Notes
On "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction," by Wallace Stevens: "This third section continues its play of opposing forces, introducing in the second canto a 'blue woman,' arguably a goddess- or muse-figure, who stands apart from images of fecundity and sexuality...." From a Beethoven's Birthday entry:
Kaleidoscope turning... See, too, Blue Matrices, and Song for the From today's news: PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - Ushering in a bold new era, hundreds of thousands of people packed streets and city squares across Europe on Friday for festivals and fireworks marking the European Union's historic enlargement to 25 countries from 15. The expanded EU, which takes in a broad swath of the former Soviet bloc - a region separated for decades from the West by barbed wire and Cold War ideology - was widening to 450 million citizens at midnight (6 p.m.EDT) to create a collective superpower rivalling the United States. "All these worlds are yours Posted 4/30/2004 at 5:24 PM |
Library These are the folios of April, The above quotation is dedicated to Quay A. McCune, M.D., whose copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations I purchased for two dollars at a Friends of the Library sale on July 2, 1999. Dr. McCune's copy of Bartlett was the twelfth edition, of November 1948, in a February 1952 reprint. It was edited by Christopher Morley. Incidentally, Morley's father Frank, a professor of mathematics, is the discoverer of Morley's theorem, which says that the angle trisectors of any triangle, of whatever shape, determine an equilateral "Morley triangle" hidden within the original triangle.
Those familiar with Dorothy Sayers's explication of the Trinity, The Mind of the Maker, will recognize that this figure represents a triumph over the heresies she so skillfully describes in the chapter "Scalene Trinities." From another chapter: "... this is the Idea that is put forward for our response. There is nothing mythological about Christian Trinitarian doctrine: it is analogical. It offers itself freely for meditation and discussion; but it is desirable that we should avoid the bewildered frame of mind of the apocryphal Japanese gentleman who complained:
'Honourable Bird,' however, has certain advantages as a pictorial symbol, since, besides reminding us of those realities which it does symbolise, it also reminds us that the whole picture is a symbol and no more." In the Morley family trinity, if Frank is the Father and Christopher is the Son, we must conclude that the Holy Spirit is Christopher's mother — whose maiden name was, appropriately, Bird. Posted 4/30/2004 at 6:24 AM |
X Tonight on PBS:
"...a 'dead shepherd who brought (p. 227, The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play. Ed. Holly Stevens. New York: Vintage Books, 1990) See also the entries of 5/12. Posted 4/29/2004 at 5:12 PM |
Example "...the source of all great mathematics is the special case, the concrete example. It is frequent in mathematics that every instance of a concept of seemingly great generality is in essence the same as a small and concrete special case." — Paul Halmos in Posted 4/28/2004 at 7:00 AM |
Last Exit: Click on the picture below for details. Notes on the compiling of Only the Dead: Today's obituary of the author of Last Exit to Brooklyn suggested I look up Wolfe's short story, "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn." That story contained, near its end, a reference to drowning. Thoughts of drowning and of Brooklyn suggested (this being poetry month) Hart Crane's classic The Bridge. When I looked for material on Crane on the Web, I found, to my considerable surprise, that today is the anniversary of Crane's death. As Wolfe says, apropos of Selby and Brooklyn, "Red Hook! Jesus!" As Crane says, apropos of Wolfe and the Brooklyn Bridge, "Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge, Unfortunately, the bridge is not for sale. However.... Posted 4/27/2004 at 5:31 PM |
The Whisper Two interviews by Rebecca Murray — Interview with Sofia Coppola, who won an Oscar for the screenplay of Lost in Translation: Did you write that character with Bill Murray in mind? Interview with Bill Murray, costar — with Scarlett Johansson — of Lost in Translation: Your character whispers something to Scarlett’s character in a crucial scene. Can we know what you said? True. But we can imagine. Hint 1: The publication date for Hint 2: The above photo Hint 3: The top 10 songs Final hint: It's a song title. Posted 4/27/2004 at 2:45 AM |
Outside the World (A sequel to the previous entry) Title: The Point Outside the World: Author: M. Jamie Ferreira Appeared in: Wittgenstein Studies 2/97, See particularly the following passage:
30 Philosophical Investigations, no. 373; As noted in the previous entry, the number 373 does seem to point, whether Wittgenstein meant it to or not, to "a point outside the world." Of course, the pointing is in the eye of the beholder... As, for instance, the time of this entry, 5:24, "points" to Kali, the Dark Lady, as played (yet again -- see previous entry) by Linda Hamilton. Posted 4/26/2004 at 5:24 PM |
Directions Out Part I: Indirections
"Foremost among the structural similarities between Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein... is the use of indirect communication: as paradoxical as it may sound, both authors deliberately obfuscate their philosophy for the purposes of clarifying it.... let us examine more closely particular instances of indirect communication from both of the philosophers with the intention of finding similarity. 'By indirections, find directions out.' – Polonius in Hamlet: II, i" On religious numerology (indirections)... For the page number "373" as indicating "eternity," see Zen and Language Games (5/2/03), which features Wittgenstein, Language Game (1/14/04), also featuring Wittgenstein, and Note 31, page 373, in Kierkegaard's Works of Love (1964 Harper Torchbook paperback, tr. by Howard and Edna Hong), which says "Compare I John 4:17." Okay....
The reference to Judgment Day leads us back to Linda Hamilton, who appears (some say, as noted in Zen and Language Games, as the Mother of God) in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and to Part II of our meditation.... Part II: Directions Out "This Way to the Egress" -- Sign supposedly written by P. T. Barnum A Google search on this phrase leads to the excellent website Related thoughts.... A link from Part I of a log24 entry for Thursday, April 22: ART WARS: to the following -- Frame not included in Dr. Silberman: You broke my arm! Sarah Connor: There are This suggests, in light of the above-mentioned religious interpretation of Terminator 2, in light of the 2003 10/07 entry, and in light of the April 22 10:07 PM log24 invocation, the following words from the day after the death of Sgt. Pat Tillman: Doonesbury April 23, 2004 A more traditional farewell, written by a soldier, for a soldier, may be found at The Summoning of Everyman site mentioned above: Posted 4/26/2004 at 4:00 PM |
Philosophy From today's New York Times:
From Friday's rather unamusing log24 entry on the philosophy of mathematical proof, a link to a site listed in the Open Directory under Society: Philosophy: Philosophy of Logic: Truth Definitions --
From the weekend edition (April 24-25) of aldaily.com, a Jew's answer to Pilate's question:
Whether Hamburger's last Friday was in any sense a "good" Friday, I do not know. Related religious meditations.... From Holy Thursday, April 8, 2004:
from Good Friday, April 9, 2004, an unorthodox portrait of a New Yorker as St. Peter — from Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ." The many connoisseurs of death who admire Mel Gibson's latest film can skip the final meditation, from the admirable Carol Iannone: They, as someone once said, have their reward. Posted 4/26/2004 at 4:01 AM |
Small World Added a note to 4x4 Geometry: The 4x4 square model lets us visualize the projective space PG(3,2) as well as the affine space AG(4,2). For tetrahedral and circular models of PG(3,2), see the work of Burkard Polster. The following is from an advertisement of a talk by Polster on PG(3,2).
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Proof by Osmosis by Kenneth Chang in the "A rigorous proof, a notion first set forth by Euclid around 300 B.C., is a progression of logic, starting from assumptions and arriving at a conclusion. If the chain is correct, the proof is true. If not, it is wrong. But a proof is sometimes a fuzzy concept, subject to whim and personality. Almost no published proof contains every step; there are just too many.... .... reviewers rarely check every step, instead focusing mostly on the major points. In the end, they either believe the proof or not. 'It's like osmosis,' said Dr. Akihiro Kanamori, a mathematics professor at Boston University who writes about the history of mathematics. 'More and more people say it's a proof and you believe them.'...." See also The Story Theory of Truth. Posted 4/23/2004 at 10:00 PM |
Minimalism "It's become our form of modern classicism." -- Nancy Spector in Part I: Aesthetics In honor of the current Guggenheim exhibition, "Singular Forms" — A quotation from the Guggenheim's own website: "Minimalism refers to painting or sculpture
Discuss these seven points Mark Rothko's reference Michael Kimmelman's ART WARS: Part II: Theology Today's previous entry, "Skylark," concluded with an invocation of the Lord. Of course, the Lord one expects may not be the Lord that appears. "... the idea that, in art at least, less is more. It is an idea surely as old, as enduringly attractive and as ubiquitous as its opposite. In the beginning was the Word: only later came the Bible, not to mention the three-decker Victorian novel. The oracle at Delphi did not say, 'Exhaustive analysis and comprehension of one's own psyche may be prerequisite to an understanding of one's behavior and of the world at large'; it said, 'Know thyself.' Such inherently minimalist genres as oracles (from the Delphic shrine of Apollo to the modern fortune cookie), proverbs, maxims, aphorisms, epigrams, pensees, mottoes, slogans and quips are popular in every human century and culture--especially in oral cultures and subcultures, where mnemonic staying power has high priority--and many specimens of them are self-reflexive or self-demonstrative: minimalism about minimalism. 'Brevity is the soul of wit.' " Another form of the oracle at Delphi, in minimalist prose that might make Hemingway proud: "He would think about Bert. Bert was an interesting man. Bert had said something about the way a gambler wants to lose. That did not make sense. Anyway, he did not want to think about it. It was dark now, but the air was still hot. He realized that he was sweating, forced himself to slow down the walking. Some children were playing a game with a ball, in the street, hitting it against the side of a building. He wanted to see Sarah. When he came in, she was reading a book, a tumbler of dark whiskey beside her on the end table. She did not seem to see him and he sat down before he spoke, looking at her and, at first, hardly seeing her. The room was hot; she had opened the windows, but the air was still. The street noises from outside seemed almost to be in the room with them, as if the shifting of gears were being done in the closet, the children playing in the bathroom. The only light in the room was from the lamp over the couch where she was reading. He looked at her face. She was very drunk. Her eyes were swollen, pink at the corners. 'What's the book,' he said, trying to make his voice conversational. But it sounded loud in the room, and hard. She blinked up at him, smiled sleepily, and said nothing. 'What's the book?' His voice had an edge now. 'Oh,' she said. 'It's Kierkegaard. Soren Kierkegaard.' She pushed her legs out straight on the couch, stretching her feet. Her skirt fell back a few inches from her knees. He looked away. 'What's that?' he said. 'Well, I don't exactly know, myself." Her voice was soft and thick. He turned his face away from her again, not knowing what he was angry with. 'What does that mean, you don't know, yourself?' She blinked at him. 'It means, Eddie, that I don't exactly know what the book is about. Somebody told me to read it once, and that's what I'm doing. Reading it.' He looked at her, tried to grin at her — the old, meaningless, automatic grin, the grin that made everbody like him — but he could not. 'That's great,' he said, and it came out with more irritation than he had intended. She closed the book, tucked it beside her on the couch. She folded her arms around her, hugging herself, smiling at him. 'I guess this isn't your night, Eddie. Why don't we have a drink?' 'No.' He did not like that, did not want her being nice to him, forgiving. Nor did he want a drink. Her smile, her drunk, amused smile, did not change. 'Then let's talk about something else,' she said. 'What about that case you have? What's in it?' Her voice was not prying, only friendly, 'Pencils?' 'That's it,' he said. 'Pencils.' She raised her eyebrows slightly. Her voice seemed thick. 'What's in it, Eddie?' 'Figure it out yourself.' He tossed the case on the couch." — Walter Tevis, The Hustler, 1959, See, too, the invocation of Apollo in A Mass for Lucero, as well as GENERAL AUDIENCE OF JOHN PAUL II "The invocation of the Lord is relentless...." and JOURNAL ENTRY OF S. H. CULLINANE Karl Cullinane — Posted 4/22/2004 at 10:07 PM |
Inscape Picture said to be of
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Hatched Today is the birthday of Teiji Takagi. "Kronecker's youthful dream had to wait for Takagi's development of class field theory to be stated and proved properly." -- The Honors Class:
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Rhetorical Question Yesterday's Cartesian theatre continues.... Robert Osserman, a professor emeritus of mathematics at Stanford University, is special-projects director at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, in Berkeley, Calif. Osserman at aldaily.com today: "The past decade has been an exciting one in the world of mathematics and a fabulous one (in the literal sense) for mathematicians, who saw themselves transformed from the frogs of fairy tales -- regarded with a who-would-want-to-kiss-that aversion, when they were noticed at all -- into fascinating royalty, portrayed on stage and screen.... Who bestowed the magic kiss on the mathematical frog?" Answer: William Randolph Hearst III. "Trained as a mathematician at Harvard, he now likes to hang out with Ken Ribet and the other gurus at the University of California, Berkeley's prestigious Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. Two years ago, he moderated a panel of math professors discussing Princeton professor Andrew Wiles's historic proof of Fermat's Last Theorem." See also Hearst Gift Spurs Math Center Expansion and Review of Rational Points on Elliptic Curves by Joseph H. Silverman and John T. Tate (pdf), Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. (N.S.) 30 (1994), no. 2, 248--252, by William Randolph Hearst III "And that's the secret of frog kissin', and you can do it too if you'll just listen. Just slow down, turn around, bend down and kiss you a frog! Ribet! Ribet!" Posted 4/20/2004 at 3:00 PM |
Cartesian Theatre From aldaily.com today: "If my mind is a tiny theatre I watch in my brain, then there is a tinier mind and theatre inside that mind to see it, and so on forever... more»" This leads to the dream (or nightmare) of the Cartesian theatre, as pictured by Daniel Dennett. From websurfing yesterday and today... The tiny theatre of Ivor Grattan-Guinness: The contempt for history of the Harvard mathematics department (see previous entry) suggests a phrase.... A search on "Harvard sneer" yields, as the first page found, a memorial to an expert practitioner of the Harvard sneer... Robert Harris Chapman, Professor of English Literature, playwright, theatrical consultant, and founding Director of the Loeb Drama Center from 1960 to 1980. Continuing the Grattan-Guinness rainbow theme in a tinier theatre, we may picture Chapman's reaction to the current Irish Repertory Theatre production of Finian's Rainbow. Let us hope it is not a Harvard sneer. In a yet tinier theatre, we may envision a mathematical version of Finian's Rainbow, with Og the leprechaun played by Andrew P. Ogg. Ogg would, of course, perform a musical version of his remarks on the Jugendtraum: "Follow the fellow who follows a dream." Melissa Errico "Give her a song like.... 'Look to the Rainbow,' and her gleaming soprano effortlessly flies it into the stratosphere where such numbers belong. This is the voice of enchantment...." -- Ben Brantley, today's NY Times For related philosophical remarks on rainbows, infinite regress, and redheads, see Posted 4/19/2004 at 7:59 PM |
Dream of Youth Revisited For some material related to the entry Dream of Youth of last Dec. 8 (the feast day of St. Hermann Weyl), see the recently updated A Mathematical Lie. See, too, a "comedy of errors" from 7 rue René Descartes in Strasbourg (pdf) on what Hilbert reportedly called "the most beautiful part of mathematics." Posted 4/18/2004 at 2:00 AM |
Mistakes Were Made By Al Kamen, Washington Post "... Bush, in his news conference Tuesday.... found a way to make not one, not two, but three factual errors in a single 15-word sentence, which must be something of a world indoor record. Bush said it is still possible that inspectors will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 'They could still be there. They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm,' he said, referring to Libya's WMD disclosures last month. The White House, according to Reuters, said the accurate figure was 23.6 metric tons or 26 tons, not 50. The stuff was found at various locations, not at a turkey farm. And there was no mustard gas on the farm at all, but unfilled chemical munitions. Other than that, the sentence was spot on." Other mistakes ... "It's not at all like CIA Director George J. Tenet to forget not one, but two, conversations with President Bush in the critical month [August] before Sept. 11, 2001. But there's one possible explanation for his distraction when he testified Wednesday morning to the Sept. 11 commission: He was thinking about his luncheon plans. Tenet was spotted around 12:30 at the Hay-Adams, sitting at a window table for two with none other than Jack Valenti, outgoing head of the Motion Picture Association of America...." Hey, that's why Posted 4/16/2004 at 10:00 AM |
Today's Kerry Misery Index
70%: Karl Rove is smiling today. "The Sharon-Bush partnership creates a ticklish tactical problem for John Kerry. The Democrats (like the GOP) have traditionally regarded Jewish settlements in the West Bank as 'obstacles to peace.' Now that Bush has ruled that some of them are kosher, Kerry is in an awkward position. If he follows President Bush's new policy direction he will bump up hard against the Jimmy Carter-NPR wing of his own party, not to mention polite European society. If, on the other hand, he decides to stand pat he will, much to his dismay, find himself running for commander in chief as the favorite son of Arafat and Hamas." -- Zev Chafets, columnist for the New York Daily News, April 15, 2004 Posted 4/15/2004 at 12:30 PM |
President Queeg, Compare and contrast: The President of the United States From last night's press conference: "....you never admit a mistake. Is that a fair criticism.... ?"
From The Caine Mutiny: "... Naturally, I can only cover these things from memory... If I've left anything out, why, just ask me specific questions and I'll be glad to answer them... one-by-one..." For further details, see Posted 4/14/2004 at 3:14 AM |
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics The previous entry dealt with politicians' lies and clergymen's damned lies. This entry deals with statistics (often grouped with the former two sins). Group: Kerry's Misery Index Tuesday, April 13, 2004 11:40 AM ET WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., claims middle-class Americans are miserable under the economic stewardship of President George W. Bush. A new report released Tuesday says Kerry's campaign selectively designed a "misery index" to make Bush look bad. Posted 4/13/2004 at 1:26 PM |
Easter Politics At Fort Hood, Texas, a sermon for the President of the United States: " 'Christianity is based on one historic event-- it happened Easter morning.' Members of the congregation responded with cries of 'Amen!'." -- Scott Lindlaw, The Associated Press This, of course, is a damned lie. Christianity is, in fact, based on damned lies, not on Easter or any other alleged historic events. Meanwhile, in Boston, the President's political rival John Kerry received communion at a Catholic Easter service, implying his endorsement of the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation -- one of the blackest of Christianity's many damned lies. So voters have a choice this year between a damned Protestant liar and a damned Catholic liar... just as in 1960. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. For my own Easter sermon, see the previous entry. Posted 4/11/2004 at 11:59 PM |
Good Friday and "The use of z, y, x . . . to represent unknowns is due to René Descartes, in his La géometrie (1637).... In a paper on Cartesian ovals, prepared before 1629, x alone occurs as unknown.... This is the earliest place in which Descartes used one of the last letters of the alphabet to represent an unknown." -- Florian Cajori, A History of Mathematical Notations. 2 volumes. Lasalle, Illinois: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1928-1929. (Vol. 1, page 381) This is from http://members.aol.com/jeff570/variables.html. Descartes's Easter Egg is found at EggMath: The Shape of an Egg -- An Easter Meditation The following is excerpted from a web page headed "Catholic Way." It is one of a series of vicious and stupid Roman Catholic attacks on Descartes. Such attacks have been encouraged by the present Pope, who today said "may the culture of life and love render vain the logic of death." The culture of life and love is that of the geometry (if not the philosophy) of Descartes. The logic of death is that of Karol Wojtyla, as was made very clear in the past century by the National Socialist Party, which had its roots in Roman Catholicism.
Voilà. The upper part Posted 4/11/2004 at 3:28 PM |
Couleurs In memory of On the former: "The predominant use of the letter x On the latter: "The women he drew Posted 4/10/2004 at 3:19 PM |
Harrowing "The Ferris wheel came into view again, just the top, silently burning high on the hill, almost directly in front of him, then the trees rose up over it. The road, which was terrible and full of potholes, went steeply downhill here; he was approaching the little bridge over the barranca, the deep ravine. Halfway across the bridge he stopped; he lit a new cigarette from the one he'd been smoking, and leaned over the parapet, looking down. It was too dark to see the bottom, but: here was finality indeed, and cleavage! Quauhnahuac was like the times in this respect, wherever you turned the abyss was waiting for you round the corner. Dormitory for vultures and city of Moloch! When Christ was being crucified, so ran the sea-borne, hieratic legend, the earth had opened all through this country ..." -- Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, 1947. (Harper & Row reissue, 1984, p. 15) Comment by Stephen Spender: "There is a suggestion of Christ descending into the abyss for the harrowing of Hell. But it is the Consul whom we think of here, rather than of Christ. The Consul is hurled into this abyss at the end of the novel." -- Introduction to Under the Volcano Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter XXI -- Gibbon, discussing the theology of the Trinity, defines perichoresis as "... the internal connection and spiritual penetration which indissolubly unites the divine persons59 ....
William Golding: "Simon's head was tilted slightly up. His eyes could not break away and the Lord of the Flies hung in space before him. 'What are you doing out here all alone? Aren't you afraid of me?' Simon shook. 'There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast.' Simon's mouth labored, brought forth audible words. 'Pig's head on a stick.' 'Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!' said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. 'You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close!' "
"Thought of the day: -- Alice Woodrome, Good Friday, 2004 Anne Francis, "Here was finality indeed, -- Under the Volcano From the official Come into my parlor.... For some background, WRIDER/ESPIDER:
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Lost in Translation? In memory of Posted 4/9/2004 at 5:36 PM |
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... Bush Seeks to Shore Up Fri Apr 9, 2004 03:49 PM ET CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush on Friday won renewed pledges of support for U.S. efforts in Iraq from allies Italy, Poland and El Salvador, the White House said, as casualties and kidnappings mounted. -- Jim Carrey at Posted 4/9/2004 at 4:35 PM |
3 PM For an explanation
of this icon, see and
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Temptation
In memory of Victor Argo,
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Odd Massing "An odd massing of consciousness takes place." -- David Kalstone, Posted 4/9/2004 at 2:29 PM |
We Call This Friday Good -- T. S. Eliot
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Triple Crown, Part II (See previous entry.) The winner is Mike Sullivan, far and away. An essay, by Sullivan's son, Horseman, Pass By: by John Jeremiah Sullivan Far back, far back in our dark soul -- D. H. Lawrence "As opposed to the typical sportswriter, who has a passion for the subject and can put together a sentence, my father's ambition had been to Write (poetry, no less), and sports were what he knew, so he sort of stumbled onto making his living that way.... Two years ago, in May, I sat with him in his hospital room at Riverside Methodist, in Columbus.... I asked him to tell me what he remembered from all those years of writing about sports, for he had seen some things in his time.... This is what he told me: I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73, the year before you were I wrote that down when I got back to my father's apartment, where my younger sister and I were staying the night. He lived two more months, but that was the last time I saw him alive." Thanks to the New York Times for today's review of John Jeremiah Sullivan's new book, which includes the above. See, too, Posted 4/9/2004 at 1:00 AM |
Triple Crown "The tug of an art that unapologetically sees itself as on a par with science and religion is not to be underestimated.... Philosophical ambition and formal modesty still constitute Minimalism's bottom line." ________________ From Hans Reichenbach's Ch. 18 - The Old and the New Philosophy "The speculative philosophers allotted to art a dignified position by putting art on a par with science and morality: truth, beauty and the good were for them the triple crown of human searching and longing." Ch. 15 - Interlude: Hamlet's Soliloquy "I have good evidence. The ghost was very conclusive in his arguments. But he is only a ghost. Does he exist? I could not very well ask him. Maybe I dreamed him. But there is other evidence.... It is really a good idea: that show I shall put on. It will be a crucial experiment. If they murdered him they will be unable to hide their emotions. That is good psychology. If the test is positive I shall know the whole story for certain. See what I mean? There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, my dear logician. ________________ On this Holy Thursday, the day of Christ's Last Supper, let us reflect on Quine's very pertinent question in Quiddities (under "Communication"): "What transubstantiation?" "It is easiest to tell what transubstantiation is by saying this: little children should be taught about it as early as possible. Not of course using the word...because it is not a little child's word. But the thing can be taught... by whispering..."Look! Look what the priest is doing...He's saying Jesus' words that change the bread into Jesus' body. Now he's lifting it up. Look!" From "On Transubstantiation" by Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, Collected Philosophical Papers, V.III: Ethics, Religion, and Politics, 1981, Univ. of Minnesota Press, as quoted in the weblog of William Luse, Sept, 28, 2003 A perhaps more credible instance of transubstantiation may be found in this account of Anscombe on the Feast of Corpus Christi: "In her first year at Oxford, she converted to Catholicism. In 1938, after mass at Blackfriars on the Feast of Corpus Christi, she met Peter Geach, a young man three years her senior who was also a recent convert to Catholicism. Like her, Geach was destined to achieve eminence in philosophy, but philosophy played no role in bringing about the romance that blossomed. Smitten by Miss Anscombe’s beauty and voice, Geach immediately inquired of mutual friends whether she was 'reliably Catholic.' Upon learning that she was, he pursued her and, swiftly, their hearts were entangled."
Concluding reflections for Holy Thursday: Truth, Beauty, and The Good Art is magic delivered from The director, Carol Reed, makes... I see your ironical smile. Adorno, The Third Man, and Reichenbach
In keeping with our transubstantiation theme, these three cities may be regarded as illustrating the remarks of Jimmy Buffett Posted 4/8/2004 at 12:00 AM |
Today's birthdays: Francis Ford Coppola and From MindfulGroup.com:
Posted 4/7/2004 at 2:00 PM |
ART WARS: In memory of architect Pierre Koenig... Mother of Beauty: A Note on Modernism. "... Case Study House #22 ... was high drama — one in which the entire city becomes part of the architect's composition. Approached along a winding street set high in the Hollywood Hills, the house first appears as a blank concrete screen. From here, the visitor steps out onto a concrete deck that overlooks a swimming pool. Just beyond it, the house's living room — enclosed in a glass-and steel-frame — cantilevers out from the edge of the hill toward the horizon. "My blue dream..." Perhaps no house, in fact, better sums up the mix of outward confidence and psychic unease that defined Cold War America...." -- Los Angeles Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff Posted 4/7/2004 at 3:30 AM |
Ideas and Art, Part III The first idea was not our own. Adam -- Wallace Stevens, from "Quaedam ex his tanquam rerum imagines sunt, quibus solis proprie convenit ideae nomen: ut cùm hominem, vel Chimaeram, vel Coelum, vel Angelum, vel Deum cogito." -- Descartes, Meditationes III, 5 "Of my thoughts some are, as it were, images of things, and to these alone properly belongs the name idea; as when I think [represent to my mind] a man, a chimera, the sky, an angel or God." -- Descartes, Meditations III, 5 Begin, ephebe, by perceiving the idea You must become an ignorant man again -- Wallace Stevens, from "... Quinimo in multis saepe magnum discrimen videor deprehendisse: ut, exempli causâ, duas diversas solis ideas apud me invenio, unam tanquam a sensibus haustam, & quae maxime inter illas quas adventitias existimo est recensenda, per quam mihi valde parvus apparet, aliam verò ex rationibus Astronomiae desumptam, hoc est ex notionibus quibusdam mihi innatis elicitam, vel quocumque alio modo a me factam, per quam aliquoties major quàm terra exhibetur; utraque profecto similis eidem soli extra me existenti esse non potest, & ratio persuadet illam ei maxime esse dissimilem, quae quàm proxime ab ipso videtur emanasse." -- Descartes, Meditationes III, 11 "... I have observed, in a number of instances, that there was a great difference between the object and its idea. Thus, for example, I find in my mind two wholly diverse ideas of the sun; the one, by which it appears to me extremely small draws its origin from the senses, and should be placed in the class of adventitious ideas; the other, by which it seems to be many times larger than the whole earth, is taken up on astronomical grounds, that is, elicited from certain notions born with me, or is framed by myself in some other manner. These two ideas cannot certainly both resemble the same sun; and reason teaches me that the one which seems to have immediately emanated from it is the most unlike." -- Descartes, Meditations III, 11 "Et quamvis forte una idea ex aliâ nasci possit, non tamen hîc datur progressus in infinitum, sed tandem ad aliquam primam debet deveniri, cujus causa sit in star archetypi, in quo omnis realitas formaliter contineatur, quae est in ideâ tantùm objective." -- Descartes, Meditationes III, 15 "And although an idea may give rise to another idea, this regress cannot, nevertheless, be infinite; we must in the end reach a first idea, the cause of which is, as it were, the archetype in which all the reality [or perfection] that is found objectively [or by representation] in these ideas is contained formally [and in act]." -- Descartes, Meditations III, 15 Michael Bryson in an essay on Stevens's "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction," The Quest for the Fiction of the Absolute: "Canto nine considers the movement of the poem between the particular and the general, the immanent and the transcendent: "The poem goes from the poet's gibberish to / The gibberish of the vulgate and back again. / Does it move to and fro or is it of both / At once?" The poet, the creator-figure, the shadowy god-figure, is elided, evading us, "as in a senseless element." The poet seeks to find the transcendent in the immanent, the general in the particular, trying "by a peculiar speech to speak / The peculiar potency of the general." In playing on the senses of "peculiar" as particular and strange or uncanny, these lines play on the mystical relation of one and many, of concrete and abstract." Brian Cronin in Foundations of Philosophy: "The insight is constituted precisely by 'seeing' the idea in the image, the intelligible in the sensible, the universal in the particular, the abstract in the concrete. We pivot back and forth between images and ideas as we search for the correct insight." -- From Ch. 2, Identifying Direct Insights Michael Bryson in an essay on Stevens's "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction": "The fourth canto returns to the theme of opposites. 'Two things of opposite natures seem to depend / On one another . . . . / This is the origin of change.' Change resulting from a meeting of opposities is at the root of Taoism: 'Tao produced the One. / The One produced the two. / The two produced the three. / And the three produced the ten thousand things' (Tao Te Ching 42) ...."
In "Notes toward a Supreme Fiction," It Must Be Abstract It Must Change It Must Give Pleasure Related material: Posted 4/6/2004 at 10:00 PM |
Ideas and Art, Part II "We do not, of course, see ideas." -- Roger Kimball, Minimalist Fantasies, 2003 "Idea (Lat. idea, forma, species; Gk. idea, eidos, from idein, to see; Fr. idée; Ger. Bild; Begriff) Probably to no other philosophical term have there been attached so many different shades of meaning as to the word idea. Yet what this word signifies is of much importance. Its sense in the minds of some philosophers is the key to their entire system. But from Descartes onwards usage has become confused and inconstant. Locke, in particular, ruined the term altogether in English philosophical literature...." -- The Catholic Encylopedia, 1910 James Hillman, A Blue Fire, p. 53: "For us ideas are ways of regarding things (modi res considerandi), perspectives. Ideas give us eyes, let us see .... Ideas are ways of seeing and knowing.... Our word idea comes from the Greek eidos, which meant originally in early Greek thought, and as Plato used it, both that which one sees -- an appearance or shape in a concrete sense -- and that by means of which one sees. We see them, and by means of them. Ideas are both the shape of events, their constellation in this or that archetypal pattern, and the modes that make possible our ability to see through events into their pattern. By means of an idea we can see the idea cloaked in the passing parade. The implicit connection between having ideas to see with and seeing ideas themselves suggests that the more ideas we have, the more we see, and the deeper the ideas we have, the deeper we see. It also suggests that ideas engender other ideas, breeding new perspectives for viewing ourselves and world. Moreover, without them we cannot 'see' even what we sense with the eyes in our heads, for our perceptions are shaped according to particular ideas .... And our ideas change as changes take place in the soul, for as Plato said, soul and idea refer to each other, in that an idea is the 'eye of the soul,' opening us through its insight and vision." Hillman does not say where in Plato this extraordinary saying, that an idea is the eye of the soul, occurs. He is probably wrong. Both Kimball and Hillman seem confused. A more sensible approach to these matters is available in Brian Cronin's Foundations of Philosophy: "3.4 An Insight Pivots between the Abstract and the Concrete On the one hand, an insight is dealing with data and images which are concrete and particular: Archimedes had one chalice, one King, and one particular problem to solve. On the other hand, what the insight grasps is an idea, a relation, a universal, a law; and that is abstract. The laws that Archimedes eventually formulated were universal, referring not only to this chalice but also to any other material body immersed in any other liquid at any time or any place. The insight is constituted precisely by 'seeing' the idea in the image, the intelligible in the sensible, the universal in the particular, the abstract in the concrete. We pivot back and forth between images and ideas as we search for the correct insight. First let us now clarify the difference between images, ideas and concepts...." -- From Ch. 2, Identifying Direct Insights Posted 4/6/2004 at 2:45 AM |
Ideas and Art
I maintain that of course Example: the idea of "What modern painters For a discussion Incidentally, structures like the one shown above are invariant under an important subgroup of the affine group AGL(4,2)... That is to say, they are not lost in translation. (See previous entry.) Posted 4/5/2004 at 4:03 AM |
Links for Palm Sunday Google's "sunlit paradigm" and my own "Lost in Translation." Posted 4/4/2004 at 3:48 PM |
ART WARS Update Two New York Times reviews today are relevant to the themes of ART WARS: Minimal Art, by Michael Kimmelman Hannah and Martin, by Margo Jefferson. The themes of these reviews Posted 4/2/2004 at 2:29 PM |
Loretta's Rainbow AMC April 1, 2004: From an interview (b. 5 January, 1961, Paragould, Arkansas) Your songs are filled with hints of a very complicated, difficult life. ID: Well, I turned 36 this year, and I feel like I've been through some difficult things in my life. By far the most difficult thing was leaving the church. My whole life revolved around the church, all through growing up and even as an adult. I didn't leave it out of rebelliousness, because I loved the feeling of being in the church, with the music and the preaching. But there was an awakening one day, a realization that I didn't believe in a large part of this stuff, and I could either go on and pretend to be a part of the group or acknowledge that it was not me or something I could live with. What's your first musical memory? ID: The first music that I consciously remember, no doubt about it, was a Loretta Lynn record. I was very young, maybe four, and it was the middle of the day when my mom and dad brought it home from the store. It was a Loretta Lynn gospel record and on the cover she was wearing a lacy yellow dress and she had pretty red hair. I immediately liked it before even hearing it, she was so pretty. My parents's first record player was one of those suitcase types with the lid that flipped up and I listened to it over and over again and probably had that whole album memorized in a week. We didn't have a lot of records so I played the same ones over and over, and I think there's something really neat about not having too much coming at you so you really absorb just one or two things. Because something really gets into your bones when you don't have a lot of choices. You get to know things inside out. So now with all the choices out there, are you listening to more stuff? ID: No, I don't really listen to a whole lot of music. I never did. I had a few things I really liked like the Loretta Lynn record that I listened to constantly. I'm kind of embarrassed to say this, but I still listen to those same records. When I'm out on the road, I take them with me. I put on my Merle, my Johnny, my Loretta. Loretta Lynn, Hymns, 1965
"And the rain's comrade, Posted 4/1/2004 at 9:17 PM |
Posted 4/1/2004 at 6:23 PM |
Thirty-Three and Three "Continue a search for thirty-three and three. Posted 4/1/2004 at 3:33 PM |
Poetry Month: Stevens as a Riviera Presbyterian He never supposed -- from Wallace Stevens, "Landscape with Boat" (See the previous entry, which mentions Stevens and Jeffers as poets with a Presbyterian background, and also an essay by Justin Quinn that compares Stevens with Jeffers in the context of the poem quoted above.) Posted 4/1/2004 at 12:00 AM |