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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Mar 10, 2018 - 08:29pm PT
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Thanks, Sycorax.
That was a cool article on nautilus propulsion, Ed!
Re Jerry Coyne: HFCS, I have made posts that are statements that I know will rally the trolls and make it clear that no comments are to be made pro or con. The internet is sometimes a poor forum for passionate debate. When it actually is it can be a beautiful thing. Sometimes it's just a pissing contest. This is seems to be the essence of the posting you lament.
Sometimes exercising freedom is rooted in principled liberty - sometimes it's just whining and an excuse to have a tantrum.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 10, 2018 - 08:43pm PT
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Basing one’s mystic view of creation on some average heartbeat rate seems, well, contrived at best.
What better to base them on than life itself. Question is: why do numbers repeat themselves in so many different religions? 3, 9, 432,000? Fascinating revelations of syncretic thought.
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Byran
climber
Half Dome Village
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Mar 10, 2018 - 08:53pm PT
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And don't forget the numbers 1,2,4,5,6,7 and 8. Those are all important in lots of religions and stuff too.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Mar 10, 2018 - 09:02pm PT
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The whole point was that it isn't mystical at all but rather a function of what it is to be alive
On weekdays only?
86,000 x 5 ? How about 86,000 x 7 ?
On the new HBO series Here and Now the expression 11 11 keeps popping up. What can that mean?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 10, 2018 - 10:46pm PT
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On the new HBO series Here and Now the expression 11 11 keeps popping up. What can that mean?
Sometimes referred to as Augustine's oxymoron, "o felix culpa" or oh happy fault is as depicted by Joyce and others by the numbers 11-32. 32 being the fall as in 32 feet per second and 11 the number of resurrection or rebirth as in one more than the set of 10. All this taken from Romans 11:32 in which St. Paul declares they (referring to humanity or the Jews specifically in this case) were condemned into sin (as in original sin or the fall) that they might be redeemed. That is that the joy of redemption is a product of a necessary condemnation. Fascinating stuff.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Mar 11, 2018 - 11:01am PT
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re: those "smug secular certainties" of "today's apostles of scientism"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/24/opinion/sunday/steven-pinker-reason.html?mtrref=quillette.com&assetType=opinion
It's not just here at ST where the statements (posts) of "science types" are twisted, blown out of proportion, caricatured.
Meet Ross Douthat (cf: PaulR, Largo)
ref: http://quillette.com/2018/03/11/steven-pinkers-counter-counter-enlightenment/
"It is worth noticing that Pinker’s most trenchant critics are eager to flaunt their aversion to the very values Pinker sets out to defend – reason, science, humanism, and progress – and that their critiques display the traits and tics of exactly the kind of counter-Enlightenment thinking he attacks. These counter-Enlightenment trends include Catholic, Romantic, and Postmodern modes of thought which stand – and have always stood – in opposition to the values that Pinker’s book credits with the vast advances humankind has made since the 18th Century."
...
Yes, the earth is round, brain produces mind, tomatoes have genes.
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sempervirens
climber
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Mar 11, 2018 - 11:36am PT
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Basing one’s mystic view of creation on some average heartbeat rate seems, well, contrived at best.
What better to base them on than life itself.
Paul, Are you saying a random heart beat represents life itself? If that heart beat represents life itself then wouldn't any other rate of a living being also represent life itself? How 'bout the beat of a hummingbird's wings, human respiration rate, growth rate, metabolism, etc.? Would those also be fascinating when multiplied by 5?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 11, 2018 - 11:38am PT
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oh, I use 10 m/s/s
I didn't know there was a standard set of Biblical units...
amazingly, 32 ft/s/s is very close to 32e+12 cubits/fortnight/fortnight, amazing when you think of that acceleration and the distance it can produce when acting on an otherwise free body.
the time unit, "second" wasn't around until the 14th century, and the acceleration of gravity until the late 16th century
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 11, 2018 - 11:50am PT
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432 x 432 = ?
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Mar 11, 2018 - 12:45pm PT
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Drifting into the exotic realm of numerology.
Why 666 ? Invert and you get 999 ! One less than 10^3, which, when multiplied by 2, takes us into the twenty first century. Using one of the 9s in 999 and multiplying by 2 brings us to the current year and the Korean dilemma. Fascinating!
;>)
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Mar 11, 2018 - 01:29pm PT
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Some people say 420 is a magical number.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 11, 2018 - 03:23pm PT
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I didn't know there was a standard set of Biblical units...
You guys really aren't paying attention. James Joyce lived in the 20th c. not in biblical times. Augustine seems to have come up with this notion: o felix culpa or o happy fault. Joyce uses this idea characterized by the verse in Romans 11:32 in the new testament. Again 32 representing the fall and 11 representing redemption or rebirth. The idea being the oxymoronic nature of Christian dogma that requires sin as a predicate to redemption. There's no numerology here. Numbers like the trinity and 432000 and so on represent religious syncrety which speaks to the similarity of religious thought precisely because it's a product of human creativity and nothing more. Amazing that people can't read past their own assumptions. Why the number 5 above I don't know. it's Campbell's idea and I suppose he had his reasons. I just laid it out there because somebody else mentioned it.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Mar 11, 2018 - 04:38pm PT
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I think there is some joy at making these calculations, "explaining" some otherwise unexplainable event.
Perhaps we can make fun of this behavior that some take so seriously, though the behavior can also portend tragedy. John Forbes Nash's descent into paranoid schizophrenia coincided with is numerological explorations.
The numbers alone don't tell us much. Used as symbols it's not always clear that the mathematical operations correspond to anything.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Mar 11, 2018 - 04:38pm PT
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Some people say 420 is a magical number
For me, 409 works better.
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Byran
climber
Half Dome Village
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Mar 11, 2018 - 04:53pm PT
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Paul, are you equally impressed that the concept of male and female is present in basically all religions?
I don't doubt that the concept of "three" can be found in most religions too, i just don't understand why it's compelling, or as you put it: "fascinating stuff".
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Mar 11, 2018 - 05:34pm PT
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"It is worth noticing that Pinker’s most trenchant critics are eager to flaunt their aversion to the very values Pinker sets out to defend – reason, science, humanism, and progress – and that their critiques display the traits and tics of exactly the kind of counter-Enlightenment thinking he attacks. These counter-Enlightenment trends include Catholic, Romantic, and Postmodern modes of thought which stand – and have always stood – in opposition to the values that Pinker’s book credits with the vast advances humankind has made since the 18th Century."
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Aside from being a hack piece of writing (pimping "values"; implying any view but Pinker's is perforce illogical, imagined, and retrograde etc), "progress" is not a quantitative terms, and there is no fixed, objective formula for attaining same. What's more, what brings more awareness and intelligence to the party (both being prerequisites for any positive change), and how this transforms people for the better, varies significantly year to year and century to century. What advanced "mankind" (an abstraction) in 1600 might hold us back in 2200.
The main beef against post modernism by literalists like Fruity is the contention that it adds nothing to analytical or empirical knowledge - a strange charge because it was though empirically analyzing the hegemony of rigid categories that they were seen to be faux absolutes. And to a modernist, relativism is a kick to the balls.
There's also the same old linear causal mode being trotted out. For example, if we abolish ignorance and superstition, man will progress exponentially. Except psychology tells us otherwise in no uncertain terms. For example, many spend years in therapy and only end up with a fantastically well analyzed problem(s). But nothing else changes because change comes through active participation in your own process. You can't just noodle stuff.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 11, 2018 - 07:01pm PT
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You should expect some English language excoriation from Sycorax for inventing the word, "syncrety".
Yes, it's a good word and, like Shakespeare, I only invent good ones. What do you think it could possibly mean? Try and answer in one fell swoop.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 11, 2018 - 07:58pm PT
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The numbers alone don't tell us much. Used as symbols it's not always clear that the mathematical operations correspond to anything.
OMG: this isn't about numerology or the reality of numbers as symbols, it's about the reality that the similarity of numbers in a variety of religions such as the use of three or 432,000 reflect the syncretic nature of religious thought in general. How can that be so difficult to understand? That syncretic quality is simply a reflection of the universal (human) nature of the human condition. Numbers are important to theological thought, consider Leonardo's Last Supper
Four (the gospels) groups of three (the trinity) three times four equals twelve ( the twelve tribes and the twelve apostles and three plus four equals seven (the number of deadly sins as well as the number of virtues). The figure of Christ has three sides, again a reflection of the trinity. Numbers are important theologically whether you're an Aztec or a Christian. I don't care what they mean except that they are important across history and geography and reflect a unity in human thought.
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