"natural theology > notes > 2017

vol VII: Notes

2017

Notes

Sunday 5 November 2017 - Saturday 11 November 2017

[Notebook: DB 82: Life and Death]

[page 41]

Sunday 5 November 2017

Monday 6 November 2017

The story of the petrol leak - it is not always easy to understand the world, especially if you do not investigate it thoroughly. [Stopped to fill the car after a recent visit to the cancer clinic. The operator came out to fill the car for me, something that rarely happens these days. We got talking and found that we had both had cancer in the neck. While we were talking, the pump failed to switch itself off, so some petrol spilled. As I drove home I smelled petrol, but assumed it was a result of the spill and forgot about it. Weeks later I visited a friend and left the lights on, so that when I came to leave the battery was flat so I needed a jump start from my friend. I left the engine running and when I came to put the bonnet down, saw a small leak in the high pressure fuel line on top of the engine. This had been the source of the petrol smell. A leak in this steel pipe is probably exceedingly rare!]

On the whole my conscious mind only holds one thing at a time so when I am multitasking it is a matter of time division multiplexing, pushing things onto my stack and popping them off, and forgetting some forever. The network model of the universe proposes that the classical omnino simplex God must be multitasking to take care of all the messages passed in the universe [since we see this god as the lowest physical layers of the network, carrying all the traffic].

Tuesday 7 November 2017

Adelaide

Still wondering how to apply the transfinite entropy scale to the real world.

Cercignani, page 2: '. . . we get rid of entropy to keep our state well ordered . . ..' Just as Carnot machine needs a cold source to get rid of the entropy that it receives from the hot source. Cercignani: Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man Who Trusted Atoms

[page 42]

Cercignani page 3: 'There are hierarchies of structures and new concepts rise at each level. Even if the real world is made up of atoms (or even smaller particles) it is difficult to describe what happens in that world in terms of these basic constituents. What we can do is to establish a bridge between the various levels in order to form a coherent picture; the whole of Boltzmann's work is a masterpiece of this procedure, ie how to construct, starting from atoms, a description that explains everyday life.'

page 5; [The Boltzmann equation] is, from a historical standpoint the first equation ever written to govern the temporal evolution of probability. In the same paper Boltzmann was able to derive a proof of the irreversibility of macroscopic phenomena. It is the difference of scale between the objects that we observe in everyday life on the one hand, and molecules on the other hand, which explains the irreversibility through the laws of probability.'

One thing I like about myself is my ability to dig myself out of impossible holes. I still hold out for a theological evolution before I die.

Cercignani page 45: Boltzmnn: '(Bring forward what is true; / write it so that it is clear; defend it to your last breath. [not me, I will always want to live to fight another day, strategic retreat])

page 49: 'As a consequence of his early successes, [Boltzmann] perceived himself as a great man misunderstood by his contemproaries but he occsionally felt that he was not able to maintain the level of this

[page 43]

picture. Because of this weak side, to our eyes he seems closer to a normal human being than to a great hero of physics history.'

Wednesday 8 November 2017

Thursday 9 November 2017

One of the most frustrating phenomena in life is the inability to understand. which is cured in a random manner by the occurrence of insight. We can use the rate of insight as a measure of intelligence and understand it as some sort of network kinetic theory, an insight occurring when a certain population of operations line up and carry us from a to b. The simplest example of such insight it logical motion comprising a series of identical steps. A more complex version is a proof, where the steps may be all formally different, although logically connected, leading us from premises to conclusion.

Cercignani page 81: 'Twenty five years after Carnot's aper, William Thompson was still amazed to see this result and commented that "nothing in the whole range of Natural Philosophy is more remarkable than the establishment of general laws by such a process of reasoning." [Carnot's proof is physical, using the known properties of the steps in a machine or cycle, thermodynamic logic]

page 82: Reversible processes conserve entropy - lossless codecs, conservation of variety. A lossless codec needs two qualities: a) sufficient variety and b) suitable (effective) code [embodying an effective algorithm]

Friday 10 November 2017

Boltzmann follows the path of just one particle one the molecular chaos of a gas (or wider environment) to arrive at the H

[page 44]

theorem. We see this as the history of a computable system moving in the context of an incomputable system, and so expand his argument to deal with all our careers in the effectively random world in which we find ourselves, like my refugee friends trying to manage their lives in the Ukrainian war zone.

Saturday 11 November 2017

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Cercignani, Carlo, Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man Who Trusted Atoms, Oxford University Press, USA 2006 'Cercignani provides a stimulating biography of a great scientist. Boltzmann's greatness is difficult to state, but the fact that the author is still actively engaged in research into some of the finer, as yet unresolved issues provoked by Boltzmann's work is a measure of just how far ahead of his time Boltzmann was. It is also tragic to read of Boltzmann's persecution by his contemporaries, the energeticists, who regarded atoms as a convenient hypothesis, but not as having a definite existence. Boltzmann felt that atoms were real and this motivated much of his research. How Boltzmann would have laughed if he could have seen present-day scanning tunnelling microscopy images, which resolve the atomic structure at surfaces! If only all scientists would learn from Boltzmann's life story that it is bad for science to persecute someone whose views you do not share but cannot disprove. One surprising fact I learned from this book was how research into thermodynamics and statistical mechanics led to the beginnings of quantum theory (such as Planck's distribution law, and Einstein's theory of specific heat). Lecture notes by Boltzmann also seem to have influenced Einstein's construction of special relativity. Cercignani's familiarity with Boltzmann's work at the research level will probably set this above other biographies of Boltzmann for a very long time to come.' Dr David J Bottomley
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Harrod, Roy F, John Maynard Keynes, Penguin Books 1972 Jacket: 'Mr Harrod has not merely written a biography of J M Keynes. He has produced a great document in the history of twentieth-century Britain; at once a study in the history of ideas, a survey of the development of economics and a portrait of the outstanding intellectual of the age.' Times Literary Supplement
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Hilbert, David, and Leon Unger (translator, from the tenth German edition). Revised and Enlarged by Paul Bernays, Foundations of Geometry (Grundlagen der Geometrie), Open Court 1999 Jacket: 'Along with the writings of Hilbert's friend and correspondent Frege, Hilbert's Grundlagen der Geometrie is the major prop that set the stage for Russell and Whitehead's Principa Mathematica. Hilbert presents a new axiomatization of geometry, the reduction of geometry to algebra, and introduces the distinction between mathematics and metamathematics, with a new theory of proof. This edition is translated from the tenth German edition, including all the improvements which Hilbert derived from his own reflections and the contributions of other writers.
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Hussaini, Safiya, and Andrew Tanzi (translator), Rafaele Masto, I, Safiya, Pan Macmillan 2003 Amazon Editorial Reviews Book Description 'This is the true, first-hand account of one woman's courageous struggle for justice, and the story that in 2001 made the eyes of the world turn to the small Nigerian village of Tungar Tudu. Safiya Hussaini was accused of adultery, arrested and taken from her farming village in northern Nigeria. Brought before a Sharia court, she was sentenced to death by stoning. Her crime was to become pregnant outside of marriage and to give birth to her little girl, Adama. The child's father at first accepted responsibility, but then changed his story, denied everything and was released without penalty. Betrayed, terrified and outcast, Safiya summoned the strength to fight for her life. Supported by her family, her lawyer and her faith in Allah, she was determined to stay alive to care for her little girl.'
Amazon back

Hussaini, Safiya, and Andrew Tanzi (translator), Rafaele Masto, , Pan Macmillan 2003 Amazon Editorial Reviews Book Description 'This is the true, first-hand account of one woman's corageous struggle for justice, and the story that in 2001 made the eyes of the world turn to the small Nigerian village of Tungar Tudu. Safiya Hussaini was accused of adultery, arreseted and taken from her farming village in northern Nigeria. Brought before a Sharia court, she was sentenced to death by stoning. Her crime was to become pregnant outside of marriage and to give birth to her little girl, Adama. The child's father at first accepted responsibility, but then changed his story, denied everything and was released without penalty. Betrayed, terrified and outcast, Safiya summoned the strength to fight for her life. Supported by her family, her lawyer and her faith in Allah, she was determined to stay alive to care for her little girl.'
Amazon back

Keynes, John Maynard, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Macmillan 1936-1964 The classic twentieth century economics text that revealed that there are more ways to get an economy to grow than simply balancing the books.back

Moulton, Forest Ray, An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics, Dover 1970 Jacket: 'An unrivalled text in the field of celestial mechanics, Moulton's theoretical work on the prediction and interpretation of celestial phenomena has not been superseded.'
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Links

Emma Green, Why Notre Dame Reversed Course on Contraception, 'Notre Dame announced on Tuesday that faculty, students, and staff will be able to obtain coverage for contraceptives through their university-sponsored insurance plans. The surprise decision is a reversal of the school’s announcement last week that it would discontinue birth-control coverage in light of new religious-freedom protections put in place by the Trump administration.' back

Kathryn Brightbill, R0y Moore's alleged pursuit of young girl is the symptom of a larger problem in evangelical circles, 'We need to talk about the segment of American culture that probably doesn’t think the allegations against Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore are particularly damning, the segment that will blanch at only two accusations in the Washington Post expose: He pursued a 14-year-old-girl without first getting her parents’ permission, and he initiated sexual contact outside of marriage. That segment is evangelicalism. In that world, which Moore travels in and I grew up in, 14-year-old girls courting adult men isn’t uncommon. back

Leslie Jamison, The Digital Ruins of a Forgotten Future, 'What is Second Life? The short answer is that it’s a virtual world that launched in 2003 and was hailed by some as the future of the internet. The longer answer is that it’s a landscape full of goth cities and preciously tattered beach shanties, vampire castles and tropical islands and rainforest temples and dinosaur stomping grounds, disco-ball-glittering nightclubs and trippy giant chess games.' back

M J C Warren, Why 'Judeo-Christian values' are a dog-whistle myth peddled by the far right, 'It seems, then, that the idea of Judeo-Christian values excludes both Jews and Muslims. The phrase tacitly excludes Jews by subsuming Judaism into Christianity, and it explicitly excludes Muslims in its use in anti-immigration rhetoric. In reality, “Judeo-Christian values” actually point to a particular type of right-wing Christian values. Continuing to use this phrase only contributes to exclusionary and divisive political rhetoric. When we hear it, we should call it out for what it is.' back

Paul Moses, Happy Are the Spiritual, 'What the study tells me is that people who are spiritual—religious or not—are major contributors to building social capital, the glue that holds a community together. This seems to jibe with findings of Robert Putnam and David Campbell in their comprehensive study American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. They found that religious Americans, whether conservative or liberal, were much more involved civically than secular ones.' back

Thomas Keneally, death os ot the fly in the cosmic ointment. It is the cosmic ointment, 'But let the poem speak! It is the work of William Dunbar, a Scot, a scholar of St Andrews, a diplomat for King James and a noted reciter of humorous verse for the same monarch. But he also wrote Lament for the Makaris (old Scots for “poets”), and its poignancy arises from the fact he’s been dead nearly 600 years. Our pleasance here is all vain glory, This fals world is but transitory, The flesh is bruckle, the Feynd is slee; Timor mortis conturbat me.' back