vol VII: Notes

2016

Notes

Sunday 17 January 2016 - Saturday 23 January 2016

[Notebook: DB 79: Galileo Wins]

[page 197]

Sunday 17 January 2015

Drake, Galileo Drake: Galileo at Work

Monday 18 January 2015

Drake page 386: 'Galileo's letter conveys that the idea that was important to him was that his book [Dialogues]contained the elements of sciences leading to vast fields yet to be explored.' Like divine universe hypothesis. Galilei: Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences

page 421: Galileo: Wine: 'light held together by moisture'.

Everything knowable has parts, that is distinct elements or

[page 198]

symbols which carry the information copied into the mind by the knowledge process, beginning with the receipt of quantum particles like photons and phonons and information bearing molecules and continuing through layers of processing to appear in imagination and be convertible into language. We reject the ancient idea characteristic of Plato that the intellect has no parts and only knows things without parts. Nous - Wikipedia

Lying in the bath I realize that I have been so preoccupied with the God problem that I have not given much thought to the evil consequences of the divine right claimed by the Church to dictate human behaviour. Drake's book on Galileo has given me a clear insight into the Catholic thought police at work. From a political point of view, the true attitude of the Church to humanity is embodied in the three vows of supererogation, poverty, chastity and obedience. By taking these vows I became a slave to the Church, working for its advancement for no earthly reward. Apart from this economic advantage to the Church, the political doctrine of the Fall implies that sex, property and self determination are detrimental to human perfection. I was wilful enough to defy my teacher's attempts to control my thoughts, and I began the practical rejection of chastity in my monastic days also. My worst problem has been with property, which I have failed to acquire because I believed that poverty was good. This is certainly true from an environmental point of view, if it limits consumption, but I now find that my impecuniousness limits my ability to invest in green technology. I am open to wealth now, but I still have to work for my money. The days of living off a best-seller still seem far off but worth working for.

Tuesday 19 January 2015

[page 199]

The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience constitute the 'supererogation' characteristic of religious vocations The theoretical foundation for taking this path is the belief that the Fall and original sin has damaged humanity by releasing our animal spirits from the control of reason, a constant theme in the Catholic doctrine of sin, which Aquinas and St Augustine define as a word, deed or desire contrary to eternal law. The Church assumes (falsely) that it knows eternal law. This is only true insofar as 'eternal law' is its own creation. Aquinas 961

Catholic Encyclopedia, John Melody: 'Christian morality prescribes the right order of relations. It must therefore direct and control the manner of relationships sustained to each other by soul and body. Between these two there is an ineradicable opposition, the flesh with its concupiscences contending unceasingly against the spirit blinding the latter and leading it way from the pursuit of its true life. . . . ' John Melody: Chastity

Persona humana: 'Whatever the force of certain arguments of a biological and philosophical nature, which have sometimes been used by theologians, in fact both the Magisterium of the Church—in the course of constant tradition—and the moral sense of the faithful have dictated without hesitation that masturbation is a intrinsically and seriously disordered act.' Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Aquinas II II 152 4 Aquinas 1672

Paul I Cor. 7 sqq Paul: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Evangelical counsels Evangelical counsels - Wikipedia

Wednesday 20 January 2015

Scientific theology: categories of experience are correlated with layers

[page 200]

of the network. All experience and communication operate in the human layer as the user layer, but the subjects and sources of experience correlate to physics, chemistry, biology, psychology etc, which layers build upon one another to bring us to the human layer. Our experience of the lower layers is usually mediated through tools ranging from the Large Hadron Collider to microscopes and magnifying glasses for information collection and from heavy engineering equipment to micromanipulators and photons for information output to the world, ie construction in the general sense. Here I am constructing text with a pen.

Rereading my notes on Chaitin I see that in 1992 I have already written of a connection between eigenfunctions and Turing machines. Chaitin: Algorithmic Information Theory

Chaitin page ix: 'Gödel's original proof of his incompleteness theorem is essentially the assertion that one cannot prove that a program will fail to halt.' Our ansatz is that if we can really prove something, this proof must be true in reality, in other words it is a turing machine that guides the outcome of events which says that some events must be guided = proved = executed by a deterministic computer.

Eureka Street: you are a magazine of opinions rather than scientific articles so it seems appropriate to express the opinion that it would be very profitable to establish scientific and verifiable theologies to replace the current crop which are largely based on the dreams of various rulers and their advisors. Moses etc etc and the prophets. Jesuit Communications Australia

We must look at the world as it really is and the only language that is powerful enough to express what we see is mathematics. Basically mathematics explores by taking a countable infinity of distinct symbols and rearranging them in all possible

[page 201]

ways. An infinitesimal fraction of these arrangements is computable, ie repeatable, and these are the ones that can reproduce and outcompete (sometimes) the vastly greater number of incomputable random events. A fixed algorithm can process any number of random events (executed instances of the algorithm).

Chaitin: 'Over the years, Gödel's result has been improved; it follows from the work on Hilbert's tenth problem that Gödel's theorem is equivalent to the assertion that one cannot always prove that a diophantine equation has no solutions if this is the case.'

Insoluble = unprovable = Gödel's theorem - incomputable. We prove a this in the transfinite domain, but logically it applies at all cardinalities beginning with 0 and working through 1 to ℵ_n, where n may be an aleph.

'In our approach to incompleteness we shall ask whether or not a program produces an infinite amount of output rather than whether it produces any; this is equivalent to asking whether or not a diophantine equation has infinitely many solutions instead of asking whether or not it is solvable.' In other words a diophantine equation becomes a source.

Lonergan's introduction of empirical residue shows that he had no notion of the dynamic and evolutionary nature of the universe in which every event has a source that gives it meaning and the total source is god, which gives meaning to everything. This in some unresolved way tipped me from outside to inside god [inside to outside the Order], because having the god outside meant that the universe is essentially meaningless, a dust of empirical residue only given meaning by the puppeteer outside. Lonergan: Insight

[page 202]

TO DB 80: COSMIC PLUMBING

From DB 79 Galileo wins

[page 1]

Thursday 21 January 2015

In 1992 I wrote 'HALT = EMIT MESSAGE = PARTICLE [physically embodied information] and my work since then has been to try to expand this idea, exploring the source of fixed points in the divine dynamics: - universal dynamics is a more scientifically aceptable term which serves as an observable definition of divine dynamics. Chaitin page xii.

Maybe I am on a 24 year mental cycle and can look forward to something in 2040 (age 95)

One of the most acute experiences of god's body is the divine ecstasy of sex, something which the [ancients realized is a hint of heaven].

Chaitin page 1: 'I believe that pure LISP is in precisely the same role in computational mathematics that set theory is in theoretical mathematics, in that it provides a beautifully elegant and extremely powerful formalism which enables concepts such as that of numbers and functions to be defined from a handful of more primitive notions [subroutines]. Lisp (programming Language) - Wikipedia

We, like everything else, are bounded by computability. Our species will become extinct if we cannot reproduce fast enough. This is no longer a problem. We have in effect conquered and occupied the planet, but now we can ask ourselves if this was a good idea. Our way of life has global repercussions and must be adjusted to match global constraints if we are to survive.

Marry Chaitin to Streater and Wightman. Streater & Wightman: PCT: Spin, Statistics and All That

[page 2]

Sociability: the broader the algorithm the greater the accompanying symmetry, beginning with action and proceeding through energy and momentum to the full 4 space-time of physics.

Symmetries determine the extent of localities where we think of a locality as a patch of Euclidean space or a subset of a network using common protocols.

Am climbing the stairs - hard to imagine the number of quanta of action being executed in this event. Given that I am working at 100 watts and the quantum of action is 6 × 10⁻³⁴ J.sec, this means something like 16 E34 actions per second, all synchronised and linked to lift my 100 kg up at ½ metre per second or so.

Friday 22 January 2015

The big question is how is mathematics at the level discussed by Chaitin physically implemented? Parts of the answer are fixed points and computation, and the scale invariance of the transfinite network. The jump from ℵ_n to ℵ_n+1 is, at a certain level of abstraction, identical to the jump from n to n+1.

Saturday 23 January 2015

Robert Owen Sir Robert Owen: The Litvinenko Inquiry

The incredible complexity of the universe points well beyond physics into psychology and theology via biology.

[page 3]

Feeling inspired but short of words. Big thunderstorm outside.

Stewart page 296: 'Keynes great contribution to economics was to show that the modern economy did not work in the way everyone had supposed and to provide a new and completely convincing explanation of how it did work. This new explanation has becomes the foundation of modern economics.' Stewart: Keynes and After

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!)

Chaitin, Gregory J, Algorithmic Information Theory, Cambridge UP 1987 Foreword: 'The crucial fact here is that there exist symbolic objects (i.e., texts) which are "algorithmically inexplicable", i.e., cannot be specified by any text shorter than themselves. Since texts of this sort have the properties associated with random sequences of classical probability theory, the theory of describability developed . . . in the present work yields a very interesting new view of the notion of randomness.' J T Schwartz  Amazon   back

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.'  Amazon   back

Drake, Stillman, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography, Dover Publications 1995 Jacket: Based entirely on original sources, Professor Drake's scrupulously researched study includes translations of much correspondence and other material previously unpublished in English. The result is a volume of exceptional richness and immediacy that paints a vivid portrait of one of history's greatest minds, leaving the philosophical implications of his work aside and focussing on the enduring scientific achievements that represent Galileo's true legacy to mankind.'  Amazon   back

Feynman, Richard, QED: The Strange Story of Light and Matter, Princeton UP 1988 Jacket: 'Quantum electrodynamics - or QED for short - is the 'strange theory' that explains how light and electrons interact. Thanks to Richard Feynmann and his colleagues, it is also one of the rare parts of physics that is known for sure, a theory that has stood the test of time. . . . In this beautifully lucid set of lectures he provides a definitive introduction to QED.'  Amazon   back

Galilei, Galileo, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences (translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio) , Dover 1954 Jacket: 'Despite the fact that this book encompasses thirty years of highly original experimentation and theorizing on the part of this singular man, it is eminently readable. Written as a discussion between a master and two students, it sets forth its hundreds of experiments and summarizes the conclusions Galileo drew from these experiements in a brisk direct style. Using helpful geometric demonstrations, Galileo discusses aspects of fracture of solid bodies, cohesion, leverage, the speed of light, sound, pendulums, falling bodies, projectiles, uniform motion, accelerated motion, and the strengths of wires, rods and beams under different loadings and placements. Not only does the book display the genius of one of the makers of our civilization, but it also presents, for the historian of science, considerable information about Renaissance misapprehensions which Galileo refuted.'  Amazon   back

Greene, Graham, A Sort of Life, Bodley Head 1971 Amazon customer review: Greene is a master of understatment and restraint. This book is a lovely if self-effacing coming-of-literary-age memoir that is fun and reader friendly. It's invaluable for its precious glimpses into the vanished world of the 10's and 20's England. Full of curious detail too: I didn't know that Greene was related to R.L. Stevenson for example. The book ends just around the time of his first literary success. I don't know if there are any further memoirs but I wouldn't mind reading them.' Uncle Borges  Amazon   back

Hofstadter, Douglas R, Goedel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Basic/Harvester 1979 An illustrated essay on the philosophy of mathematics. Formal systems, recursion, self reference and meaning explored with a dazzling array of examples in music, dialogue, text and graphics.  Amazon   back

Hofstadter, Douglas R, Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Basic Books, HarperCollins Publishers Inc 1997 Amazon: 'In the fall of 1537, a child was confined to bed for some time. The French poet Clément Marot wrote her a get-well poem, 28 lines long, each line a scant three syllables. In the mid-1980s, the outrageously gifted Douglas R. Hofstadter- il miglior fabbro of Godel, Escher, Bach - first attempted to translate this "sweet, old, small elegant French poem into English." He was later to challenge friends, relations, and colleagues to do the same. The results were exceptional, and are now contained in Le Ton Beau De Marot, a sunny exploration of scholarly and linguistic play and love's infinity. Less sunny, however, is the tragedy that hangs over Hofstadter's book, the sudden death of his wife, Carol, from a brain tumor. (Her translation is among the book's finest.)  Amazon   back

Stewart, Michael, Keynes and After, Penguin 1999 'Amazing how such a small book could give so much information about an economic theory that changed the world. In "Keynes and After," Michael Stewart does not waste any words in telling the reader how revolutions in thought occur when the prevailing theory can no longer be reconciled with the observable facts. That expression (in the "conclusion" in the book) could itself be an excellent thought for the current global politicians who seem to be clueless and not seeing the observable facts as to how to save the global economy. . . . ' Indrajith A Weeraratne  Amazon   back

Streater, Raymond F, and Arthur S Wightman, PCT, Spin, Statistics and All That, Princeton University Press 2000 Amazon product description: 'PCT, Spin and Statistics, and All That is the classic summary of and introduction to the achievements of Axiomatic Quantum Field Theory. This theory gives precise mathematical responses to questions like: What is a quantized field? What are the physically indispensable attributes of a quantized field? Furthermore, Axiomatic Field Theory shows that a number of physically important predictions of quantum field theory are mathematical consequences of the axioms. Here Raymond Streater and Arthur Wightman treat only results that can be rigorously proved, and these are presented in an elegant style that makes them available to a broad range of physics and theoretical mathematics.'  Amazon   back

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, The Future of Man (translated by Norman Denny) , Borgo Press 1994 Amazon product description: 'Pierre Teilhard De Chardin was one of the most distinguished thinkers and scientists of our time. He fits into no familiar category for he was at once a biologist and a paleontologist of world renown, and also a Jesuit priest. He applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile Christian theology with the scientific theory of evolution, to relate the facts of religious experience to those of natural science. The Phenomenon of Man, the first of his writings to appear in America, Pierre Teilhard's most important book and contains the quintessence of his thought. When published in France it was the best-selling nonfiction book of the year.'  Amazon   back

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, The Phenomenon of Man, Collins 1965 Sir Julian Huxley, Introduction: 'We, mankind, contain the possibilities of the earth's immense future, and can realise more and more of them on condition that we increase our knowledge and our love. That, it seems to me, is the distillation of the Phenomenon of Man.'   Amazon   back

Papers

Gaston, Kevin J, "Valuing Common Species", Science, 327, 5962, 8 January 2010, page 154-155. 'Aldo Leopold's dictum that "To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering" has been oft repeated in the context of environmental management. The argument is beguilingly simple. In the absence of a detailed understanding of what each species does in an ecosystem, it would be foolish to allow the loss of any one of them. It is the precautionary principle writ large and, given its enormous ramifications for the ways in which people interact with the natural world, ecologists have spent much intellectual energy, time, and resources in determining whether it has a strong empirical basis. Indeed, some of the best-known recent ecological experiments have examined the consequences of varying the numbers of species in a small area on ecosystem function. This focus assumes that the importance of retaining Leopold's cogs and wheels lies mostly in the differences between them. However, a growing body of work on common species underlines that having sufficient copies of some key pieces may be equally, and perhaps often more, important.. back

Hirose, Kei, "Deep Mantle Properties", Science, 327, 5962, 8 January 2010, page 151-152. 'The lower mantle extends from 660 to 2890 km below the surface of the Earth. The rocks and minerals of the deep mantle are not accessible in nature, except those occurring infrequently as inclusions in diamond. However, they can be synthesized and examined at the relevant high pressure and temperature conditions in the laboratory. Recent such experimental investigations, as well as theoretical calculations, have suggested that the properties of lower-mantle minerals vary with increasing depth much more than was previously thought. On page 193 of this issue, Irifune et al. (1) report that iron (Fe) partitioning between the two main lower-mantle constituents, iron–magnesium silicate perovskite (Pv) and iron–magnesium oxide (ferropericlase, Fp), indeed changes in a natural mantle composition for conditions corresponding to depths below 1100 km. The results have profound implications for predicting the properties and dynamics of the deep mantle.'. back

Horvath, Philippe Horvath, Rodolphe Barrangou, "CRISPR/Cas, the Immune System of Bacteria and Archaea", Science, 327, 5962, 8 January 2010, page 167-170. 'Microbes rely on diverse defense mechanisms that allow them to withstand viral predation and exposure to invading nucleic acid. In many Bacteria and most Archaea, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) form peculiar genetic loci, which provide acquired immunity against viruses and plasmids by targeting nucleic acid in a sequence-specific manner. These hypervariable loci take up genetic material from invasive elements and build up inheritable DNA-encoded immunity over time. Conversely, viruses have devised mutational escape strategies that allow them to circumvent the CRISPR/Cas system, albeit at a cost. CRISPR features may be exploited for typing purposes, epidemiological studies, host-virus ecological surveys, building specific immunity against undesirable genetic elements, and enhancing viral resistance in domesticated microbes'. back

Links

Aquinas 165, Summa I, 28, 1: Are there real relations in God?, 'Reply to Objection 4. Relations which result from the mental operation alone in the objects understood are logical relations only, inasmuch as reason observes them as existing between two objects perceived by the mind. Those relations, however, which follow the operation of the intellect, and which exist between the word intellectually proceeding and the source whence it proceeds, are not logical relations only, but are real relations; inasmuch as the intellect and the reason are real things, and are really related to that which proceeds from them intelligibly; as a corporeal thing is related to that which proceeds from it corporeally. Thus paternity and filiation are real relations in God.' back

Aquinas 1672, II II 152 4: Is virginity ore excellent than marriage?, 'I answer that, According to Jerome (Contra Jovin. i) the error of Jovinian consisted in holding virginity not to be preferable to marriage. This error is refuted above all by the example of Christ Who both chose a virgin for His mother, and remained Himself a virgin, and by the teaching of the Apostle who (1 Corinthians 7) counsels virginity as the greater good. It is also refuted by reason, both because a Divine good takes precedence of a human good, and because the good of the soul is preferable to the good of the body, and again because the good of the contemplative life is better than that of the active life.' back

Aquinas 961, I II 71 6: Is sin fittingly defined as a word, deed of desire contrary to eternal law, '. . . Augustine (Contra Faust. xxii, 27) includes two things in the definition of sin: one, pertaining to the substance of a human act, and which is the matter, so to speak, of sin, when he says "word," "deed," or "desire"; the other, pertaining to the nature of evil, and which is the form, as it were, of sin, when he says, "contrary to the eternal law." ' back

Arthur Barnes (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908), Evangelical Counsels, 'To sum up: it is possible to be rich, and married, and held in honour by all men, and yet keep the Commandments and to enter heaven. Christ's advice is, if we would make sure of everlasting life and desire to conform ourselves perfectly to the Divine will, that we should sell our possessions and give the proceeds to others who are in need, that we should live a life of chastity for the Gospel's sake, and, finally, should not seek honours or commands, but place ourselves under obedience. These are the Evangelical Counsels, and the things which are counselled are not set forward so much as good in themselves, as in the light of means to an end and as the surest and quickest way of obtaining everlasting life.' back

Ben Doherty, Australia's offshore detention damages asylum seekers becasue it is supposed to, 'But many of the medical professionals who work within this system have told Guardian Australia that they do not believe the damage to asylum seekers and refugees held is accidental or an unhappy, unintended side-effect of detention. They argue that the detention centres are “designed to damage” people, and that the illnesses, injuries, and deaths are the predictable, expected outcomes of the regime. Detention damages people because it is supposed to.' back

Douglas Dalby, Catholic Church's Hold on Schools at Issue in Changing Ireland, 'DUBLIN — The Roman Catholic Church has lost the battles over divorce, contraception and gay marriage in Ireland. But it still wields what some parents call the “baptism barrier”: influencing admission to public schools. Almost all state-funded primary schools — nearly 97 percent — are under church control, and Irish law allows them to consider religion the main factor in admissions. As a practical matter, that means local schools, already oversubscribed, often choose to admit Catholics over non-Catholics.' back

Evangelical counsels - Wikipedia, Evangelical counsels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The three evangelical counsels or counsels of perfection in Christianity are chastity, poverty (or perfect charity), and obedience. As Jesus of Nazareth stated in the Canonical gospels, they are counsels for those who desire to become "perfect" . . . . The Catholic Church interprets this to mean that they are not binding upon all and hence not necessary conditions to attain eternal life (heaven). Rather they are "acts of supererogation" that exceed the minimum stipulated in the Commandments in the Bible. Christians that have made a public profession to order their life by the evangelical counsels, and confirmed this by a public religious vow before their competent church authority (the act of religious commitment called "profession"), are recognised as members of the consecrated life.' back

Francis Keany, Scientifif research underpins a quarter of Australia's economic outut, study finds, 'Scientific advances over the past 20 to 30 years have underpinned an estimated $330 billion of Australia's economic growth, according to a new report by the Australian Academy of Science. Key points: Findings demonstrate importance of science, outgoing chief scientist says Biological advances contributing $65 billion to economy annually Medical advances valued at more than $83 billion The research, produced by the Centre for International Economies, found the areas of physical, mathematical and biological sciences contributed to 26 per cent of Australian economic activity.' back

Frankie Boye, Who doesn't want to see Jeremy Corbyn elected? It would be a glorious six-day reign, 'And yet, who doesn’t want to see Corbyn elected? Can you think of anything more ridiculous than a man of principle being inexplicably elected to high office? It’ll be like a Peter Sellers movie. Sure, he’ll be crushed under the heel of international finance, but I for one look forward to his glorious six-day premiership. His brief reign will be a high point for modern Britain, a time that we will commemorate every year by leaving ironic poppies balanced on the lip of the missile crater where his house used to be, a time we will reminisce about fondly during the five-minute socialisation breaks when they lower the dividing walls between our work cubes.' back

Nous - Wikipedia, Nous - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Nous . . . , sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a philosophical term for the faculty of the human mind which is described in classical philosophy as necessary for understanding what is true or real. The three commonly used philosophical terms are from Greek, νοῦς or νόος, and Latin intellectus and intelligentia respectively. To describe the activity of this faculty, apart from verbs based on "understanding", the word "intellection" is sometimes used in philosophical contexts, and the Greek words noēsis and noein are sometimes also used. This activity is understood in a similar way, at least in some contexts, to the modern concept intuition.' back

Jesuit Communications Australia, Eureka Street, 'Eureka Street is a publication of the Australian Jesuits. It existed as a monthly, and briefly bi-monthly, print magazine for 16 years, commencing in March 1991. Today it exists as a vibrant online journal of analysis, commentary and reflection on current issues in the worlds of politics, religion and culture. It aims to participate in public discussion and influence public opinion regarding the Things That Matter in Australia and the world.' back

John Melody, Catholic Encyclopedia: Chastity, 'Under Christianity chastity has been practised in a manner unknown under any other influence. Christian morality prescribes the right order of relations. It therefore must direct and control the manner of relationship sustained to each other by soul and body. Between these two there is an ineradicable opposition, the flesh with its concupiscences contending unceasingly against the spirit, blinding the latter and weaning it away from the pursuit of its true life. Harmony and due order between these two must prevail. But this means the pre-eminence and mastery of the spirit, which in turn can only mean the castigation of the body. The real as well as the etymological kinship between chastity and chastisement then is obvious. Necessarily, therefore, chastity is a thing stern and austere.' back

John Melody, Chastity (Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908), 'Christianity and the practice of chastity Under Christianity chastity has been practised in a manner unknown under any other influence. Christian morality prescribes the right order of relations. It therefore must direct and control the manner of relationship sustained to each other by soul and body. Between these two there is an ineradicable opposition, the flesh with its concupiscences contending unceasingly against the spirit, blinding the latter and weaning it away from the pursuit of its true life. Harmony and due order between these two must prevail. But this means the pre-eminence and mastery of the spirit, which in turn can only mean the castigation of the body. The real as well as the etymological kinship between chastity and chastisement then is obvious. Necessarily, therefore, chastity is a thing stern and austere. The effect of the example as well as of the words of Our Saviour (Matthew 19:11-12) is seen in the lives of the many celibates and virgins who have graced the history of the Christian Church, while the idea of marriage as the sign and symbol of the ineffable union of Christ with His spotless spouse the Church — a union in which fidelity no less than love is mutual — has borne its fruit in beautifying the world with patterns of conjugal chastity.' back

Kristina Kinneally, Here's fresh insight into Pell's response to child sex abuse crisis. Irs not encouraging, 'Viewed through modern eyes, it seems extraordinary that it took the Catholic church nearly two millennia to comprehensively condemn slavery. . . . The Catholic church is a slow-moving beast, especially when it comes to social and economic reforms. Fifty years after Vatican II, the Church announced just this week that it would slavery-proof its supply chains. Australian Cardinal George Pell, Prefect of the Holy See Secretariat of the Economy, confirmed in a keynote speech at an international financial conference in Rome this week that the Vatican would join some 400 companies in eradicating the use of forced labor from suppliers.' back

Lisp (programming Language) - Wikipedia, Lisp (programming Language) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Lisp (historically, LISP) is a family of computer programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish prefix notation.[1] Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today; only Fortran is older (by one year).[2][3] Like Fortran, Lisp has changed a great deal since its early days, and a number of dialects have existed over its history. Today, the most widely known general-purpose Lisp dialects are Common Lisp and Scheme. back

New Matilda, Independent news, analysis and satire, 'Launched in August 2004, newmatilda.com is an Australian website of news, analysis and satire. Believing that robust media is fundamental to a healthy democracy, newmatilda.com is fiercely independent — it has no affiliation with any political party, lobby group or other media organisation.' back

New York Times Editorial Board, The Fading Two-State Solution, 'Speaking at a security conference, Mr. Shapiro said, correctly, that Israel’s quick-moving expansion of settlements on Palestinian lands “raises honest questions about Israel’s long-term intentions” and commitment to a two-state solution. What really enraged his critics was an observation that during a time of increased violence in Israel and the West Bank, “Too many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation or response by Israeli authorities, too much vigilantism goes unchecked, and at times there seem to be two standards of adherence to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians.” A statement from Mr. Netanyahu’s office denounced the second comment as “unacceptable and incorrect.” . . . The criticism of Mr. Shapiro, a vigorous advocate for Israel, was unusually personal and unfair. He correctly identified a serious problem. Since 1967, there has been a dual legal system in the West Bank in which Palestinians are subject to military courts, where, experts say, they are almost always convicted. Israeli settlers fall under the Israeli civilian judicial system, with its greater rights and protections.' back

Oliver Miman, World's oceans warming as increasingly faster rate, new study finds, 'Ocean water, which has a much higher heat capacity than air, has absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat and nearly 30% of the carbon dioxide generated by human consumption of fossil fuels. The vast Southern Ocean sucked up 1.2bn tonnes of carbon in 2011 alone – which is roughly equivalent to the European Union’s annual carbon output.' back

Paul: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1 Corinthians, Chapter 7, '1Now in regard to the matters about which you wrote: “It is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman,”' back

Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Persona humana: Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, December 29, 1975, 'At the audience granted on November 7, 1975, to the undersigned Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Sovereign Pontiff by Divine Providence Pope Paul VI approved this Declaration "On certain questions concerning sexual ethics," confirmed it and ordered its publication. Given in Rome, at the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on December 29th, 1975. Franjo Cardinal Seper Prefect Most Rev. Jerome Hamer, O.P. Titular Archbishop of Lorium Secretary' back

Sir Robert Owen, The Litvinenko Inquiry: Report into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, '2.6 It has always been my view that the question of possible Russian State responsibility for Mr Litvinenko’s death is one of the most important issues arising from his death. It was an issue that I had intended to investigate at the inquest, but it did not seem right to me to investigate this issue in the knowledge that government material that was of great relevance had been excluded – albeit that it had been excluded for a good reason. 2.7 I therefore asked the Home Secretary to establish a Public Inquiry to replace the inquest. The advantage of a Public Inquiry over the inquest was that the rules governing an inquiry allow for sensitive evidence to be heard in closed session.' back