"natural theology > notes > 2015

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Chaitin, Gregory J, Information, Randomness & Incompleteness: Papers on Algorithmic Information Theory, World Scientific 1987 Jacket: 'Algorithmic information theory is a branch of computational complexity theory concerned with the size of computer programs rather than with their running time. ... The theory combines features of probability theory, information theory, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, and recursive function or computability theory. ... [A] major application of algorithmic information theory has been the dramatic new light it throws on Goedel's famous incompleteness theorem and on the limitations of the axiomatic method. ...'
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Christie, Agatha, A Pocket Full of Rye, Signet 2004 Amazon Product Description 'In this ingeniously plotted Christie classic, a child's nursery rhyme holds three clues to finding a cunning killer when a well-to-do household becomes infested with murder.'
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Davis, Martin, Computability and Unsolvability, Dover 1982 Preface: 'This book is an introduction to the theory of computability and non-computability ususally referred to as the theory of recursive functions. The subject is concerned with the existence of purely mechanical procedures for solving problems. . . . The existence of absolutely unsolvable problems and the Goedel incompleteness theorem are among the results in the theory of computability that have philosophical significance.'
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Dawkins, Richard, Climbing Mount Improbable, W. W. Norton & Company 1997 Amazon editorial review: 'How do species evolve? Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most eminent zoologists, likens the process to scaling a huge, Himalaya-size peak, the Mount Improbable of his title. An alpinist does not leap from sea level to the summit; neither does a species utterly change forms overnight, but instead follows a course of "slow, cumulative, one-step-at-a-time, non-random survival of random variants" -- a course that Charles Darwin, Dawkins's great hero, called natural selection. Illustrating his arguments with case studies from the natural world, such as the evolution of the eye and the lung, and the coevolution of certain kinds of figs and wasps, Dawkins provides a vigorous, entertaining defense of key Darwinian ideas.'
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Howarth, David, Waterloo: A Near Run Thing, Phoenix 2003 Amazon Product Description 'The first shots were fired at about eleven-thirty on a Sunday morning in June, 1815; by nine o'clock that night, forty thousand men lay dead or wounded, and Napoleon had abandoned not only his army, but all hope of recovering his empire. From the recollections of the men who were there, esteemed author David Howarth has recreated the battle as it appeared to them on the day it was fought. He follows the fortunes of men of all ranks and on both sides. But it is on the French side that the mysteries remain. Why did Ney attack with cavalry alone? And was Napoleon's downfall really due to the minor ailment he suffered that day? Beautifully written, vivid, and unforgettable, this illuminating history is impossible to put down.'
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Lewis, Clive S , The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition, Oxford UP 1979 Jacket: 'The Romance of the Rose, its ancestors and its descendants are here studied not as an obstacle to be surmounted on our way to Chaucer, but as a true expression of the ages which produced them. The allegorical form is found to be at once an imagninative bridge from mythical to reflective consciousness and a principal origin of Romanticism; ... ' 'Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations: being alive, it has the privilege of always mocing yet never leaving anything behind. What ever we may have been, in some sort we still are. Neither the form nor the sentiment of this old poetry has passed away without leaving indelible traces on our minds.
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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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Peskin, Michael E, and Dan V Schroeder, An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory, Westview Press 1995 Amazon Product Description 'This book is a clear and comprehensive introduction to quantum field theory, one that develops the subject systematically from its beginnings. The book builds on calculation techniques toward an explanation of the physics of renormalization.'
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Weyl, Hermann, Space Time Matter (translated by Henry L Brose), Dover 1985 Amazon customer review: ' The birth of gauge theory by its author: This book bewitched several generations of physicists and students. Hermann Weyl was one of the very great mathematicians of this century. He was also a great physicist and an artist with ideas and words. In this book you will find, at a deep level, the philosophy, mathematics and physics of space-time. It appeared soon after Einstein's famous paper on General Relativity, and is, in fact, a magnificent exposition of it, or, rather, of a tentative generalization of it. The mathematical part is of the highest class, striving to put geometry to the forefront. Actually, the book introduced a far-reaching generalization of the theory of connections, with respect to the Levi-Civita theory. It was not a generalization for itself, but motivated by the dream (Einstein's) of including gravitation and electromagnetism in the same (geometrical) theory. The result was gauge theory, which, slightly modified and applied to quantum mechanics resulted in the theory which dominates present particle physics. Weyl's unified theory was proved wrong by Einstein, and his criticism alone, accepted by Weyl and included in the book, would justify the reading. Though wrong, Weyl's theory is so beautiful that Paul Dirac stated that nature could not afford neglecting such perfection, and that the theory was probably only misplaced. Prophetic words! The philosophic parts are, alas, too much for our present cultural level, but you can ignore them. The mathematical and physical parts are perfectly accessible and, of course, of the highest class. The pity is that the number of misprints is immense, particularly in the formulas, so that the reading is made much more difficult than it should. Also, the English edition is not the latest one. If you read German, choose the original, also available here.' Henrique Fleming
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Papers

Raizen, Mark G, "Comprehensive Control of Atomic Motion", Science, 324, 5933, 12 June 2009, page 1403-1406. Review: 'Recent work provides a general two-step solution to trapping and cooling atoms, The first step is magnetic stopping of paramagnetic atoms with a sequence of pulsed fields. The second step is single-photon cooling, which is based on a one-way barrier. This cooling method is related intimately to the historic problem of "Maxwell's Demon" and subsequent work by L Szilard. Here I discuss the connections between single-photon cooling and information entropy. I also outline future application of these methods to fundamental tests with hydrogen isotopes. . back

Shannon, Claude E, "Communication in the Presence of Noise", Proceedings of the IEEE, 86, 2, February 1998, page 447-457. Reprint of Shannon, Claude E. "Communication in the Presence of Noise." Proceedings of the IEEE, 37 (January 1949) : 10-21. 'A method is developed for representing any communication system geometrically. Messages and the corresponding signals are points in two function spaces, and the modulation process is a mapping of one space into the other. Using this representation, a number of results in communication theory are deduced concerning expansion and compression of bandwidth and the threshold effect. Formulas are found for the maximum rate of transmission of binary digits over a system when the signal is perturbed by various types of noise. Some of the properties of "ideal" systems which transmit this maximum rate are discussed. The equivalent number of binary digits per second of certain information sources is calculated.' . back

Szilard, Leo, "On the decrease of entropy in a thermodynamic system by the intervention of intelligent beings", Behavioural Science, 9, 4, October 1964, page . 'In memory of Leo Szilard ... we present an English translation of his classial paper Uber die Entropieverminderung in einem thermodynamischen System bei Eingriffen intelligenter Wesen which appeared inthe Zeitschrift fur Physic 1929, 53, 840-56. This is one of the earliest, if not the earliest paper, in which the relations of physical entropy to information (in the sense of modern mathematical theory of communication) were rigorously demonstrated and in which Maxwell's famous demon was successfully exorcised: a milestone in the integration of physical and cognitive concepts. ' Reprinted in Feld, Bernard T, The Collected Works of Leo Szilard: Scientific Papers, The MIT Press 1972 Amazon back . back

Links

Affine geometry - Wikipedia, Affine geometry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, affine geometry is what remains of Euclidean geometry, when not using (mathematicians often say "when forgetting") the metric notions of distance and angle. As the notion of parallel lines is one of the main properties that is independent of any metric, affine geometry is often considered as the study of parallel lines. Therefore, Playfair's axiom (given a line L and a point P not on L, there is exactly one line parallel to L that passes through P) is fundamental in affine geometry. Comparisons of figures in affine geometry are made with affine transformations, which are mappings that preserve alignment of points and parallelism of lines.' back

Aquinas 778, I II 34 1: Whether every pleasure is evil, 'We must therefore say that some pleasures are good, and that some are evil. For pleasure is a repose of the appetitive power in some loved good, and resulting from some operation; wherefore we assign a twofold reason for this assertion. The first is in respect of the good in which a man reposes with pleasure. For good and evil in the moral order depend on agreement or disagreement with reason, as stated above (Question 18, Article 5): just as in the order of nature, a thing is said to be natural, if it agrees with nature, and unnatural, if it disagrees. Accordingly, just as in the natural order there is a certain natural repose, whereby a thing rests in that which agrees with its nature, for instance, when a heavy body rests down below; and again an unnatural repose, whereby a thing rests in that which disagrees with its nature, as when a heavy body rests up aloft: so, in the moral order, there is a good pleasure, whereby the higher or lower appetite rests in that which is in accord with reason; and an evil pleasure, whereby the appetite rests in that which is discordant from reason and the law of God.' back

Australian Law Reform Commission, Traditinal Rightsand Freeedoms - Encroachments by CommonwealthLaws (ALRC Interim Report 127), 'In the Interim Report, the ALRC discusses the source and rationale of these important common law rights, freedoms and privileges, and discusses how they have been protected by the Constitution, the Parliament and the courts. The Interim Report also provides an extensive survey of current Commonwealth laws that limit traditional rights, freedoms and privileges and considers how such laws may be justified. The ALRC invites submissions in response to this Interim Report and, in particular, submissions identifying Commonwealth laws that warrant further review.' back

Ayelett Shani, 'Israel Would Be Embarassed if It Were Known It's Selling Arms to These Countries', 'All countries engage in military exports. The problem is that Israel is involved in places that the United States and Europe decided to avoid exporting weapons to. We know Israel is selling arms to Azerbaijan, South Sudan and Rwanda. Israel is training units guarding presidential regimes in African states. According to reports, this is happening in Cameroon, Togo and Equatorial Guinea – nondemocratic states, some of them dictatorships, that kill, plunder and oppress their citizens. back

Bianca Hall, Windfarm 'wing nuts': Public health expert takes aim at activists, 'One of Australia's leading public health experts has delivered a scathing assessment of anti-windfarm activists, comparing them to people who believe in aliens, reincarnation and other "irrational...nonsense or faith-based beliefs". Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney, whose research led to the development of cigarette plain packaging, had been asked to respond to a Senate inquiry into the health effects of wind farms.' back

Dirac delta function - Wikipedia, Dirac delta function - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Dirac delta or Dirac's delta is a mathematical construct introduced by theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. Informally, it is a function representing an infinitely sharp peak bounding unit area: a function ?(x) that has the value zero everywhere except at x = 0 where its value is infinitely large in such a way that its total integral is 1. In the context of signal processing it is often referred to as the unit impulse function. Note that the Dirac delta is not strictly a function. While for many purposes it can be manipulated as such, formally it can be defined as a distribution that is also a measure.' back

Evan Economo & Benoit Guenard, antmaps.org, ' The goal of antmaps.org is to provide an intuitive and efficient framework for professional and amateur myrmecologists to visualize the known distribution of ant species or higher taxon, and to access the underlying records for those data.
Antmaps.org is not a database per se, but rather a client-end tool for visualizing and interacting with the GABI database. The Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics (GABI) project (Guénard et al. In Review) is an attempt to consolidate and curate a comprehensive global database of ant species distributional records, including literature records, museum databases, and online specimen databases. The database includes records from over 8400 publications, most major digitized museum collections, and specimen databases such as Antweb. In total, the database now has over 1.6 million records including around 15000 described ant species and subspecies. The GABI data are currently housed in a PostgreSQL database that syncronizes once per week with antmaps.org. ' back

Eyal Winter, Voting is irrational. Emotions always win, 'Ideology too is mostly about emotions and hardly at all about rationality. Imagine a world in which ideology was ruled by rationality without any biases. In such a world there would be little room for political debate among intelligent people. If we were all exposed to the same facts we would end up reaching the same conclusions. We would still need parties and elections since our interests are not identical. But we would never remain split over questions such as which economic policy would benefit most British people, or which policy would be most effective for tackling terrorism.' back

Gideon Levy, Racist attacks stem from a Jewish principle, 'The first breeding ground of those who torched the Dawabsheh family was the Israel Defense Forces, even if the offenders didn’t serve in it. When the killing of 500 children in the Gaza Strip is legitimate, and doesn’t even compel a debate, a moral reckoning, then what’s so terrible about setting a house on fire, together with its inhabitants? After all, what’s the difference between lobbing a fire bomb and dropping a bomb? In terms of the intention, or the intent, there is no difference.' back

Mitch Smith, 30 toShare $21Milion in Abuse Settlement With Milwaukee Archdiocese, 'Mike Finnegan, a lawyer whose Minnesota law firm represents most of the victims, said the settlement amount should have been higher and criticized the archdiocese’s legal tactics. The settlement was “not a victory for survivors,” he said, but was better than the alternatives likely in bankruptcy court. “This archdiocese has fought more aggressively than any other in the country” facing sexual abuse claims, Mr. Finnegan said.' back

Norm Sheehan, Racism defies logic - so don't go searching for any, 'Many commentators have found it difficult to define the actions of spectators in the Adam Goodes booing affair; are these actions racist or not? This confusion is understandable because racism is best described as irrational – and irrational events often defy definition.' back

Nureddin Amro, Israel wrecked my home. Now it wants my land, 'Many people know that more than 600 Palestinian villages were depopulated in the years during and after Israel’s founding and that most of them were demolished. Some people also know that tens of thousands of structures have been torn down by Israel since the 1967 war, some 500 homes in East Jerusalem alone since 2004. Fewer know that there are more than 11,000 open demolition orders against Palestinian structures just in Area C of the West Bank. This means that Israel can raze them at any moment, without further warning; Palestinians in those homes live in constant fear.' back

Schrödinger equation - Wikipedia, Schrödinger equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the Schrödinger equation, proposed by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1926, describes the space- and time-dependence of quantum mechanical systems. It is of central importance in non-relativistic quantum mechanics, playing a role for microscopic particles analogous to Newton's second law in classical mechanics for macroscopic particles. Microscopic particles include elementary particles, such as electrons, as well as systems of particles, such as atomic nuclei.' back

Simon Chapman, New study: wind turbine syndrome is spread by scaremongers, 'All four hypotheses were strongly supported by our study: Almost two thirds (63%) of all wind farms, including half of those with large (>1MW) turbines which opponents particularly demonise, have never been the subject of complaint The proportion of nearby residents complaining is minuscule Some complainants took many years to voice their first complaint, when wind farm opponents regularly warn that the ill effects can be almost instant Health complaints were as rare as proverbial rocking horse droppings until the scare-mongering groups began megaphoning their apocalyptic, scary messages to rural residents.' back

Simon Rice, Brandis receives long list of rights-limiting laws - now can he justify them?, 'And so the report continues, setting out the many laws “that have been criticised for unjustifiably limiting common law rights or principles”. It records rights or principles that are at risk as including freedoms of speech, religion, association and movement; property rights; non-retrospectivity of laws; fair trial and procedural fairness; burden of proof; right to silence; privilege of legal communications; and the right to judicial review.' back

Susan Svrluga, #ilooklikeanengineer wants to change your ideas about who can be a scientist, '“Do you feel passionately about helping spread awareness about tech gender diversity? “Do you not fit the ‘cookie-cutter mold’ of what people believe engineers ‘should look like?’ “If you answered yes to any of these questions, I invite you to help spread the word and help us redefine ‘what an engineer should look like’ #iLookLikeAnEngineer.” ' back

Thomas, The Essence of God, ' We cannot know what God is, but only what He is not. So to study Him, we study what He has not -- such as composition and motion.' back

Waleed Aly, Tony Abbott has been firther isolated by his indigenous backdown, 'The Prime Minister has missed the point: Indigenous people need to lead the process to their constitutional recognition.' back

vol VII: Notes

2015

Notes

Sunday 2 August 2015

Monday 3 August 2015

Tuesday 4 August 2015

Wednesday 5 August 2015

Thursday 6 August 2015

Friday 7 August 2015

Saturday 8 August 2015

Further reading

Books

Papers

Links