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164 Notes
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167 Sunday 15 November 2020 - Saturday 21 November 2020
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171 [Notebook: DB 85 Science]
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178 Sunday 15 November 2020
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181 Trying to upgrade my theory of peace. The 1987 plan is still good but the story of creation has gone ahead:
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183 'Peace is not just the absence of war. It is the whole remarkable structure of what exists. If we are to understand peace well enough to bring it within our grasp, we must understand the creative process that brings the world to be.' A Theory of Peace (1987)
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189 What is the advantage of democracy? Free exploration creating faster development across the board. Totalitarian countries reduce their entropy, reducing their creativity and reducing their exploration of possibilities. Mass production is easy compared to the real growth and diversification of culture and increased leisure and time to look at god.
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196 Monday 16 November 2020
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199 Peace requires that individuals are able to act freely so any attempts to dictatorship create tensions [potentials] which eventually reach a breaking point that emerges as revolution. Revolutions are invariably destructive and it is the aim of diplomacy to renegotiate the social contract without destructive revolution. The US Declaration of Independence says it all, as does the insight into evolution that tells us that it is better to die actively fighting for resources than passively from starvation.
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203 A quantum of action is real like a coin but when it is 'spinning' its 'sides' are not visible and will only become visble when it meets its complex conjugate which will project it onto spacetime.
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207 We imagine that a quantum of action may represent a computable function [which takes a system from an input state to an output sate and then halts].
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211 That is it may be a [time sequential] superposition of a computable number of basis states each of which represents some logical operation orthogonal to all the other logical operations, ie a unique snippet of code. In other words, a permutation of a set of basis states which we might represent by a sequence of complex integers, ie roots of unity. A sequence of roots of unity is a unitary representation of a codec. This sequence forms a cyclic group of the roots of unity, the number of elements being the order of the group.
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215 What we really need to understand is computation by superposition
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219 [page 273]
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223 acting in both mind and fundamental particles and everywhere is between.
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226 Tuesday 17 November 2020
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229 The big issue is to understand quantum mechanics on the principle that it lies between the initial singularity and the emergence of classical spacetime, ie the birth of the representation of particles. We begin with the idea that the initial singularity is a real quantum of action, in Aristotle's terminology a hybrid of dunamis and entelecheia and then we explore how this hybrid differentiates into potential and kinetic energy, the dunamis being represented by the Hilbert space mathematical representation of form and the entelecheia being the Minkowski space representation of particles with positive definite energy. Implicit in this picture is the 'delocalization' of quantum mechanics, operating as unitary logic in time creating space by the creation of positive definite particles out of 'negative definite' potential. It is all on the tip of my mind, an idea now about two months old. One advantage of this is that it fits with the zero energy 'cognitive' universe and does away with the need to postulate infinite energy density in particles of zero size. Another advantage is that it gives specific logical roles to the 60 or so fundamental particles that have appeared in our accelerators. A third advantage (for me) is that if it turns out to be a logically consistent hypothesis it makes all my theological / physical work for the last fifty years worthwhile. Martinus Veltman: Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics
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233 Muller on the quantum mechanics of Murdoch's transformations.
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237 [page 274]
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241 We have a quantum system |murdoch> = a|left> + b|right>, subject to the normalization condition a2 + b2 = 1, with a varying from 0 to 1 as the political scene changes. This quantum mechanical expression works at all scales from qubit to universe. The news section of newspapers records actual events, the commentary section records commentators' opinions of the tensions underlying the situation and trying to estimate the consequent events. In quantum mechanics this probability is relatively easy to compute from the inner product aka the overlap integral. We understand the scale invariance of this quantum mechanical idea to arise from the networked nature of the universal process. Diplomacy operates in the region of potential trying to reduce the probability of war just as occupational health and safety works in the region of potential trying to reduce the probability of disaster. Dennis Muller: Courting the chameleon: how the US election reveals Rupert Murdoch's political colours
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245 We can conceive the fermion / boson discontinuity in terms of dunamis / entelecheia, potential (time) observability (space) taking the view that fermions create space and that the foundation of contact / causality to be found in the bosonic world of quantum theory is maintained by the bifurcation of time / energy into time / space by the introduction of null geodesics and the velocity of light which have the effect of maintaining the 'non-existence' of space in the quantum world.
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249 We imagine the basis states of a Hilbert space as list of potential actions which can be executed in a sequence with varying probabilities so superposition is not a superposition in space (as we might imagine musical overtones to be superposed on a guitar string) but in time.
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253 [page 25]
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257 This overcomes the collapse of the wave function problem because the basis states only exist one at time in both the observing system and the observed system and what we see at the moment of observation is a fixed point determined by the meeting of conjugate basis states. In a nutshell, the basis states of a Hilbert space are time division multiplexed.
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261 Hawking and Ellis' time reversed black hole big bang model does not make sense because big black holes take an enormous amount of time to 'evaporate' and they do not blow up. Also they are produced after quite a long evolutionary process in the existing universe. So forget this model. Hawking radiation - Wikipedia
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265 So we follow the Aristotle Aquinas Trinity route, starting with pure action and allowing that a god can create another god as the Father created the Son.
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269 Then we set out to make something out of nothing by imagining that the nothing spawns the equivalent of a particle and an antiparticle, in the zero energy universe positive and negative energy, potential and kinetic or some more subtle quantum mechanical variant on this theme. God made the world from nothing, they say, or made the world out of themself, that is from a cybernetic point of view equivalent to nothing, zero entropy.
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273 I keep thinking I have solved the quantum measurement problem and then it slips through my fingers. The one bit that is clear is that a measurement require the tensor product space of the two participant particles and therefore involves an increase in entropy and therefore information. Zurek again. Wojciech Hubert Zurek: Quantum origin of quantum jumps: breaking of unitary symmetry induced by information transfer and the transition from quantum to classical
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280 Wednesday 18 November 2020
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283 Creation is best understood in the psychological realm where we can make new things out of old simply by rearranging the parts. This we see built into the roots of the universe by quantum mechanics which has the property of being able to create ad infinitum by linear superposition. Quantum theory tells us that matter itself is formally creative so that we can make a universe by in effect looking at nothing, represented by the empty set, in different ways to get energy, to bifurcate energy into potential and kinetic, ie into space and time and so on ad infinitum thus in a way magically making the formalism represented by Cantor's theory real. The big leap is to go from the quantum representation of potential to the real representation of mass energy by the miracle of |ψ|2, the most amazing consequence of Wigner's view of the role of mathematics in the physical sciences. Linearity - Wikipedia, Eugene Wigner: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences
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287 Can we say logic is linear [yes in its reversible quantum incarnation]. Nielsen & Chuang: Quantum Computation and Quantum Information
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291 Speech is complex music. The universe begins with a monotone, adds many more tones, modulates them in time and ends up speaking in living creatures, plants, animals, human, tribes, nations.
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294 Thursday 19 November 2020
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297 Fourier discovered that any function can be represented by a superposition of waves, a fourier integral which we represent as the integral of a set of complex exponentials representing
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305 a wide set of different frequencies which may be represented as the basis states of a Hilbert space, all orthogonal. These basis states are generated by the bifurcation of the initial quantum of action into a random set of energies represented by harmonic oscillators operating between potential and kinetic energy. Since there is no control on their initial states they represent a random spectrum of frequencies and energies ranging, like the natural numbers, from 1 to ℵ0. The fourier superposition of all these frequencies gives us the alphabet of functions from which the universe is constructed. Like a spinning die, this alphabet is invisible, but when two elements with the same frequencies meet an 'eigenevent' [occurs] which we model by the interaction of a frequency with its complex conjugate, [and] we get stillness, a fixed point in the quantum dynamics which represents a particle or message, emitted apparently at random, but with one of a small number of characteristic frequencies (masses) that represent the known particles. Unique among these (and apparently primordial) is the massless photon which represents the null geodesic that maintains contact interactions between spatially separated particles, which may be seen as a boson representing the bifurcation of energy/time into space.momentum / energy.time. This little story of creation explains the transition from Hilbert space into Minkowski space - 'On . . . '. The dream of a gerontius who has already exceeded his three score and ten. John Henry Newman
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309 Angel-A has become my favourite movie.
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313 Feynman's path integral has become an integral part of
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321 quantum field theory but it does not make much sense if space-time is not the domain of quantum mechanics so it may not be the right way to compute a quantum amplitude. We may say that the amplitude of every event that happens and which is relevant is the probability of the event happening, ie a completed event involves precisely one quantum of action but the probability of it happening may need to be calculated in a different way [from the Born rule / Hilbert metric / overlap integral (which nevertheless looks so neat)]. One of the arguments in favour of the path integral is its Lorentz covariance which may be irrelevant if the quantum mechanical process is at a deeper layer than space-time. Path integral integrates all the paths for a particle to go from A at t to B at t'. Read Wikipedia. Path integral formulation - Wikipedia
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325 Feynman called his method space-time physics and built on Dirac's insight that the Lagrangian couples classical and quantum physics. The notion that a particle path may travel anywhere in the universe is a bit far fetched from a classical (relativistic) point of view although we can tolerate it if the quantum formalism is non-local; but the path of a real particle is local, which is a difficulty. There must be a clear answer somewhere in this mess which seems to make the life of simple particles much more complex than billiard balls whereas we would think things would be the other way round. The path integral method treats a particle as a wave [which I am inclined to see as a computational process] and sees the actual path followed as one where all the variations of the wave are in phase [same frequency] so that the calculus of variations gives us an extremal fixed point result rather like de Broglie's explanation of the Bohr orbitals in an atom.
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329 The Lagrangian method depends on an integral over an extended stretch of spacetime which is not possible until space emerges. Before that we have to rely on the differential method of the Hamiltonian.
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336 Friday 20 November 2020
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339 I am a long way from the standard model and at a dead end, but after the usual night of worry feeling good about my position. Does this mean anything at all or am I simply a victim of the amazing power of the human imagination to follow paths all over the cognitive universe like fundamental particles trying to 'sniff out' paths from A to B using their path integrals. The question here is how do we conceive a path integral as the execution of a turing machine in the time domain. What we are looking for is the most compact and effective story to explain what is going on; 'Once upon a time there was an initial singularity which strung together an infinite array of threads of logical processes looking for the way to the universe that made the storyteller.
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343 Maybe we can see quantum mechanics operating in a sort of Platonic formal heaven, a set of processes shadowed in our terrestrial cave of realistic particles embodied with energy (matter) as envisaged by Aristotle. This idea is very similar to the quantum field theory approach which I find difficult because it requires representation of various mathematical infinities and infinitesimalities to work, a position which contradicts the discrete reality of the divine quantum of action.
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347 Feynman's Thesis Richard Feynman (2005): A New Approach to Quantum Mechanics
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351 We think the basic structure of the universe must be linear and integral in terms of quanta of action so at this level decisions to do things must be democratic, the greatest number of quanta favouring a given outcome winning,
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359 a very simple entropy thing.
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363 Path integral method = [network] computation method, where the actual computation is a linear function [like a unitary codec].
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367 Linear superposition: <ξ | φ> = Σi <ξ | i><i | φ>. How do we convert this into a local (turing computable) expression?
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371 Principle of least action = principle of most efficient algorithm = principle of algorithm with least number of operations = least number of quanta of action = algorithms taking advantage of position significant notation of number eg multiplication algorithms.
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375 What we are trying to do here is create a psychological interpretation of quantum mechanics to serve as a psychological foundation of the universe in order to justify the notion that the universe is the mind of god. [. . .W]e are trying to do this in various ways including the idea that the brain works by superposition so that the superposition of inputs into a neuron decides whether or not it will fire.
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379 The brain functions in two 'dimensions'. First in its network connectivity which determines what connects to what; and second by superposition modulated by the settings of synapses and the threshold at which a neuron sends a signal through its axon to all the recipients of its message. The network is a function of space; the superposition depends upon phase (timing) [which is why quantum mechanics used complex numbers] and the integral of the input in a time frame, a sort of Lagrangian function.
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387 Feynman diagrams provide a spatial network structure for quantum behaviour operating in the amplitude [complex phase] realm, so all the network transmissions are in effect amplitudes [phases] which are then superposed by the network transmissions and squared to arrive at the probabilities of particular events. This provides us with a model which is analogous to brain function. What we need now is quantum theoretical explanation of the origin of the space-times over which we integrate Lagrangians in order to obtain amplitudes.
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391 The quantum mechanical aspect of the network model is encoded in the timing (phases) of the interrupts that each computer makes to its correspondents [stopping the current process and sending the machine in a different direction.]
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395 The key to peace is justice and the key to the theory of peace is to identify justice in nature, that is in divine law [the judgement of god]. Basically the universal basic income guaranteed by the Sun and the fair distribution of solar resources. Spoestra. Sverre Spoelstra: Coronavirus has put scientists in the frame alongside politicians and poses questions of leadership
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399 It seems that much of the trouble with quantum field theory, noted above, arises from attempts to use Minkowski space-time as the domain for Hilbert space. Feynman's path integral method helps to bridge the divide by interpreting the Lagrangian, which lives naturally in Minkowski space, in terms of action and wave mechanics which resides naturally in Hilbert space. The path integral approach does not seem to be the full answer, however, and we still need to see how quantum mechanics is the source of the spacetime that it then uses to move particles around. Here we continue the theme that space-time is the operating system of the universe, dealing with memory and communication [the foundation of the network that we make out of Feynman diagrams].
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407 How does energy become momentum? They first meet in the massless photon. Photons bind space to time via null geodesics. Here we have the pieces to make space-time out of Hilbert space and use it to produce a natural version of the path integral connection of Hilbert space to Minkowski space via the Lagrangian and the path integral. Quantum field theory comes to space from beneath rather than from above, the general theme of this project, putting god under our feet holding us up rather than over our heads holding us down.
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410 Saturday 21 November 2020
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413 On the quantum of action that marks the boundary between past and future, the fixed past and the potential future, the boundary between entelecheia (done, done, all done) and dunamis (do I hear another bid?) [the basic motion in the world, from future to past].
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417 The purpose of the theory of peace is to explore the sources of the peaceful elements of the structure of the universe, particularly following the trail from the initial singularity to peaceful human societies. Given this core trajectory, we can then identify the branches that have led to war and disaster and propose strategies to prevent their growth. In particular we wish to point out the role of false information, particularly emphasizing the role of theological errors in promoting religious war.
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421 From the cybernetic point of view it is the [innovations in the] future that have the power to control the past but the future comes by chance and by the operation of the P vs NP and the principle of requisite variety. The most powerful
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429 future provision for the control is the invention of space which enables the increase in entropy by creation without annihilation which is necessary in the case of pure energy/time which requires annihilation to be coupled with creation. Here we come to the core insight of the 1987 lectures which show that the transfinite increase in spiritual space renders the annihilation implicit in zero sum games unnecessary. This insight has been a long time coming but it has been knocking on my door since the mid-80s and now it shows me the way to generate a new version of quantum field theory completing Feynman's work if only I can do it moved by the power of my love for my god.
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433 The gamma matrices cannot exist without space to store them and they are fundamentally essential to the Dirac equation which cannot exist without them since they linearize the quadratic metric implicit in special relativity, thus bringing it into consistency with the linearity of Hilbert space and quantum mechanics. The computer network, like the Feynman diagrams cannot exist without space and the entropy of space is necessary to guarantee the stability of space-time.
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447 Copyright:
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451 You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.
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507 Further readingBooks
508 Auyang, Sunny Y., How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?, Oxford University Press 1995 Jacket: 'Quantum field theory (QFT) combines quantum mechanics with Einstein's special theory of relativity and underlies elementary particle physics. This book presents a philosophical analysis of QFT. It is the first treatise in which the philosophies of space-time, quantum phenomena and particle interactions are encompassed in a unified framework.'
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510 Amazon
511 back |
512 Bergson, Henri, Creative Evolution, General Books LLC 2009 'Long absent from the center of discussion in Western philosophy, Bergson has recently made a reappearance. The Centennial Series of his works undertaken by Palgrave Macmillan thus comes at an opportune time, making it possible for those interested in Bergson's ideas t have access to newly annotated versions of several of his chief writings, freshly introduced and discussed. It is particularly good to see the republication of Mind-Energy, a treasure trove of Bergsonian insights long out of print.' - Pete A.Y. Gunter, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of North Texas
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514 Amazon
515 back |
516 Cheney, Margaret, Tesla: Man out of Time, Touchstone 2001 Jacket: 'In Tesla: Man Out of Time Margaret Cheneyexplores the brilliant and prescient mind of the twentieth century's greatest scientist and inventor.
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518 Amazon
519 back |
520 Christie, Agatha, Taken at the Flood, Collins Crime 2000
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522 Amazon
523 back |
524 Feynman (2005), Richard Phillips, Feynman's Thesis: A New Approach to Quantum Mechanics, World Scientific Publishing Company 2005 Amazon editorial review: 'Editorial Reviews
525 Review
526 'The young Feynman revealed here was full of invention, verve, and ambition. His new approach to quantum mechanics, after simmering for decades beneath the surface of theoretical physics, burst into new prominence in the 1970s. Now its influence is pervasive, and still expanding. Feynman's original presentation is not only uniquely clear, but also contains insights and perspectives that are not widely known, and might well provide ammunition for another explosion or two.' Frank Wilczek
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528 Amazon
529 back |
530 Fortun, Mike, and Herbert J Bernstein, Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First Century, Counterpoint 1998 Amazon editorial review:
531 'Does science discover truths or create them? Does dioxin cause cancer or not? Is corporate-sponsored research valid or not? Although these questions reflect the way we're used to thinking, maybe they're not the best way to approach science and its place in our culture. Physicist Herbert J. Bernstein and science historian Mike Fortun, both of the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies (ISIS), suggest a third way of seeing, beyond taking one side or another, in Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the 21st Century. While they deal with weighty issues and encourage us to completely rethink our beliefs about science and truth, they do so with such grace and humor that we follow with ease discussions of toxic-waste disposal, the Human Genome Project, and retooling our language to better fit the way science is actually done.'
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533 Amazon
534 back |
535 Grgin, Emile, The Algebra of Quantions: A Unifying Number System for Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, AuthorHouse 2005 Amazon Product Description
536 'Quantum mechanics and relativity have been in structural conflict for eighty years. This work shows that the incompatibility in question stems only from the assumption that their unification must be based on the field of complex numbers. Dropping this assumption, one can derive a simple mathematical structure which subsumes both theories as special cases. While the idea of generalizing the number system of quantum mechanics to make structural room for relativity is very old, no attempt has been successful in the past. The novelty brought out in the present work is based on a self-evident observation: there is no reason to expect the development of mathematics and physics to be synchronized in a manner that would keep the former forever one step ahead of the latter. More specifically, if a new number system seems to be needed in physics, there is no reason to believe that this system already belongs to our mathematical heritage.This observation changes the nature of the problem from 'finding' a unifying number system among the algebras already studied by mathematicians, to 'discovering' it ab initio from the requirement that it should lead to a structural merging of quantum mechanics and relativity. The solution, named "algebra of quantions", is derived in this book from several viewpoints, together with proofs of its mathematical uniqueness. Its physical relevance stems from the fact that the Standard Model depends less on observations if formulated over the quantions. This work is a philosophical and technical introduction to the algebra of quantions, to quantionic analysis, and to quantionic field equations.'
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538 Amazon
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540 Latifa, My Forbidden face: Growing Up Under the Taliban: A Young Woman's Story, Miramax 2003 Amazon review From Booklist
541 'Latifa was only 16 when the Taliban overran Kabul, changing her life dramatically. On the morning of September 26, 1996--the day the Taliban took Kabul--Latifa, her sister, Soraya, and their father drove to Aryana Square and saw the body of the murdered former president, Najibullah. The Taliban began issuing edicts, forbidding women to leave their houses without a close male relative to escort them; forcing them to wear chadris, which cover their entire bodies; and refusing to allow them to work. Latifa, Soraya, and their mother suffered greatly, falling into depression. Their mother, a doctor, continued to see patients secretly, and Latifa eventually started an underground school for girls, an action that put both her and her students at great risk. Latifa and her parents left Afghanistan to be interviewed by the French magazine Elle, but when they tried to return, they discovered that the Taliban had declared them enemies of the state. A moving firsthand account with a real sense of immediacy.' Kristine Huntley
542 Copyright © American Library Association.
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544 Amazon
545 back |
546 Nielsen, Michael A, and Isaac L Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press 2000 Review: A rigorous, comprehensive text on quantum information is timely. The study of quantum information and computation represents a particularly direct route to understanding quantum mechanics. Unlike the traditional route to quantum mechanics via Schroedinger's equation and the hydrogen atom, the study of quantum information requires no calculus, merely a knowledge of complex numbers and matrix multiplication. In addition, quantum information processing gives direct access to the traditionally advanced topics of measurement of quantum systems and decoherence.' Seth Lloyd, Department of Quantum Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Nature 6876: vol 416 page 19, 7 March 2002.
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548 Amazon
549 back |
550 Park, David Allen, Introduction to the Quantum Theory, McGraw-Hill Book Company 1992
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552 Amazon
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554 Polanyi, Michael, and Amaryta Sen (foreword), The Tacit Dimension, University Of Chicago Press 1966, 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.'
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556 Amazon
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558 Veltman, Martinus, Diagrammatica: The Path to the Feynman Rules, Cambridge University Press 1994 Jacket: 'This book provides an easily accessible introduction to quantum field theory via Feynman rules and calculations in particle physics. The aim is to make clear what the physical foundations of present-day field theory are, to clarify the physical content of Feynman rules, and to outline their domain of applicability. ... The book includes valuable appendices that review some essential mathematics, including complex spaces, matrices, the CBH equation, traces and dimensional regularization. ...'
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560 Amazon
561 back |
562 Veltman, Martinus, Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics, World Scientific 2003 'Introduction: The twentieth century has seen an enormous progress in physics. The fundamental physics of the first half of the century was dominated by the theory of relativity, Einstein's theory of gravitation and the theory of quantum mechanics. The second half of the century saw the rise of elementary particle physics. . . . Through this development there has been a subtle change in point of view. In Einstein's theory space and time play an overwhelming dominant role. . . . The view that we would like to defend can perhaps best be explaned by an analogy. To us, space-time and the laws of quantum mechanics are like the decor, the setting of a play. The elementary articles are the actors, and physics is what they do. . . . Thus in this book the elementary particles are the central objects.'
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564 Amazon
565 back |
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568 Links
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570
571 Active intellect - Wikipedia, Active intellect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The nature of the active intellect was the subject of intense discussion in medieval philosophy, as various Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers sought to reconcile their commitment to Aristotle's account of the body and soul to their own theological commitments. At stake in particular was in what way Aristotle's account of an incorporeal soul might contribute to understanding of the nature of eternal life.' back |
572 Al Jazeera and Agencies, Diwali 2020: When and how is it celebrated, ' Diwali, also known as the festival of lights, is the biggest festival celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists around the world.
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574 Hindus celebrate the triumph of good over evil – of light over darkness – to mark the return of Ram, the lord of virtue, to his kingdom after 14 years of exile.
575 Followers of Jainism commemorate Mahavira, a venerated ascetic who fundamentally reformed the faith, reaching a state of nirvana after his death.
576 Sikhs use Diwali to mark the anniversary of the release from prison of Guru Hargobind in 1619.
577 For Buddhists, this day represents the time Emperor Ashoka gave up everything and adopted a path of peace after going through bloodshed and death. The day is observed as Ashok Vijayadashami.'
578 back |
579 Annabel Crabb, The fight between being and nothingness, 'Several weeks ago, the Thatcher archive finally released the speech the Iron Lady had been planning to give at that 1984 conference. It was an unprecedentedly savage attack on the Labour Party, laced with personal abuse and contumely. The speech she actually gave, hastily rewritten in the rubble, was eminently more gracious. Even Britain's immortal political warrior knew that in the face of a shared new enemy, old enemies must sometimes call a truce.' back |
580 Ari Mattes, Reflections of Paris: technics and terrorism in Vision Culture, 'The entire event-complex is, of course, deeply sad for the families of the dead – all of the dead, including the families of the perpetrators – and this, hopefully, elicits the empathy of those not directly affected.
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582 But the event’s revelation of the inability of the majority of public figures to think in terms of systems and history – to think dynamically, and to see and understand the relationships between different forces, political, economic, cultural and geographic – is a source of profound despair regarding the global future.' back |
583 Carol Giacomo, What the Saudis Miss When They Focus on Iran, 'I visited the region last month, shortly after a gunman linked to an Islamic State affiliate killed five people at a meeting hall associated with a mosque in the city of Shaihat. On Wednesday in the same city, gunmen killed two members of the Saudi security forces. Many Shiite residents, already alienated from the government, are fearful. “They feel they are being targeted for their faith,” a Saudi journalist said. The Saudis’ Wahhabi version of Islam, which underpins the conservative government and society, considers Shiites infidels, and anti-Shiite propaganda is common.' back |
584 Carol Rumens, Poem of the week: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , ' The coming year [2009] is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edward FitzGerald; so, as the year turns, what better celebration than some stanzas from his free translation of that great meditation on life's transience, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám? . . .
585 Though initially published as an anonymous pamphlet, once the Rubáiyát was discovered by Rossetti, Swinburne and others, it swiftly became famous. It is said that its effect on Victorian England was no less considerable than that of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published in the same year, 1859.'
586 . back |
587 CREA, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, ' We are a new independent research organisation focused on revealing the trends, causes, and health impacts, as well as the solutions to air pollution.
588
589 Health-harming pollutants from burning fossil fuels are responsible for at least 3 million air pollution deaths per year. However, rapid advances in modern, clean energy technologies are a key opportunity to improve air quality and protect public health.
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591 We use scientific data, research and evidence to support the efforts of governments, companies and campaigning organizations worldwide in their efforts to move towards clean energy and clean air. We believe that effective research and communication are the key to successful policies, investment decisions and advocacy efforts.' back |
592 Dan Murtagh & Karoline Kan, China Must Ban New Coal Power Plants to Meet 2060 Goal: Report, ' China’s coal power fleet, already more than 1,000 gigawatts strong, is underutilized and already includes dozens of redundant plants, researchers from Draworld Environment Research Center and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said in the report. The country should aim to whittle its coal fleet down to about 680 gigawatts by 2030, instead of plans by some in the industry to expand it to about 1,300 gigawatts.
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594 With solar and wind power quickly becoming as cheap or cheaper than coal, such an building spree could result in more than 2 trillion yuan ($304 billion) in stranded assets, said Zhang Shuwei, Draworld’s chief economist and the report’s lead author.' back |
595 David Dodwell, Multilateralism is alive and well in Asia, no thanks to Donald Trump and 'America First', ' . . . despite four years of relentless US efforts to reject multilateral cooperation, the rest of the world has held firm in the conviction that collaboration is in everyone’s best interest, and that other economies’ prosperity is not at our expense, but in our mutual interest. Within the 21-economy Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, leaders have stood firm, 20 against one, in support of the rules-based multilateral system and the proposition that free and open trade and investment is a net positive for us all.' back |
596 Dennis Muller, Courting the chameleon: how the US election reveals Rupert Murdoch's political colours, ' Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential election raises a perennial question about what Rupert Murdoch does when the candidate he has opposed wins.
597
598 Answer: He adapts and he waits. Electoral cycles last three, four or five years. Murdoch has been wielding power for five decades.
599
600 Murdoch is a chameleon. It is true that when political and business conditions are favourable he glows brightly in blood-red conservatism. But when, as now, conditions are uncertain, the colour dims and takes on a more complex hue. . . .
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602 Reactionary ideology is important to Murdoch, but not as important as making money.' back |
603 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 |
604 Francis Fukuyama, We still don't understand Trumpism, ' The single most confounding thing about the Trump era is that we still do not really understand why more than 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump, and why there remains a smaller core of fanatical supporters who will believe anything he says—most recently, that he won the election but that it is being stolen through voter fraud.
605
606 Over the past several years, a legion of explanations for the Trump phenomenon have been put forward—that it is a backlash against the inequalities created by globalization, that it represents the fear of white voters fearing a loss of power and prestige, that is has been generated by social media companies, that it reflects a huge social divide between people living in big cities and those in smaller communities, that it is based on level of education, and so on.
607
608 All of these factors are probably true to some extent, but none of them adequately explains the fear and loathing evident on the right in America today. There is a qualitative change in the nature of partisanship that conventional explanations fail to capture, reflected in poll data showing that a majority of Republican voters believe some version of QAnon theories about Democrats drinking children’s blood. Nor have I seen a good explanation for why so many conservatives can see such an imperfect vessel as Trump as the object of cultlike worship, or fear the Democrats as the embodiment of Satan.
609
610 At the end of Trump’s term, what I’ve learned is that I really don’t understand America well at all.'
611 back |
612 George Monbiot, There's a population crisi alright> But probably not the one you think, 'So let’s turn to a population crisis over which we do have some influence. I’m talking about the growth in livestock numbers. Human numbers are rising at roughly 1.2% a year, while livestock numbers are rising at around 2.4% a year. By 2050 the world’s living systems will have to support about 120m tonnes of extra humans, and 400m tonnes of extra farm animals.
613
614 Raising these animals already uses three-quarters of the world’s agricultural land. A third of our cereal crops are used to feed livestock: this may rise to roughly half by 2050. More people will starve as a result, because the poor rely mainly on grain for their subsistence, and diverting it to livestock raises the price.' back |
615 Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, 'The primary premise of the Alliance is that in order to insure an environmentally sustainable future, humans must reorient themselves from an exploitative and ultimately self-destructive relationship with nature, to one that honors the deep interrelation of all life and contributes to the health and integrity of the natural environment. An essential step in achieving this is to create a system of jurisprudence that sees and treats nature as a fundamental, rights bearing entity and not as mere property to be exploited at will.' back |
616 Hawking radiation - Wikipedia, Hawking radiation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Hawking radiation is blackbody radiation that is predicted to be released by black holes, due to quantum effects near the event horizon. It is named after the physicist Stephen Hawking, who provided a theoretical argument for its existence in 1974. . . . A black hole of one solar mass (M☉) has a temperature of only 60 nanokelvins (60 billionths of a kelvin); in fact, such a black hole would absorb far more cosmic microwave background radiation than it emits. A black hole of 4.5×1022 kg (about the mass of the Moon, or about 133 μm across) would be in equilibrium at 2.7 K, absorbing as much radiation as it emits. Yet smaller primordial black holes would emit more than they absorb and thereby lose mass.' back |
617 Henri Bergson - Wikipedia, Henri Bergson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Henri-Louis Bergson (. . . 18 October 1859–4 January 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century.' back |
618 Jim Holt, Nothing Ventured, 'In 1935, around the time he began proclaiming that Hitler would rescue the German people from their forgetfulness of Being, Heidegger declared "Why is there something rather than nothing?" to be the deepest and most far-reaching of all questions. Each of us, he claimed, is "grazed...by its hidden power" at least once in our lives, whether we realize it or not:
619 The question looms in moments of great despair, when things tend to lose all their weight and all meaning becomes obscured....It is present in moments of rejoicing, when all things around us are transfigured and seem to be there for the first time, as if it might be easier to think they are not than to understand that they are and are as are. The question is upon us in boredom, when we are equally removed from despair and joy, and everything about us seems so hopelessly commonplace that we no longer care whether anything is or is not... ' back |
620 John Henry Newman, The Dream of Gerontius, ' The dedication of "The Dream of Gerontius" reads, in English: "To the Most Beloved Brother, John Joseph Gordon, Priest of the Order of St. Philip de Neri, whose soul is in the Place of Refreshment. All Souls' Day, 1865."
621
622 The Rev. John Joseph Gordon, of the Oratory, was very dear to Newman, and his death was a great blow to him. But of all the Oratorians, the Cardinal especially loved Father Ambrose St. John, whose name he accentuates on the last page of the "Apologia." Father St. John, who was of the Gordon family, died in 1875, and Newman suffered what he held to be his saddest bereavement. Ambrose St. John had been with him at Littlemore. Writing to Mr. Dering of the death of Father Ambrose St. John, he said: "I never had so great a loss. He had been my life under God for twenty-two years." The dread of dying alone and the deep affection for friends—an affection that reaches the throne of God by prayer—tinge the whole structure of "The Dream." They are part of Newman himself.' back |
623 Joshua Robertson, Sex abuse victimes struggle for justive in Brisbane's web of powerful interests, 'Archbishop Phillip Aspinall has signalled the church will refund considerable fees paid to St Paul’s by victims of abuse by Lynch and Knight.
624
625 But Aspinall indicated to the commission that the church, even when it was willing to take a less combative tack with victims in legal proceedings, had scarcely any more opportunity to do so while “trapped” by the terms of their insurance contracts.
626
627 Aspinall said there was an inherent conflict when insurers with commercial interests acted for a school or a church that wished to “express care and concern for the survivor without voiding its insurance cover”.
628
629 Worse still, he saw no way “that conflict can be resolved”.
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631 This means that churches and schools, regardless of any willingness to own up to their failures, remain captive to commercial imperatives that turn the handling of historical sexual abuse complaints into a ' back |
632 Jotam Confino, Noam Chomsky: 'White Supremacy Is a Deep Principle in U.S. Society - and Jews Are Famliar With That', ' “Trump has managed to tap into poisonous currents that are right below the surface in American life, culture and history – to simply extract and magnify the poison. And that’s what he has been running on. White supremacy is a deep principle in American society and culture. And Jews are familiar with that. I’m old enough to remember overt antisemitism in the streets. But the anti-Black racism is much more extreme,” he opines.' back |
633 Kamel Daoud, Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It, 'Saudi Arabia is a Daesh that has made it.
634
635 The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture. The younger generations of radicals in the so-called Arab world were not born jihadists. They were suckled in the bosom of Fatwa Valley, a kind of Islamist Vatican with a vast industry that produces theologians, religious laws, books, and aggressive editorial policies and media campaigns.' back |
636 Laila Lalami, When terror strikes, Saudi Arabia evades responsibility, 'When I was a child in Morocco, no clerics told me what to do, what to read or not read, what to believe, what to wear. And if they did, I was free not to listen. Faith was more than its conspicuous manifestations. But things began to change in the 1980s. It was the height of the Cold War and Arab tyrants saw an opportunity: they could hold on to power indefinitely by repressing the dissidents in their midst – most of them secular leftists – and by encouraging the religious right wing, with tacit or overt approval from the US and other Western allies.
637
638 Into the void created by the decimation of the Arab world's secular left, the Wahhabis stepped in, with almost unlimited financial resources. Wahhabi ideas spread throughout the region, not because they have any merit – they don't – but because they were and remain well funded. We cannot defeat IS without defeating the Wahhabi theology that birthed it. And to do so would require spending as much effort and money in defending liberal ideas.' back |
639 Linearity - Wikipedia, Linearity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In mathematics, a linear map or linear function f(x) is a function that satisfies the two properties:[1]
640
641 Additivity: f(x + y) = f(x) + f(y).
642 Homogeneity of degree 1: f(αx) = α f(x) for all α.
643
644 These properties are known as the superposition principle. In this definition, x is not necessarily a real number, but can in general be an element of any vector space.' back |
645 Luke Kemp, Explainer: how the OECD agreement dealsanother blow to coal worldwide, 'The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have agreed to limit subsidies for the export of inefficient coal-fired power plant technologies.
646
647 Export credit funding will be limited to coal-fired power generators using only the most efficient, and least polluting, “ultra-supercritical” technologies. The deal will come into force in January 2017 and be reviewed in 2019. . . .
648
649 Australia unfortunately continued its role as a climate laggard by negotiating for the inclusion of a clause allowing for exceptions. back |
650 Martin Powers, From China, France and Thomas Jefferson: history lessons for Donald Trump and Republicans on aristocratic excess, '
651 ' “Let the constitution of a government be what it will, if there is but one man in it exempt from the laws, all the other members must necessarily be at his discretion.”
652 Perhaps we should thank US President Donald Trump
653 for demonstrating the truth of 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s insight. Buoyed by “presidential immunity” – a mere supposition, not a law – Trump has shown us how easily a reality television star can render the world’s leading democracy powerless to check even the most blatant abuses.. . .
654 If the Republican Party can destroy the very meaning of “office” with its built-in checks, it is not only the president who will remain above the law. The entire party, and only that party, will enjoy that privilege. The West will have returned to what The Atlantic calls “quasi-monarchical” rule, leaving others to remember what it means to govern for public benefit.' back |
655 Pat McConnell, 21st Century bank fraud demands a new generation of IT experts, 'It would seem that the world is vastly infested with dodgy code, a lot of it hiding behind the shield of ‘intellectual property’, ‘commercial in confidence’ etc etc. Code functions very like law, and despite the efforts of many dodgy lawmakers in Australia and elsewhere, it is a well established principle that the text of laws will be publicly available and that the High Court has the last say on what the words actually mean and whether the meaning is constitutionally acceptable. The law, in other words, is ‘open source’. Maybe it is time to implement this principle in all code which effects human health, safety and security, the stability of the financial system and in fact everything which impacts on the public welfare. If all this code was open source, millions of skilled eyes could go over it and alert the rest of it to deliberate or unintentional dodginess. It would seem, for instance, that there are forests of errors in the code employed by our governments in their efforts to get into the cybercentury while being too stingy to employ properly qualified software engineers to design and build their systems, eg http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/taxpayer-records-exposed-by-serious-ato-mygov-security-flaw-20151117-gl1kex' Jeffrey Nichols comment back |
656 Path integral formulation - Wikipedia, Path integral formulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The path integral formulation of quantum mechanics is a description of quantum theory which generalizes the action principle of classical mechanics. It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique trajectory for a system with a sum, or functional integral, over an infinity of possible trajectories to compute a quantum amplitude. . . . This formulation has proved crucial to the subsequent development of theoretical physics, since it provided the basis for the grand synthesis of the 1970s which unified quantum field theory with statistical mechanics. . . . ' back |
657 Politico Magazine, What Trump Shows Us About America, ' With four years of Trump nearly behind us, Politico Magazine asked a group of smart political and cultural observers to tell us what big, new insight this era has given them about America—and what that insight means for the country’s future. . . .
“The house always wins,” one wrote. And then there was this conclusion from another contributor: “At the end of Trump’s term, what I’ve learned is that I really don’t understand America well at all (Francis Fukuyama).” ' back |
658 Sverre Spoelstra, Coronavirus has put scientists in the frame alongside politicians and poses questions of leadership, ' If there’s one thing we’ve got used to in the pandemic, it’s seeing our political leaders on TV standing next to scientists. So striking is the impact of scientists on policy that it has become hard to see such figures as anything other than leaders working alongside, rather than simply for, politicians.
659 The Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is a noteworthy example. His popularity in Sweden has reached levels normally beyond even the most popular political leaders. . . .
660 The US provides another interesting example of a scientist taking on a leadership role. Dr Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease specialist and an important White House adviser, became a de facto leader for large parts of the population during the crisis.' back |
661 Tamara Tulich, National security bill opens the door to expanded control orders and secret evidence, What is new in the anti-terror context is legislation that allows the courts to rely on secret evidence in control order proceedings. . . . UK Supreme Court justice Lord Kerr made the following comments in a case about secret evidence:
662
663 The central fallacy of the argument, however, lies in the unspoken assumption that, because the judge sees everything, he is bound to be in a better position to reach a fair result. That assumption is misplaced. To be truly valuable, evidence must be capable of withstanding challenge. I go further. Evidence which has been insulated from challenge may positively mislead.' back |
664 Ted Lefroy and Benjamin Richardson, We quibble over 'lawfare', but the law is not protecting species properly anyway, 'An alternative vision that evokes Christopher Stone’s ideal is beginning to find legal expression in some countries, such as New Zealand, where a long dispute between the government and Maori over management of a major river concluded in 2012 with an historic agreement that the Whanganui River is a legal person, with its own rights. Two guardians, one appointed by the local Maori iwi and the other by the government, will protect the river’s interests forever.' back |
665 The Ant and the Grasshopper - Wikipedia, The Ant and the Grasshopper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Synopsis The fable concerns a grasshopper who has spent the warm months singing away while the ant (or ants in some editions) worked to store up food for winter. When winter arrives, the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger, and upon asking the ant for food is only rebuked for its idleness. The story is used to teach the virtues of hard work and saving, and the perils of improvidence. Some versions of the fable state a moral at the end, along the lines of: "Idleness brings want", "To work today is to eat tomorrow" or "It is best to prepare for the days of necessity". back |
666 Tom Orlik & Bjorn Van Roye, An Economist's Guide to the World in 2050, ' The share of global output coming from economies that are “free” or “mostly free” is set to slide from 57% in 2000 to 33% in 2050, based on Bloomberg Economics’ GDP forecasts and the Heritage Foundation’s classification system. The share from those classed as “mostly unfree”—economies with a high degree of state ownership and control—is set to rise from 12% to 43%. . . . Since 2016, the U.S. has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese imports, signed a trade agreement that dictates what China should buy, required U.S. firms to obtain a license before selling certain technologies to China and attempted to break up a major Chinese internet firm.
667
668 In other words: the fear of China’s rise has already begun to turn the U.S. away from free-market principles.' back |
669 William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Act 4, Scene 3, 'BRUTUS
670
671 Under your pardon. You must note beside,
672 That we have tried the utmost of our friends,
673 Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe:
674 The enemy increaseth every day;
675 We, at the height, are ready to decline.
676 There is a tide in the affairs of men,
677 Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
678 Omitted, all the voyage of their life
679 Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
680 On such a full sea are we now afloat;
681 And we must take the current when it serves,
682 Or lose our ventures.' back |
683 Wojciech Hubert Zurek, Quantum origin of quantum jumps: breaking of unitary symmetry induced by information transfer and the transition from quantum to classical, 'Submitted on 17 Mar 2007 (v1), last revised 18 Mar 2008 (this version, v3))
684 Measurements transfer information about a system to the apparatus, and then further on – to
685 observers and (often inadvertently) to the environment. I show that even imperfect copying essential in such situations restricts possible unperturbed outcomes to an orthogonal subset of all possible states of the system, thus breaking the unitary symmetry of its Hilbert space implied by the quantum superposition principle. Preferred outcome states emerge as a result. They provide framework
686 for the “wavepacket collapse”, designating terminal points of quantum jumps, and defining the
687 measured observable by specifying its eigenstates.' back |
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