vol VII: Notes
1999
Notes
[Notebook MA, DB 51]
[Sunday 29 August 1999 - Saturday 4 September 1999]
[page 222]
Sunday 29 August 1999
Monday 30 August 1999
[page 247]
Tuesday 31 August 1999
J H Newman Apologia pro Vita Sua Newman
Theory, consider photons absorbed and emitted on my surface enabling you to see me
[page 248]
written in the arcane language of molecular biology.
manualistic: written in Latin (of course) and curiously, with the type spread out for e m p h a s i s.
The Galileo controversy might seem to be a storm in a teacup until we realise the deep meaning that his culture found in the structure of the heavens; quasi stela matutina. Mark Croft
. . .
My conversion is spiritual and political. These cannot be separated.
[page 249]
Separation of church and stat is necessary when either is ailing, but in healthy times the relationship is complementary, humanity formed by effective religion gives direction to the executive action of the state.
Wednesday 1 September 1999
Another monastic dream. featuring once more lost in the corridors, trying to find my rook, in a place something like [Riverview] Road, although there were features f Maris Brothers Mount Gambier. Was going out somewhere with someone and had my little Hong Kong gladstone bag standing out on the garden wall ready, but something was missing, The top was open showing something very colourful, I had been out before this on a horse and cart whose wheel had struck an obstacle and been damaged and fallen off, Was with someone who could be x or y who visited yesterday. We discussed the thesis and J H Newman. Then lost in a city scene, deja vuish, physically similar to part of London or HK. Came back and found blackboard on easel and other gear on verandah near my bag. Looking for the mystery item, thought I heard a nn on the foor below berting someone
[page 250]
for being drunk. Seemed as though I was in the wrong place and sprinted to the end of the corridor to avoid being discovered. Feeling accompanying the dream a little desperate but relaxed. Was to meet someone, but felt they would wait, Then in an old (30's) car driving to the city or perhaps sleeping in the back.
Domincan debates:
a) the immateriality of the knower - is the brain a computer (lawrence Fitzgerald).
b) Aristotle and philosophy vs science. Is phiosophy a different sort of knowledge? (Adalbert Fazoukas and Lawrence Fitzgerald).
c) Discipline: reading books n Novitiate.
Dream again: The broken cart wheel nvident seemed to take place on a muddy track through a green pasture running down to a tree lined creek, When I came back for my baf, an entertainer (busker, clown) was entertaining a group of young peopleon the patio near my bag. I was momentarily afraid
[page 251]
that someone might have interfered with my bag ehich esd in full view of the audience but all seemed well.
. . .
Culture: the sum of all the channels of communication between people. The world is moving toward a global network, the global language and culture.
. . .
Newman: 'perish the church . . . rather than the Truth
[page 252]
should fail. [1864 edition, download page 61]
. . .
The process must be taking each doctrine and subjecting it to analysis in the new space..
By the end of my troubled period I had concluded . . . that the Roman Catholic Church was a heap of rubbish and tarred all religions with the same brush. Since then I have seen a new picture of religion, one that is coterminous with
culture [definition above]. . . .
[page 255]
BEATITUDE = MIND AT REST (ie feeling no force)
Produce a nucleus for the crystallization of a peaceful world.
My mental download was an accident of birth I could have been Koori or an American.
Thursday 2 September 1999
Friday 3 September
Hugh Walpole: 'This world is a comedy for those that think, a tragedy for those that feel.' le Carre, Secret Pilgrim,page 119. le Carre
[page 255]
. . .
History is a comedy of errors, many caused by competition and the secrecy it requires.
So what is religion and its function? The Portrait of an Abstract Mn was fiction, but it sherd me in a practical way that there s no line between fact and fiction. Instead, fiction is a fact, and I had written some.
My understanding of fiction deepened with MABO. Mason, National Film and Sound Archive
I existen in a colonial confluence of English Politics and Irish Religion, In fact both has a common ancestry in Catholic politics from the time the first spin doctors began composing the New Testament.
Delete the idea that thought is independent
[page 256]
of politics.
We are in a system of our own construction which is so large that we have only local knowledge and control: EVENT HORIZON Event horizon - Wikipedia
First questions of small Catechism: Who made me? God made me. Why did god make me To know him, love im and serve him nere on earth and to live happily ever after with him in heaven.
. . .
Reading Mabo judgement I begin to see that al theory which includes theology, is fiction. The english imperial sovereign functioned within that fiction that panting a flag and sealing a document brought made certain lands the property of said sovereign. [this fiction is realized in practice using military force].
In the same way the popes of Rome and many others of their ilk have constructed edifices based on the fiction that they,
as stand-ins for the divinity, own the minds and bodies of their subjects. This defines a total insitution.
There is an intensity, sitting here in the sun listening to the river babble, thinking of the people being killed at this moment seeking the recipe for world eace.
Le Carre 224: 'We have sinned against the children of Eden.
Violence arises from conflicting fictions, and most fictions depict conflict, otherwise they are boring.
Fundamental question: what do you hand on to the children?
First, of course,unconditional ove.
leCarre 245: 'There is no reward for love except the experience of loving, and nothing to be learned by it except humility'.
Put this in mathematics.
[page 258]
Although on the surface the bulk of Catholic belief now seems to be absurd and meaningless rubbish, two connected matters arise
Why is it so durable?
What is to replace it?
Saturday 4 September 1999
Marxism / material determinism / Guns, Germs and Steel Diamond
. . .
Cantor Universe as phase space [of theology, as Cantor envisaged?]. Dauben: Georg Cantor: His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite
[page 259]
Cantor Universe us te space of all posible fictions [the space of imagination].
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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!)
| Bauer, Walter, Orhtodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, Sigler Press 1996 'This brilliant and pioneering monograph inaugurated a new era of scholarship in the study of the New Testament and Christian origins, especially in America. It argued that early Christianity did not begin with a unified orthodox belief, from which heresies broke off at a later time. Rather, Bauer demonstrated that diversity stood at the beginning, while an orthodox church emerged only after long controversies during the early centuries. During recent decades, the investigation of newly discovered texts, such as the Gnostic Library of Nag Hammadi in Egypt, have fully confirmed Bauer's insights.
There may be numerous details, which scholars today would see differently than Walter Bauer, whose word was first published in Germany sixty years ago. Nevertheless, Bauer's book has remained the foundation for all modern scholarship in this field, and it is must-reading for all who want to explore early Christian Communities. It is still challenging, fresh, fascinating, and thought-provoking -- without any question of the truly great masterpieces of New Testament scholarship.'
Helmut Koester Professor of New Testament Studies
and Ancient Church History at Harvard Divinity School
Amazon
back |
Christie, Agatha, Elephants Can Remember, Bantam Books 1984 'A Classic example of the ingenious three-card trick she has been playing on us for so many years.' Sunday Express
Amazon
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Dauben, Joseph Warren, Georg Cantor: His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite, Princeton University Press 1990 Jacket: 'One of the greatest revolutions in mathematics occurred when Georg Cantor (1843-1918) promulgated his theory of transfinite sets. ... Set theory has been widely adopted in mathematics and philosophy, but the controversy surrounding it at the turn of the century remains of great interest. Cantor's own faith in his theory was partly theological. His religious beliefs led him to expect paradox in any concept of the infinite, and he always retained his belief in the utter veracity of transfinite set theory. Later in his life, he was troubled by attacks of severe depression. Dauben shows that these played an integral part in his understanding and defense of set theory.'
Amazon
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| Debray, Regis, God, An Itinerary, Verso 2004 Amazon Product Description
'God, who has changed the lives—and deaths—of men and women, has in turn changed His face and His meaning several times over since His birth three thousand years ago. He may have kept the same name throughout, but God has been addressed in many different ways and cannot be said to have the same characteristics in the year 500 BC as in AD 400 or in the twenty-first century, nor is He the same entity in Jerusalem or Constantinople as in Rome or New York. The omnipotent and punitive God of the Hebrews is not the consoling and intimate God of the Christians, and is certainly not identical with the impersonal cosmic Energy of the New Agers.
Régis Debray's purpose in this major new book is to trace the episodes of the genesis of God, His itinerary and the costs of His survival. Debray shifts the spotlight away from the theological foreground and moves it backstage to the machinery of divine production by going back, from the Law, to the Tablets themselves and by scrutinizing Heaven at its most down-to-earth. Throughout this beautifully illustrated book, he is able to focus his attention not just on what was written, but on how it was written: with what tools, on what surface, for what social purpose and in what physical environment.
Debray contends that, in order to discover how God's fire was transferred from the desert to the prairie, we ought first to bracket the philosophical questions and focus on empirical information. However, he claims that this does not lessen its significance, but rather gives new life to spiritual issues. God: An Itinerary uses the histories of the Eternal and of the West to illuminate one another and to throw light on contemporary civilization itself. 50 b/w illustrations.'
Amazon
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Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, W W Norton and Co 1997 'Diamond's book is complex and a bit overwhelming. But the thesis he methodically puts forth--examining the "positive feedback loop" of farming, then domestication, then population density, then innovation, and on and on--makes sense. Written without favor, Guns, Germs, and Steel is good global history.' Amazon.com
Amazon
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Graham, Carol, Happiness Around the World: The paradox of happy peasants and miserable millionaires, Oxford University Press 2010 Amazon editorial review: "'n the past decade there has emerged a substantial literature on the economics of happiness. What makes people happy--earnings, health, the economic environment, the political system, neighbors, family? And what effect does happiness have on earnings, health, and the political system? A prodigious contributor to that literature is Dr. Carol Graham, who has now assembled a masterful review of the subject.'--Thomas Schelling, Nobel Laureate in Economics 2005, Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, University of Maryland
Amazon
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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
Amazon
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| Mason, Chief Justice, and Brennan, Deane, Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron and McHugh, Reasons for Judgement: Eddie Mabo and ors and the State of Queensland, High Court of Australia 3 June 1992 back |
Newman, John Henry, and Ian Ker (editor), Apologia pro Vita Sua: Being a History of His Religious Opinions, Penguin Classics 1995
Amazon
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Newman, John Henry, An Essay on the Development of Chritian Doctrine, Cosimo Classics 2007 Jacket: 'Still considered essential reading for serious thinkers on religion more than a century and a half after it was written, this seminal work of modern theology, first published in 1845, presents a history of Catholic doctrine from the days of the Apostles to the time of its writing, and follows with specific examples of how the doctrine has not only survived corruption but grown stronger through defending itself against it, and is, therefore, the true religion. This classic of Christian apologetics, considered a foundational work of 19th-century intellectualism on par with Darwin's Origin of Species, is must reading not only for the faithful but also for anyone who wishes to be well educated in the fundamentals of modern thought. '
Amazon
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Reynolds, Vernon, and Ralph Tanner, The Biology of Religion, Longman 1983
Amazon
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Zemanian, Armen H, Graphs and Networks: Transfinite and Nonstandard, Birkhäuser 2004 Amazon editorial review :'For about thirty years Zemanian has been developing a theory of infinite electrical networks. This book is the latest in a series of books...on the subject. The subject is necessarily abstract and sophisticated because infinite objects are the main objects of discourse.... The first few chapters are important not only to remind the reader of the terms, but also to give an improved or alternate treatment of some earlier results. There does not yet seem to be a large following of researchers in this area, but it seems very attractive and ripe for investigation. Its intriguing to see the connections between set theory and electrical network problems.... To understand these concepts fully the reader must consult the book under review. The reviewer highly recommends devoting the effort needed to understand these original and surprising concepts.' SIAM Review
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Papers
| Ak, Prashanth, "Toward an Economy fo Well-Being", Science, 329, 5992, 6 August 2010, page 630-31. Review of Carol Graham, Happiness Around the World: The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires. back |
| Broecker, Wally, "Three Qs", Science, 329, 5992, 6 August 2010, page 613. 'Q What's the most misunderstood thing about climate change? I always tell people that if all we had was a natural record, we would be in a weak position with regard to saying we should do something about carbon dioxide. But our position is really based on the physics which says that if you add greenhouse gases to the planet, its going to warm. . . . If it doesn't happen that would mean we're in the dark ages as far as understanding climate.'. back |
| Franson, James D, "Pairs Rule Quantum Interference", Science, 329, 5990, 23 July 2010, page 396-397. 'Quantum interference is one of the most mysterious features of quantum mechanics. In fact, Feynman referred to the double-slit interference experiment for single particles as the "only" mystery of quantum mechanics. On page 418 of this issuse, Sinha et al. describe a recent experiment that shows that quantum interference from a single photon arises only from pairs of possible paths through an interferometer. There is no need to invoke additional interference terms that might arise from the interference of three or more paths.'. back |
| Schlesinger, William H, "Translational Ecology", Science, 329, 5992, 6 August 2010, page 609. '. . . despite producing an enormous amount of new information, ecologists are often unable to convey knowledge effectively to the public and policy-makers. Unless the discoveries of ecological science are rapidly translated into meaningful actions, they will remain quietly archived while the biolsphere degrades.'. back |
| Sinha, Urbasi, et al., "Ruling out Multi-Order Interference in Quantum Mechanics", Science, 329, 5990, 23 July 2010, page 418-421. 'Quantum mechanics and gravitation are two pillars of modern physics. Despite their success in describing the physical world around us, they seem to be incompatible theories. There are suggestions that one of these theories must be generalized to achieve unification. For example, Born's rule -- one of the axioms of quantum mechanics -- could be violated. Born's rule predicts that quantum interference as shown by a double-slit diffraction experiment, occurs for pairs of paths. A generalized version of quantum mechanics might allow multipath (i.e. higher order) interference, thus leading to a deviation from the theory. We performed a three-slit experiment with photons and bounded the magnitude of three-path interference to less than 10-2 of the expected two path interference, this ruling out third- and higher-order interference and providing a bound on the accuracy of Born's rule. Our experiment is consistent with the postulate both in semiclassical and quantum regimes.'. back |
Links
| Anaxagoras - Wikipedia, Anaxagoras - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Anaxagoras (Greek: Ἀναξαγόρας, Anaxagoras, "lord of the assembly"; c. 500 BC – 428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae in Asia Minor, Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to bring philosophy from Ionia to Athens. He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows, and the sun, which he described as a fiery mass larger than the Peloponnese. He was accused of contravening the established religion and was forced to flee to Lampsacus.
Anaxagoras is famous for introducing the cosmological concept of Nous (mind), as an ordering force. He regarded material substance as an infinite multitude of imperishable primary elements, referring all generation and disappearance to mixture and separation respectively.' back |
| Bernard of Chartres - Wikipedia, Bernard of Chartres - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Bernard of Chartres (Bernardus Carnotensis) (died after 1124) was a twelfth-century French Neo-Platonist philosopher, scholar, and administrator. back |
| Catholic Enquiry Centre, What is the Church's position on the death penalty - Catholic Enquiry Centre, 'You will find a statement on the death penalty in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 2266 and 2267. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is available on the Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va/.
The church does allow the use of the death penalty, but only if this is the only way of protecting people against an unjust aggressor. The church believes that the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity ‘are very rare, if not practically non-existent’.
There has been a significant shift away from the position as stated by the Church in ancient times and most commentators today would consider that the circumstances in modern society do not exist such as to justify capital punishment.' back |
| Event horizon - Wikipedia, Event horizon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In general relativity, an event horizon is a boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer. In layman's terms, it is defined as "the point of no return", i.e., the point at which the gravitational pull becomes so great as to make escape impossible. An event horizon is most commonly associated with black holes.' back |
| Halting problem- Wikipedia, Halting problem- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In computability theory, the halting problem is a decision problem which can be stated as follows: given a description of a program and a finite input, decide whether the program finishes running or will run forever, given that input.
Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs cannot exist. We say that the halting problem is undecidable over Turing machines. Copeland (2004) attributes the actual term halting problem to Martin Davis.' back |
| Mark Croft, Galileo Galilei's Anagram, 'Galileo's anagram was as follows.
"Haec immatura a me iam frustra leguntur o.y."
or "These are at present too young to be read by me"
By New Years Day of 1611 Venus had moved around to the near side of the sun, it's
crescent phase had begun to emerge, and Galileo unscrambled the anagram.
"Cynthiae figuras aemulatur mater amorum"
or "The mother of love imitates the shape of Cynthia"
In plain words Venus (the mother of love) manifests all the phases that the Moon
(Cynthia) goes through (and hence Venus must pass on both sides of the sun!!!).
Galileo's observation absolutely proved the Ptolemaic system wrong.' back |
National Film and Sound Archive, Mabo / High Court Judgement, ' . . . all six majority Judges agreed:
* That the concept of native title can be recognised under the common law of Australia;
* That the content of native title and the identification of native title holders is ascertained according to the laws and customs of the indigenous people connected to the land;
* That on the acquisition of sovereignty the Crown obtained an underlying ('radical') title to the land within the Colony;
* That the acquisition of sovereignty did not itself extinguish native title;
* That the Crown is able to extinguish native title, provided that the extinguishment is effected by a valid exercise of government power which reveals a clear and plain intention to extinguish. back |
| Régis Debray - Wikipedia, Régis Debray - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Jules Régis Debray (born 1940) is a French intellectual, journalist, government official and professor. He is known for his theorization of mediology, a critical theory of the long-term transmission of cultural meaning in human society; and for having fought in 1967 with Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in Bolivia.' back |
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