vol VII: Notes

1982

[ Sunday 25 April 1982 - Saturday 1 May 1982 ]

Sunday 25 April 1982

notebook DREAMING DB1

[page 47]

Monday 26 April 1982

Another's dream: Near Darling River at Bourke with a long wooden staff, one end thicker than the other. Hefted it and realised its potential. Group of children across the river. Hid behind a tree (big gums there) but thought maybe staff poking out. The children began to come directly toward me, across the river. Thought the water would be too deep, but they kept on coming right toward me. When they got close, they stood around me, not threatening me. Then I struck one on the side of the head with the thick end of the staff (like Ninja staff) which felled him and went on to strike the next one. Then I knew what I was doing and killed about ten of them before they went away, just slowly. Then I just went into a dream about these dudes after me blowing up a Shell garage with a helicopter.

Back to self. . . .

[In the monastery] I lie in bed naked during my siesta wondering what it would be like with a woman, to have children, to live a normal life. This sort of thing all deviance, extremism, and I suspect it. I think all the people here are emotionally sick, escapists. I came here to escape from my sexuality. I'm beginning to see how religion works. They set you a hopeless task, and blackmail you when you fail.

They used to get up at 3 am or 4 am to milk cows. They often stayed up to 2am ringbarking trees by lamplight. Where did it get them?

You are wrong you know. You have lost the faith and nothing can make up for that. You have lost the ability to see what we are doing. Perhaps you never had it.

[page 49]

Tuesday 27 April 1982

I wish she would come. I wish she would come to me. Waiting and uncertainty are essential to a stochastic universe, but they are hard to bear. The system inherent in us, the rhythm of survival seeks certainty, respectability, predictability. He can afford to live with an empty larder who knows whence the next meal comes. Desire for food is one thing, its object easily manipulated, steerable, procurable, but deisre for a person is another. The object is free, unpredictable, more desirable as these qualities are more manifest. Unpredictability, then, and strong love face eachother across a chasm of longing, to meet at a time and place unknown. I wish she would come to me now, walk in the door now . . . now . . . now . . ..

There comes, by the devious fire of love, an unpredictable meeting which may bring forth genius or idiot, or, most probably, someone normal.

Fantasies - in me is enshrined new knowledge, by chance, to feed the world - not science but feeling, art is the medium, print, sound, vision, to master these is important. Floods of life run me through beside the quiet Ellenborough.

[page 50]

Wednesday 28 April 1982

Thursday 29 April 1982

Nightmarish dream with T in. She lived in a small olde english cottage standing by itself in the grounds of a cathedral surrounded by parkland. There was a road in front of the cottage, high iron railings etc. I seemed to be travelling around with about six Liverpool type petty hoodlums who were doing a bit of shoplifting, car stealing etc. Somehow it came about that they were going to steal T's car, parked in the street. We were in a railway station. I phoned the police, but only gave vague instructions so that we would not be caught. When I got back to the group they had all stolen conductors hats and were sitting around wearing them. I had no hat and they asked me where I had been. Can't remember what I said but I think we went and got the car and cruised around the town committing misdemeanours of one sort or another.

Interpretation: wait.

Read about Indian train journey yesterdayin SMH. Character warned the writer against trickters etc. Maybe these are my companions, and hence the railway station. Recently read in New Scientist about architecture of Cathedrals. Thinking of going to Canberra on the train.

Friday 30 April 1982

Saturday 1 May 1982

Copyright:

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Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Carter, Graydon, and Mark Summers (Illustrator), Todd S Purdum (Foreword), Vanity Fair's Presidential Profiles: Defining Portraits, Deeds and Misdeed of 43 Notable Americans -- And What Each One Really Thought About His Predecessor, Abrams Amazon product description: 'Forty-three men have held the highest office in the United States, making up an exclusive club of statesmen and sinners, grinds and slackers, winners and losers, Boy Scouts and rogues. They are profiled in incisive and entertaining commentaries written by Vanity Fair contributors Judy Bachrach, David Friend, David Kamp, Todd S. Purdum, and Jim Windolf that tell of their deeds, plumb their characters, and dispense the essential dish about their personal lives. Portraits newly drawn by the acclaimed artist Mark Summers illuminate each of them as vivid individuals. Also included: revealing remarks-in the presidents' own words-showing what each really thought about the man who had preceded him in the Oval Office, an introduction by Graydon Carter, and a foreword by Washington insider Todd S. Purdum.'  Amazon   back

Christie, Agatha, Murder in the Mews:Four Cases of Hercule Poirot, PAN 1954 Jacket: 'Murder in the Mews comprises the exciting stories of four of Hercule Poirot's cases; . . . [Murder in the Mews], . . . The Incredible Theft, . . . Dead Man's Mirror [and] . . . Triangle at Rhodes.'back

Domb, Cyril, The Critical Point: An historical introduction to the modern theory of Critical Phenomena, CRC Press 1996 Jacket: 'The relationship between liquids and gases engaged the attention of a number of distinguished scientists in the nineteenth century. In a paper published in 1869, Thomas Andrews described experiments that he had performed on carbon dioxide. From this he concluded that a critical temperature exists below which liquids are gases are distinct phases of matter. but above which they merge into a single phase. Other natural phenomena were subsequently discovered to which the same critical point description can be applied. These included ferromagnetism, solutions and various types of lambda point transition. This book provides a historical account of theoretical explanations of critical phenomena which ultimately led to a major triumph of statistical mechanics in the twenteth century. Contents include Historical survey; classical theories of fluids, magnets and light scattering; the Onsager revolution; Reconciliation; renormalisation group.'  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

Lewis, Michael, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition 2011 Review from Bookmarks Magazine 'Michael Lewis has written from the perspective of a financial insider for more than 20 years. His first book, Liar's Poker, was a warts-and-all account of Wall Street culture in the 1980s, when Lewis worked at the investment bank Salomon Brothers. Everything Lewis has touched since has turned to gold, and The Big Short seems to be another of those books, combining an incendiary, timely topic with the author's solid, insightful, and witty investigative reporting. Only the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette criticized what it felt was a rush job of writing and a failure to integrate the individual stories. Few readers will care for the message here (despite laugh-out-loud moments of absurdity), but Lewis is a capable guide into the world of CDOs, subprime mortgages, head-in-the-sand investments, inflated egos--and the big short. However, as Entertainment Weekly points at, if you're only going to read one book on the topic, perhaps this should not be the one.'  Amazon   back

O'Murchu, Diarmuid, Quantum Theology : Spiritual Implications of the New Physics, Crossroad Publishing Company 1997 Jacket: 'For quantum theorists, the fact that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts underpins all reality. "This is not merely a scientific principle of immense significance for our times" writes DO'M, "it is also a theological norm, known to mystics for centuries and now maturing into the supreme wisdom of our age."'  Amazon   back

Orwell, George, George Orwell Omnibus: The Complete Novels: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and 1984, Secker and Warburg : Octopus Books 1976   Amazon   back

Riesz, Frigyes, and Bela Sz-Nagy, Functional Analysis, Dover Publications 1990 Jacket: 'This noted text, highly regarded in its field, discusses modern theories of differentiation and integration and the principal problems and methods of handling integral equations and linear functional and transformations. ..."  Amazon   back

Schiff, Leonard I, Quantum Mechanics, McGraw-Hill 1968 Preface: 'This volme has a threefold purpose: to explain the physical concepts of quantum mechanics, to describe the mathematical formalism, and to provide illustrative examples of both the ideas and the methods.'  Amazon   back

Tymoczko, Thomas, New Directions in the Philosophy of Mathematics: An Anthology, Princeton University Press 1998 Jacket: 'The traditional debate among philosophers of mathematics is whether there is an external mathematical reality, something out there to be discovered, or whether mathematics is the product of the human mind. ... By bringing together essays of leading philosophers, mathematicians, logicians and computer scientists, TT reveals an evolving effort to account for the nature of mathematics in relation to other human activities.'  Amazon   back

Wigner, Eugene, Symmetries and Reflections: Scientific Essays , MIT Press 1970 Jacket: 'This volume contains some of Professor Wigner's more popular papers which, in their diversity of subject and clarity of style, reflect the author's deep analytical powers and the remarkable scope of his interests. Included are articles on the nature of physical symmetry, invariance and conservation principles, the structure of solid bodies and of the compound nucleus, the theory of nuclear fission, the effects of radiation on solids, and the epistemological problems of quantum mechanics. Other articles deal with the story of the first man-made nuclear chain reaction, the long term prospects of nuclear energy, the problems of Big Science, and the role of mathematics in the natural sciences. In addition, the book contains statements of Wigner's convictions and beliefs as well as memoirs of his friends Enrico Fermi and John von Neumann. Eugene P. Wigner is one of the architects of the atomic age. He worked with Enrco Fermi at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago at the beginning of the Manhattan Project, and he has gone on to receive the highest honours that science and his country can bestow, including the Nobel Prize for physics, the Max Planck Medal, the Enrico Fermi Award and the Atoms for Peace Award. '.  Amazon   back

Links

Ecclesiastes 3:1, There is a time, '1There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:' back

Ecstasy of Saint Theresa - Wikipedia, Ecstasy of Saint Theresa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (alternatively Saint Teresa in Ecstasy or Transverberation of Saint Teresa) is the central sculptural group in white marble set in an elevated aedicule in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. It was designed and completed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the leading sculptor of his day, who also designed the setting of the Chapel in marble, stucco and paint. It is generally considered to be one of the sculptural masterpieces of the High Roman Baroque.' back

Eugene Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, 'The first point is that the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and that there is no rational explanation for it. Second, it is just this uncanny usefulness of mathematical concepts that raises the question of the uniqueness of our physical theories.' back

Patrick J. Connolly, Newton and God's Sensorium, 'Conclusion In this paper, I have tried to provide an interpretation of Newton’s claim that God has a sensorium. I have disagreed with Leibniz that Newton’s claim is either unintelligible or entails somethingharmfultonaturalreligion. AnexaminationofmanyofNewton’sscientific, metaphysical, and theological views reveals that he had carefully considered ideas about sensoria, space, and God’s relation to the world. Specifically, I have argued that these passages show that Newton believed that God exercised His will in space.' back

Stirling's approximation - Wikipedia, Stirling's approximation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, Stirling's approximation (or Stirling's formula) is an approximation for large factorials. It is named in honour of James Stirling.' back