Of the Fi and the Spirits of Things [from The Codex]

[Introduction to The Codex]

The Fi believe everything has a spirit. Not only do individual "objects" have spirits, but groups of things and types of things and types of actions, etc., have spirits, too. The spirit of each thing (whether what we would understand as an "object," or a group of things, or type thing or action) is intimately connected with the true nature and essence, etc., of the thing. The spirits of groups of things and of types of things and actions are something akin to "spirit-gods" of those things. The spirit of an individual thing or "object," on the other hand, is something akin to its soul or "spirit-soul."

The God of All Things [from The Codex]

[Introduction to The Codex]

Generations ago, likely on the coast of the Neosho, the Sy went their own way from the Fi, the traditional belief system of the Alithinoi Anthropoi. 

The Sy's trident symbolism suggests the first Sy were likely fishermen and sailors. Maybe, then, they pulled away from the Fi as they felt the influence of the new cultures and religions they found in foreign lands. Or maybe they pulled away yearning for a more satisfying personal spirituality or a sense of the sacred than the Fi allowed. Or maybe -- maybe -- they simply had greater expectations about life -- and hopes beyond death -- than the Fi offered. Regardless, the Sy movement spread, and eventually the Sy intermixed throughout Alithinoi Anthropoi society, and then into the world. 

The Sy feel the universe is governed by an all powerful Universal Spirit. This Spirit can be anything or everything it wants at any given moment. Thus, it can also always be whatever people want it to be. This is The God of All Things.

The School of the Five Philosophers [from The Codex]

[Introduction to The Codex]

"The School of the Five Philosophers," sometimes known as "The School of the Five Magicians," is a Pythian academy of magic with pseudo-religious overtones. Though lacking a strict theology and espousing no gods, it propounds specific world views, demanding followers' adherence in thought and deed. Similarly, its pedagogy is premised upon eulogizing its philosophers as "ideational prophets." Thus, it is appropriate to review it within The Codex.

The five philosophers are best understood through their viewpoints rather than biographies. Little is known of them, individually, though speculation sometimes passes as fact. Most of them lived, if at all, hundreds of years ago. Each philosopher has its own House within The School.  Below, therefore, we review each House in turn.

Bob's Nondenominational Church of Charisma [from The Codex]

[Introduction to The Codex]

Bob's Nondenominational Church of Charisma is a really fast growing, "self-styled" "dynamic" congregation that oddly isn't connected with any of the other religions in Pyth. Although it got off to a pretty rocky start when it was founded a few years ago, "Bob's" or "the Church," as everybody calls it now, has gotten a lot of followers and now is even seeking franchisees! Recently it was even completely "accredited" by ORCA despite some seriously harsh objections from typical "mainstream denominations."

Bob's Church was, unfortunately, originally built on some inexpensive land over the City's old sewer outflows, leading to some so-called "wags" calling it "The Temple of Stink." This may be why some people are so negative about it. Bob, anyway, said his decision to found a church was because he had an "ecstatic revelation," but some people made fun of this, too. They said his only "ecstatic revelation" was how to make some quick money. Obviously, people are mean that way.

Astellism (and the Alpha Astari) [from The Codex]

[Introduction to The Codex]

The World is but so large, yet the Astelli imagine infinities.

To the Astelli our world is but one of an endless number, one for each star in the sky. Each person follows a path among worlds. After death each of us is reborn into a new world. We begin again as infants.

The path we trace is our family path. It is the path of our ancestors and our descendants. Not all lives are equally long. On rebirth, then, we may rejoin some of our ancestors and descendants as well as close family members. Here we have a chance to talk, to love, to look after each other again. Or to revisit old hates and resentments.

We do this although we are not conscious of our prior lives. We know their feeling although we do not know why. Their knowledge lies deep in our subconscious.

The Fountainhead in 5 Seconds

Via Cynical-C.

The Power of Myth

Bill Moyers has put the audio of his famous series of six interviews with anthropologist ethnographer "mythologist" Joseph Campbell online for free. In the series, which was made 25 years ago, Campbell discusses at length (and with broad appeal for many) his theories on the importance of religious stories and myths in all cultures. Campbell, who was greatly influenced by lay biologist and philosopher Ed Ricketts (who also influenced John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, Bruce Ariss, Adelle Davis Henry Miller, Lincoln Steffens and Francis Whitaker) as well as Carl Jung, modern art, Thomas Mann, Hinduism, and Native American culture, believed that myth was ingrained in the "human psyche" and always centered around the trials of a "hero." There's a lot of pop psychology and loose thinking here, but the series is worth listening to nonetheless for its provocative ideas and lovely delivery.

"The Eagleman Stag" by Mikey Please

This is an extremely well conceived and well executed animated video. Since I am posting a lot of videos lately, I thought I'd toss this one out there.

MetaFilter -- which was the source of this for me -- has a nice short write up with a link to a really good making of video as well as links to many other videos by Mikey Please.

In general, MiFi has been white hot lately with awesome stuff.

The Ludic Lifestyle

A provocative thesis -- The Elimination of Work by Bob Black -- but it doesn't explain (a) how resources are distributed; (b) what ownership and property entail; (c) how output is valued; (d) whether the system is monetized and, if so, how; (e) how cooperation is rewarded or encouraged; (f) how distasteful activities get done; (g) how a ludic system is established, transitioned to, and enforced; (h) how ... look, I'm all for a "ludic lifestyle," but it is not immediately apparent how that can be achieved (or even whether it should be achieved) on societal level.  The "ludic" approach, rather, is one perhaps best sought by the individual in their own manner. (I'm also not sure "ludic" is exactly the word the author wants, but he uses it so I'm going with it.) Video via MetaFilter.

In Veritate Pulchritudo

The Latin motto generator is useful if you need a Latin motto. I don't know why anyone would need one, but should you, I'm there for you.

(And, by the way, not that you asked, sorry, in veritate pulchritudo is not Keats's "beauty is truth, truth beauty"; it's "in truth, beauty." There's a subtle but beautiful difference.)

The Golden Rectangle, Golden Ratio, and Phi as Design Criteria

James Gurney, of the wonderful blog Gurney Journey and Dinotopia fame, has a series of five posts on the golden rectangle and it's key ratio 1 : 1.618 ... (which is known as the golden ratio or φ). The crux is that the importance of the rectangle and the ratio is overstated and, while not belittling "mystical feeling" (my phrase and quotes), the supposed mystical role of the ratio is not factually grounded. He says it alot better than I could. So here's a list of his posts (with a brief description for each):

Part 1: Mythbusting the golden mean (the Parthenon) This post -- with extensive links at the end -- outlines the well established view and evidence that the Parthenon is not based on the golden rectangle or golden mean.
Part 2: The golden mean and Leonardo This post discusses Leonardo's "Vitruvian Man" drawing and that it reflects the ratios advocated by Roman scholar and architect Vitruvius, which are not the golden mean. that doesn't mean that Leonardo was unfamiliar with φ, but it is not evident it was central to his work.
Part 3: How the golden mean caught on with artists This post discusses the occurence of
φ in nature and how this developed a sort of mystical relevance for many which was given a sort of historical gloss.Part 4: The golden mean and the human body This post discusses the use of the golden mean by a number of artists, most notably Bauhaus architect/designers and Le Corbusier, and takes a middle view that we can learn from their work but it is not factually accurate on all counts.
Part 5: Last question about the golden rectangle The last question Gurney asks is whether the assertion that work designed with the golden rectangle/golden ratio is, in fact, more aesthetically pleasing. It can be if that is what appeals to the viewer, but it is not inherently so.

Synthetic Neanderthals

In an interview at Spiegel Online (Deutsch link) Harvard biologist Georgia Church explains (English link) discusses how recombinant DNA/stem cell techniques could in the near future lead to neanderthals being created/born:

Church: The first thing you have to do is to sequence the Neanderthal genome, and that has actually been done. The next step would be to chop this genome up into, say, 10,000 chunks and then synthesize these. Finally, you would introduce these chunks into a human stem cell. If we do that often enough, then we would generate a stem cell line that would get closer and closer to the corresponding sequence of the Neanderthal. We developed the semi-automated procedure required to do that in my lab. Finally, we assemble all the chunks in a human stem cell, which would enable you to finally create a Neanderthal clone.

SPIEGEL: And the surrogates would be human, right? In your book you write that an "extremely adventurous female human" could serve as the surrogate mother.

Church: Yes. However, the prerequisite would, of course, be that human cloning is acceptable to society.

That this is possible and in the relatively near future will be feasible is not news. Biologist PZ Myers of the very widely read blog Pharyngula gets all stinky about the ethics of this.

Upcoming Posts at Galileo Feynman

When I began this blog I imagined a mix of posts on art and politics, music and culture, science and society interspersed with short essays on a variety of more philosophical subjects. I haven't had much chance to focus on the essay side -- which I'd normally post under the tag Blah blah blah, among others -- but I thought I'd mention what's in the hopper. It's all pretty nerdy, so abandon all hope if you're looking for something else. A lengthy list follows bellow the break.

The Fermi Paradox and the Logic of a Tapeworm

The "Fermi Paradox" was an assertion by famous physicist Enrico Fermi that if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe it would have visited Earth already. Since it hasn't it must not exist.

It is, obviously, silly. It makes assumptions without evidence as to the ease of travel between star systems, the large prevalence of life elsewhere if it exists at all, the widespread desire of other lifeforms to visit Earth, and at its heart it misunderstands (indeed, sort of makes a mockery of) positivism as a scientific principle.

Boing Boing links to a post by Charlie Stross on his blog Charlie's Diary that takes Fermi's paradox apart imagining it as the philosophy of a tapeworm wondering if there are other tapeworms. It is, in Stross's words, "the Fermi paradox, mired in shit." He takes apart its errors point by point.

What we know of the world is well reasoned conjecture based on observation. The observations on which the conjecture that life exists elsewhere in the Universe are the scale of the Universe, the number of galaxies and stars it contains, the likelihood that Earth-like planets exist, and what we know of the circumstances where life could arise. Life elsewhere, somewhere, seems likely.

The Great Swindle: A Provocative Essay on "Fake Ideas" and "Fake Emotions"

Balloon Dog by Jeff Koons, one of the artists Scruton believes
engages in fake art. 

Roger Scruton, writing at Aeon Magazine, has a lengthy essay on the prevalence, in his view, on how "fake ideas" and "fake emotions" have "elbowed out truth and beauty" in modern societies. It's an old argument, though he expresses it well, if provocatively:

... There are fake beliefs, fake opinions, fake kinds of expertise. There is also fake emotion, which comes about when people debase the forms and the language in which true feeling can take root, so that they are no longer fully aware of the difference between the true and the false. ...

... To fake things you have to take people in, yourself included. ... The fake really is shocked when he is exposed, since he had created around himself a community of trust, of which he himself was a member. ...

        ***
The most important way of clearing intellectual space for fake scholarship and culture is to marginalise the concept of truth. ...

Scruton makes several errors. For one -- and most importantly -- he conflates truth and beauty. They fundamentally differ. "Truth" can be spoken of in at least a quasi-objective way since there is a measure for truth: the world we inhabit. "Beauty" is always a matter of debate, and people can quite justifiably bring different measures to the conversation.

Steven Pinker on the Brain, the Mind, and Evolution

While researching The Spectator article I linked to earlier tonight (well, this morning), I noticed this provocative quote from Steven Pinker's facebook page:

Why do people believe that there are dangerous implications of the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that the brain is organized in part by the genome, and that the genome is a product of evolution?

I'm Creeped Out (But Fascinated)

Image and caption from New York Times: When infected by
thorny-headed worms (the orange spot), gammarids swim
toward light. At the water's surface they become easy prey
for birds, the next creature the worm needs to infect to
complete its life cycle.

From The New York Times on Wednesday (to my attention via MetaFilter):

In the rain forests of Costa Rica lives Anelosimus octavius, a species of spider that sometimes displays a strange and ghoulish habit.

From time to time these spiders abandon their own web and build a radically different one, a home not for the spider but for a parasitic wasp that has been living inside it. Then the spider dies — a zombie architect, its brain hijacked by its parasitic invader — and out of its body crawls the wasp’s larva, which has been growing inside it all this time.

        * * *
[T]he new web is splendidly suited to its wasp invader. Unlike the spider’s normal web, mostly a tangle of threads, this one has a platform topped by a thick sheet that protects it from the rain. The wasp larva crawls to the edge of the platform and spins a cocoon that hangs down through an opening that the spider has kindly provided for the parasite.

To manipulate the spiders, the wasp must have genes that produce proteins that alter spider behavior, and in some species, scientists are now pinpointing this type of gene. ...

The New York Times article is written to draw attention to a new issue of The Journal of Experimental Biology which is dedicated to the subject of neural parasitology. The 18 or so articles at the issue are free. And, as the New York Times note, the issue of parasites (including viruses) taking over their hosts and substnatially altering their behavior is neither new nor rare -- it is a widespread phenomena.

It is also fact that makes arguments about whether "free will" exists or not silly (it's a nonsensical concept).

The "Pupose" of Life -- A Few Words by Buddhist Alan Watts as Interpreted by Trey Parker and Matt Stone

Via Boing Boing -- and, yes, the central metaphor is simplistic and mistaken (there's still something to glean here).

The False Positive Paradox

I've posted before about my affection for Randall Monroe's webcomic xkcd and his related work, humor, and insight, and tonight (via Neatorama) I learned that it's been two years since his fiance was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer.  She's beating it so far.  He's noted the stats, and had a webcomic on this, but it also reminded me of something separate: the false positive paradox. (Well, that sounds like a downer, but it's not.)

The false positive paradox arises when a fairly reliable test yields fewer correct positive results than incorrect positive because the incidence of whatever is being tested is so low in the population. For example, imagine 1% of a population has a disease and a test for the disease is 95% accurate. That means if one gets a positive result there is, in fact, only about a 16% chance that one actually has the disease (specifically, the chance of a correct positive result is 1% x 95% = .95%; the chance for a false positive result is 99% x 5% = 4.95%; the chance of having the condition with a positive result is then .95 / (.95 + 4.95) ≈ 16%).

Positive Law and Natural Law

In this blog I'll use the phrase positive law to mean "law that derives from human expression" and I'll use the phrase natural law to mean "law that does not derive from human expression."  So, that's simple.

Lamentably, those aren't quite the uses that lawyers (or philosophers) often have for the terms; their uses frequently are ambiguous, poorly reasoned, and inconsistent. What may not seem to be a big deal does turn out to be a big deal. It leaves their analysis often clotted and wrong, and betrays a larger failure to understand how humans and our rules relate to the world we inhabit.  So, it's time for a somewhat esoteric discussion of these terms -- that may not be your "thing"  -- feel free to go. But there is a reason (besides its interest to me): it has important legal, political, and ontological ramifications.