Notes
[Notebook: Transfinite field theory DB 56]
[Sunday 27 June 2004 - Saturday 3 July 2004]
[page 120]
Sunday 27 June 2004
NETWORK - TRADE
The earth will never achieve dead tranquillity (equilibrium) while
the sun shines.
Perhaps our real problem with Buddhism, Christianity, Islam etc is
that they are personality cults, reducing the entropy and fitness of
humanity by concentrating on a symbol and fashioning all things in
its image. We are for maximizing human variety, so that everyone gets
an equal suck of the sauce bottle [niche]. Through the theology
company I want to add my own spirit to the theological and religious
mix. Is this an acceptable desire of a manifestation of unacceptable
ego? Does it matter. I am
[page 121]
motivated and enjoying. I m enjoying the journey, discovering
enough excitement at every turn to keep me going. The best part of it
is that I am travelling now unencumbered by the dead historical
weight of the Roman Catholic Church, my nominal enemy and launching
pad.
The organization is paramount? The individual is paramount? The
organization is only paramount insofar as it serves the individual.
The abstract must respect the concrete, or it is in error. One
exception destroys an abstraction. It is not meet that one die for
the good of the whole unless it is clear that that one dies expressly
to save more than one of his or her own choice. What we want to do,
however, is to create an environment where it is not necessary for
some to die to save others. This is a restriction caused by
corruption, the confusion of symbols.
What would I do if I was not sitting
here in front of the fire watching the sun come up reading a spy
story (Deighton, Billion Dollar) and worrying about the state of the
world? Deighton Be out
playing? Building my house? Sleeping? Activity it is built into me as
sure as the sun shines, and the pleasure of life comes from action,
whatever it is. The circles of care and joy spread from myself to my
families and to the whole world. (What upsets me is people doing
sub-optimal things (by my standards) at all levels. My level of upset
is related to my level of tolerance. Perfectly tolerant = perfectly
tranquil. Perfectly intolerant = driven from moment to moment. The
least action principle finds an optimum somewhere in the interior of
tolerant - intolerant.
Energy is eternal delight. Ethics enters when the question of
sharing the energy arises.
To answer the question, we need a picture of the system and a way
of detecting and correcting errors in the system.
[page 122]
So each religion posits an ideal and a set of errors and demands
the discipline necessary to correct the errors. Often the proposed
system is wrong. Often it is a system designed to protect one section
of the community at the expense of another, particularly in the
battle of the sexes. So a large number of women in the world are
still slaves in a system that leaves men free. The Roman Catholic
Church is the archetype of this, denying any real religious role to
women.
Most of the old religions treat 'matter' as trash. We want to
emphasize that it is divine and that every little bit should be cared
for, left untouched if possible and recycled if used (ie we take it
'out' of the global system for our own purposes and then reintroduce
is thoughtfully, in a readily metabolisable form, when we have
finished.
There are some who ask 'quid est hoc quod est esse' [what is this
which is to be] Aquinas, somewhere and others
just accept it. Perhaps they don't ask the question because they know
the answer. Such as answer is provided by a stable (and so relatively
uncritical) society with a credible religion. The critic sees,
however, that the answer provided by many a religion is empty
fiction: there is a system in charge. It knows all the answers. We
are a tiny part of it. Be content and do what you have to do. What a
critic has to do, having found a weak spot in the status quo is to
repair the weakness or fall into some sort of despair that all is
doomed. The answer to this is that observation shows that not all is
doomed and the world is a wonderful reality, even though birth and
death exist and death may be seen as doom is we accept that things
die from some sort of necessity, and that each death makes room for a
new life. The struggle against death that is made (temporarily)
successful by exploiting the power of cooperation is what has made us
what we are, since those things that live co so from a desire and
ability to live that is absent in many possible entities that do not
survive. Ultimately death arises (might we hypothesize) because the
nature of the Universe is such that possibilities are of necessity
(Cantor) greater than realities, and so any reality will eventually
be confronted with the possibility of
[page 123]
disintegration and consequent annihilation. Physics studies thus
constrained level of being, whose constraints provide the alphabet
for the spiritual world emanating from (and to) the physical world.
Harmonic oscillator - creation and annihilation.
Creation and annihilation differ in form and frequency. The
ultimate barrier against death is reproduction, that is
communication, the raison d'etre of the Universe. I die but my family
does not. My family may die out, but the human race will live. The
human race may dies out, but there will still be life. But what of
the heat death of the Universe? Will all the nuclear fuel be burned
out? Do black holes recycle cold gas into living stars? Energy is
conserved, and what proportion of energy is to be represented by mass
and what part by motion?
MASS - is a quality of a set and measures all the potential and
kinetic energy in the set. Now we look into the set and try to
partition it into kinetic and potential. Some things are changing and
some are staying the same. This is happening over a whole spectrum of
frequencies from ℵ0 to 1 (or 0), the age of the Universe (or
eternity).
So we say the same as all religions: it is obvious that we are
here, and reasonable to lean to live with it. We are here through the
fitness of complex systems and we will increase our own fitness by
allowing our system maximum complexity. The theoretical foundation of
this complexity is human symmetry as broken by the environment and
the experience of each of us. We are also individuated not by matter
but by concrete formal detain, ie we differ as angels do in the
Cantor Universe.
The observable world, like observable mathematics, like all
[page 124]
communication is quantized, ie alphabetic.
NETWORK ETHICS
CONCRETE == RANDOM == ENCRYPTED
The partition into moving and still is relative, but it is the
foundation of science. We capture events on widely different time
scales in our literature. We assume that the literature will last
forever, but we know that the ideas and observations contained in the
literature [will be subject to revision] as people see questions
raised between the world and the existing literature and try to
answer them by further observation and communication. Each scientist
is a translator (sense organ) in the body scientific which encodes
its observations into the messages that travel through the scientific
network. Certain nodes of the network, by considering the inputs of
many other nodes as their data, can extract symmetries from these
bodies of data, ie discover the alphabet in which they are written, a
first stage to decoding them.
From NAND (not the same truth value)
we can build the whole propositional world. Also Sheffer stroke?) see
Wikipedia
Spy novels: human relationships where organisations (and
loyalties) clash. All novels tense (high stress/energy)
relationships. Soap opera: ridiculously stressed and simplified.
We are certainly with the Buddhas on harm minimization and
wouldn't mind betting that the idea is isomorphic to least action.
One can see the big picture for us. All solar; all recycled; nature
left unscarred by our networks - where they have to be physical, let
them be underground, in general reduce our footprint of energy and
entropy drain on the biosphere and become a physically closed system.
We can even adjust our albedos to fit in with the natural
neighbourhood. High rises and tunnels, like termites. And we excite
ourselves by experiencing nature (including ourselves) under minimum
stress.
[page 125]
STRESS REDUCES ENTROPY/ HOW?
Reduces information, which is not exactly the same thing. A
stresses individual may not read its environment so accurately, so
reducing the information it derives from the environment of (by
assumption) constant entropy.
The reversible Carnot cycle conserves entropy and energy. The same
amount of entropy is taken from the hot reservoir [as] is transferred
to the cold reservoir. To conserve energy, some energy must be
removed associated with zero entropy, ie mechanical work [infinite
temperature]
Uncertainty - reversibility - cardinal equivalence. But quantum
mechanics allows for generate (not observably different) states.
Revolutionaries have a binary view of human conditions, before and
after the revolution. The actual revolution is a process of many
steps, however, and it is better if it is done in an 'engineered'
manner rather than by violence. To engineers, however, we need a
physics that points out invariant features of the world to serve as
foundations for our engineered structure. In a quantum (symbolic)
Universe, arithmetic, in the form of communication and coding theory,
can tell is a lot about how to manage change while maintaining
security,
In quantum mechanics, possibilities are represented by complex
numbers and observables by real numbers? why? Different laws of
arithmetic for complex and real numbers. Complex numbers are two
dimensional, so that all the information contained in them can be
represented by an angle or a point on a circle.
Points on a circle are reals. What are angles? Are they quantized,
ie naturals? This would suggest mapping spin, angle and number.
'Everyone feels trapped; its our way of rationalizing our
[page 126]
leaden lot in the face of our golden
potential. Deighton
page 244.
The procedure envisaged in Cantor;s work that takes us from
aleph(n) to aleph(n+1) involves forming the aleph(n+1) [permutations
of a string of distinct symbols aleph(n) long. This involves writing
aleph(n+1) copies of each of the aleph(n) elements in our starting
alphabet. The axiom of replacement says these can be any set of
objects isomorphic to the elements of an ordered set whose cardinal
is aleph(n). The inverse of this process requires recovering the
alphabet using the axiom of choice to repeatedly pick one letter of
the alphabet from each of the numbers in aleph(n+1)
We cannot logically utter attempted names of god such as 'the set
of all sets'. Let us just call it the whole and agree that we can use
various series (like the transfinite numbers) to approach the whole
but no written expression can actually express the whole (since every
written expression, is willy nilly, part of the whole.
Skolem (1922) in van Heijenoort p
200. van
Heijenoort
van Heijenoort page 203: 'If the axioms are consistent, there
exists a domain B in which the axioms hold and whose elements can by
enumerated by means of the positive finite integers.
Lowenheim's theorem: 'If a first order proposition is satisfied in
any domain at all, it is already satisfied in denumerable infinite
domains.'
' . . . he must take a detour, so to speak, through the
nondenumerable.
' . . . success is necessary; here too it is the highest tribunal to
which everyone submits.' Hilbert in van Heijenoort page 370.
[page 127]
Shall we say that the system aleph(n) can only be interpreted and
judged in the system aleph(n+1), and so every insight + judgment =
act of knowledge involves a relationship between sets of distinct
transfinite cardinality.
Monday 28 June 2004
Tuesday 29 June 2004
Wednesday 30 June 2004
A book day, no plumbing etc.
Maybe. If words do not come, then my preferred option is to go on
building my new 'factory' downstairs.
Two tendencies: 1 lower temperature at constant entropy: Carnot
change
2 change entropy at constant temperature?
In the Universe as we know it entropy is increasing (they say)
while temperature (average temperature, average photon energy etc) is
falling (they say, it seems true)
Entropy = k log (states), so increase = more states. At constant
temperature (given the equipartition theorem and classical physics)
each state has a certain energy, so more energy is needed to increase
entropy at constant temperature. If energy is to be conserved, we
need to break high energy states into many low energy states, less
energy per state lower temperature etc, as observed. On the other
hand we can increase entropy at constant energy per state by putting
more energy in.
Einstein faced this sort of problem with the specific heats of
metals at low temperature.
It is different working for others than working for oneself.
Working for oneself is immediate and in a sense immanent motion.
Working for another requires a public declaration of quality and
value, that the work is
[page 128]
worth what is paid for it, not more or less. At the same time, in
the broader community there is a price/quality competition going on
between different buyers and sellers of all the differently specified
forms of work. Working for oneself produces no cashflow but helps to
maintain life (like cooking and cleaning) and to build capital in the
form of tools and reserves. My quest is for a certain 'intellectual
capital' or intellectual property', a certain good idea (work,
product) which can propagate itself through the community by
encouraging people to copy it, in other words, and 'open source'
idea.
Here the questions of quality and market arise. My strategy is
simply to keep working to sculpt my best interface to the world of
the web. While the personal site will remain and grow more complex
because it is a log produced through time, the corporate site should
focus on simplification and presentation of the ideas developed in
the background. In time we need to attract 'beta-testers- and others
to see of the model of divine action does indeed confer added fitness
on those who use it to guide their lives.
A key idea is that taking quantum field theory as a model, we can
safely reduce the amount of control (oppression) that come human
corporations (groupings) exert on their members. In other words,
noetic space is much bigger than the old controlling religions
imagine, so big that there is room for s all. Each of us is a unique
'letter' in the alphabet of human communication. This system reaches
its maximum entropy and stability when we all become peers.
Human mental entropy arises by differentiating 'degenerate' states
in the human mind just as loading a program into a computer whose
states are all 1s increases its entropy and the information carried
in a fixed state of the computer. But how do we reconcile entropy
increase with the quantum idea that the Universe is reversible and
unitary, in other words (in terms of states) the entropy of the
Universe must stay the same. [perhaps time has a role here]
[page 129]
Agatha Destination page 93: 'Its not a new world you want to
create. Its destroying the old one that you will enjoy.'
Ultimately, the function of parliament is to decide how to spend
the money raised by taxes. We may assume that all tax money
ultimately ends up as somebody's wages, so the job of parliament is
to decide who to pay to do what. Personal life has the same feature,
although here the expendable is personal energy arising ultimately
from the circumstance that the sun shines on our planet.
We look for invariant features of the past that we can project to
the future to narrow the search for the means of survival and so
increase our fitness.
Thursday 1 July 2004
Friday 2 July 2004
Dialog: the world proceeds by question and answer. How are we
going to get a feed today? Maybe the mullet are running.
Saturday 3 July 2004
Put simply, Lonergan has followed the ancient track that the human
mind is unique and that its functioning, as experiences, gives us an
insight into the nature of the world. We fundamentally accept that
position with a couple of caveats. First, although each human mind is
unique in its embodiment, there is a fundamental symmetry between the
functioning of the human mind and every other process that utters a
word (action, observable) in the world. The quantum mechanic may
think of the world as a process comprising the diagonalization of
matrices and the collapse of wave functions, that us the choice of
one eigenvalue to be expressed to the world by the creation or
annihilation of various particles. I am trying to
[page 130]
see structure on the current state also (ie find a basis for it in
orthogonal concepts) and express it as words in a certain basis
(English +)
This model allows us to say something m,ore about insight than
simply that it is a mysterious bit of magic, a splinter of the divine
light, because, with our knowledge of physics, symbolic systems and
networks, we can break macroscopic processes in the Universe into
smaller and smaller subprocesses, until ultimately we come to the
smallest physically observed process, that associated with one
quantum of action. We understand such quantum processes, (and sets of
such processes) using the mathematics of quantum mechanics, which
tells us that we must use infinite dimensional complex spaces as the
environment in which to study even actions so small that they are
measured by one quantum of 'output'. So insight is a structure of
insights. We model all insights by terminating processes (the insight
event being the termination) arising from a lot of hidden processing
that we model with Hamiltonians and Lagrangians and variational
principles. Pursuing this idea far enough, I hope, will yield the
sought after isomorphism (invariant with respect to complexity) with
quantum field theory..
Fitness; fit: 'There's nothing so bad
as not belonging.' Agatha, Ordeal, page 121. Christie
Christie pp 123-125: force, truth, lies, deception, belief,
credibility . . .
'You must talk about it; I don't want to talk about it.
page 124:'You've got to tell the truth. You've got to trust me' 'I
don't understand what you mean' said Hester.
WORK: actions calculated to increase fitness.
'they toil not neither do they spin'.
[page 131]
Matthew 6: 26-30: 'Look at the birds in
the sky, they do not sew or reap or gather into barns; yet your
heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they
are. Can any of you, for all of his worrying, add one single cubit to
his span of life? And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers
growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure
you that not even Solomon in all of his regalia was robed like one of
these. Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is
there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much
more look after you, you men of little faith . . . ' Matthew
A lot of misunderstanding about work here. Both the birds and the
grass have to work like us to live. Perhaps an idle ruling class (or
one which does not distinguish work from play) might overlook the
importance of work driven by solar information, the the existence of
the biosphere. Most of the time we cannot work with absolute
certainty, but our security and physical happiness is increased by
storing up headroom (fat, silos) so as to carry us through the lean
periods and fluctuations.
Luke 12:22. Luke
Trust in providence. But god helps those who help themselves, thus
the rise in complexity which we call the origin of life.
Nirvana: happy in one's own mind. Maybe this happiness is the
beatific vision. Same concept, different words: one with all = see
god. But happy with work also, and not seeking a state where
everything is done for one.
Buddhism seems to teach that we must
lose the Self to obtain the All. (Humphreys
page 129) We take the view that one can have both Self and All
because All contains Self, self is an element of the all and the
starting point in any route to All, or points in the all.
[page 132]
Humphreys page 129: Zen: All is god and there is no god. OK in set
theory, god contains x, but god is not a set (named discrete entity
within a larger entity). For all x, x is an element of god.
The teacher, the teaching and he followers are all humans. In the
modern version (science) the teacher is nature.god, the teaching is
derived from god, and we are all followers because we cannot step
outside such laws and symmetries as nature may have.
page 132: Sir Charles Eliot: 'The great practical achievement of
the Buddha was to found a religious order which has lasted to the
present day. It is chiefly to this institution that the permanence of
his religion is due.
Not so natural religion. Science is a global enterprise carried
out by millions of individuals and institutions. It is unified by the
unity of the world it studies. The permanence of natural religion
lies in the permanent need of people (and all entities) to achieve
their survival by fitting into (submitting) to the world as we find
it. We must do this to survive, even if we are bent on changing the
world.
page 171: '. . . the Kegon philosophy of 'unimpeded interdiffusion
[transfinite network?] of Absolute Reality and each individual
'thing' is the last work in human thought.' (!)
page 179 Zen: 'Zen is the apotheosis of Buddhism'
page 180: 'Here is a man's (sic) religion, and he climbs best who
carries the lightest load.'
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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!)
Christie, Agatha, Destination Unknown, Collins for the Crime Club; Greenway edition 1977 Amazon editorial review: 'When a number of leading scientists disappear, concern grows within the intelligence services. Are they being kidnapped? Blackmailed? Brainwashed? One woman appears to hold the key to the mystery. But she is found dead.'
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Christie, Agatha, Ordeal by Innocence, Bantam Books 1987 Amazon book description: 'Book Description Mrs. Argyle, benevolent tyrant and mother of five, is murdered with a poker. Her son Jacko is convicted of the crime but dies in prison. Two years later, Dr. Arthur Calgary comes forward to clear Jacko, but the Argyle family is not pleased. If Jacko didn’t commit the crime, who did? Suspense mounts as the family realizes that exonerating Jacko means fingering one of them.'
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Deighton, Len, Hope, HarperCollins Publishers 1996 From Publishers Weekly:
Veteran British spy Bernard Samson returns to fight further Cold War battles in this deceptively easygoing sequel to Faith (and prequel to Charity), set in 1987. ... Deighton's carefully crafted but seemingly nonchalant narration: droll, almost deadpan fits perfectly the character of Samson, a perceptive but closed-mouthed gent who is seemingly unimpressed by events like the sudden appearance of a dead body in his ex-mistress's bedroom or the bizarre theft of a severed hand. Exciting moments are handled casually, while causal conversations are given the detail expected of important ones, resulting in a version of reality that is disjointed and emotionally distanced, as a master spy's take on things may very well be. Deighton gives readers unfamiliar with Samson's troubled life plenty of background information, so newcomers as well as old series hands should take equal pleasure in this subtly intense offering by perhaps the only author other than le Carre who deserves to be known as "spymaster."'
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Deutsch, David, The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes - and its Implications, Allen Lane Penguin Press 1997 Jacket: 'Quantum physics, evolution, computation and knowledge - these four strands of scientific theory and philosophy have, until now, remained incomplete explanations of the way the Universe works. ... Oxford scholar DD shows how they are so closely intertwined that we cannot properly understand any one of them without reference to the other three. ...'
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Fowles, John, The Magus, Back Bay Books: Little Brown and Co 2001 Product Description
'At the novels center is Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island. There he befriends a local millionaire, but the friendship soon evolves into a deadly game and Nicholas finds that he must fight not only for his sanity but for his very survival.'
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Hee, Kim Hyun, The Tears of My Soul, WilliamMorrow Inc 1993 'When Korean Air Lines flight 858 exploded in 1987, killing 115 passengers, international law-enforcement officials immediately started searching for the hardened North Korean terrorists who could have committed such a crime. What they found was Kim Hyun Hee, an idealistic young woman transformed by her country into an obedient killing machine. The Tears of My Soul is her poignant, shocking, and utterly compelling story.
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Humphreys, Christmas, Buddhism, 1991
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Jaynes, Julian, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Mariner Books 2000 Jacket: 'At the heart of this book is the revolutionary idea that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but is a learned process brought into being out of an earlier hallucinatory mentality by cataclysm and catastrophe only 3000 years ago and still developing.'
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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'
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Luke, and Alexander Jones (editor), in The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 'The third gospel's distinguishing quality is due to the attractive personality of its author, which shines through all his work. Luke is at once a most gifted writer and a man of marked sensibility. ... The originality of Luke is not in his key ideas (they are identical with those of Mark and Matthew) but in his religious mentality which, apart from slight traces of Paul's influence, is ovewhelmingly distinctive of Luke's personal temperament. Luke, in Dante's phrase, is the 'scriba mansuetudinis Christi', the faithful; recorder of Christ's lovingkindness.'
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Matthew, and Alexander Jones (editor), in The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels: '[Matthew is] a dramatic account in seven acts of the coming of the kingdom of heaven. 1. The preparation of the kingdom in the person of the child-Messiah. ... 2. the formal proclamation of the charter of the Kingdom ... i.e. the Sermon on the Mount ... 3. The preaching of the kingdom by missionaries ... 4. The obstacles that the kingdom will meet from men ... 5. Its embryonic existence ... 6. The crisis ... which is to prepare the way for the definitive coming of the kingdom ... 7. The coming itself ... through the Passion and resurrection.' (12)
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Prothero, Stephen, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World - and Why Their Differences Matter, HarperOne 2010 'Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Stephen Prothero
'On my last visit to Jerusalem, I struck up a conversation with an elderly man in the Muslim Quarter. As a shopkeeper, he seemed keen to sell me jewelry. As a Sufi mystic, he seemed even keener to engage me in matters of the spirit. He told me that religions are human inventions, so we must avoid the temptation of worshipping Islam rather than Allah. What matters is opening yourself up to the mystery that goes by the word God, and that can be done in any religion. As he tempted me with more turquoise and silver, he asked me what I was doing in Jerusalem. When I told him I was researching a book on the world’s religions, he put down the jewelry, looked at me intently, and, placing a finger on my chest for emphasis, said, "Do not write false things about the religions."
As I wrote God is Is Not One, I came back repeatedly to this conversation. I never wavered from trying to write true things, but I knew that some of the things I was writing he would consider false.
Mystics often claim that the great religions differ only in the inessentials. They may be different paths but they are ascending the same mountain and they converge at the peak. Throughout this book I give voice to these mystics: the Daoist sage Laozi, who wrote his classic the Daodejing just before disappearing forever into the mountains; the Sufi poet Rumi, who instructs us to "gamble everything for love"; and the Christian mystic Julian of Norwich, who revels in the feminine aspects of God. But my focus is not on these spiritual superstars. It is on ordinary religious folk—the stories they tell, the doctrines they affirm, and the rituals they practice. And these stories, doctrines, and rituals could not be more different. Christians do not go on the hajj to Mecca; Jews do not affirm the doctrine of the Trinity; and neither Buddhists nor Hindus trouble themselves about sin or salvation.
Of course, religious differences trouble us, since they seem to portend, if not war itself, then at least rumors thereof. But as I researched and wrote this book I came to appreciate how opening our eyes to religious differences can help us appreciate the unique beauty of each of the great religions--the radical freedom of the Daoist wanderer, the contemplative way into death of the Buddhist monk, and the joy in the face of the divine life of the Sufi shopkeeper.
I plan to send my Sufi shopkeeper a copy of this book. I have no doubt he will disagree with parts of it. But I hope he will recognize my effort to avoid writing "false things," even when I disagree with friends.'
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Rossano, Matt, Superhatural Selection: How Religion Evolved, Oxford University Press 2010 Amazon Product Description
'In 2006, scientist Richard Dawkins published a blockbuster bestseller, The God Delusion. This atheist manifesto sparked a furious reaction from believers, who have responded with numerous books of their own. By pitting science against religion, however, this debate overlooks what science can tell us about religion. According to evolutionary psychologist Matt J. Rossano, what science reveals is that religion made us human.
In Supernatural Selection, Rossano presents an evolutionary history of religion. Neither an apologist for religion nor a religion-basher, he draws together evidence from a wide range of disciplines to show the valuable--even essential--adaptive purpose served by systematic belief in the supernatural. The roots of religion stretch as far back as half a million years, when our ancestors developed the motor control to engage in social rituals--that is, to sing and dance together. Then, about 70,000 years ago, a global ecological crisis drove humanity to the edge of extinction. It forced the survivors to create new strategies for survival, and religious rituals were foremost among them. Fundamentally, Rossano writes, religion is a way for humans to relate to each other and the world around them--and, in the grim struggles of prehistory, it offered significant survival and reproductive advantages. It emerged as our ancestors' first health care system, and a critical part of that health care system was social support. Religious groups tended to be far more cohesive, which gave them a competitive advantage over non-religious groups, and enabled them to conquer the globe.
Rather than focusing on one aspect of religion, as many theorists do, Rossano offers an all-encompassing approach that is rich with surprises, insights, and provocative conclusions.'
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Stern, Jessica, Denial: A Memoir of Terror, Ecco 0061626651
ISBN-13: 978-0061626654 2010 From Publisher's Weekly: 'In this skillfully wrought, powerful study, a terrorism expert, national security adviser (The Ultimate Terrorists), and lecturer at Harvard, returns to a definitive episode of terror in her own early life and traces its grim, damaging ramifications. Having grown up in Concord, Mass., in 1973, Stern, then 15, and her sister, a year younger, were forcibly raped at gunpoint by an unknown intruder; when the police reopened the case in 2006, Stern was compelled to confront the devastating experience. The police initially tied the case to a local serial rapist, who served 18 years in prison before hanging himself. Stern's painful journey takes her back to the traumatic aftershocks of the rape, when she began to affect a stern, hard veneer not unlike the stiff-upper-lip approach to survival her own German-born Jewish father had assumed after his childhood years living through Nazi persecution. Covering up her deep-seated sense of shame with entrenched silence, Stern had a classic post-traumatic stress disorder—which she was only able to recognize after her own work interviewing terrorists. Stern's work is a strong, clear-eyed, elucidating study of the profound reverberations of trauma.'
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van Heijenoort, Jean, From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic 1879 - 1931. , iUniverse.com 1999 Amazon book description: 'Collected here in one volume are some thirty-six high quality translations into English of the most important foreign-language works in mathematical logic, as well as articles and letters by Whitehead, Russell, Norbert Weiner and Post…This book is, in effect, the record of an important chapter in the history of thought. No serious student of logic or foundations of mathematics will want to be without it.'
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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
| Chaitin, Gregory J, "Randomness and Mathematical Proof", Scientific American, 232, 5, May 1975, page 47-52. 'Although randomness can be precisely defined and can even be measured, a given number cannot be proved random. This enigma establishes a limit in what is possible in mathematics'. back |
| d'Espagnat, Bernard, "Quantum theory and reality", Scientific American, 241, 5, November 1979, page 128-140. 'Most particles or aggregates of particles that are ordinarily regarded as separate objects have interacted at some time in the past with other objects. The violation of separability seems to imply that in some sense all these objects constitute an indivisible whole. Perhaps in such a world the concept of an independently existing reality can reatain some meaning, but it will be an altered meaning and one remove from everyday expereince.' (page 140). back |
| Goldstein, Sheldon, "Quantum Theory without Observers - Part Two", Physics Today, 51, 4, April 1998, page 38. back |
| Goldstein, Sheldon, "Quantum Theory without Observers - Part One", Physics Today, 51, 3, March 1998, page 42. back |
| Landauer, Rolf, "Dissipation and noise immunity in computation and communication ", Narure, 335, , 27 October 1988, page 779-784. Reversible computers which carry out each step without discarding information can, in principle, dissipate arbitrarily small amounts of energy per step if the computation is carried out sufficiently slowly. This has caused a re-examination of energy requirements in communication and measurement. There also, it is only those steps that discard information which have a lower limit on energy consumption. Such steps can be avoided in the transmission of information.. back |
| Liebfried, Tilman Pfau,Christopher Monroe, Dietrich, "Shadows and Mirrors: Reconstructing the Quantum Statse of Atom Motion", Physics Today, 51, 4, April 1998, page 22 - 28. 'Quantum mechanics allows us only one incomplete glimpse of a wavefunction, but if systems can be identically prepared over and over, quantum equivalents of shadows and mirrors can provide the full picture.'. back |
Links
| Aquinas 13 Summa: I 2 3: Whether God exists? I answer that, The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. ... The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. ... The third way is taken from possibility and necessity ... The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. ...The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. back |
| Berlin Wall - Wikipedia Berlin Wall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting August 13, 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc officially claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a Socialist State in East Germany, however, in practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.' back |
| Bernard Zuel Scissor Sisters: Night Work 'Scissor Sisters do disco. As in head-up, bum-out music to dance to; to wave a hand in the air rather than waggle a finger in your face to. Sure, there's a strain of gay pride but it's far less important than the camp humour and touches of mild transgression (Whole New Way has a couple of ooh-er lines that may well have been borrowed from Benny Hill).' back |
| Charles McGrath Private Trauma Sheds Light on Terrorism 'CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Though you wouldn’t necessarily know it from talking to her, Jessica Stern is a renowned expert on terrorists and terrorism. . . . And at the time she thought the subject was just something she had fallen into. “But I now see that there’s a pattern,” she said, sitting in the white farmhouse, not far from the Harvard campus, where she lives with her third husband, Chester G. Atkins, a former Massachusetts congressman, and her 8-year-old son. “I’ve really been studying perpetrators and violence all my life.”
How she came to this realization is the subject of her new book, “Denial: A Memoir of Terror,” which Ecco published last week.' back |
| Dominicans Dominicans: Order of Preachers 'WWW.OP.ORG is the official international Web site of the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans). The branches of the Dominican family are multiple: brothers, contemplative nuns, congregations of contemplative and apostolic sisters, lay persons in fraternities or secular institutes, secular priests in fraternities. "Each one has its own character, its autonomy. However by taking part in the charism of saint Dominic, they share between them a single vocation to be preachers in the Church (Chapter of Mexico, 1992)."' back |
| Doreen Carvajal Warning About Child Abuse Documents Led Belgian Police to Raid Its Offices 'MECHELEN, Belgium — Four days after a series of police raids of Catholic institutions in Belgium that drew sharp criticism from the pope, the reason for the unusually aggressive operation has emerged: a formal accusation that the church was hiding information on sexual abuse lodged by the former president of an internal church commission handling such cases.' back |
| Hamming distance - Wikipedia Hamming distance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'In information theory, the Hamming distance between two strings of equal length is the number of positions at which the corresponding symbols are different. Put another way, it measures the minimum number of substitutions required to change one string into the other, or the number of errors that transformed one string into the other.' back |
| History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991) - Wikipedia History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991) - Wikipedia, the free encylopedia 'The Soviet Union's dissolution into independent nations began early in 1985. After years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth was at a standstill. Failed attempts at reform, a stagnant economy, and war in Afghanistan led to a general feeling of discontent, especially[citation needed] in the Baltic republics and Eastern Europe.
Greater political and social freedoms, instituted by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, created a bad atmosphere of open criticism of the Moscow regime. The dramatic drop of the price of oil in 1985 and 1986, and consequent lack of foreign exchange reserves in following years to purchase grain profoundly influenced actions of the Soviet leadership.[1]
Several Soviet Socialist Republics began resisting central control, and increasing democratization led to a weakening of the central government. The USSR's trade gap progressively emptied the coffers of the union, leading to eventual bankruptcy. The Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991 when Boris Yeltsin seized power in the aftermath of a failed coup that had attempted to topple reform-minded Gorbachev.' back |
| Jansenism - Wikipedia Jansenism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'JJansenism was a theology and a movement, condemned as a heresy by Pope Innocent X in 1655, that arose in the frame of the Counter-Reformation and the aftermath of the Council of Trent (1545–1563). It emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. Originating in the writings of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Otto Jansen, . . . ' back |
| John Paul II Fides et Ratio: On the relationship between faith and reason. para 2: 'The Church is no stranger to this journey of discovery, nor could she ever be. From the moment when, through the Paschal Mystery, she received the gift of the ultimate truth about human life, the Church has made her pilgrim way along the paths of the world to proclaim that Jesus Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).' back |
| John Paul II Ex Corde Ecclesiae Apostolic Constitution of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II on Catholic Universities. back |
| Mark 16 Mark 16 KJV '15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.' back |
| R P Feynman Appendix F - Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle 'PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE CHALLENGER ACCIDENT
(Source: The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger
Accident Report, June 6, 1986)
William P. Rogers, Chairman
Former Secretary of State under President Nixon (1969-1973), and
Attorney General under President Eisenhower (1957-1961), currently a
practicing attorney and senior partner in the law firm of Rogers &
Wells. Born in Norfolk, New York, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom
in 1973. He holds a J.D. from Cornell University (1937) and served as
LCDR, U.S. Navy (1942-1946).
Neil A. Armstrong, Vice Chairman
Former astronaut, currently Chairman of the Board of Computing
Technologies for Aviation, Inc. Born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, Mr.
Armstrong was spacecraft commander for Apollo 11, July 16-24, 1969,
the first manned lunar landing mission. He was Professor of
Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati from 1971 to
1980 and was appointed to the National Commission on Space in 1985.
David C. Acheson
Former Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Communications
Satellite Corporation (1967-1974), currently a partner in the law firm
of Drinker Biddle & Reath. Born in Washington, DC, he previously
served as an attorney with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
(1948-1950) and was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
(1961-1965). He holds an LL.B. from Harvard University (1948) and
served as LT, U.S. Navy (1942-1946).
Dr. Eugene E. Covert
Educator and engineer. Born in Rapid City, South Dakota, he is
currently Professor and Head, Department of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Member of the
National Academy of Engineering, he was a recipient of the Exceptional
Civilian Service Award, USAF, in 1973 and the NASA Public Service
Award in 1980. He holds a Doctorate in Science from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Dr. Richard P. Feynman
Physicist. Born in New York City, he is Professor of Theoretical
Physics at California Institute of Technology. Nobel Prize winner in
Physics, 1965, he also received the Einstein Award in 1954, the
Oersted Medal in 1972 and the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal in
1973. He holds a Doctorate in Physics from Princeton (1942).
Robert B. Hotz
Editor, publisher. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is a graduate of
Northwestern University. He was the editor-in-chief of Aviation Week
& Space Technology magazine (1953-1980). He served in the Air Force
in World War II and was awarded the Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster.
Since 1982, he has been a member of the General Advisory Committee to
the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
Major General Donald J. Kutyna, USAF
Director of Space Systems and Command, Control, Communications. Born
in Chicago, Illinois, and graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he
holds a Master of Science degree from Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (1965). A command pilot with over 4,000 flight hours, he
is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished
Flying Cross, Legion of Merit and nine air medals.
Dr. Sally K. Ride
Astronaut. Born in Los Angeles, California, she was a mission
specialist on STS-7, launched on June 18, 1983, becoming the first
American woman in space. She also flew on mission 41-G launched
October 5, 1984. She holds a Doctorate in Physics from Stanford
University (1978) and is still an active astronaut.
Robert W. Rummel
Space expert and aerospace engineer. Born in Dakota, Illinois, and
former Vice President of Trans World Airlines, he is currently
President of Robert W. Rummel Associates, Inc., of Mesa, Arizona. He
is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is holder of
the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal.
Joseph F. Sutter
Aeronautical engineer. Currently Executive Vice President of the
Boeing Commercial Airplane Company. Born in Seattle, he has been with
Boeing since 1945 and was a principal figure in the development of
three generations of jet aircraft. In 1984, he was elected to the
National Academy of Engineering. In 1985, President Reagan conferred
on him the U.S. National Medal of Technology.
Dr. Arthur B. C. Walker, Jr.
Astronomer. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he is currently Professor of
Applied Physics and was formerly Associate Dean of the Graduate
Division at Stanford University. Consultant to Aerospace Corporation,
Rand Corporation and the National Science Foundation, he is a member
of the American Physical Society, American Geophysical Union, and the
American Astronomy Society. He holds a Doctorate in Physics from the
University of Illinois (1962).
Dr. Albert D. Wheelon
Physicist. Born in Moline, Illinois, he is currently Executive Vice
President, Hughes Aircraft Company. Also a member of the President's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, he served as a consultant to the
President's Science Advisory Council from 1961 to 1974. He holds a
Doctorate in Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(1952).
Brigadier General Charles Yeager, USAF (Retired)
Former experimental test pilot. Born in Myra, West Virginia, he was
appointed in 1985 as a member of the National Commission on Space. He
was the first person to penetrate the sound barrier and the first to
fly at a speed of more than 1,600 miles an hour.
Dr. Alton G. Keel, Jr., Executive Director
Detailed to the Commission from his position in the Executive Office
of the President, Office of Management and Budget, as Associate
Director for National Security and International Affairs; formerly
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research, Development and
Logistics; and Senate Staff. Born in Newport News, Virginia, he
holds a Doctorate in Engineering Physics from the University of
Virginia (1970).
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| Sic transit gloria mundi - Wikipedia Sic transit gloria mundi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Sic transit gloria mundi is a Latin phrase that means "Thus passes the glory of the world". . . . The phrase played a part in the ritual of papal coronation ceremonies until 1963. As the newly chosen pope proceeded from the sacristy of St. Peter's Basilica in his sedia gestatoria, the procession stopped three times. On each occasion a papal master of ceremonies would fall to his knees before the pope, holding a silver or brass reed bearing a piece of smoldering tow. For three times in succession, as the cloth burned away, he would say in a loud and mournful voice, "Sancte Pater, sic transit gloria mundi!" ("Holy Father, so passes worldly glory!") These words, thus addressed to the pope, served as a reminder of the transitory nature of life and earthly honors. The stafflike instrument used in the aforementioned ceremony is known as a "sic transit gloria mundi", named for the master of ceremonies' words' back |
| TEC Total Environment Centre 'Established in 1972 by pioneers of the Australian environmental movement, TEC is a veteran of more than 100 successful campaigns. For over 30 years, we have been working to protect this country's natural and urban environment, flagging the issues, driving debate, supporting community activism and pushing for better environmental policy and practice.' back |
| The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse 'The Commission was established on 23 May, 2000, pursuant to the “Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Act 2000” and given three primary functions:
to hear evidence of abuse from persons who allege they suffered abuse in childhood, in institutions, during the period from 1940 or earlier, to the present day;
to conduct an inquiry into abuse of children in institutions during that period and, where satisfied that abuse occurred, to determine the causes, nature, circumstances and extent of such abuse; and
to prepare and publish reports on the results of the inquiry and on its recommendations in relation to dealing with the effects of such abuse.' back |
| The Pretenders Lyrics: Thin Line Between Love and Hate 'IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
AND YOU'RE JUST GETTING IN
YOU KNOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR
AND A VOICE SWEET AND LOW SAYS
"WHO IS IT?"
SHE OPENS UP THE DOOR AND LETS YOU IN
NEVER ONCE ASKS WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN
SHE SAYS "ARE YOU HUNGRY?
DID YOU EAT YET?
LET ME HANG UP YOUR COAT
PASS ME YOUR HAT"
ALL THE TIME SHE'S SMILING
NEVER ONCE RAISES HER VOICE
IT'S FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
YOU DON'T GIVE IT A SECOND THOUGHT' back |
| Wikipedia Sheffer Stroke 'The Sheffer stroke, also known as the NAND (Not AND) operation, is a logical operator with the following meaning: p NAND q is true if and only if not both p and q are true.' back |
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