vol VII: Notes
1999
Notes
[Sunday 28 February 1999 - Saturday 6 March 1999]
[BOOK, DB 50]
Sunday 28 February 1999
Monday 1 March 1999
Tuesday 2 March 1999
[page 180]
. . .
Long ago human beings survived using the same technology as other animals
[page 181]
Now most of us life by complex arrangements of varying degrees of strength and reliability with other people and entities. We must now contend with a global commercial entity, linked together through the tentacles of markets that balance capital, value and cashflow.
Religion teaches us how to deal with an infinity of languages to express this one reality.
Money is the abstract representation of value.
[page 182]
SURVIVAL - COOPERATION
Common language.
a) sharing material resources
b) information
c) self
Sharing is measured in connect time.
Basic sharing process is not altruism, but TRADE. (between equals).
ECONOMICS and RELIGION
The Christian message of love begins with food.
Religion: guidelines for the happy and healthy society.
Security requires a way of interfacing with the world that guarantees survival, freedom from pain, health and happiness.
[page 183]
ISOMORPHISM between NETS and SETS. A net is a superposition of sets.
The power set is the set of all superpositions of subsets on a set.
Spiritual principle: cooperation pays - aleph(n+1)
Material principle: competition pays aleph(n)
Resources are always limited at the lower level.
CURRENTDEV - INTRO The Religion Problem
The fundamental problem for religion is how to attain peace in a wild world. Our species evolved long ago as hunter gatherers from simian ancestors, also hunter gatherers. Life in those days was nasty, brutish and short. At the opposite extreme ate those denizens of modern civilisation who can afford the best of everything.
Maintain human morale: once promised a remote heaven: now see a heaven on earth.
Cutthroat corporate environment brings pressure to bear on individuals.
[page 184]
Religion seeks to define the good.
Each industry responds to a certain set of human needs or questions. To what need does religion respond?
. . .
CurrentDev Introduction
a) the problem for religion
b) this attack on the problem.
c) prognosis: a research report
Religion R&D
R&D in the industry.
Tapping productivity by sharing
It takes some confidence to expose wares for sale as to hunt or ply a trade. Authentic TRADE
VALUE for VALUE (MONEY=MEASURE)
VALUE - GOOD - MONEY Medieval Cathedrals
[185]
1) Download society into newborn - Education
2) Updating downloads - Research
upbringing children the critical test of good religion is that we would pass it on to your children. - The evolutionary think about parenthood is passing resources on to the children to improve their chances of success 2 children = 4 grandchildren = 8 ...
Wednesday 3 March 1999
Technology -> PRODUCTIVITY = Δ FITNESS/EFFORT
Δ FITNESS = INTEREST = GRACE
EFFORT = ENERGY = integral POWER d proper time
LIFE = PROPER TIME (PHYSICS)
From an evolutionary pov the doomed never exist and so they never have to suffer. Suffering is UNNECESSARY given the correct algorithm. Is this true? Yes, given infinite productivity.
[page 186]
FITNESS = 1 => ETERNAL LIFE
= 0 => NON-EXISTENCE ie unrealized possibility, ie PATH NOT TAKEN
Any space has paths in it. So the story of the U of Cal (?)
Where do the paths go to? FULFILLED DESIRE.
definition: Religion is the technology of peace.
(There is no real distinction between science and science and technology - all new knowledge comes from a new instrument, a new sense, a new tool.)
So THEOLOGY is the technology of peace (FORMAL IE written)
What the spies are really after is the tons of blueprints and specifications that tell is how to making. (I am thinking of the Mirage-Kfir story.)
[page 187]
and
definition RELIGION is the ARCHITECT of PEACEFUL society. One manifestation of religion is churches, but a lot of religion goes on outside the churches in schools, universities, parliaments, and all other venues which contribute to the maintenance and development of just and peaceful society.
. . .
My heuristic principle: the Universe is divine, and therefore a self-sufficient system in no way constrained by any imposed restriction or control.
I express this assumption of divinity by beginning from the biggest system we have yet envisaged,
[page 187]
that is the whole of mathematics, known and conjectures.
When we look out into the Universe, we see a set of points. The most obvious points are the stars, but we now know that there is a cosmic zoo out there, stars, planets, galaxies, supernovas, neutron stars, red giants, white dwarfs, black holes and an infinity of other details.
Law brings us structure by prohibiting undue force.
1 The rule of law: This is the fundamental assumption. There is very little to be said about its alternative, chaos
but chaos is very important. The book of Genesis that before god created heaven and earth
The design of law.
[page 189]
Thursday 4 March 1999
The afternoon debriefing. Anything? People are moved by inspiration - PNEUMATOLOGY
The epistemology of survival. To understand something is to see where its strength comes from and so know when to trust it.
The evolutionary paradigm does not apply to genetic evolution alone. It appears anywhere where there is competition for limited resources by a set of recursive systems needing a certain minimum of resource to survive.
CYBERNETIC EPISTEMOLOGY
WILD = STABLE
. . .
[page 190]
Not just matching frequency, but matching {frequency}.
What am I striving for: stable harmony = sustainable habitat = PERMANENT NICHE
Stability is zero tolerance. What we seek to do is to minimize action consistent with continued existence.
EXIST = COMMUNICATE (Pragmatic point of view (POV)
. . .
POV = communication channel a<->b
[page 191]
MORALITY - we only need to take care of the physical.
We may think of each transfinite level as a phase and a transition as a phase change.
A PHASE is characterized by a pattern of communication between the elements of the system.
The set aleph(0) has aleph(1) meanings which grow out of aleph(0) by the requirement of consistency.
Axioms are succinct statements of the generating principles (DNA) of SET THEORY or whatever.
Yes = connection
No = no connection
Friday 5 March 1999
We take the cybernetic approach to existence.
[page 192]
After METHOD & LANGUAGE, we deal with control at growing levels of complexity from physics which explains the reliable structures in the observable world to religion.
The height to which a religion may climb depends on the depths of its foundations. Some religions are so poorly founded that they lead to mass suicide by all who accept them.
PBS You will note that (at least so far) this site lacks the music and incense, gorgeous robes, treasures of art and noble and inspiring words that go with the old religions. Instead I concentrate on foundations, knowing that if the job is done perfectly, there will be no limit to the flowering.
Religion is the industry devoted to creating humanity, or we might say, creating human capital, that is the structure of skill and goodwill which we use to maximize the pleasure of existence and minimize the pain.
Saturday 6 March 1999
|
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!)
Abelard, Peter, and Translated with an introduction by Betty Radice, Letters of Abelard and Heloise, Penguin (USA) 1998 Jacket: The grim tale of Abelard and Heloise has echoed down from the twelfth century as one of the world's great love stories. These staunch Christians, as their letters reveal, found a path through self-pity into acceptance of a changed but lasting relationship. Whilst Heloise attained fame for her learning and administrative genius as an abbess, Abelard became an inspired teacher in Paris and the foremost logician of his day. This new translation includes Abelard's account of his misfortunes (Historia Calamitatum); four of their personal letters; the 'letters of direction', in which he advises her how to adapt for women the rule of Benedict; correspondence between Heloise and Peter the Venerable; and two of Abelard's hymns.'
Amazon
back |
Archer, Jeffrey, The Fourth Estate, 512 pages
Publisher: Harpercollins Uk; 1St Edition edition (May 7, 1996)
ISBN-10: 0002253186
ISBN-13: 978-0002253185 1996 Amazon customer review: 'We hear much of how the media of the world is controlled by the hands of a few men. THis fictionalized account of Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwells fight over the worlds media empires will help all those interested in how the media operates in the world today(or more precisely in the 1990s). This book is also a superb read, it combines the flair of real life with the fictionlized account of the private affairs of two great men, both of whom a flawed. A great character study. By far it is Archers best work.' Seth J Frantzman
Amazon
back |
Canon Law Society of America, Holy See, Code of Canon Law: Latin-English Edition, Canon Law Society of America 1984 Pope John Paul XXXIII announced his decision to reform the existing corpus of canonical legislation on 25 January 1959. Pope John Paul II ordered the promulgation of the revised Code of Canon law on the same day in 1983. The latin text is definitive. This English translation has been approved by the Canonical Affairs Committee of the [US] National Conference of Catholic Bishops in October 1983.
Amazon
back |
Feynman, Richard P, and Robert B Leighton, Matthew Sands, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (volume 3) : Quantum Mechanics, Addison Wesley 1970 Foreword: 'This set of lectures tries to elucidate from the beginning those features of quantum mechanics which are the most basic and the most general. ... In each instance the ideas are introduced together with a detailed discussion of some specific examples - to try to make the physical ideas as real as possible.' Matthew Sands
Amazon
back |
Griffel, D H, Applied Functional Analysis, Dover Publications 2002 Amazon customer review: '... The main strength of Griffel's book is its readability. It is one of the most accessible advanced math books I have encountered, comparable to Munkres' "Topology". Griffel explains the intuitions underlying the abstract concepts he presents. He is also careful to point out when he makes a simplification or omission to avoid a difficult or subtle point more suitable to a pure math treatment of the subject. Furthermore, Griffel explains the logic behind his notation, something that is rarely done in math texts. Each chapter concludes with a set of problems. The problems are challenging, but test and expand the reader's understanding of the material. Hints are given for many of the problems.
Overall, this is an excellent resource for the applied mathematician, engineer, or scientist who wants an accessible introduction to functional analysis. Besides, the price of the Dover Edition makes this book a real bargain. Reviewer:"elddm" (Boston, Ma United States)
Amazon
back |
Lonergan, Bernard J F, Insight : A Study of Human Understanding (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan : Volume 3), University of Toronto Press 1992 '... Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. Its aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, an understanding of understanding'
Amazon
back |
Merton, Robert C, Continuous Time Finance, Wiley-Blackwell 1992 Amazon Product Description
'Robert C. Merton's widely used text provides an overview and synthesis of finance theory from the perspective of continuous-time analysis. It covers individual financial choice, corporate finance, financial intermediation, capital markets, and selected topics on the interface between private and public finance. For this revised edition a new section on managing university endowments has been added. The book begins with a foreword by Paul Samuelson.'
Amazon
back |
Miles, Jack, God : A Biography, Vintage Books 1996 Jacket: 'Jack Miles's remarkable work examines the hero of the Old Testament ... from his first appearance as Creator to his last as Ancient of Days. ... We see God torn by conflicting urges. To his own sorrow, he is by turns destructive and creative, vain and modest, subtle and naive, ruthless and tender, lawful and lawless, powerful yet powerless, omniscient and blind.'
Amazon
back |
Nin, Anais, Incest: From a Journal of Love: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin 1932-1934, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1992 Amazon editorial review: From Library Journal
"This second volume of the unexpurgated version of Nin's diary spans the period from October 1932 to November 1934. It draws upon previously unpublished material from the period covered by the first volume of the diary as published in 1966. Incest follows Henry & June ( LJ 10/1/86), focusing not only on Nin's continued relationship with author Henry Miller but also on her physical and emotional attachments to four other men. Nin offers intimate details of disturbing events such as her intense incestuous affair with her father and her abortion during her sixth month of pregnancy. Her diary offers direct insight into a narcissistic, passionate, analytical, and complex mind, but the brief introduction does disappointingly little to explain the editorial process that created this version of Nin's diary, which differs dramatically in style and content from its expurgated counterpart. Nevertheless, this is an important supplement to the 1966 diary and is recommended for most literature collections.'
- Ellen Finnie Duranceau, MIT Lib.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Amazon
back |
Polanyi, Michael, and Amaryta Sen (foreword), The Tacit Dimension, University Of Chicago Press 2009 Amazon product description: '“I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell,” writes Michael Polanyi, whose work paved the way for the likes of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. The Tacit Dimension argues that tacit knowledge—tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments—is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. Back in print for a new generation of students and scholars, this volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.'
Amazon
back |
Wilmott, Paul, Derivatives: The Theory and Practice of Financial Engineering, John Wiley & Sons 1988 Amazon Product Description
'Derivatives by Paul Wilmott provides the most comprehensive and accessible analysis of the art of science in financial modeling available. Wilmott explains and challenges many of the tried and tested models while at the same time offering the reader many new and previously unpublished ideas and techniques. Paul Wilmott has produced a compelling and essential new work in this field.
The basics of the established theories - such as stochastic calculus, Black-Scholes, binomial trees and interest-rate models - are covered in clear and precise detail, but Derivatives goes much further. Complex models - such as path dependency, non-probabilistic models, static hedging and quasi-Monte Carlo methods - are introduced and explained to a highly sophisticated level. But theory in itself is not enough, an understanding of the role the techniques play in the daily world of finance is also examined through the use of spreadsheets, examples and the inclusion of Visual Basic programs.'
Amazon
back |
Papers
| Friedman, Matt, et al, "100-Million_Year Dynasty of Giant Planktivorous Bony Fish in the Mesozoic Seas", Science, 327, 5968, 19 February 2010, page 990-993. 'Large-bodied suspension feeders (planktivores), which include the most massive animals to have ever lived, are conspicuously absent from Mesozoic marine environments. The only clear representatives of this trophic guild in the Mesozoic have been an enigmatic and apparently short-lived Jurassic group of extinct pachycormid fishes. Here, we report several new examples of these giant bony fishes from Asia, Europe, and North America. These fossils provide the first detailed anatomical information on this poorly understood clade and extend its range from the lower Middle Jurassic to the end of the Cretaceous, showing that this group persisted for more than 100 million years. Modern large-bodied, planktivorous vertebrates diversified after the extinction of pachycormids at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, which is consistent with an opportunistic refilling of vacated ecospace.'. back |
| Godfray, H Charles J, et al, "Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People", Science, 327, 5967, 12 February 2010, page 812-818. 'Continuing population and consumption growth will mean that the global demand for food will increase for at least another 40 years. Growing competition for land, water, and energy, in addition to the overexploitation of fisheries, will affect our ability to produce food, as will the urgent requirement to reduce the impact of the food system on the environment. The effects of climate change are a further threat. But the world can produce more food and can ensure that it is used more efficiently and equitably. A multifaceted and linked global strategy is needed to ensure sustainable and equitable food security, different components of which are explored here.'. back |
| Newman, Dianne K, "Feasting on Minerals", Science, 327, 5967, 12 February 2010, page 793-794. 'Far up in the Chilean Andes, in remote arid regions seemingly inhospitable to life, intrepid microorganisms thrive on a diet of rocks and air. Unfazed by long periods of desiccation or high ultraviolet energy flux, they grow in baths of sulfuric acid replete with toxic metals. The microbes fix carbon dioxide into biomass by exploiting the energy to be gained by "eating" (oxidizing) minerals that contain reduced forms of iron and sulfur, such as chalcopyrite (CuFeS2). Through their metabolism, these microbes mobilize precious metals from ore deposits into solution, making them powerful catalysts for biomining. Recent research has begun to elucidate how they achieve this remarkable feat.. back |
| Normile, Dennis, "Holding Back the Torrent of Rats", Science, 327, 5967, 12 February 2010, page 806-807. 'A "rat flood." That's what the tribes in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts call it. Every 48 years, the bamboo forests that dominate the uplands of Bangladesh, Northeast India, and Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) simultaneously produce a feast of pear-sized fruit that allows rat populations to explode. After consuming the fruit, the rodents attack nearby fields, devouring 50% to 100% of the rice crop. Rat floods caused famine in 1863, 1911, and 1959, when the misery touched off a rebellion in what is now India's Mizoram State.'. back |
| Science editorial, , "What it Takes to Make that Meal", Science, 327, 5967, 12 February 2010, page 809. 'Researchers have been taking a close look at just how much energy it takes to produce even seemingly similar foods. The conclusion: Food choices can have a significant impact on energy use in agriculture.'. back |
| Stokstad, Erik, "Could Less Meat Mean More Food", Science, 327, 5967, 12 February 2010, page 810-811. 'If people in the developed world ate less meat, it would free up a lot of plants to feed billions of hungry people and gain a lot of good farmland. Some food-security researchers, however, are skeptical; they say the complexities of global markets and human food traditions could also produce some counterintuitive—and possibly counterproductive—results.'. back |
Links
| Aquinas 20, Summa I, 3, 7: Whether God is altogether simple? , 'I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways.
First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His "suppositum"; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. . . . ' back |
| Christian Thiemann and Daniel Grady, Follow the Money: Human Mobility and Effective Communities, 'Ever wonder where your dollar bills travel after you plop them down for a cup of coffee? The Web site Where's George? allows you to do just that: Record your bill's serial number and then track its journeys as other people spend it across the country. But it's more than just a game. Because every time a dollar is spent in a new place, it means someone moved it there. Christian Thiemann and Daniel Grady of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, have been using the Web site's data to study how people move within the United States.' Science, vol 327 page 951. back |
| Entropy (arrow of time) - Wikipedia, Entropy (arrow of time) - Wikipedia, the fre encyclopedia, 'Entropy is the only quantity in the physical sciences that "picks" a particular direction for time, sometimes called an arrow of time. As one goes "forward" in time, the second law of thermodynamics says, the entropy of an isolated system will increase when no extra energy is consumed.' back |
| Feynman diagram - Wikipedia, Feynman diagram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum field theory a Feynman diagram is an intuitive graphical representation of a contribution to the transition amplitude or correlation function of a quantum mechanical or statistical field theory' back |
| Gospel of Luke, Luke 12:22-31: NIV, ' 22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?' back |
| Gospel of Luke, Luke 18:22-26: NIV, ' 22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
26 Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?" back |
| John D Norton, Einstein for Everyone: Spacetime, 'We build a spacetime by taking instantaneous snapshots of space at successive instants of time and stacking them up. It is easiest to imagine this if we start with a two dimensional space. The snapshots taken at different times are then stacked up to give us a three dimensional spacetime.' back |
| Light cone - Wikipedia, Light cone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A Light cone is the path that a flash of light, emanating from a single event E (localized to a single point in space and a single moment in time) and traveling in all directions, would take through spacetime. Imagine the light confined to a two-dimensional plane, the light from the flash spreads out in a circle after the event E occurs—and when graphed the growing circle with the vertical axis of the graph representing time, the result is a cone, known as the future light cone (some animated diagrams depicting this concept can be seen here.) ' back |
| Minkowski space - Wikipedia, Minkowski space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematical physics, Minkowski space or Minkowski spacetime (named after the mathematician Hermann Minkowski) is the mathematical setting in which Einstein's theory of special relativity is most conveniently formulated. In this setting the three ordinary dimensions of space are combined with a single dimension of time to form a four-dimensional manifold for representing a spacetime.' back |
| PBS, Online NewsHour: The Mass Suicide near San Diego -- March 27 1997, 'Recent news reports have been filled with the troubling story of a mass suicide involving a computer-related cult. At a mansion outside San Diego, police found 39 bodies dressed in black and covered in purple shrouds. The members apparently killed themselves to prepare for the arrival of a alien spaceship they say is hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet. After a background report by Charles Krause, Jim Lehrer leads a discussion of the suicides with a panel of cult experts.' back |
| The Book of Joshua, Joshua 18:10-14, '10 Joshua then cast lots for them in Shiloh in the presence of the LORD, and there he distributed the land to the Israelites according to their tribal divisions. 11 The lot came up for the tribe of Benjamin, clan by clan. Their allotted territory lay between the tribes of Judah and Joseph:' back |
|
