vol VII: Notes

1999

Notes

[Notebook MA, DB 51]

[Sunday 25 July 1999 - Saturday 31 July 1999]

Sunday 25 July 1999

[page 183]

Monday 26 July 1999

. . .

On error and evil: the role of formalism in the guidance of the world; with reference to land rights and computer networks.

Land rights and computer networks are two poles fixing an explanatory coordinate system.

COMPUTER NETWORK = implementation of mathematics
LAND RIGHTS = right to a living space for all who are born.

[page 184]

Eventually we will return to breeding to fulfill slots preassigned in the group breeding plan? No, but we need to stabilize population.

. . .

[page 186]

Religion has a role in the development of humanity comparable to that of DNA. So we can see religion as the total download, as assimilated by an individual from its environment.

LABELLING = MAPPING - MAP OBJECTS TO LABELS

OBJECT: named and manipulatable

The basis insight is that the existence of quantum computers gives us a very general handle on how the place works, since the results of mathematics become directly applicable.

Temperance: environmentalism? Prudence? Justice, Fortitude. . . . biological development of the virtues.

. . .

Tuesday 27 July 1999

[page 187]

Wednesday 28 July 1999

. . . Galileo realized . . . human documents are all secondary sources insofar as they touch on the observable elements of nature.

. . .

[page 190]

. . .

COMMUNICATION = OVERLAP

Thursday 29 July 1999

Friday 30 July 1999

The sovereign and the powers of the sovereign are fictions created in the image of god, and god itself is a fiction (model) of human creation.

Are fictions real? eg atoms, genes.

Jesus as a nucleus of condensation. . . .

[page 192]

Central idea: evolution is a recursive interplay of form and action. . . .

David Lodge: Art of Fiction . . . '. . . the artist . . . persuades us to share a certain view of the world for the duration of the reading experience.'

Origin of the mind in the discernment of Character, a model used to predict the output of the persona for given inputs.

[page 193]

Fiction = meaning

Mathematics allows all meanings and no meaning.

Map: work of fiction: created world in me. One author, different in every reader, but has a certain quality, interst, authenticity etc etc to make it reproduce itself in many human minds.

A BOOK = FICTION = VIRUS. Needs a mind to reproduce. So we may model

academia

Fiction vs infallibility

Infallibility itself is a fiction . . . Vatican Council: Infallibility: a heartening one but one which can only be tested against reality - speaks only of invisible things.

. . .

Saturday 31 July 1999

Copyright:

You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.

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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!)

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

Feynman, Richard P, and Robert B Leighton, Matthew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (volume 3) : Quantum Mechanics, Addison Wesley 1970 Foreword: 'This set of lectures tries to elucidate from the beginning those features of quantum mechanics which are the most basic and the most general. ... In each instance the ideas are introduced together with a detailed discussion of some specific examples - to try to make the physical ideas as real as possible.' Matthew Sands  Amazon   back

Feynman, Richard, QED: The Strange Story of Light and Matter, Princeton UP 1988 Jacket: 'Quantum electrodynamics - or QED for short - is the 'strange theory' that explains how light and electrons interact. Thanks to Richard Feynmann and his colleagues, it is also one of the rare parts of physics that is known for sure, a theory that has stood the test of time. ... In this beautifully lucid set of lectures he provides a definitive introduction to QED.'  Amazon   back

Fortun, Mike, and Herbert J Bernstein, Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First Century, Counterpoint 1998 Amazon editorial review: 'Does science discover truths or create them? Does dioxin cause cancer or not? Is corporate-sponsored research valid or not? Although these questions reflect the way we're used to thinking, maybe they're not the best way to approach science and its place in our culture. Physicist Herbert J. Bernstein and science historian Mike Fortun, both of the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies (ISIS), suggest a third way of seeing, beyond taking one side or another, in Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the 21st Century. While they deal with weighty issues and encourage us to completely rethink our beliefs about science and truth, they do so with such grace and humor that we follow with ease discussions of toxic-waste disposal, the Human Genome Project, and retooling our language to better fit the way science is actually done.'  Amazon   back

Moravia, Alberto, The Woman of Rome, Zoland Books 1999 Product Description 'THE GLITTER AND CYNICISM of Rome under Mussolini provide the background of what is probably Alberto Moravia’s best and best-known novel — The Woman of Rome. It’s the story of Adriana, a simple girl with no fortune but her beauty who models naked for a painter, accepts gifts from men, and could never quite identify the moment when she traded her private dream of home and children for the life of a prostitute. One of the very few novels of the twentieth century which can be ranked with the work of Dostoevsky, The Woman of Rome also tells the stories of the tortured university student Giacomo, a failed revolutionary who refuses to admit his love for Adriana; of the sinister figure of Astarita, the Secret Police officer obsessed with Adriana; and of the coarse and brutal criminal Sonzogno, who treats Adriana as his private property. Within this story of passion and betrayal, Moravia calmly strips away the pride and arrogance hiding the corrupt heart of Italian Fascism.'  Amazon   back

Popper, Karl Raimund, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1972 Preface: 'The way in which knowledge progresses, and expecially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests.' [p viii]   Amazon   back

Russell, Bertrand, A History of Western Philosophy, and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from Earliest Times to the Present Day, Simon & Schuster 1945 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

Links

Roy Sorensen, Nothingness (Standord Encyclopedia of Philosophy), 'Since metaphysics is the study of what exists, one might expect metaphysicians to have little to say about the limit case in which nothing exists. But ever since Parmenides in the fifth century BCE, there has been rich commentary on whether an empty world is possible, whether there are vacuums, and about the nature of privations and negation. This survey starts with nothingness at a global scale and then explores local pockets of nothingness. Let's begin with a question that Martin Heidegger famously characterized as the most fundamental issue of philosophy. 1. Why is there something rather than nothing?' back