vol VII: Notes
2015
Notes
[Sunday 26 July 2015 - Saturday 1 August 2015]
[Notebook: DB 79: Galileo Wins]
[page 32]
Sunday 26 July 2015
Matrix multiplication is linear, based on the dot product. We multiply matrices by repeated action of the dot product. Matrix (mathematics) - Wikipedia, Dot product - Wikipedia
Yourgrau page 93: Whittaker: "gravitation simple represents a continua effort of the universe to straighten itself out. Yourgrau & Mandelstam: Variational Principles . . .
Limit theorems of probability introduce real numbers into the statistics of discrete events.
Monday 27 July 2015
Fixed points ≡ symmetry (in both cases nothing happens).
Tuesday 28 July 2015
Always looking for a narrative, that is a logical string that leads from ancient to modern ideas of God, that is the source of our awareness of existence.
Continuum = null geodesic (nothing happens on the way)
[page 33]
Projecting quantum mechanics into spacetime = c = h
c = LT-1, h = ML2T-1 = MLc
Action = angular momentum = time integral of the difference between kinetic and potential energy.
Pendulum rotating in a potential. PE + KE = const, ∫(KE - PE)dψ = 0
Wave mechanics = computation = periodic function.
Fixed point = symmetry = nothing happens = boundary of dynamics, but bounded dynamics = fixed point ⇒ bounded dynamics, ie chicken and egg are effectively simultaneous.
Photons are invisible in the sense that to see one is to annihilate it? Invisibility theorem: a watched process never halts (and so is interference destroyed?) Non-demolition.Quantum non-demolition measurement - Wikipedia
Wednesday 29 July 2015
Geodesics are the boundaries (symmetries) of space-time, specially null geodesics.
How do things move in space-time? They cannot move in time, they are just carried along by it. I cannot go back, I just go forward at the same rate as everything around me. But I can move through space, and when I watch something moving, time seems to slow down, appearing to stop entirely on a photon.
Spacetime is the background for all events. Things happen when
[page 34]
particles (symbols) meet. Is moving a process? Momentum is resistance to change. Photon has minimal momentum [no internal process = mass?] The size of the steps in the moving process is the inverse of the momentum p = h/λ, E = hf, fλ = c. A photon executes one quantm of action during its existence from creation to annihilation [?].
Motion in time, space and angle are measured by invisibe changes in phase, ie invisible computations, only made manifest by observation, ie meeting of particles. So we can imagine a body processing itself along through space on quantum 'wheels' which are rotating at a rate measured by the momentum of the moving body.
Thursday 30 July 2015
Despair: no profitable course of action apparent. Hope, productive work available.
Friday 31 July 2015
Aristotle saw the moving world as driven by an unmoved mover situated at the outermost sphere of the system. Quantum mechanics sees it driven by local energy which appears as rotation on a quantum scale.
. . .
Boiling down the appendix to Francis letters. No personal history. That's all in the letters.
Negotiating: equipotential exists when both sides are happy with the deal and it can go through. How does quantum
[page 35]
mechanics say this?
Saturday 1 August 2015
Trying to get published in journals run by Catholic Institutions: people that publish my stuff may lose their jobs as I lost mine, because although the PR has changed, the rules binding servants of the Church have not, as we can see by the large number of Catholic theologians suppressed over the years.
Pope embraces science: Galileo vindicated at last
400 years ago the Holy Inquisition gave Galileo the choice of denying his science or losing his life. He knew he was right and that the Papal attack on reality would fail. He loved life and his family, so he opted for a lifetime of house arrest rather than death. Galileo affair - Wikipedia
Now we have Pope Francis quoting science in his encyclical Laudato Si. This is good, but the fundamentalists are worried. Our own Cardinal Pell has criticized the Pope for mentioning science. "The church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters," he said, "We believe in the autonomy of science." Weasel words. In other words, "we are above science". Pope Francis, Kerry Armstrong
The old "two truths" theory. It may look like bread, but it is really meat and blood. This, of course, says that nature lies, is one thing but looks like another. Two truths doctrine - Wikipedia, John Paul II: Truth cannot contradict truth, Double truth - Wikipedia
Science is all about looking and the scientific faith is that if we look carefully enough we will see what is really going on. The Holy Inquisition knew without looking that Galileo was wrong. Or more accurately, that his science was a threat to their dictatorship. Fortun & Bernstein
I need not tell you how bad the Church is. If you have been following the Royal Commission you will have caught a glimpse of its long history of child sexual abuse and denial of its crimes. These crimes are evidence of an evil that goes much deeper. Australian Government
I was educated in the Catholic system. I was not sexually abused, just beaten (even in year 12) for non-conformity. The abuse I suffered was intellectual, ideas inculcated by violence. No child in my vicinity was spoilt by a spared rod. I was taught the Catholic History of Salvation a hundred years after it became scientifically untenable. Anthony Maas (1912)
The source of this abuse is clear. It is power. The Church is a fiction, not of this world. It is a creation of the ancient doctrine of the divine right of kings, documented by Moses in Exodus. Up the mountain to talk to God. Down to instruct the masses and kill the non-conformists (32:27 etc). Standard operating procedure for monarchs before and since. Divine right of kings - Wikipedia
We are lucky. 800 years ago our forebears signed the Magna Carta and initiated a history of restraint on absolute power. King John: Magna Carta
The Pope, nevertheless, remains an absolute monarch. And infallible to boot. No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff (Canon 333 para 3). This fiction of absolute power has corrupted the Church. The absolute power of the pope implies the absolute powerlessness of his flock, sheep to the slaughter. Least of all have children any rights in such a regime. Papal supremacy - Wikipedia
One of our fundamental rights is a right to the truth. The Church perverts the truth. The fundamental error in Catholicism is the doctrine of original sin. It is an unverified and unverifiable fiction. It is now a scientifically well attested fact that we evolved over a period of four billion years on the planet Earth.There is no credible way that an act by a pair of early hominids could have suddenly blighted our whole species and the whole Universe. If there was no original sin, there is no need for redemption. If we do not need redemption, we do not need the Catholic Church. Paul III - Council of Trent
The doctrine of original sin is not an accident. It has a solid political foundation. It is an essential component of the divine right. It reduces mass of us to untermensch, born bad, born to be ruled, worst of all, born female. This, in the hands of the warlords who rule the world, is a self fulfilling prophecy. Newborns absorb their ambient culture. The Church had convinced me that I was a sinner by the time I was about five.
The Catholic History of Salvation was created by some of the smartest writers of the last 3000 years. They have done a good job, and deceived billions of people, including me.
For the first thirty years of my life I was a believer. Then I was saved by Bernard Lonergan. He showed me that the transcendent Catholic God is staked on a false understanding of the world. God is not a mysterious and incomprehensible alien. The real God is identical with the Universe. There is no reason beyond the assumed magisterial power of the Church to think otherwise. If the Universe is divine, every experience is revelation. Theology can become a real science. Lonergan: Insight
I explained this in letters to Pope Francis after he was elected. I was very pleased to see his nod to science in Laudato Si' , even though it is framed in traditional Catholicism. But now he has let science in the door, the dictatorial authoritarian Church of unverified fiction is finished. Only a scientific and democratic Church can grow broad enough to embrace a divine Universe and all the inhabitants thereof.
[Submitted to Eureka Street]
The trees I see are fixed points, and I know that their fixedness can be ultimately traced back to the fixed states of atoms, and we can trace the behaviour of atoms back through the fixed points provided by subatomic particles and ultimately down to the first fixed bifurcation, between bosons and fermions. Fermion - Wikipedia, Boson - Wikipedia
Charged particles communicate energy and spin to photons.
A civil society works to reduce the error rate (pain) among its members by keeping the peace and providing social welfare and support to deal with unemployment, illness, homelessness and all the other evils that complex organisms like ourselves are heir to, ie socialism = human maintenance. Socialism - Wikipedia
Quantum mechanics comes down to local differences in amplitude, a measure of phase, ie timing of events [more energy, more timing precision]. Things go best in harmony, the sweet spot [a rational ratio]. Phase and probability of an event, ie a conversation between two entities. Probability of initial message x probability of reply = φφ* = x+ iy . x-iy, ie |φ|2.
The time is comong for me to study quantummechanics seriesly, rather than impressionistically.
Why does complex conjugation affect the imaginary but not the real.
[page 36]
Why are events described by quadratic expression? because they are bidoirectional. Why does Pythagoras' theorem hold in Euclidean space? [because it would contradict the axioms if not so?]
Old age and experience: get the effect without the effort.
Entropy increases, decreasing power [agents become equiprobable = equipollent]. Power increases, decreasing entropy. However, high power is unstable, high entropy stable, so democracy eventually beats monarchy? Power comes from the ability to destroy: do what I say or die.
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Copyright:
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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!)
Beale, R, and T Jackson, Neural Computing: An Introduction, Adam Hilger 1991 Jacket: '. . . starts from basics and goes on to cover all the most important approaches to the subject. . . . The capabilities, advantages and disadvantages of each model are discussed as are possible applications of each. The relationship of the models developed to the brain and its functions are also explored.'
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du Maurier, Daphne, The Scapegoat, Amereon 1991 Editoprial review: 'Two men--one English, the other French--meet by chance in a provincial railway station and are astounded that they are so much alike that they could easily pass for each other. Over the course of a long evening, they talk and drink. It is not until he awakes the next day that John, the Englishman, realizes that he may have spoken too much. His French companion is gone, having stolen his identity. For his part, John has no choice but to take the Frenchman's place--as master of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a large and embittered family, and keeper of too many secrets.
Loaded with suspense and wit, The Scapegoat tells the double story of the attempts by John, the imposter, to escape detection by the family, servants, and several mistresses of his alter ego, and of his constant and frustrating efforts to unravel the mystery of the enigmatic past that dominates the existence of all who live in the chateau.
Hailed by the New York Times as a masterpiece of "artfully compulsive storytelling," The Scapegoat brings us Daphne du Maurier at the very top of her form.'
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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.'
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Genesis, and Alexander Jones (editor), in The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water.' (I, 1-2)
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Kramer, Heinrich, and James Sprengler, Montague Summers (translator), The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Spengler, Dover Publications 1971 Amazon Product Description
'Full text of most important witchhunter's "bible," used by both Catholics and Protestants. First published in 1486, the book includes everything known at the time about cults, illicit sex, dealings with the devil, and more.'
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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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Pynchon, Thomas, Vineland, Penguin Classics (September 1, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0141180633
ISBN-13: 978-0141180632 1997 Jacket: 'A major political novel about what America has been doing to itself, to its children, all these many years. . . One of Amkerica's great writers has, after long wanderings down his uncharted road, come triumphantly home' Salman Rushdie New York Times Book Review<./i>
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Saad , David, and (editor), On-Line Learning in neural Networks, Cambridge University Press0521117917
ISBN-13: 978-0521117913 2009 Amazon Product Description
'On-line learning is one of the most commonly used techniques for training neural networks. Though it has been used successfully in many real-world applications, most training methods are based on heuristic observations. The lack of theoretical support damages the credibility as well as the efficiency of neural networks training, making it hard to choose reliable or optimal methods. This book presents a coherent picture of the state of the art in the theoretical analysis of on-line learning. An introduction relates the subject to other developments in neural networks and explains the overall picture. Surveys by leading experts in the field combine new and established material and enable nonexperts to learn more about the techniques and methods used. This book, the first in the area, provides a comprehensive view of the subject and will be welcomed by mathematicians, scientists and engineers, both in industry and academia.'
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Yourgrau, Wolfgang, and Stanley Mandelstam, Variational Principles in Dynamics and Quantum Theory, Dover 1979 Variational principles serve as filters for parititioning the set of dynamic possibilities of a system into a high probability and a low probability set. The method derives from De Maupertuis (1698-1759) who formulated the principle of least action, which states that physical laws include a rule of economy, the principle of least action. This principle states that in a mathematically described dynamic system will move so as to minimise action. Yourgrau and andelstam explains the application of this principle to a variety of physical systems.
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Papers
| Zurek, Wojciech Hubert, "Quantum origin of quantum jumps: Breaking of unitary symmetry induced by information transfer in the transition from quantum to classical", Physical Review A, 76, 5, 16 November 2007, page . Abstract: 'Measurements transfer information about a system to the apparatus and then, further on, to observers and (often inadvertently) to the environment. I show that even imperfect copying essential in such situations restricts possible unperturbed outcomes to an orthogonal subset of all possible states of the system, thus breaking the unitary symmetry of its Hilbert space implied by the quantum superposition principle. Preferred outcome states emerge as a result. They provide a framework for 'wave-packet collapse', designating terminal points of quantum jumps and defining the measured observable by specifying its eigenstates. In quantum Darwinism, they are the progenitors of multiple copies spread throughout the environment &mdash the fittest quantum states that not only survive decoherence, but subvert the environment into carrying information about them &mdash into becoming a witness.'. back |
Links
| Anthony Maas (1912), Salvation in The Catholic Encyclopdia, 'Salvation has in Scriptural language the general meaning of liberation from straitened circumstances or from other evils, and of a translation into a state of freedom and security (1 Samuel 11:13; 14:45; 2 Samuel 23:10; 2 Kings 13:17). At times it expresses God's help against Israel's enemies, at other times, the Divine blessing bestowed on the produce of the soil (Isaiah 45:8). As sin is the greatest evil, being the root and source of all evil, Sacred Scripture uses the word "salvation" mainly in the sense of liberation of the human race or of individual man from sin and its consequences.' back |
| Aquinas 113, Summa I, 18, 3: Is life properly attributed to God?, Life is in the highest degree properly in God. In proof of which it must be considered that since a thing is said to live in so far as it operates of itself and not as moved by another, the more perfectly this power is found in anything, the more perfect is the life of that thing. ... back |
| Aquinas 25, Whether goodness differs really from being?, 'I answer that, Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea; which is clear from the following argument. The essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. i): "Goodness is what all desire." Now it is clear that a thing is desirable only in so far as it is perfect; for all desire their own perfection. But everything is perfect so far as it is actual. Therefore it is clear that a thing is perfect so far as it exists; for it is existence that makes all things actual, as is clear from the foregoing (3, 4; 4, 1). Hence it is clear that goodness and being are the same really. But goodness presents the aspect of desirableness, which being does not present.' back |
| Aquinas 326, Whether the highest angel among those who sinned was the highest of all?, '. . . if the motive for sinning be considered, we find that it existed in the higher angels more than in the lower. For, as has been said (2), the demons' sin was pride; and the motive of pride is excellence, which was greater in the higher spirits. Hence Gregory says that he who sinned was the very highest of all. . . . ' back |
| Aristotle, The Internet Classics Archive | Works by Aristotle, A comprehensive database of Aristotle's works. back |
| Asceticism - Wikipedia, Asceticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Asceticism (from the Greek: . . . askesis, "exercise" or "training" in the sense of athletic training) describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals. Some forms of Christianity (see especially: Monastic life) and the Indian religions (including yoga) teach that salvation and liberation involve a process of mind-body transformation effected by exercising restraint with respect to actions of body, speech, and mind. The founders and earliest practitioners of these religions (e.g. Buddhism, Jainism, the Christian desert fathers) lived extremely austere lifestyles refraining from sensual pleasures and the accumulation of material wealth. This is to be understood not as an eschewal of the enjoyment of life but a recognition that spiritual and religious goals are impeded by such indulgence' back |
| Australian Government, Royal Commission into Institutional Resonses to Child Sexual Abuse, 'NOW THEREFORE We do, by these Our Letters Patent issued in Our name by Our Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia on the advice of the Federal Executive Council and under the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Royal Commissions Act 1902 and every other enabling power, appoint you to be a Commission of inquiry, and require and authorise you, to inquire into institutional responses to allegations and incidents of child sexual abuse and related matters, and in particular, without limiting the scope of your inquiry, the following matters: . . . ' back |
| Bombing of Cologne in World War II - Wikipedia, Bombing of Cologne in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The City of Cologne was bombed in 262 separate air raids[1] by the Allies during World War II, including 31 times[clarification needed] by the Royal Air Force (RAF). Air raid alarms went off in the winter/spring of 1940 as enemy bombers passed overhead. However, the first actual bombing took place on 12 May 1940.[2] The most notable attack on Cologne was the first Allied 1,000 bomber raid on 30 May/31 May 1942.' back |
| Boson - Wikipedia, Boson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In particle physics, bosons are particles with an integer spin, as opposed to fermions which have half-integer spin. From a behaviour point of view, fermions are particles that obey the Fermi-Dirac statistics while bosons are particles that obey the Bose-Einstein statistics. They may be either elementary, like the photon, or composite, as mesons. All force carrier particles are bosons. They are named after Satyendra Nath Bose. In contrast to fermions, several bosons can occupy the same quantum state. Thus, bosons with the same energy can occupy the same place in space.' back |
| Clive Hamilton, "There is such confusion in my power", 'So a carbon tax and an emissions trading system differ in a fundamental way: under a carbon tax the price of carbon emissions is fixed by the government and the amount of emissions varies; under an emissions trading system the amount of emissions is fixed by the government and the price varies.' back |
| Deborah Orr, Britain's island mentality is making the Calais migrant crisis all the more difficult. , 'The free movement of people in search of economic opportunity is as profoundly neoliberal as it gets. And yet, in this regard, it’s the right that calls for protectionism, with its own massive ideological contradiction barely questioned. Theresa May is happy to explain that asylum-seekers must be brought to an understanding that there is no warm welcome for them in Britain. Austerity isn’t just about lack of sympathy for vulnerable people in Britain, but also about a lack of sympathy for vulnerable people throughout the world.' back |
| Divine right of kings - Wikipedia, Divine right of kings - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The divine right of kings is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God. The king is thus not subject to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or any other estate of the realm, including (in the view of some, especially in Protestant countries) the Church. According to this doctrine, since only God can judge an unjust king, the king can do no wrong. The doctrine implies that any attempt to depose the king or to restrict his powers runs contrary to the will of God and may constitute a sacrilegious act.' back |
| Dot product - Wikipedia, Dot product - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, the dot product, or scalar product (or sometimes inner product in the context of Euclidean space), is an algebraic operation that takes two equal-length sequences of numbers (usually coordinate vectors) and returns a single number obtained by multiplying corresponding entries and then summing those products. The name "dot product" is derived from the centered dot " " that is often used to designate this operation; the alternative name "scalar product" emphasizes the scalar (rather than vector) nature of the result.' back |
| Double truth - Wikipedia, Double truth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Double-truth theory is the view that religion and philosophy, as separate sources of knowledge, might arrive at contradictory truths without detriment to either.' back |
| Dynamics - Wikipedia, Dynamics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, '. . . in physics, dynamics refers to time evolution of physical processes' back |
| Fermion - Wikipedia, Fermion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In particle physics, fermions are particles with a half-integer spin, such as protons and electrons. They obey the Fermi-Dirac statistics and are named after Enrico Fermi. In the Standard Model there are two types of elementary fermions: quarks and leptons. . . .
In contrast to bosons, only one fermion can occupy a quantum state at a given time (they obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle). Thus, if more than one fermion occupies the same place in space, the properties of each fermion (e.g. its spin) must be different from the rest. Therefore fermions are usually related with matter while bosons are related with radiation, though the separation between the two is not clear in quantum physics. back |
| Galileo affair - Wikipedia, Galileo affair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Galileo affair was a sequence of events, beginning around 1610, during which Galileo Galilei came into conflict with both the Catholic Church, for his support of Copernican astronomy, and secular philosophers, for his criticism of Aristotelianism.' back |
| Halting problem- Wikipedia, Halting problem- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In computability theory, the halting problem is a decision problem which can be stated as follows: given a description of a program and a finite input, decide whether the program finishes running or will run forever, given that input.
Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs cannot exist. We say that the halting problem is undecidable over Turing machines. Copeland (2004) attributes the actual term halting problem to Martin Davis.' back |
| Indoctrination - Wikipedia, Indoctrination - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology (see doctrine).[1] Indoctrination is a critical component in the transfer of cultures, customs, and traditions from one generation to the next.' back |
| John Paul II, Truth Cannot Contradict Truth, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences October 22, 1996 , 'Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being.' back |
| Jonathan Lundgren and Scott Fausti, As biodiversity declines on corn farms, pest probems grow, 'We found that communities with stronger networks – that is, more linked species – had fewer pests. Not only this, but network centrality was important; communities with several groups of highly linked species, including insects that prey on others, don’t have the pest problems that loosely linked networks have. Thus, in addition to species diversity, the strength of interactions among species within a community seem to be related to when and where pest outbreaks occur.' back |
| Kerry Armstrong, Cardinal George Pell criticizes Pope Francis over climate change stance, 'Cardinal George Pell has publicly criticised Pope Francis' decision to place climate change at the top of the Catholic Church's agenda.
Cardinal Pell, a well-known climate change skeptic, told the Financial Times the church had "no particular expertise in science".
"The church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters," he said,
"We believe in the autonomy of science."
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His comments come a month after Pope Francis released an historic encyclical calling on humanity to fight global warming.' back |
| Kinematics - Wikipedia, Kinematics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Kinematics (from Greek . . . kinein, to move) is the branch of classical mechanics that describes the motion of objects without consideration of the causes leading to the motion.' back |
| King John, Magna Carta at the British Library, 'Magna Carta is one of the most famous documents in the world. Explore its 800-year legacy with unique collection items, newly-commissioned articles by leading experts, videos and animations and a range of teaching resources.' back |
| Matrix (mathematics) - Wikipedia, Matrix (mathematics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, a matrix (plural matrices) is a rectangular array—of numbers, symbols, or expressions, arranged in rows and columns—that is treated in certain prescribed ways.' back |
| Metanoia - Wikipedia, Metanoia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Metanoia (from the Greek μετάνοια, metanoia, changing one's mind) in the context of theological discussion, where it is used often, is usually interpreted to mean repentance. However, some people[citation needed] argue that the word should be interpreted more literally to denote changing one's mind, in the sense of embracing thoughts beyond its present limitations or thought patterns (an interpretation which is compatible with the denotative meaning of repentance but replaces its negative connotation with a positive one, focusing on the superior state being approached rather than the inferior prior state being departed from).' back |
| Papal supremacy - Wikipedia, Papal supremacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Papal supremacy is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church that the pope, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ and as pastor of the entire Christian Church, has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered: that, in brief, "the Pope enjoys, by divine institution, supreme, full, immediate, and universal power in the care of souls."
The doctrine had the most significance in the relationship between the church and the temporal state, in matters such as ecclesiastic privileges, the actions of monarchs and even successions.' back |
| Paul III - Council of Trent, Decree Concerning Original Sin, '1. If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, and through the offense of that prevarication incurred the wrath and indignation of God, and thus death with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam through that offense of prevarication was changed in body and soul for the worse, let him be anathema.' back |
| Paul Malone, The hidden cost of airport security, 'Although it hasn't studied the issue directly, a 2011 Productivity Commission report noted that airport security charges were about $20 a return trip.
On top of that you have the cost of the time wasted by every traveller.
In the year to May 2015, about 57 million domestic passengers flew in Australia while 52 airlines carried 34 million international passengers.
With the most conservative assumptions, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests the cost to the community of the security charge and the time lost would be at least $2 billion a year.' back |
| Pope Francis, Laudato Si': On care of our common home, '1. “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.[1]
2. This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.' back |
| Quantum non-demolition measurement - Wikipedia, Quantum non-demolition measurement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Quantum nondemolition (QND) measurement is a special type of measurement of a quantum system in which the uncertainty of the measured observable does not increase from its measured value during the subsequent normal evolution of the system. This necessarily requires that the measurement process preserve the physical integrity of the measured system, and moreover places requirements on the relationship between the measured observable and the self-Hamiltonian of the system. In a sense, QND measurements are the "most classical" and least disturbing type of measurement in quantum mechanics.' back |
| Rydberg-Ritz combination principle - Wikipedia, Rydberg-Ritz combination principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Rydberg-Ritz Combination Principle is the theory proposed by Walter Ritz in 1908 to explain relationship of the spectral lines for all atoms. The principle states that the spectral lines of any element include frequencies that are either the sum or the difference of the frequencies of two other lines.' back |
| Sarah Joseph, Operation Sovereign Borders, ofshore detention and the 'drowings argument', 'Australia’s asylum seekers issues cannot be divorced from the global refugee crisis. And the solutions are therefore complex. That complexity can seem messy compared to the brutal simplicity of the government’s solution to simply “stop the boats”.
But, frankly, I don’t want to buy into a phenomenon which the critical legal scholar Mark Tushnet has called “blue-printism”. That is the idea that one can’t criticise a policy unless there is a readymade comprehensive blueprint for an alternative. Blueprintism inherently and unjustifiably entrenches the status quo.
Yet the burden of proof is on the government to demonstrate that its policy settings are correct. And I don’t think it can, given the numerous grave flaws in that policy. . . . It is unlikely that we are saving lives, but we are definitely ruining them.' back |
| Socialism - Wikipedia, Socialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.' back |
| Thomas Pynchon - Wikipedia, Thomas Pynchon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. (born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist based in New York City, noted for his dense and complex works of fiction. Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon spent two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity's Rainbow (1973), Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006) and Inherent Vice (2009).' back |
| Two truths doctrine - Wikipedia, Two truths doctrine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths (Wylie: bden pa gnyis) differentiates between two levels of satya (Sanskrit), meaning truth or "really existing" in Buddhist discourse: relative or commonsensical truth or real, and absolute or ultimate truth or real.
The exact meaning varies between the various Buddhist schools and traditions. The best-known is the Madhyamaka interpretation, which says that conventional reality is the only reality that exists (relative truth), but that ultimately everything that exists is "empty", sunyata, of an inherent, everlasting "essence" (ultimate truth). Sunyata itself is also "empty" of such an essence; it is not an Absolute, but a statement about the true condition of "things." ' back |
| Xiao Guozhen, China vs Its Human Rights Lawyers, 'But Mr. Xi and the Communist Party leadership fail to realize that suppression could eventually lead to their political demise. In China, rights lawyers serve as a pressure valve, directing citizens’ anger and discontent into proper legal channels and giving them a voice. Hundreds of protests break out across the country each day as Chinese people show discontent with corruption, land seizures and other injustices associated with the country’s rapid development.
Suppression of moderate dissent in a volatile society jeopardizes China’s chance to peacefully transition toward more democracy and could explode into massive and violent social unrest or even a political coup.' back |
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