vol VII: Notes
2018
Notes
Sunday 9 September 2018 - Saturday 15 September 2018
[Notebook: DB 82: Life and Death]
[page 274]
Sunday 9 September 2018
Trying to arrive at a story about the origin of space-time. Time is dynamic, a description of process. Space is static, a description of memory. A computer reads from and writes to memory, which is the static element of its process, holding program and data. The process has the effect of moving things around in space, so we can think of its most fundamental effect as locomotion, and the simplest form of motion is the movement of massless particles like photons in space which from an observer's point of view is simply a set of null geodesics. We notice that all fermions are massive, ie they contain energy, that is process, some sort of internal process. We also notice that fundamental massive particles are considered to be points, so that we might see any process within them as moving on null geodesics [and, from a classical point of view, they have infinite density ?].
Naturalizing morality: what is the difference between moral
[page 275]
action and action in general? As a general approach to classification we might identify the subset of all human actions that concern our interactions with one another as moral. This may be too narrow, insofar as human welfare also depends on consuming material resources for survival, so that morality also applies to interaction with the non-human environment, coming under the general heading of resource conservation, avoiding overexploitation, habitat destruction and similar counterproductive activity.
We may divide fitness, like energy, into potential, ie form and structure like fur and horns and teeth which are in effect passive and static aids to survival, hardware and tools, and kinetic, actual actions like running, biting, thinking, observing and so on. To survive I have got what it takes and I know how to use it, the knowledge itself being part of the potential recorded in the hardware.
i is orthogonal to 1, which shows when it acts on itself, i × i = −1. Maybe self-interaction is the fundamental interaction in the universe, since things can only interact when they are touching and everything can say I touch myself. This may explain the prevalence of quadratic forms in physics. God acts on itself (and the universe) because there is nothing else for it to act on and this symmetry is common to all discrete entities in the universe which are effectively little gods. Chrissy Amphlett / Divinyls: I touch myself
Maybe an electron is a photon acting on itself, acting in a way like two photons in the same way as God acting on itself becomes in effect two gods, and we see that the decay of an electron (or
[page 276]
more commonly a positron), yields two photons. But how do we reconcile this idea with spin (±½) and where does the electron charge come from? It is not far away, however, because the photon is an electromagnetic phenomenon and we may say that the electric field is fundamental and the magnetic effect is a relativistic effect which, happily, has curl which might be related to spin in same way. Keep combining and permuting (or as Thomas would say, componens et dividens until something self-consistent an qualified to exist turns up. All we are given is the initial singularity of pure action, a quantum of action and we want to build the universe out of that, somehow. Spin (physics) - Wikipedia, Classical electromagnetism and special relativity - Wikipedia
Stuck somewhere between towering ambition and helplessness.
Monday 10 September
Tuesday 11 September 2018
The task is to tie a considerable number of bright ideas together to make a coherent story about the divine universe. This is bit like sculpture. The block is roughed out, and now I have to go over and over it again finessing and polishing to get a shape that satisfies me by its logical consistency with physics, cosmology, science and all the rest. The immediate task is to complete two essays for naturalizing morality (2032) and philosophy of mind (2039) which take the project a little way forward while fitting with the philosophy department's specfication for a good
[page 277]
essay and complete my private venture e20_paradise, which is an interim effort to summarize the whole story particularly in the realms of physics, cosmology, and psychology, tying it together with the intelligent network theory of mind.
Wednesday 12 September 2018
Do I know anything or not? Navigating the shadowy world of philosophy (and commentary). In the absence of clear observation you can argue for anything but the operative point is: what is the probability of a position being true, ie representing some observable reality? What is the probability of the Catholic history of salvation being historically true as distinct from being true for believers?
MPhil [Magister Philosophiae]: The Philosophy of everything: the view from inside God.
Thursday 13 September 2018
We may think of networks as fractal in that they are scale invariant and no matter how much we magnify or reduce them, they still look like networks. In the case of [mathematical] fractals, we can reduce them asymptotically toward zero, but we know that in the real world the minimum message is measured by the quantum of action. Fractal - Wikipedia, Quantum - Wikipedia
Scientists like to reject teleology since it seems wrong to say that the world has intention, but maybe this opinion arises from thinking that natural selection does not work intentionally, even though
[page 278]
the results seem to imply intention, ie we developed a sense of smell in order to find attractive mates. That is in fact one of the functions of the sense of smell that . . . dates right back to the chemical senses of bacteria. Aristotle did not have the theory of evolution and was strong on the final cause as an attractor, a potential that drew things on because it does produce new systems like ourselves, attracted to the heights of Mount Improbable. Thinking of language, the attractor is the cooperation and increased fitness that comes with the ability to communicate and work together. My difficulty with this is to reconcile the fact that stability is coupled to maximum entropy, yet in effect order to develop speech and the neurophysiological and muscular physiology to achieve stable speech and cooperation we must in some way restrict ourselves to some straight and narrow which is effectively a reduction in entropy (or is it really, the information carried by a point in a space is equal to the entropy of the space?). This is what I am hoping the transfinite network can do for me, explaining how to maximize entropy and stability by minimizing entropy, somehow explaining how chaotic chemical systems can become highly complex systems like myself which has in effect much greater entropy in my present form, and so much greater stability than when I am burnt at the stake and reduced to a gas (?). Perhaps I owe this little passage to Florence of the Machine. Dawkins: Climbing Mount Improbable, Florence and the Machine
The philosophers think we are intentional but evolution is not. We can work around this by accepting that formally and in reality the whole of space-time exists simultaneously, ie space-time is embedded in [mathematical] eternity so that the future affects the past in the same way that the past effects the future, a Feynman type feature. Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory - Wikipedia
What we might say is that sub specie aeternitatis the universe is intentional and we can understand this by hypothesising that the evolution is inevitably driven by the second law, understood through the transfinite computer network. The view from inside God is shaped by eternity as invented by Einstein with the general theory.
Some tall poppies get taller when they are cut down. This is a universal intention.
Friday 14 September 2018
From a quantum mechanical point of view all communication is self communication insofar as both communicants enter into a product space where their individual properties are lost and they work out a new basis which becomes the complete set of eigenfunctions which yield the eigenvalues that result from the communication [measurement].
We like to say that evolution is blind, but it is not completely blind like an independent statistical trial in which the result of one throw of a die has absolutely no impact on a subsequent throw. In evolution we have an existing organism which will determine the nature of the offspring very closely. A mutation on one of a synonymous triplet of [bases in a codon] will have no effect, whereas at the opposite extreme a mutation may be lethal. From the point of view of intention, therefore, an evolutionary systems knows pretty well where it is going and the average effective variation from generation [to generation] may be tiny, 1/n, where n generations of 1/n change will yield a change of (1 + 1/n)n = e. DNA codon table - Wikipedia
[page 280]
Can the Turing test detect intelligence, consciousness, caring, selfhood, emotion, love, passion etc etc. Perhaps if it can search the internet to answer the question put to it the machine can do a reasonable job from a linguistic point of view, but one could never mistake a humanoid robot for a real person; or not ?
Saturday 15 September 2018
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Further readingBooks
Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)
Aristotle, and (translated by H Tredennick and G Cyril Armstrong), Metaphysics X-XIV, Oeconomica and Magna Moralia, Harvard University Press, ; William Heinemann Ltd. 1977 Introduction III Aristotle's Metaphysical Theory: 'The theory of universal science, as sketched by Plato in The Republic, was unsatisfactory to Aristotle's analytical mind. He felt that there must be a regular system of sciences, each concerned with a different aspect of reality. At the same time it was only reasonable to suppose that there is a supreme science, which is more ultimate, more exact, more truly Wisdom than any of the others. The discussion of this science, Wisdom, Primary Philosophy or Theology, as it is variously called, and of its scope, forms the subject of the Metaphysics. page xxv
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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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Descartes, Rene, Rules for the direction of the mind: Discourse on the method, Encyclopaedia BritannicaB0006AU8ZG 1955
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Feynman, Richard, Feynman Lectures on Computation, Perseus Publishing 2007 Amazon Editorial Reviews
Book Description
'The famous physicist's timeless lectures on the promise and limitations of computers
When, in 1984-86, Richard P. Feynman gave his famous course on computation at the California Institute of Technology, he asked Tony Hey to adapt his lecture notes into a book. Although led by Feynman, the course also featured, as occasional guest speakers, some of the most brilliant men in science at that time, including Marvin Minsky, Charles Bennett, and John Hopfield. Although the lectures are now thirteen years old, most of the material is timeless and presents a "Feynmanesque" overview of many standard and some not-so-standard topics in computer science such as reversible logic gates and quantum computers.'
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Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776 - 2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, Rutgers University Press 2005 Amazon book description: 'In The Churching of America, 1776 — 2005, Roger Finke and Rodney Stark once again revolutionize the way we think about religion. Extending the argument that the nation's religious environment acts as a free market economy, this extensively revised and expanded edition offers new research, statistics, and stories that document increased participation in religious groups from Independence through the twenty-first century. Adding to the thorough coverage of "mainline" religious groups, new sections chart the remarkable development and growth of African American churches from the early nineteenth century forward. Finke and Stark show how, like other "upstart sects," these churches competed for adherents and demonstrate how American norms of religious freedom allowed African American churches to construct organizational havens with little outside intervention. This edition also includes new sections on the ethnic religious communities of recent immigrants &mdash stories that echo those told of ethnic religious enclaves in the nineteenth century.'
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Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776 - 2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, Rutgers University Press 2005 Amazon book description: 'In The Churching of America, 1776–2005, Roger Finke and Rodney Stark once again revolutionize the way we think about religion. Extending the argument that the nation’s religious environment acts as a free market economy, this extensively revised and expanded edition offers new research, statistics, and stories that document increased participation in religious groups from Independence through the twenty-first century. Adding to the thorough coverage of "mainline" religious groups, new sections chart the remarkable development and growth of African American churches from the early nineteenth century forward. Finke and Stark show how, like other "upstart sects," these churches competed for adherents and demonstrate how American norms of religious freedom allowed African American churches to construct organizational havens with little outside intervention. This edition also includes new sections on the ethnic religious communities of recent immigrants—stories that echo those told of ethnic religious enclaves in the nineteenth century.'
Amazon
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Friedenthal, Richard, Luther, Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1970 Jacket: At midday on 21 October 1517, Luther launched the Reformation by nailing his 'ninety-five theses' against Papal indulgences to the door of the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg. The world has yet to come to terms with the issues he raised. . . . In this new biography Richard Friedenthal portrays the living human figure behind the accretions of pious and hostile legend. . . . Interwoven with the story of Luther's life is an intricate picture of Europe as a whole undergoing the agony of the Reformation, with centuries old beliefs and customs being turned upside-down in a chaos of furious religious controversy, social upheaval and constant clashes between bishops and princelings, imperial troops and mercenaries. . . .'
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Graham, Katharine, Personal History, Alan A Knopf 1997 'Jacket: 'An extraordinarily frank, honest and generous book by one of America's most famous and admired women - a book that is, as its title suggests, both personal and history.'
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Horney, Karen , Self Analysis, 1994 Introduction: 'Professional analytical help ... can scarcely reach everyone whom it is capable of benefiting. It is for this reason that the question of self-analysis has importance. Is has always been regarded as not only valuable but also feasible to "know oneself", but it is possible that the endeavour can be greatly assisted by the discoveries of psychoanalysis. ...
It is the object of this book to raise this question seriously, with all due consideration for the difficulties involved.' (9)
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le Carre, John, The Secret Pilgrim, Random House Value Publishing 1992 Amazon customer review: 'Mr John LeCarre, with Len Deighton, is tops at writing about espionage and he deserves mention in the history of English literature of this century. I have all his books in my personal library. They all denote an insider's knowledge of the espionage world, the right dose of skepticism about human nature, tongue-in-cheek, sense of the plot, mastery of the language, eclecticism. The only flaw may be found in a pervasive melancholy and pessimism: there is never sun in these books, only a uniform and pervasive grayness - but I guess the world he describes is of that colour. However, he is one of the most entertaining writers I ever found and I always look for new production of his whenever I enter a bookstore.' A reader
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Matthew, and Alexander Jones (editor), in The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels: '[Matthew is] a dramatic account in seven acts of the coming of the kingdom of heaven. 1. The preparation of the kingdom in the person of the child-Messiah. . . . 2. the formal proclamation of the charter of the Kingdom i.e. the Sermon on the Mount 3. The preaching of the kingdom by missionaries 4. The obstacles that the kingdom will meet from men 5. Its embryonic existence ... 6. The crisis . .. which is to prepare the way for the definitive coming of the kingdom . . . 7. The coming itself ... through the Passion and resurrection.'
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Qutb, Sayed, Milestones, Islamic Book Service 2006 Amazon book description: 'The author speaks about the unique Quranic generation, the nature of the Quranic method, the characteristics of Islamic society, jihad in the cause of God, and a Muslim s nationality and his belief among other things.'
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Rogan, Eugene, The Arabs: A history, Basic Books 2011 'In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of Arab history, Rogan reveals that there was an age when the Arabs set the rules for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arab world’s sense of subjection to external powers carries vast consequences for both the region and Westerners who attempt to control it.'
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Links
Allan Sloan, What happens when the next financial crisis strikes?, '. . . there is one clear and present danger to the financial system that almost no one seems to be discussing in public. In fact, multiple experts whispered about it to me and said they discuss it behind closed doors but don’t breathe a word about it elsewhere for fear of becoming the target of a presidential tweetstorm. So I’ll do it, at the risk of being called a peddler of “fake news.” I think the biggest danger of financial problems exploding into a worldwide meltdown involves . . . Donald Trump.' back |
Aquinas 244, Whether in creatures is necessrily found a trace of the Trinity, 'I answer that . . . in all creatures there is found the trace of the Trinity, inasmuch as in every creature are found some things which are necessarily reduced to the divine Persons as to their cause. For every creature subsists in its own being, and has a form, whereby it is determined to a species, and has relation to something else. Therefore as it is a created substance, it represents the cause and principle; and so in that manner it shows the Person of the Father, Who is the "principle from no principle." According as it has a form and species, it represents the Word as the form of the thing made by art is from the conception of the craftsman. According as it has relation of order, it represents the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as He is love, because the order of the effect to something else is from the will of the Creator. . . . ' back |
Aquinas 256, Whether evil is adequately divided into pain and fault?, 'I answer that, Evil, as was said above (3) is the privation of good, which chiefly and of itself consists in perfection and act. Act, however, is twofold; first, and second. The first act is the form and integrity of a thing; the second act is its operation. Therefore evil also is twofold. In one way it occurs by the subtraction of the form, or of any part required for the integrity of the thing, as blindness is an evil, as also it is an evil to be wanting in any member of the body. In another way evil exists by the withdrawal of the due operation, either because it does not exist, or because it has not its due mode and order. But because good in itself is the object of the will, evil, which is the privation of good, is found in a special way in rational creatures which have a will. Therefore the evil which comes from the withdrawal of the form and integrity of the thing, has the nature of a pain; and especially so on the supposition that all things are subject to divine providence and justice, as was shown above (22, 2); for it is of the very nature of a pain to be against the will. But the evil which consists in the subtraction of the due operation in voluntary things has the nature of a fault; for this is imputed to anyone as a fault to fail as regards perfect action, of which he is master by the will. Therefore every evil in voluntary things is to be looked upon as a pain or a fault' back |
Aquinas 263, Whether angels exist in any great number?, '. . . Hence it must be said that the angels, even inasmuch as they are immaterial substances, exist in exceeding great number, far beyond all material multitude. This is what Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. xiv): "There are many blessed armies of the heavenly intelligences, surpassing the weak and limited reckoning of our material numbers." The reason whereof is this, because, since it is the perfection of the universe that God chiefly intends in the creation of things, the more perfect some things are, in so much greater an excess are they created by God. Now, as in bodies such excess is observed in regard to their magnitude, so in things incorporeal is it observed in regard to their multitude. We see, in fact, that incorruptible bodies, exceed corruptible bodies almost incomparably in magnitude; for the entire sphere of things active and passive is something very small in comparison with the heavenly bodies. Hence it is reasonable to conclude that the immaterial substances as it were incomparably exceed material substances as to multitude.' back |
Aquinas 97, Whether ideas are many?, 'I answer that, It must necessarily be held that ideas are many. In proof of which it is to be considered that in every effect the ultimate end is the proper intention of the principal agent, as the order of an army (is the proper intention) of the general. Now the highest good existing in things is the good of the order of the universe, as the Philosopher clearly teaches in Metaph. xii. Therefore the order of the universe is properly intended by God, . . . So, then, it must needs be that in the divine mind there are the proper ideas of all things. Hence Augustine says (Octog. Tri. Quaest. qu. xlvi), "that each thing was created by God according to the idea proper to it," from which it follows that in the divine mind ideas are many. . . . ' back |
Chrissy Amphlett / Divinyls, I Touch Myself, 'Song: I Touch Myself
Artist: Divinyls
Album: NOW 1990's
Writers: Billy Steinberg, Tom Kelly, Chrissy Amphlett, Mark McEntee
I love myself, I want you to love me
When I feel down, I want you above me
I search myself, I want you to find me
I forget myself, I want you to remind me
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch myself
Ooh, I don't want anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no
You're the one who makes me come runnin'
You're the sun who makes me shine
When you're around, I'm always laughin'
I want to make you mine
I close my eyes and see you before me
Think I would die if you were to ignore me
A fool could see just how much I adore you
I'd get down on my knees, I'd do anything for you
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch myself
Ooh, I don't want anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no
I love myself, I want you to love me
When I feel down, I want you above me
I search myself, I want you to find me
I forget myself, I want you to remind me
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch myself
Ooh, I don't want anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no
I want you
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch myself
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ah ah ah ah oh ah
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch myself
Ooh, I don't want anybody else
When I think about you, I touch myself
I touch myself (I don't want)
I touch myself (anybody else)
I touch myself (when I think about you)
I touch myself
I touch myself (I don't want)
I touch myself (anybody else)
I touch myself (when I think about you)
I honestly do
I touch myself (I don't want)
I touch myself (anybody else)
I touch myself (when I think about you)
I honestly do
I touch myself
I touch myself
back |
Christopher R. Marshall, Explainer: Artmisia Gentileschi, a Baroque heroine for the #MeToo era, ' Artemisia Gentileschi’s 17th-century painting, Self Portrait As Saint Catherine Of Alexandria, became only the 21st work by a female artist to enter the London National Gallery’s collections in July this year.
In a collection totalling 2,300 works, this speaks volumes about Gentileschi’s exceptionality – both now and in her own day.
The painting depicts St Catherine of Alexandria, an early Christian martyr whose theological skills were said to have been so great that she was able to beat 50 of the Roman emperor’s shrewdest philosophers in a debate on the merits of Christianity versus Paganism.' back |
Claire Smith, Gary Jackson, Geoffrey Gray and Vincent Copley, Friday essay: who owns a family's story? Why its time to lift the Berndt field notes embargo, ' Imagine your grandfather was interviewed about his life, over many hours, some 80 years ago. Everything he says is written down, enough to fill more than 20 notebooks. . . .
Then you learn that the wife of the person who wrote down your grandfather’s stories has locked the notebooks away. You and your family are not allowed to read them.
This is how it is for a number of Aboriginal people today, among them 81-year-old Vincent (Vince) Copley senior, co-author of this article.' back |
Classical electromagnetism and special relativity - Wikipedia, Classical electromagnetism and special relativity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The theory of special relativity plays an important role in the modern theory of classical electromagnetism. First of all, it gives formulas for how electromagnetic objects, in particular the electric and magnetic fields, are altered under a Lorentz transformation from one inertial frame of reference to another. Secondly, it sheds light on the relationship between electricity and magnetism, showing that frame of reference determines if an observation follows electrostatic or magnetic laws. Third, it motivates a compact and convenient notation for the laws of electromagnetism, namely the "manifestly covariant" tensor form.' back |
David Coady, In defence of conspiracy theories (and why the term is a misnomer), ' Outside the psychology and social science literature some authors will sometimes offer some, usually heavily qualified, defence of conspiracy theories (in some sense of the term). But among psychologists and social scientists the assumption that they are false, the product of an irrational (or nonrational) process, and positively harmful is virtually universal.' back |
DeNeen L.Brown, 'Stained with blood': The 1968 campus massacre of black protesters by South Carolina police, 'When the barrage of buck shots stopped, three black students lay dead. Twenty-seven students were wounded — most of them shot in their backs, the back of their heads and the soles of their feet.' back |
DNA codon table - Wikipedia, DNA codon table - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The genetic code is traditionally represented as an RNA codon table because, when proteins are made in a cell by ribosomes, it is mRNA that directs protein synthesis. The mRNA sequence is determined by the sequence of genomic DNA. With the rise of computational biology and genomics, most genes are now discovered at the DNA level, so a DNA codon table is becoming increasingly useful.' back |
Florence and the Machine, Royal Albert hall on 3rd April, 2012 (Full concert), 01:15 You've Got The Love
05:09 Only If For A Night
10:40 Drumming Song
16:40 Heartlines
22:45 Between Two Lungs
27:20 Breaking Down
31:34 Cosmic Love
38:00 All This And Heaven Too
43:12 No Light No Light
48:04 Never Let Me Go
53:10 Dog are days over
59:15 Shake It Out
back |
Fractal - Wikipedia, Fractal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopeida, ' In mathematics, a fractal is a detailed, recursive, and infinitely self-similar mathematical set whose Hausdorff dimension strictly exceeds its topological dimension and which is encountered ubiquitously in nature. Fractals exhibit similar patterns at increasingly small scales, also known as expanding symmetry or unfolding symmetry.' back |
History.com, Hotline established between Washington and Moscow, 'August 30, 1963
Hotline established between Washington and Moscow
On this day in 1963, John F. Kennedy becomes the first U.S. president to have a direct phone line to the Kremlin in Moscow. The "hotline" was designed to facilitate communication between the president and Soviet premier.' back |
Isaac Chotiner, "That Is What These Days Is Called an Alternative Fact, Ten years ago this month, the investment bank Lehman Brothers made the largest bankruptcy filing in American history, badly exacerbating what was already a serious recession and mortgage crisis. The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, along with the head of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, and the Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, have all argued that they did not have the legal authority to rescue Lehman Brothers. But for a decade there has been a debate over whether they could or should have done more. In a new book, The Fed and Lehman Brothers: Setting the Record Straight on a Financial Disaster, Johns Hopkins economics professor Laurence M. Ball argues that the Fed had the legal and practical ability to rescue the company, but instead let it fail for political reasons.
I recently spoke by phone with Ball, who is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a visiting scholar at many central banks, including the Federal Reserve. During the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed whether saving Lehman Brothers could really have prevented the crash, how well equipped we are to prevent the next calamity, and why he still doesn’t buy the excuses of Geithner, Paulson, and Bernanke.' back |
Jason Horowitz and Laurie Goodstein, Pope Francis Summons World's Bishops to Meet on Sexual Abuse, ' VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis summoned bishops from around the world to Rome for an unprecedented meeting focused on protecting minors. The order on Wednesday comes as the pope wrestles with a global clerical sexual abuse crisis and explosive accusations of a cover-up that have shaken his papacy and the entire Roman Catholic Church.' back |
Jefferson Morley and Jon Schwarz, More Proof the U.S. National Anthem Has Always Been Tainted With Racism, 'Much of the debate generated by Kaepernick has been on subjects directly connected to his actions: police brutality, free speech, and the rights and obligations of professional athletes.
But it’s also sparked nationwide discussion of something more tangential that no one saw coming — the meaning and history of “The Star-Spangled Banner” itself, including whether it should be rewritten or replaced entirely. back |
Laura Snapes, Dua Lupa 'proud' of fans ejected from concert for waving LGBT flags, 'The pop singer Dua Lipa has praised her fans’ bravery after some audience members at her concert in Shanghai were forcefully removed for dancing in their seats and apparently waving flags in support of gay rights.
Videos posted on social media after the show in China on Wednesday evening showed security staff pulling people from their seats and crowd members apparently being attacked by security guards outside the National Exhibition and Convention Centre. back |
Master of Philosophy - Wikipedia, Master of Philosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Master of Philosophy (abbr. M.Phil. or MPhil, sometimes Ph.M.; Latin Magister Philosophiae or Philosophiae Magister) is a postgraduate degree. In most cases, it is an advanced research degree with the prerequisites required for a Master of Philosophy degree making it the most advanced research degree before the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D. or D.Phil.).[1] An M.Phil. is in most cases thesis-only, and is regarded as a senior or second Master's degree, standing between a taught Master's and a Ph.D.' back |
Maya Horton, Curious Kids: if the universe is like a giant brain, then where's its body?, ' Much of physics is dependent on processes such as fractals, so there are also many things in nature which act like fractals: from the path of rivers down to the ocean, to the delicate shape of a snowflake. Even cities act as fractals: look at photographs of the world at night, from space, and you’ll see similar patterns. Neither the universe, nor our brains are perfect fractals – but they are close.' back |
NYT Editorial Board, Inviting the Next Financial Crisis, 'Lawmakers and the administration, and even the Federal Reserve, which should know better, are also sowing the seeds for another crisis by unraveling the financial regulations put in place in the last 10 years. . . . The speed with which officials are moving to undo financial regulations is stunning to economists who remember their history. “The last time we regulated in the 1930s, it took us 30 or 40 years to take off those regulations,” said Raghuram Rajan, an economist at the University of Chicago and former governor of the Reserve Bank of India. “This time we are doing it in 10 years.” . . . With investors bidding up stock prices and pouring billions of dollars into money-losing start-ups as if nothing could go wrong, it is all the more frightening and infuriating that officials have so quickly tossed aside the lessons from the last crisis. In making life grander for the most comfortable Americans, the government is putting everyone’s economic prospects at greater risk.' back |
Quantum - Wikipedia, Quantum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, a quantum (plural: quanta) is an indivisible entity of a quantity that has the same units as the Planck constant and is related to both energy and momentum of elementary particles of matter (called fermions) and of photons and other bosons. The word comes from the Latin "quantus," for "how much." Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized", referred to as "quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete numerical values, rather than any value, at least within a range.' back |
Shaun King, Why We Should Be Protesting the National Anthem, 'From day one, the United States has always struggled to walk its talk. In 1776, as the U.S. declared itself independent from Great Britain, the framers of said declaration noted that “all men are created equal.” But Thomas Jefferson, the lead author of the Declaration of Independence, owned men. In his “Notes on the State of Virginia,” he compared Africans to apes. He had sex with an enslaved woman and kept her children in bondage.' back |
Spin (physics) - Wikipedia, Spin (physics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is an intrinsic form of angular momentum carried by elementary particles, composite particles (hadrons), and atomic nuclei.
Spin is one of two types of angular momentum in quantum mechanics, the other being orbital angular momentum. Orbital angular momentum is the quantum-mechanical counterpart to the classical notion of angular momentum: it arises when a particle executes a rotating or twisting trajectory (such as when an electron orbits a nucleus). The existence of spin angular momentum is inferred from experiments, such as the Stern–Gerlach experiment, in which particles are observed to possess angular momentum that cannot be accounted for by orbital angular momentum alone.' back |
Stephan Lewandowsky, There's a psychological link between conspiracy theories and creationism, 'It is this emphasis on assigning purpose that makes teleological thinking and conspiratorial thought so attractive. In everyday life, assigning intentions often makes perfect sense. If someone asks you why your daughter turned on the TV, it may be perfectly accurate and appropriate to reply with “because her favourite show is on now”. But giving such a presumed purpose to trees, clouds and other natural phenomenon can produce false understanding.' back |
University of Minnesota, REMA: Reference Elevatin Model of Antarctica, 'The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA) provides the first, high resolution (8-meter) terrain map of nearly the entire continent. Since each REMA grid point has a timestamp, any past or future point observation of elevation provides a measurement of elevation change.
REMA may provide corrections for a wide range of remote sensing processing activities, such image orthorectification and interferometry, and provide constraints for geodynamic and ice flow modeling, mapping of grounding lines, and surface processes. REMA also provides a powerful new resource for field logistics planning.' back |
Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory - Wikipedia, Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory (also called the Wheeler–Feynman time-symmetric theory), named after its originators, the physicists Richard Feynman and John Archibald Wheeler, is an interpretation of electrodynamics derived from the assumption that the solutions of the electromagnetic field equations must be invariant under time-reversal transformation, as are the field equations themselves. Indeed, there is no apparent reason for the time-reversal symmetry breaking, which singles out a preferential time direction and thus makes a distinction between past and future. A time-reversal invariant theory is more logical and elegant. Another key principle, resulting from this interpretation and reminiscent of Mach's principle due to Tetrode, is that elementary particles are not self-interacting. This immediately removes the problem of self-energies.' back |
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