are still there.

The best part of my youth, my life, was infested with Catholic fakery.

[page 284]

E = hf can go from simple scalar to matrix equation with countable or possibly even transfinite dimension by tensor product and linear superposition.

It makes no sense (ie does not get us anywhere) to utter the tautology spacelike separated states commute because they have no causal connection, but may be entangled if they were once together.

So let us begin with a Hilbert space whose vectors are distinguished by frequency giving us a random vacuum and automatic differentiation into bosons and fermions depending whether the phases are adding (superposing) symmetrically or antisymmetrically, given that superposition is not to much a wave phenomenon at this level but binary.

Planning involves violence, enforced symmetry, [variety reduction] as we saw in Soviet Russia and is obvious when we compare houses to some garden jungles. Opposed to organic growth which is naturally complex, the tangled bank.

Potential / power / dynamism have diametrically opposed meanings, ie effective power vs inability to move themselves. First step is God, actus purus but act is also potential in modern physics.

Ariastotle had to propose passive potential in order to bring the forms down to

[page 285]

Earth. Plausible errors can last a long time.

Monday 12 July 2021

Big disappointment last night. Could not make my quantum mechanical Ansatz work. So sad the universe does not seem to fit with my plans, although slight semantic progress when I realize the identity of action and potential in the quantum of action, to be split into gravitational potential and kinetic energy which between them are led on by the entropic / Cantor force to complexify the universe. The trick seems to be to keep everything as formal / abstract as possible, which is both a source of progress and a source of error when we have indeterminate semantics, as we can see with Aristotle / Aquinas assumption that potential ≡ passive. So maybe I live to fight another day and have to include entropy in my principles in e28_creating_world. Entropy both increases randomness and increase control through the computer network implementation of the P versus NP idea. The random process can reach places where a deterministic Turing machine cannot go characterized by the NP class of problems, but many of these result are open to checking by Turing machines and so can become stable structures in the universe. What we want now is to couple this idea to the spin / statistics / velocity of light question which is the bit of my Ansatz that I love, the transition from Hilbert to Minkowski space. What this amounts to is that I have still got a lot of ideas which might save my Ansatz, I just have to remember what they all are. So I go from dead end to exciting challenge, a characteristic of human / network mentality and the ubiquity of creation vs impossible odds observed in History.

[page 286]

Tuesday 13 July 2021

Slowly emerging into the light in chapter 6 of scientific theology by completing e30_cognitive cosmology which sets out to show that the quantum mechanics life of the universe is analogous to the neural processes in our brains which endow us with mind, and so we can provide substance to Davies' idea that we are exploring the mind of God. One pleasure of this task is to see that what I have written makes good sense and all the little bits and pieces which I have assembled from Einstein, Gödel, Turing, von Neumann, Shannon, Ashby, Chaitin et al are slowly falling into a unified picture which serves as an update to Aristotle and Aquinas.

Slowly getting the text of cognitive cosmology into line but the emphasis on quantum theory is outweighing the cognitive. The point I seek to make is that in our minds the firing of neurons is managed by the superposition of positive and negative inputs from synapses being integrated onto a time window to control the firing of the axon which then distributes its output to other neurons. Initial inputs come from the sensors, final outputs go to executors like muscles and secretory cells, and the whole system is aware of itself by propriosensory feedback and aware of the world by input from outward looking sensors. How do we incorporate this into a quantum mechanical model of the universe? I am working hard on the quantum mechanical background but the cognitive application is falling behind. Tomorrow revise.

I do think I have always been pretty relaxed about theological belief probably because I have been certain that [the hypothesis underlying] Catholic theology is largely

[page 287]

a politically motivated dream since my mid 20s about fifty years ago. Nevertheless I have worked quite hard throughout this period to make my case to myself and I gave continually upped the ante, coming at last to the confrontation between god and quantum mechanics which I see as reminiscent of the work of Aristotle 2350 years ago. Then he knew almost no physics. Now we know almost too much but I am making my way through the woods and hope to get to the light in the end. As I repeat to myself regularly, there can be no doubt that the universe is divine so that there can be no doubt that there are divine fingerprints in physics and my favourite candidate is the quantum of action. It is a quantum because it is complete, like a Cantorian set holding an endless sequence of transfinite numbers inside.

Wednesday 14 July 2021

I was brought up in the Catholic dream and now I am working on a scientific dream of my own, convinced that both physics and theology need major overhauls to become compatible. Very Quixotic but it seems to be the groove I am in and I feel comfortable to follow it to the end of my life, listening to the music it plays to me as I go on, each number encoded as a day of writing essay, book or website. I am leading a comfortable existence in a world infused with panic because I have faith that my scientific god will prevail over all those coal powered unbelievers who stick to old ideas. We have to correct the cultural evils of the past and avoid the foreseeable evils of the future .

[page 288]

Plato invented formalism. Aristotle criticised it because it was not self motivated and proposed the unmoved mover. We start here with the mathematical community which motivates the forms of mathematics, then we go to quantum mechanics as the formal description of the world. Here it is the real world that plays the role of the mover through the quantum of action, The potential is formal, the motion actual. This explains the way gravitation works. It is the divine mystery that provides the pure action. We replace matter and form with form and energy. Here the love cuts in. God is love. What motivates me? The forms which I can create.

The body avoids pain, but the form of the prize [leads me on]. My whole story is about me.

Kon Ichikawa Kon Ichikawa

Leni Riefenstahl Leni Riefenstahl: Olympia - Festival of Nations

Thursday 15 July 2021

One of the characteristics of two-year-olds is to demand attention: "lo0k at me". The internet has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that this trait is endemic in humans of all ages. One role of adults seems to have been to suppress this trait, expressed by the dictum 'children should be see and not heard'. In many ways I have succumbed to this dictum and so kept my mouth shut for 74 years. It is true that my early

[page 289]

20s I argued long and hard with the Master of Studies in the Dominican Monastery in Canberra that my view that the world is divine makes a lot of sense, but I had no chance against the Magisterium of the Church and did not really go back to thinking seriously about this idea again until my 40s and published a series of lectured in 2BOB Radio stating my position and have worked to consolidate it ever since. I am now beginning to feel that the time is approaching to release my inner two-year-old and get people to look at my story. The medium must be the book, Scientific Theology which is now my de facto PhD thesis which coming 4 years after I completed my honouyrs in 2019 must be complete and published by 2023.

Friday 16 July 2021
Saturday 10 July 2020

A plan: when e30_cognitive-cosmology is complete circulate it to 100 each of university departments of theology, physics and philosophy chosen from some top university list, seeking to do a PhD [as if!].

Copyright:

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Further reading

Books

Currie, Edwina, A Parliamentary Affair, Hodder and Stoughton: Coronet 1994 Jacket: 'Value for money . . . Currie recounts the vicissitudes of a whole gallery of characters. The book is permeated by (entirely justified) complaints against the barriers encountered by women in parliament: a male MP could not hope to get away with writing a novel like A PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIR' Gerald Kauffman The Times 
Amazon
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Dawkins, Richard, Climbing Mount Improbable, W. W. Norton & Company 1997 Amazon editorial review: 'How do species evolve? Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most eminent zoologists, likens the process to scaling a huge, Himalaya-size peak, the Mount Improbable of his title. An alpinist does not leap from sea level to the summit; neither does a species utterly change forms overnight, but instead follows a course of "slow, cumulative, one-step-at-a-time, non-random survival of random variants" -- a course that Charles Darwin, Dawkins's great hero, called natural selection. Illustrating his arguments with case studies from the natural world, such as the evolution of the eye and the lung, and the coevolution of certain kinds of figs and wasps, Dawkins provides a vigorous, entertaining defense of key Darwinian ideas.' 
Amazon
  back

Heinlein, Robert A, Stranger in a Strange Land, New English Library: Hodder and Stoughton 1985 'Stranger in a Strange Land, winner of the 1962 Hugo Award, is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, born during, and the only survivor of, the first manned mission to Mars. Michael is raised by Martians, and he arrives on Earth as a true innocent: he has never seen a woman and has no knowledge of Earth's cultures or religions. But he brings turmoil with him, as he is the legal heir to an enormous financial empire, not to mention de facto owner of the planet Mars. With the irascible popular author Jubal Harshaw to protect him, Michael explores human morality and the meanings of love. He founds his own church, preaching free love and disseminating the psychic talents taught him by the Martians. Ultimately, he confronts the fate reserved for all messiahs. The impact of Stranger in a Strange Land was considerable, leading many children of the 60's to set up households based on Michael's water-brother nests. Heinlein loved to pontificate through the mouths of his characters, so modern readers must be willing to overlook the occasional sour note ("Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault."). That aside, Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the master's best entertainments, provocative as he always loved to be. Can you grok it? --Brooks Peck' 
Amazon
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Khinchin, Aleksandr Yakovlevich, The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Statistics, Dover 1998 'In the area of quantum statistics, I show that a rigorous mathematical basis of the computational formulas of statistical physics . . . may be obtained from an elementary application of the well-developed limit theorems of the theory of probability.' 
Amazon
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Lonergan, Bernard J F, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan : Volume 3), University of Toronto Press 1992 '. . . Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. Its aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, an understanding of understanding' 
Amazon
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Melville, Herman, and Robert Milder (editor), Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales (Oxford Worlds Classics), Oxford University Press 2009 Product Description 'Billy Budd is among the greatest of Melville's works and, in its richness and ambiguity, among the most problematic. Outwardly a compelling narrative of events aboard a British man-of-war during the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars, Billy Budd, Sailor is a nautical recasting of the Fall, a parable of good and evil, a meditation on justice and political governance, and a searching portrait of three extraordinary men. In this edition are also eight shorter tales, reprinted from the most authoritative recent editions and are supplemented by a penetrating introduction and full notes.' 
Amazon
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Nichols, Peter, The Pope's Divisions: The Roman Catholic Church Today, Henry Holt & Co ISBN-13: 978-0030475764 1984 Jacket: 'About eighteen percent of the world's population is Roman Catholic, and there is no bigger or more influential religious body that the Catholic Church. . . . Rome correspondent of The Times of London for more than twenty years, sympathetic to the Church although not himself a Catholic, Peter Nichols is closely familiar with the Curia and its functionaries and an absorbed observer of recent Popes and Papal elections. ... ' 
Amazon
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Pauly, Daniel, Darwin's Fishes: An Encyclopaedia of Ichthyology, Ecology and Evolution, Cambridge University Press 2004 Amazon Book Description: 'Presenting everything Charles Darwin ever wrote about fishes and many more topics, the entries in this encyclopedia are arranged alphabetically and extracted from Darwin's books, short publications, notebooks and correspondence. Readers can start wherever they like and are then led by a series of cross-references directly or indirectly to Darwin's original writings. The material is interpreted in the context of Darwin's time as well as of contemporary biology.'  
Amazon
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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.'  
Amazon
  back

Scott, Robert A, Miracle Cures: Saints, Pilgrimages and the Healing Powers of Belief, University of California Press 2010 'Product Description Iconic images of medieval pilgrims, such as Chaucer's making their laborious way to Canterbury, conjure a distant time when faith was the only refuge of the ill and infirm, and thousands traveled great distances to pray for healing. Why, then, in an age of advanced biotechnology and medicine, do millions still go on pilgrimages? Why do journeys to important religious shrines--such as Lourdes, Compostela, Fátima, and Medjugorje--constitute a major industry? In Miracle Cures, Robert A. Scott explores these provocative questions and finds that pilgrimage continues to offer answers for many. Its benefits can range from a demonstrable improvement in health to complete recovery. Using research in biomedical and behavioral science, Scott examines accounts of miracle cures at medieval, early modern, and contemporary shrines. He inquires into the power of relics, apparitions, and the transformative nature of sacred journeying and shines new light on the roles belief, hope, and emotion can play in healing.' 
Amazon
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Spong, John Shelby, Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile., HarperCollinsPublishers 1998 Jacket: 'Spong demolishes the stifling dogma of traditional Christianity in search of the inner core of truth. It is a courageous, passionate attempt to build a credible theology for a skeptical, scientific age.' Paul Davies. 
Amazon
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Papers

Jones, Dan, "A WEIRD View of Human Nature Skews Psychologist's Studies", Science, 328, 5986, 25 June 2010, page 1627. '. . . although undergrads from wealthy nations are numerous and willing subjects, psychologists are beginning to realize that they have a drawback: They are WEIRDos. That is, they are people from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic cultures. In a provocative review paper published online in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) last week, anthropologist Joseph Henrich and psychologists Steven Heine and Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia in Canada argue that WEIRDos aren't representative of humans as a whole and that psychologists routinely use them to make broad, and quite likely false, claims about what drives human behavior.'. back

Sternberg, Esther M, "Paths Out of Illness via Faith", Science, 328, 5986, 25 June 2010, page 1636-1637. Review of Miracle Cures: Saints, Pilgrimages and the Healing Powers of Belief by Robert A Scott.. back

Links

America Magazine, 'America' on the Abuse Crisis, 'From the Boston Globe's first reports of episcopal cover-up in 2002, through the sexual abuse crisis roiling the church in Europe today, America has provided balanced and thoughful commentary on the unfolding events. Here is a selection of our coverage from the last ten years. back

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada, Catholic Press Association, 'Founded in 1911, the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada offers all who work in the Catholic media field the opportunity to be part of something bigger than their own communication vehicle. With more than 600 member organizations, the CPA reaches over 26 million people, giving voice to the church and witness to the presence of God in the 21st century. back

Eternal sin - Wikipedia, Eternal sin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Eternal sins or unforgivable sins or unpardonable sins are part of Christian hamartiology, which is the Christian theology of sins. These are sins which will not be forgiven by God whereby salvation becomes impossible. One eternal or unforgiveable sin is specified in several passages of the Synoptic Gospels.[1] Verse 29 in Mark 3 states that there is one sin considered "eternal" and that is "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit"; however this verse is rarely taken literally except by biblical literalists. Some other sins that are sometimes considered eternal or unforgivable include impenitence (refusing to accept the Mercy of God by repenting) as in the Catholic Catechism #1864 or ascribing the work of the Holy Spirit to the Devil.' back

Gideon Levy, Opinion | Damn Them All , ' Damn all those who are partner to this sadistic decision not to release Khalida Jarrar from prison to attend her daughter’s funeral. Damn this new government, which presumed to herald a change, and none of whose ministers acted to oppose the evil institutions that decided to leave Jarrar in prison.' back

Isaiah Berlin, Positive versus Negative Liberty, From Two Concepts of Liberty, a lecture delivered in 1958 at Oxford University] 'One belief, more than any other, is responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the altars of the great historical ideals -- justice or progress or the happiness of future generations, or the sacred mission of emancipation of a nation or race or class, or even liberty itself, which demands the sacrifice of individuals for the freedom of society. This is the belief that somewhere, in the past or in the future, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker, in the pronouncements of history or science, or in the simple heart of an uncorrupted good man, there is a final solution.' back

James J Fox, Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) / Good, ' . . . The moral good (bonum honestum) consists in the due ordering of free action or conduct according to the norm of reason, the highest faculty, to which it is to conform. This is the good which determines the true valuation of all other goods sought by the activities which make up conduct. Any lower good acquired to the detriment of this one is really but a loss (bonum apparens). While all other kinds of good may, in turn, be viewed as means, themorla good is good as an end and is not a mere means to other goods. . . . ' back

Kon Ichikawa, Tokyo 1964 Official Film | Tokyo Olympiad , 'The 1964 Tokyo Games were the first to be held in Asia. The carrier of the flame, Yoshinori Sakai, was chosen because he was born on 6 August 1945, the day the atomic bomb exploded in Hiroshima, in homage to the victims and as a call for world peace.' back

Leni Riefenstahl, Olympia - Festival of Nations, ' Olympia is a 1938 German documentary film written, directed and produced by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. The film was released in two parts: Olympia 1. Teil — Fest der Völker (Festival of Nations) and Olympia 2. Teil — Fest der Schönheit (Festival of Beauty). It was the first documentary feature film of the Olympic Games ever made. Many advanced motion picture techniques, which later became industry standards but which were groundbreaking at the time, were employed —including unusual camera angles, smash cuts, extreme close-ups, placing tracking shot rails within the bleachers, and the like. The techniques employed are almost universally admired, but the film is controversial due to its political context.' back

Michael Idato, Forget every film you’ve seen before. Nine Days changes everything, ' When the film premiered last year at the Sundance Film Festival, it drew wide acclaim for both its ambition and execution. Variety chief film critic, Peter Debruge, wrote: “At the risk of over-selling Edson Oda’s ultra-original, meaning-of-life directorial debut, there’s a big difference between Nine Days and pretty much every other film ever made".' back

Michael Standaert, Why are China’s billionaires suddenly feeling so generous?, ' With over 1,058 billionaires, according to 2021 Hurun Global Rich List data released earlier this year, China now has more ultra-wealthy than any other country on Earth – including capitalist bastion the United States. That wealth surge has Beijing increasingly concerned that the gap between rich and poor could become a problem for Communist Party rule, whether in perception or reality or both. . . . “I think income disparity is a big concern for the elites but there will always be things that override that because ultimately income disparity itself is not the problem, really; the problem is what the income disparity produces,” said Tom Cliff, a senior lecturer at Australian National University who has studied of business elites in China.' back

Oneida Community - Wikipedia, Oneida Community - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Oneida Community was a utopian commune founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. The community believed that Jesus Christ had already returned in the year 70, making it possible for them to bring about Christ's millennial kingdom themselves, and be free of sin and perfect in this world, not just Heaven (a belief called Perfectionism).' back

Philip C. Almond, Friday essay: Satan is back (again) — the Devil in 5 dark details , back

Pride - Wikipedia, Pride - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Pride is, depending on the interactional and cultural context, either a high sense of one's personal status (i.e., leading to judgements of personality and character) or the specific mostly positive emotion that is a product of praise or independent self-reflection. Philosophers and social psychologists have noted that pride is a complex secondary emotion which requires the development of a sense of self and the mastery of relevant conceptual distinctions (e.g., that pride is distinct from happiness and joy) through language-based interaction with others[1]. Some social psychologists identify it as linked to a signal of high social status.[2] One definition of pride in the first sense comes from St. Augustine: "the love of one's own excellence".[3] In this sense, the opposite of pride is humility. Pride is sometimes viewed as excessive or as a vice, sometimes as proper or as a virtue. While some philosophers such as Aristotle (and George Bernard Shaw) consider pride a profound virtue, most world religions consider it a sin.' back

S-L-M - Wikipedia, S-L-M - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Shin-Lamedh-Mem (Arabic: س ل م‎ S-L-M; Hebrew: שלם‎ Š-L-M; Maltese: S-L-M) is the triconsonantal root of many Semitic words, and many of those words are used as names. The root itself translates as "whole, safe, intact"' back

The Gates of Hell - Wikipedia, The Gates of Hell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Gates of Hell (French: ''La Porte de l'Enfer'') is a monumental sculptural group work by French artist Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from "The Inferno", the first section of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. It stands at 6 m high, 4 m wide and 1 m deep (19.69'H × 13.12'W × 3.29'D) and contains 180 figures. The figures range from 15 cm high up to more than one metre. Several of the figures were also cast independently by Rodin.' back

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Office of the General Counsel, 'The Office of General Counsel acts as the source of legal advice to the USCCB and its Committees. It also supports the work of diocesan attorneys, State Catholic Conferences, and other national, regional, and local Catholic entities by providing uniform assistance on constitutional, tax, (including the administration of the Group Ruling), litigation and other matters. OGC attorneys have special expertise in tax exemption and associated lobbying and political activity restrictions, Church-related social security and pension plan issues, immigration, international aspects of Church interests, education, civil rights, pro-life, and communications. These areas are practiced in the context of church-state relations, and with particular attention to their impact on not-for-profit entities. OGC assists the USCCB in its legislative activities (by analyzing and drafting legislation, and preparing testimony), and participates in rulemaking and other federal agency proceedings. OGC also represents USCCB in litigation as a party or as amicus curiae and coordinates and supports the efforts of diocesan counsel in matters potentially affecting the Church. OGC attorneys also publish scholarly works and engage in public speaking on issues of law and policy. Finally, OGC provides a framework for direct information, a series of regional consultations with these attorneys, and a national meeting for continuing education and discussion on the legal affairs of the Church.' back

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