Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Does the part about Scrappy Doo resonate?
It may be safe to say that the United States -- along the raw capitalism that has driven it -- has pretty much jumped the shark. I wonder what else is left that can be written in? In a way, the thought that more fantastical things could be written into the screenplay is supremely frightening. Why can't it just be like Milo and Otis?
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
Labels: Capitalism, USA
A PhD in Islamic Finance - Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi
For my class on Bawa, I came across the word "furud" and went to Google for its definition and came instead to this page on inflation and fiscal policy within an Islamic framework. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, or any of the other articles by this author (linked above), but for some reason I find the idea of an Islamic economic framework fascinating.
lyrics: Lullaby Baxter Trio, Little Song
colors: three shades of brown
mood: I had a dream last night that I was at a convenience store talking to a youth about a poster on the wall regarding the side effects of prescription medicines on the body. In the dream, I had also gone out to a local bar earlier with my sweetie for a drink.
chant/prayer/mantra: remember our power.
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
lyrics: Lullaby Baxter Trio, Little Song
colors: three shades of brown
mood: I had a dream last night that I was at a convenience store talking to a youth about a poster on the wall regarding the side effects of prescription medicines on the body. In the dream, I had also gone out to a local bar earlier with my sweetie for a drink.
chant/prayer/mantra: remember our power.
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
Labels: dream recollection, economics, Islam
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Regarding John 3:17
So, today, I came across the John317Project.org website, while looking up a different prison ministry so I could order their booklet (Change Your Life Biblically, recommended by a guy I who I had lunch with on the street in Berkeley). Following this "if you were to die today" link will get you to the crux (no pun intended) of the matter regarding why I'm blogging right now instead of studying....
Anyway, John 3:17 is one of my favorite Bible verses, because it clarifies John 3:16 so well -- "not to judge/condemn, but to save..." I have to finish
up here quickly because somebody else wants to get on the school computer, so I'll be brief. If you are able to read the "if you were to die today" link, you may either take the salvational model on faith, as many do, or you may be in a state of questioning, wondering how does this grace get passed to us through this dying-on-the-cross business anyway? That, to me, is a huge growing edge for Christianity, as to my knowledge, nobody really has answered that one with anything other than the age-old "and then a miracle occurs" part of the proof (see fig.1 at right for the mathematical symbology). That's one part I'm aiming to treat up eventually.
lyrics: zoom, zoom, zoom (remember that car commercial? the ppl who wrote that song made out like bandits on royalties)
colors: red, white, brown
mood: okay.
chant/prayer/mantra: no news is good news (sometimes)
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
Anyway, John 3:17 is one of my favorite Bible verses, because it clarifies John 3:16 so well -- "not to judge/condemn, but to save..." I have to finish
up here quickly because somebody else wants to get on the school computer, so I'll be brief. If you are able to read the "if you were to die today" link, you may either take the salvational model on faith, as many do, or you may be in a state of questioning, wondering how does this grace get passed to us through this dying-on-the-cross business anyway? That, to me, is a huge growing edge for Christianity, as to my knowledge, nobody really has answered that one with anything other than the age-old "and then a miracle occurs" part of the proof (see fig.1 at right for the mathematical symbology). That's one part I'm aiming to treat up eventually.lyrics: zoom, zoom, zoom (remember that car commercial? the ppl who wrote that song made out like bandits on royalties)
colors: red, white, brown
mood: okay.
chant/prayer/mantra: no news is good news (sometimes)
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
Labels: Bible, Christianity, John 3:17, salvation
Friday, November 16, 2007
An "LOL" Revelation, regarding predicates, syntax, and programming
The other day, I got a recall notice from the library where I work for this M.A. thesis I checked out regarding a connection between Alfred North Whitehead's notion of "concrescence" and Virginia Woolf's novels. It got recalled, which means now I'm reading it. In the first chapter, the author, Grete Stenersen, quotes Whitehead "All modern philosophy hinges round the difficulty of describing the world in terms of subject and predicate,..."
Heck, I didn't remember what a predicate was, so I looked it up on Google -- "define predicate".
At the Google link, I came to realize that the term "predicate" is also used in programming language, and that the use of written language is syntactical in nature. Yes, that may be obvious, but for somebody who used to growl at command prompts in junior high when all the computer knew to say was "syntax error," I had deep associations of syntax being something that computers use, not people.
But NO... Syntax is also for language, and the idea of predicate has crossed over from written language into computer language.
My laugh out loud was (and this involves coming all the way over into my world if you want to get it the way I did).... What if our written language has been too underdetermined, and the "code" that we've been writing, vis a vis sacred text (whichever you ascribe to, whether its the Bible, the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon, the Upanishads, or the script for the Flintstones)... What if that code we've (writers of sacred text) been writing is actually extremely buggy, and the syntax used there does "compile" for cultures, but just because something COMPILES doesn't mean that it runs as it was designed. In other words, we're inside the debugger, still hammering this program out.
Complicating matters is the fact that every single person who reads any given text has their own internalized instruction set. Just as running a program written for an Intel Pentium II chip, just as running that program on an Intel Pentium 3, or a motorola, or any of hundreds of different chips out there,... Just as running a decent program on a certain chip might produce desired results, running that same program on a different chip could either not work at all and crash/stall/freeze, or appear to work, but come up with something spectacularly unexpected.... Just as that is the case, trying to apply a sacred text (that truth be told, other than allowing for Author's conceit that God wrote it and made no mistakes, is likely fraught with errors that only a person with a mote in their eye could ignore them)... Trying to directly apply a sacred text across cultures is often a Bad Thing(tm).
But I've digressed. I didn't mean to deal with the cross-culture/cross-platform issues. The simple issue of getting a pattern of logic together that can be compiled and work on one specific processor is tough enough. [note upon reread: the words that follow are dense, inchoate, and confusing. sorry i'm not cleaning them up just now. i'm just going to get them down for myself to ponder for later] So... If the subject (the reader/agent) is the processor, the sacred text is the logic path, the code to be followed, what is the data? Is the data the object in the sentence? What happens when we start spooling in complex data? And every word must be carefully defined, so that the results of the program are predictable. And the code has to be tight, really TIGHT, so that it's not open to exploits, anywhere along the chain, whether in the chip design, when running the compiled code as intended, or in a way not intended.
side-note 1: the processor is the subject (each of us), the code is our system of assumptions and beliefs about how to act in the world, and the world is the data, or the object which we spool into our assumptions/code, and then act on based off of those assumptions
side-note 2 (not necessarily consistent with side-note1): in the real world, the data set, the compiled code, and the compiler are all one. the one's and zero's on the hard drive, the subatomic particles/waves in the universe (including all aspects, not just material), are all capable of being elements to be acted upon, of being that which acts upon, and of being elements which determine how other elements will act upon each other (within bounds -- for example, we still can't change the gravitational constant, etc.). Any element can at any given time act more like an object, or as a subject, or as a programming subject, and often will be a combination of the three.
But we're not starting out with tabula rasa in any way, shape, or form. Everybody's already got embedded instruction sets. How about creating a dual-boot? By creating a small metal-level compiler within the original system, and creating a simple instruction set to boot to, is it possible to boot up a boot-strapping system that can unpack and recompile itself into a flowering system of logic that holds together, and form a truly common base of religion?
I think using the English language -- or any other written language --might prove to be too fraught with exploitability. It will need to be in the universal language of mathematical logic, based on postulates and axioms (assumptions, beliefs, deep cognitive structures), leading to theorems (actions, habits, norms, laws, commandments, suggestions, resulting from the axioms) . (and if we're not working from the same axioms, we're not able to have a legitimate conversation about appropriate theorems/corollaries at all. sometimes i think the larger argument really is all about the axioms.)
E.g., Axiom 0: There exists a subject. (IOW, I am. I think therefore I am. I doubt therefore I am, etc.)
Axiom 1: There exists an object. (IOW, there is a world different than, or beyond, the subject. From a non-duality/unity viewpoint, this one would be thrown out. But as a multitheticalist, I'll be keeping both dualistic and monistic views around for comparison.)
Axiom 2: There exists a predicate. (which describes the subject, explicating its features, its spirit, and its character)
Axiom 3:...
.
.
.
Start with
Null : 0
Space : 1
Space^2 : 10
Space^3 : 11
Anyway, people don't like to think of themselves as being programmed (even though we are, from birth) and the above is so inchoate as to be embryonic meanderings. And the above, if readable at all (certainly fraught with syntax errors and doesn't compile at the present moment) is painfully dry, so there's a long way to go before its ready for prime time. In addition, there's the ever-present -- and IMHO opinion, ever-important -- proposition of free will, allowing our spirit to flower naturally rather than being too tightly bound by some spiritual fascism. Ah, the middle way....
lyrics: "Why shouldn't I?" by the Bob Manor band.
colors: black(1), white(2), blue(3), orange(4),....
mood: at the beginning of this post, chuckling. at the end of the post, baffled and overwhelmed. i think i should just go back to reading about whitehead's concrescence for a while and leave it at that.
chant/prayer/mantra: xboot.exe, blah blah blah.
And as a reminder, the thing that got me started on this blog post was the notion that our written/spoken common languages are so slackly put together compared to the deterministic programming done within computer languages.
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
PS (added 1.13.08)- I just came across this post from the Logos Institute that speaks to this, regarding critiques of Orwell's thoughts on the necessity of precision of language.
Heck, I didn't remember what a predicate was, so I looked it up on Google -- "define predicate".
At the Google link, I came to realize that the term "predicate" is also used in programming language, and that the use of written language is syntactical in nature. Yes, that may be obvious, but for somebody who used to growl at command prompts in junior high when all the computer knew to say was "syntax error," I had deep associations of syntax being something that computers use, not people.
But NO... Syntax is also for language, and the idea of predicate has crossed over from written language into computer language.
My laugh out loud was (and this involves coming all the way over into my world if you want to get it the way I did).... What if our written language has been too underdetermined, and the "code" that we've been writing, vis a vis sacred text (whichever you ascribe to, whether its the Bible, the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon, the Upanishads, or the script for the Flintstones)... What if that code we've (writers of sacred text) been writing is actually extremely buggy, and the syntax used there does "compile" for cultures, but just because something COMPILES doesn't mean that it runs as it was designed. In other words, we're inside the debugger, still hammering this program out.
Complicating matters is the fact that every single person who reads any given text has their own internalized instruction set. Just as running a program written for an Intel Pentium II chip, just as running that program on an Intel Pentium 3, or a motorola, or any of hundreds of different chips out there,... Just as running a decent program on a certain chip might produce desired results, running that same program on a different chip could either not work at all and crash/stall/freeze, or appear to work, but come up with something spectacularly unexpected.... Just as that is the case, trying to apply a sacred text (that truth be told, other than allowing for Author's conceit that God wrote it and made no mistakes, is likely fraught with errors that only a person with a mote in their eye could ignore them)... Trying to directly apply a sacred text across cultures is often a Bad Thing(tm).
But I've digressed. I didn't mean to deal with the cross-culture/cross-platform issues. The simple issue of getting a pattern of logic together that can be compiled and work on one specific processor is tough enough. [note upon reread: the words that follow are dense, inchoate, and confusing. sorry i'm not cleaning them up just now. i'm just going to get them down for myself to ponder for later] So... If the subject (the reader/agent) is the processor, the sacred text is the logic path, the code to be followed, what is the data? Is the data the object in the sentence? What happens when we start spooling in complex data? And every word must be carefully defined, so that the results of the program are predictable. And the code has to be tight, really TIGHT, so that it's not open to exploits, anywhere along the chain, whether in the chip design, when running the compiled code as intended, or in a way not intended.
side-note 1: the processor is the subject (each of us), the code is our system of assumptions and beliefs about how to act in the world, and the world is the data, or the object which we spool into our assumptions/code, and then act on based off of those assumptions
side-note 2 (not necessarily consistent with side-note1): in the real world, the data set, the compiled code, and the compiler are all one. the one's and zero's on the hard drive, the subatomic particles/waves in the universe (including all aspects, not just material), are all capable of being elements to be acted upon, of being that which acts upon, and of being elements which determine how other elements will act upon each other (within bounds -- for example, we still can't change the gravitational constant, etc.). Any element can at any given time act more like an object, or as a subject, or as a programming subject, and often will be a combination of the three.
But we're not starting out with tabula rasa in any way, shape, or form. Everybody's already got embedded instruction sets. How about creating a dual-boot? By creating a small metal-level compiler within the original system, and creating a simple instruction set to boot to, is it possible to boot up a boot-strapping system that can unpack and recompile itself into a flowering system of logic that holds together, and form a truly common base of religion?
I think using the English language -- or any other written language --might prove to be too fraught with exploitability. It will need to be in the universal language of mathematical logic, based on postulates and axioms (assumptions, beliefs, deep cognitive structures), leading to theorems (actions, habits, norms, laws, commandments, suggestions, resulting from the axioms) . (and if we're not working from the same axioms, we're not able to have a legitimate conversation about appropriate theorems/corollaries at all. sometimes i think the larger argument really is all about the axioms.)
E.g., Axiom 0: There exists a subject. (IOW, I am. I think therefore I am. I doubt therefore I am, etc.)
Axiom 1: There exists an object. (IOW, there is a world different than, or beyond, the subject. From a non-duality/unity viewpoint, this one would be thrown out. But as a multitheticalist, I'll be keeping both dualistic and monistic views around for comparison.)
Axiom 2: There exists a predicate. (which describes the subject, explicating its features, its spirit, and its character)
Axiom 3:...
.
.
.
Start with
Null : 0
Space : 1
Space^2 : 10
Space^3 : 11
Anyway, people don't like to think of themselves as being programmed (even though we are, from birth) and the above is so inchoate as to be embryonic meanderings. And the above, if readable at all (certainly fraught with syntax errors and doesn't compile at the present moment) is painfully dry, so there's a long way to go before its ready for prime time. In addition, there's the ever-present -- and IMHO opinion, ever-important -- proposition of free will, allowing our spirit to flower naturally rather than being too tightly bound by some spiritual fascism. Ah, the middle way....
lyrics: "Why shouldn't I?" by the Bob Manor band.
colors: black(1), white(2), blue(3), orange(4),....
mood: at the beginning of this post, chuckling. at the end of the post, baffled and overwhelmed. i think i should just go back to reading about whitehead's concrescence for a while and leave it at that.
chant/prayer/mantra: xboot.exe, blah blah blah.
And as a reminder, the thing that got me started on this blog post was the notion that our written/spoken common languages are so slackly put together compared to the deterministic programming done within computer languages.
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
PS (added 1.13.08)- I just came across this post from the Logos Institute that speaks to this, regarding critiques of Orwell's thoughts on the necessity of precision of language.
Labels: Bible, computers, Math, Process Thought, religious community, sacred texts, theology
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Quote regarding the issue of racism in Jena, ColorOfChange.org, ABC Networks, and Michael Baisden
.
.
.
In this and every aspect of your life, you are invited to freely seek (and find) some true and just actions to perform which match yr spirit; and then follow that path.
.
.
.
After studying a little in the fool-footsteps of bawa muhaiyaddeen, i realized that the above words, sent to Michael Baisden through the colorofchange.org website's comment field (a very democratic way of communicating on issues)....I realized that those words (actually the ones i sent were slightly less tweaked), those words speak as if directly an expression of the will of God. And multithetically speaking, an expression of the will of Allah, of the Divine, th Creator, the Great Spirit, the Greet Spirit, or the Universe itself, or from some post Big-Collapse (temporally polar opposite bookend to the Big-Bang of "Big-Bang Theory" fame) void. From Brahma emerging from the belly button of Vishnu....
Next, shall I ramble about which things that I believe to be true and just? I probably have already done that a heckuvalot already on this blog, but here's my short-list.
For those interested in concretes:
1. In this world of abundant resources, every human being shall be provided with:
a. an abundance of nutritious food,
b. an abundance of clean fashionable clothing,
c. an adequately-sized piece of space they can call home for as long as they like,
d. love, compassion, care, and concern between neighbors,
e. the opportunity to voice and hear ideas freely through just forms of information exchange,*
f. anything by maslow i may have missed.
2. In this world of necessary labor, every human being shall be responsible for:
a. creating or assisting on projects of positive social and environmental value,
b. producing a "fair share" of goods or services for the benefit of the commonwealth,
c. maintaining an adequate balance between caring for their bodies and enjoying them,
d. developing skills and intelligences through education befitting one's nature.
e. being a full-time respectful steward of the Earth and wherever else humanity gets to.
*specifically i'm speaking here to the Internet, and cable and commercial UHF/VHF airwaves, and to our instructional systems.
Here is the method:
Love and care for self and neighbor.
Trust in self and neighbor.
Apply.
Assiduously maintain patience.
Repeat.
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
WHY DO WE DIVIDE THE RAINBOW INTO ONLY "7" COLORS??
.
.
In this and every aspect of your life, you are invited to freely seek (and find) some true and just actions to perform which match yr spirit; and then follow that path.
.
.
.
After studying a little in the fool-footsteps of bawa muhaiyaddeen, i realized that the above words, sent to Michael Baisden through the colorofchange.org website's comment field (a very democratic way of communicating on issues)....I realized that those words (actually the ones i sent were slightly less tweaked), those words speak as if directly an expression of the will of God. And multithetically speaking, an expression of the will of Allah, of the Divine, th Creator, the Great Spirit, the Greet Spirit, or the Universe itself, or from some post Big-Collapse (temporally polar opposite bookend to the Big-Bang of "Big-Bang Theory" fame) void. From Brahma emerging from the belly button of Vishnu....
Next, shall I ramble about which things that I believe to be true and just? I probably have already done that a heckuvalot already on this blog, but here's my short-list.
For those interested in concretes:
1. In this world of abundant resources, every human being shall be provided with:
a. an abundance of nutritious food,
b. an abundance of clean fashionable clothing,
c. an adequately-sized piece of space they can call home for as long as they like,
d. love, compassion, care, and concern between neighbors,
e. the opportunity to voice and hear ideas freely through just forms of information exchange,*
f. anything by maslow i may have missed.
2. In this world of necessary labor, every human being shall be responsible for:
a. creating or assisting on projects of positive social and environmental value,
b. producing a "fair share" of goods or services for the benefit of the commonwealth,
c. maintaining an adequate balance between caring for their bodies and enjoying them,
d. developing skills and intelligences through education befitting one's nature.
e. being a full-time respectful steward of the Earth and wherever else humanity gets to.
*specifically i'm speaking here to the Internet, and cable and commercial UHF/VHF airwaves, and to our instructional systems.
Here is the method:
Love and care for self and neighbor.
Trust in self and neighbor.
Apply.
Assiduously maintain patience.
Repeat.
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
WHY DO WE DIVIDE THE RAINBOW INTO ONLY "7" COLORS??
Labels: Islam, Multitheticalism, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, personal religion, religious community
Support our Troops!
When I'm president, in addition to taking care of the homeless in general, I intend to take care of the troops. Here is an article about the disastrous reception and care that our Vietnam veterans got and our Iraq veterans are getting, and the fact that there are almost 200k of them who are homeless.
pax hominibus,
joel
pax hominibus,
joel
Labels: homelessness, politics, war and peace
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Center for Islamic Studies now Open
I'm so excited. I didn't get to go to the opening of the Center for Islamic Studies, but am very much looking forward to its presence at the GTU, and hope to take at least one class there, if possible. Read the article at the link above to find out more about why this is so important (hint, hint: pax hominibus).
Also, I'm excited because I may get to take a class at my own school on the Art of Sufi Storytelling. It would complement my Intro to Preaching course quite well I hope.
pax hominibus,
joel
PS - in entirely unrelated news, this opinion piece about the "outsourced brain" rings strangely true.
Also, I'm excited because I may get to take a class at my own school on the Art of Sufi Storytelling. It would complement my Intro to Preaching course quite well I hope.
pax hominibus,
joel
PS - in entirely unrelated news, this opinion piece about the "outsourced brain" rings strangely true.
Labels: Islam, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, technology
