vol VII: Notes
2014
Notes
[Notebook: DB 77 Discretion]
[Sunday 9 March 2014 - Saturday 11 March 2014]
[page 84]
Sunday 9 March 2014
E.C.Bentley: Trent's Last Case:page 180: 'I suppose you might compare the state of mind to that of a soldier who is personally a truthful man but who ill stick at nothing to deceive the enemy. The rules of the game allow it; the same may be said of business as many business men regard it. Only with them it is always war-time Bentley
Monday 10 March 2014
Corporations are very often heartless bastards, ready to kill their employees to get what they want. The encouragement of martyrdom is part of this trait.
[page 85]
The liberal forces on the planet have a superb opportunity to kill the Church while it is down and recycle it into a democratic humane organization from being the very acme of infallible dictatorship.
'culture driving stars' [Pope] Francis [?] (Fox Entertainment chairman Kevin Reilly) Michael Idato. Michael Idato
London Review of Books. Kick the Church while it is down. Rewrite Papal letters. London Review of Books
Wednesday 12 March 2014
Our principal problem seems to be the positive feedbacks associated with wealth and power. The richer and more powerful entities becomes, the more easily they are able to steer more wealth and power toward themselves. How do we deal with this? The standard answer is to break the nexus between wealth and political power, which is very difficult as we see in the US, where a few billion dollars spent on advertising gives one a very good chance of being elected president. Overall, this is a question for cybernetics.
There are as many atheisms are there are Gods to deny. Now Descarts realized tht one cannot deny ones own act of denial, so if we define God a my experience of existence, we have rendered atheism self contradictory and therefore (quite probably) [eventually] dead.
Symmetry: change the words, the meaning remains the same; rotate the snowflake π/6, looks the same.
[page 85]
Thursday 13 March 2014
Friday 14 March 2014
5 chapter of synopsis to go. + Afterword.
Our political and economic fantasies are brought down to earth by reality.
A Dodgy Brothers production sponsored by the Theology Company Pty Ltd (theologyco@gmail.com).
Saturday 15 March 2014
Quantum mechanics tells us we cannot observe an inertial frame since the very act of observation involves a transfer of momentum which might have the effect of casuing the Universe to expand. We are after very simple explanations of very simple phenomena here, what we might call two state phenomena those most general representation is creation - annihilation / birth - death. A particle is a lifetime. Lifetimes are measured by the distance between the events creation (for me) and annihilation. Neither are necessarily instantaneous, but happen gradually like my birth growth, reproduction ageing and death. I am now in the process of trying to reproduce sections of my mind in text because I think they will be useful in determining the interfacing protocols between us and between us and our environment.
Next book: Introducing a new God.
First The Theory of Peace. The Essay on Value (II) An Essay on Value
[page 87]
. . .
I feel that I came through the Catholic experience relatively unscathed, but the obvious psychological damage done to the abused ones has made me think again. I was not sexually abused but I was beaten a bit and perhaps punished a bit by athletic training which I did not like much, So I have a bit of a nasty and slightly anti-social streak which I think is fading as I sink into my new hammock of ideas (network). I am in the fortunate position of being able to see the whole thing through a block of space-time about 3000 years long and more or less planet wide. For me I think that the hard stuff is over and the next step is beautifying and selling We have a good propulsion system and now we just have to put a body on it. The molested ones are finally getting a hearing and this may pave the way for the mentally molested ones. Here it seems more appropriate to say forgive them for they know not what they do. They were indoctrinated at the end of a 2000 year string of indoctrinations and so totally immersed in the system that they could not see out of it. The Christian story is a closed system, creation to apocalypse, whereas the real world is a set of events (fixed points) open to the future like Cantor's Universe.
|
Copyright:
You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.
Further reading
Books
Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry 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
back |
Bentley, Edmund Clerihew, Trent's Last Case (1913), Kessinger Publishing 2010 Amazon customer review: 'James G. Bruen Jr.
'A cleverly plotted classic murder mystery with several twists, a very competent detective who is not infallible, and a romance that's a bit of a stretch. Bentley's writing style's dated, but that's perhaps to be expected in this much emulated pre-World War I story. Necessary reading for anyone interested in detective fiction.'
Amazon
back |
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.
Amazon
back |
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
back |
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
back |
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
Amazon
back |
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
Amazon
back |
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
Amazon
back |
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
Amazon
back |
Redhead, Lee, Cherry Pie, Allen and Unwin 2007 Jacket: 'Just how much trouble can one girl get into. If its Simone Kirsch, then its a lot. The Simone Kirsch 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 . . .
Amazon
back |
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 . . .
Amazon
back |
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, "Environmental economics: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 the degradation of ecosystems -- a cost borne disproportionately by the world's poor. Turner & Fisher. 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 |
| LRB Limited, London Review of Books, 'Since 1979, the London Review of Books has stood up for the tradition of the literary and intellectual essay in English. Each issue contains up to 15 long reviews and essays by academics, writers and journalists. There are also shorter art and film reviews, as well as poems and a lively letters page. . . . The London Review of Books was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at the Times. For the first six months, it appeared marsupially in the New York Review of Books. In May 1980, the London Review of Books jumped out of the parental pouch and became a fully independent literary paper.' back |
| Michael Idato, US version of Rake faces ratings fight to avoiding looming cancellation, 'he US remake of the Australian drama Rake is facing the fight of its life: to lift its audience in the next few weeks or almost certainly be cancelled. . . . The US Rake launched in January to an audience of just under 7 million viewers in the US. Since then it has slipped to around 3.45 million viewers.'
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/us-version-of-rake-faces-ratings-fight-to-avoid-looming-cancellation-20140310-34gbl.html#ixzz2vXL5xlZX
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/us-version-of-rake-faces-ratings-fight-to-avoid-looming-cancellation-20140310-34gbl.html#ixzz2vXL1y3hr 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 |
|
