The older I get the less patience I have for Olympic bragadochio. It's an athletic competition, it's World War N, it's the press being even more hysterically irresponsible than usual. An athlete is touted as being primed for five gold medals. Why can't we just say that Soandso is good at sport suchandsuch, he intends to compete, competition means trying to win, and in the Olympics a victory is commemorated with a gold medal? Why can't we remember that many of these sports already have world championships, already have world records? A World Cup or a world record is a far better guage of excellence than any two weeks of multi-nationalist hysteria.
In the 1960s I was mad for skiing and mad about how great a racer Jean Claude Killy was. I remember thinking that JC could DQ or finish last in each of the three alpine disciplines and he'd still be the greatest alpiine racer in the world, the greatest ever: the Olympics didn't prove anything but how crazy nations and their press could be about an unhealthy special event. JC won all three golds. I was glad. But it didn't prove anything about JC or about alpine ski racing. And it certainly didn't prove anything about France or the United States or Pakistan. (Not that France doesn't have some hairy mountains! Ayee!) Those who follow skiing know how great Bode Miller is. He goes for broke, DQs a lot. Notice: if Sasha Cohen or Irina Slutskaya had been skating in the Ice Follies, they wouldn't have fallen. Shizuka Arakawa skated beautifully, but tomorrow the order of judgment might be different: and different again next week. The Olympics prove only how insecure rabid nationalism is. (And I wish the commentators would keep their traps shut when the lesser skaters have the ice. They're not perfect? Look what they are doing. On the golf course I don't want my slice 180 yards off the tee to be compared to Tiger's 360 yards down the middle.
Chad Hedrick, Marion Jones ... promising gold is insane. Their coaches promising, reporters promising ... They should promise to do their best. Promising to be the best in advance of an event is insane. Shades of the New York Yankees.
I love sports. I love spectator sports. But I hate Olympic fever. And World Series fever. Second place should be a proud accomplishment. Number two is a goat? I'll never forget the ashen looks on some LA Dodgers faces as they were losing a Series they'd been favored for. The guys who'd finished third, sixth, tenth ... were home enjoying a BBQ; the runner-ups looked like they were in hell.
When I ran the mile I never finished first (neither did I ever try that hard and I certainly never trained hard). I had any number of third place finishes and at least one or two second place finishes. One time I finished fourth. Fortunately I never defined myself in terms of the mile. If I had I either should have won or been a basket case.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Meta- Assumptions
If I don’t understand something, I think maybe Shakespeare did: or Einstein. Or von Neumann. If they didn’t understand it either, maybe Newton could have. And if Newton couldn’t, then surely God must!
Archimedes famously said:Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.
Did Archimedes have any idea of the size of the world? Actually, his world wasn’t all that big. It had no China, no Americas, no Australia, no Antarctica, no Tibet ... Even so, by what physics (or metaphysics) could we find or make a lever long enough for him? And if he made one, what would hold the fulcrum?
Archimedes was imagining the "world" on a self-similar plane. He wasn’t thinking of it as wrapping back on itself, the wrap spinning among other wraps. He was thinking of the universe in terms of continuous compression; he made no allowance for
tension. He assumed meta-extensions inappropriately: out of ignorance: out of an inappropriate cosmology.
And so do we. Our physics, our cosmology, our metaphysics ... may be far more sophisticated than that of Archimedes. If we don’t have half his brains, we have some compensating advantages. Which doesn’t mean that we can’t be just as balls-over-ass wrong, absurd, as he was.
Review that sequence: If we don’t know something we tend to assume that Congress does, or the Pope ... or some terrorist spy. We tend to assume that perfect knowledge exists somewhere. I extended my appeal to "God": that ever-handy meta-meta.
Scientists, without any possibility of confirmation, assume that the universe is of a piece. (Even if it is, what about other universes? (Is the universe a synonym for the cosmos?) (And if it is, is the synonym appropriate? Is it true?)
The more ignorant we are, the more facilely we dismiss science. The illiterate nextdoor knows from a mile what’s wrong with Darwin. (Does the even stupider neighbor beyond him therefore know better than the illiterate nextdoor?) It’s the character of religion to be 99.9% incapable of doubting the appropriateness of its meta-extensions. (And at some point sciences too share much with religion.)
Archimedes asked for a lever long enough to move the world. Surely he was joking. Do we get the joke? Well, this module attempts to.
Archimedes famously said:
Archimedes was imagining the "world" on a self-similar plane. He wasn’t thinking of it as wrapping back on itself, the wrap spinning among other wraps. He was thinking of the universe in terms of continuous compression; he made no allowance for
tension. He assumed meta-extensions inappropriately: out of ignorance: out of an inappropriate cosmology.
And so do we. Our physics, our cosmology, our metaphysics ... may be far more sophisticated than that of Archimedes. If we don’t have half his brains, we have some compensating advantages. Which doesn’t mean that we can’t be just as balls-over-ass wrong, absurd, as he was.
Review that sequence: If we don’t know something we tend to assume that Congress does, or the Pope ... or some terrorist spy. We tend to assume that perfect knowledge exists somewhere. I extended my appeal to "God": that ever-handy meta-meta.
Scientists, without any possibility of confirmation, assume that the universe is of a piece. (Even if it is, what about other universes? (Is the universe a synonym for the cosmos?) (And if it is, is the synonym appropriate? Is it true?)
The more ignorant we are, the more facilely we dismiss science. The illiterate nextdoor knows from a mile what’s wrong with Darwin. (Does the even stupider neighbor beyond him therefore know better than the illiterate nextdoor?) It’s the character of religion to be 99.9% incapable of doubting the appropriateness of its meta-extensions. (And at some point sciences too share much with religion.)
Archimedes asked for a lever long enough to move the world. Surely he was joking. Do we get the joke? Well, this module attempts to.
2009 04 04
This post had links to Knatz.com, Macroinformation.org, PKImaging.com ... all destroyed by the fed in 2007. Sorry, I'm trying to put some of it back up.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Memory Hole
I remember a science fiction novel in which the space ship, having approached the speed of light, went punching right through the centers of dense stars, neither the star nor the ship feeling a thing. I don't know about that, but by now we all know that neutrinos stream unimpeded throughout the universe. They're so light, so speedy, that jillions of them pass through us everyday leaving no impression. Scientists lay seas of liquid underground trying to catch one, so far to the best of my knowledge without avail.
But you don't have to go at c velocity to leave no impression. Great ideas, intricate artifacts, pass through universities, through churches, through political entities without acknowledgment, leaving not a ripple.
Some creatures live and die but then some print of them turns up one hundred million years later as a fossil. What kind of universe would there have to be for unnoted ideas to sometimes fossilize?
Neutrinos? Forget about it. Universes manifest many events, few records. And human record keeping is always manipulated by some agenda.
The Sandman comics kept a library of unpublished books, vast. A whole universe right there.
But you don't have to go at c velocity to leave no impression. Great ideas, intricate artifacts, pass through universities, through churches, through political entities without acknowledgment, leaving not a ripple.
Some creatures live and die but then some print of them turns up one hundred million years later as a fossil. What kind of universe would there have to be for unnoted ideas to sometimes fossilize?
Neutrinos? Forget about it. Universes manifest many events, few records. And human record keeping is always manipulated by some agenda.
The Sandman comics kept a library of unpublished books, vast. A whole universe right there.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Brown Katrina
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - "Former federal disaster chief Michael Brown told a Senate panel on Friday he warned President Bush of impending catastrophe in New Orleans last summer and informed White House aides of dangerous flooding shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck."
He says he warned that the levee pumps were failing, etc, etc.
The fed did nothing. Then the fed blamed Brown for not doing his job. Brown resigned.
Now Brown is pointing the finger.
Business as usual, right? Typical reaction / non-reaction for a kleptocracy interested in power, profit, privilege ... with life, sense ... neglected.
I'll tell you what's not typical: that we're hearing anything about it. Most top-down negligences, injustices, stupidities ... are instantly buried: and stay buried.
Once upon a time I believed (what I was told) that a superior centralized executive, God, would make it all right, would correct all wrongs, would offer a map that actually fit the territory. Now I believe that that's an impossibility; centralized, top-down authority will never know the truth, let alone tell it. Centrally, kleptocratically-funded science will always be a sick joke. The truth will never be told -- so long as power, profit, privilege ... reigns over life, sense ...
Uh oh. Did I just imply that if our values were revised, perhaps reversed, that we'd be capable of truth? I wouldn't bet the farm on that either.
There's only one thing I am sure of: that the truth matters, the truth will tell in the long run, despite our capacities or incapacities for it.
The truth is the truth. The truth doesn't need any God to administer it.
He says he warned that the levee pumps were failing, etc, etc.
The fed did nothing. Then the fed blamed Brown for not doing his job. Brown resigned.
Now Brown is pointing the finger.
Business as usual, right? Typical reaction / non-reaction for a kleptocracy interested in power, profit, privilege ... with life, sense ... neglected.
I'll tell you what's not typical: that we're hearing anything about it. Most top-down negligences, injustices, stupidities ... are instantly buried: and stay buried.
Once upon a time I believed (what I was told) that a superior centralized executive, God, would make it all right, would correct all wrongs, would offer a map that actually fit the territory. Now I believe that that's an impossibility; centralized, top-down authority will never know the truth, let alone tell it. Centrally, kleptocratically-funded science will always be a sick joke. The truth will never be told -- so long as power, profit, privilege ... reigns over life, sense ...
Uh oh. Did I just imply that if our values were revised, perhaps reversed, that we'd be capable of truth? I wouldn't bet the farm on that either.
There's only one thing I am sure of: that the truth matters, the truth will tell in the long run, despite our capacities or incapacities for it.
The truth is the truth. The truth doesn't need any God to administer it.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Liberal
The purpose of any culture, of any institution within any culture, is to prefer some ideas, some structures, and, necessarily, to retard and prohibit others. War, prisons, censorship follow naturally, even if new territories are not being sought: and new territories are always being sought. Thus, talk about tolerance, diversity, liberty ... are nonsense.
Questions still flow. Is the nonsense conscious or unconscious?
Both, of course.
Who's supposed to be fooled? the self? or the others?
Both, of course.
Questions still flow. Is the nonsense conscious or unconscious?
Both, of course.
Who's supposed to be fooled? the self? or the others?
Both, of course.
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