Notes
[Notebook Turkey, DB 55]
[Sunday 9 march 2003 - Saturday 15 March 2003]
[page 159]
Sunday 9 march 2003
Monday 10 March 2003
Tuesday 11 March 2003
Wednesday 12 March 2003
Thursday 13 March 2003
Hilbert space is a function space. We generate the second
transfinite number (ℵ1) by considering all the functions
(permutations) of sets of cardinal number ℵ0 onto themselves.
Each permutation is a one-one function, eg 1 -> 2, 2 -> 3, 3
-> 4, etc) which can be represented by a point in an ℵ0
dimensional Hilbert space. Eg let ℵ0 = 2 (where 2 is the
machine infinity, then we have the points 1 -> 1 and 2 -> 2
(the identity function) or 1 -> 2, 2_->1, the other function.
H space is a space normed by integration (flattening) of
functions, ie by establishing a flattened communication channel
between the various functions in the space [through which they are
transformed into one another]. The inner product in a discrete space
is equivalent to the integral in a continuous space.
Friday 14 March 2003
Sophie's
World. Gaarder.
page 4: Who are you? . . .
Darwin introduced the 'relativity of structure; which is analogous
to Einstein's relativity in spacetime.
[page 160]
6: Fiction -> dramatization -> impedance matching (to human
input channels)
8: always existed = symmetrical with respect to time = eternal
(conservation of energy) . . .
12: 'But there is something else . . . that everyone needs, and that
is to figure out who we are and why we are here.'
19: The myths. All explanations are in fact fictions created in
whatever language is available to the source. How things are
distinguished is by their conformity to reality, the more precise the
conformity, the 'truer' the fiction. So the stealing of Thor's hammer
and the giant's demand for Freya as wife. The day is saved by
trickery, Thor dressed as Freya. Rather fart fetched. But then in
many stories the goodies usually need a far fetched remedy (like the
Redemption) to overcome the Baddies.
22: Myth (= explanation, science) -> action (prayer, magic,
technology)
23 Writing -> discussion? Are not oral traditions 'discussed'
by the creativity of the poets, suiting old stories to an audience,
time and place.
How to we distinguish supernatural from natural? The Gods were a
cybernetic model of the functioning of the world. Thor saved Freya
<--> E = mc2.
24: "She understood that people have always felt the need to
explain the processes of nature. Perhaps they could not live without
such explanations. And that they made up all those myths in the time
before there was anything called science" [Myths are fiction, but
they do correspond to features of reality like thunder and
lightning!]
[page 161]
Saturday 15 March 2003
. . .
32: The four elements are the foundation of a combinatorial theory
of change.
33: Empedocles: Four elements and two forces. . . .
36: Democritus increased the combinatorial alphabet to a set of
atoms {atom}
The transfinite network is a version of atomic theory, starting
with ℵ0 simple atoms [Turing machines] making ℵ1 complex
atoms, ℵ2 complex complex atoms and so on.
38: Democritus postulated a [countable] infinity of different
atoms, aleph 0.
. . .
[page 162]
. . .
54 'Man is the measure of all things' ie all knowledge is
subjective. Natural vs socially induced.
. . .
58: 'The most subversive people are those who ask questions" ie
highlight the openness of the system. . . .
70: Plato Morals do not flow. Instead of absolute stillness and
absolute mobility we have a spectrum of actions with different
characteristic times from the age of the Universe (in units of
Planck's constant) to 1/age of Universe. . . .
Plato: reason. Aristotle: Reason plus senses.
[page 163]
91: Plato doubled the number of things by creating an invisible
heaven of duplicates.
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Related sites
Concordat Watch Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty
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Further reading
Books
Click on the "Amazon" link below to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)
Asimov, Isaac, Pebble in the Sky (First Edition edition), Tor Books 2008 'Book Description
One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he's a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learns, is a backwater, just a pebble in the sky, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it's the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil--so poor that everyone is sentenced to death at the age of sixty. Joseph Schwartz is sixty-two. This is young Isaac Asimov's first novel, full of wonders and ideas, the book that launched the novels of the Galactic Empire, culminating in the Foundation series. This is Golden Age SF at its finest.'
Amazon
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Gaarder, Jostein, and Paulette Moller (Translator), Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy, Boulevard 1996 Amazon editorial review: 'Wanting to understand the most fundamental questions of the Universe isn't the province of ivory-tower intellectuals alone, as this book's enormous popularity has demonstrated. A young girl, Sophie, becomes embroiled in a discussion of philosophy with a faceless correspondent. At the same time, she must unravel a mystery involving another young girl, Hilde, by using everything she's learning. The truth is far more complicated than she could ever have imagined.' An excellent essay on the relationship between literature and reality.
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Hawking, Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time , Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity ... leads to two remarkable predictions about the Universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our Universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.'
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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Maines, Rachael P, The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria", the Vibrator and Women's Sexual Satisfaction (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology, The Johns Hopkins University Press;
• ISBN-13: 978-0801866463 2001 Amazon editorial review: 'From Publishers Weekly
It will surprise most readers to learn that the vibrator was invented in the late 1880s as a time-saving device for physicians, who had been treating women's "hysteria" for years with clitoral massage. Denying the sexual nature of the treatments, doctors instead saw the technique as a burdensome chore and welcomed electric devices that would shorten patients' visits. Maines, an independent scholar in the history of technology, presents a straightforward account of the mechanism from its beginning through the 1920s, when it came into disrepute as a medical instrument. Going far beyond a mere summary of therapeutic advances, however, she wryly chronicles the attitude toward women's sexuality in the medical and psychological professions and shows, with searing insight, how some ancient biases are still prevalent in our society. Maines's writing is lively and entertaining, and her research is exhaustive, drawing on texts from Hippocrates to the present day. Proving her point about how women's sexuality is still perceived as an unapproachable subject in some quarters, Maines describes her travails in vibrator historiography, including the loss of her teaching position at Clarkson University. A pioneering and important book, this window into social and technological history also provides a marvelously clear view of contemporary ideas about women's sexuality.'
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc
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Omnes, Roland, and Arturo Sangalli (translator), Quantum Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science, Princeton University Press 2002 Amazon editorial reviews: From Booklist
'Einstein and Aristotle meet and shake hands in this illuminating exposition of the unexpected return of common sense to modern science. A companion volume to Omnes' earlier Understanding Quantum Mechanics (1999), this book recounts--with mercifully little mathematical detail--how this century's pioneering researchers severed the ties that for millennia had anchored science within the bounds of clear and intuitive perceptions of the world. As an abstruse mathematical formalism replaced the visual imagination, scientists jettisoned normal understandings of cause and effect, of coherence and continuity, setting science adrift from philosophical conceptions going back as far as Democritus. But when theorists recently began to weigh the "consistent histories" of various quantum events, the furthest frontiers of science became strangely familiar, as rigorous logic revalidated much of classical physics and many of the perceptions of common sense. With a contagious sense of wonder, Omnes invites his readers, who need no expertise beyond an active curiosity, to share in the exhilarating denouement of humanity's 2,500-year quest to fathom the natural order. And in a tantalizing conclusion, he beckons readers toward the mystery that still shrouds the origins of formulas that physicists love for their beauty even before testing them for their truth. An essential acquisition for public library science collections.' Bryce Christensen
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Peacock, John A, Cosmological Physics, Cambridge University Press 1999 Nature Book Review: 'The intermingling of observational detail and fundamental theory has made cosmology an exceptionally rich, exciting and controversial science. Students in the field — whether observers or particle theorists — are expected to be acquainted with matters ranging from the Supernova Ia distance scale, Big Bang nucleosynthesis theory, scale-free quantum fluctuations during inflation, the galaxy two-point correlation function, particle theory candidates for the dark matter, and the star formation history of the Universe. Several general science books, conference proceedings and specialized monographs have addressed these issues. Peacock's Cosmological Physics ambitiously fills the void for introducing students with a strong undergraduate background in physics to the entire world of current physical cosmology. The majestic sweep of his discussion of this vast terrain is awesome, and is bound to capture the imagination of most students.' Ray Carlberg, Nature 399:322
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Redhead, Lee, Cherry Pie, Allen and Unvin 2007 Jacket: 'Just how much trouble can one girl get into. If its Simone Kirsch, then its a lot.
The Simone Kirscd detective agency. it has a ring to it that Simone loves. And she's willing to bump, grind and shimmy until she has money enough to make it happen. But nothing ever really runs quite to plan for Simone . . .
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Papers
| Johns, Adrian, "When authorship met authenticity", Nature, 451, 7182, 28 February 2008, page 1058-1059. As counterfeit drugs abound, Adrian Johns recalls how medical patenting was created in the seventeenth century to secure trust aacross growing international trade networks by quashing fakes'. back |
| Turner, R Kerry, Brendan Fisher, "To the rich man the spoils", Nature, 451, 7182, 28 February 2008, page 1067-1068. Global economic growth during the past century has lifted many into lives of unprecedented luxury. The cost has been thge degradtion of ecosystems -- a cost borne disproportionately by the world's poor. . back |
Links
| Catechism - Wikipedia Catechism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'A catechism . . . is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present.[1] Catechisms are doctrinal manuals often in the form of questions followed by answers to be memorized, a format that has been used in non-religious or secular contexts as well (see FAQ).' back |
| Srinivasan et al The debt of nations and the distribution of ecological impacts from human activities Abstract
As human impacts to the environment accelerate, disparities in the distribution of damages between rich and poor nations mount. Globally, environmental change is dramatically affecting the flow of ecosystem services, but the distribution of ecological damages and their driving forces has not been estimated. Here, we conservatively estimate the environmental costs of human activities over 1961–2000 in six major categories (climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, agricultural intensification and expansion, deforestation, overfishing, and mangrove conversion), quantitatively connecting costs borne by poor, middle-income, and rich nations to specific activities by each of these groups. Adjusting impact valuations for different standards of living across the groups as commonly practiced, we find striking imbalances. Climate change and ozone depletion impacts predicted for low-income nations have been overwhelmingly driven by emissions from the other two groups, a pattern also observed for overfishing damages indirectly driven by the consumption of fishery products. Indeed, through disproportionate emissions of greenhouse gases alone, the rich group may have imposed climate damages on the poor group greater than the latter's current foreign debt. Our analysis provides prima facie evidence for an uneven distribution pattern of damages across income groups. Moreover, our estimates of each group's share in various damaging activities are independent from controversies in environmental valuation methods. In a world increasingly connected ecologically and economically, our analysis is thus an early step toward reframing issues of environmental responsibility, development, and globalization in accordance with ecological costs. back |
| Westminster Shorter Catechism Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647) 'Q1: What is the chief end of man?
A1: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.
Q2: What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him?
A2: The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him. . . . ' back |
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