Log24

Monday, May 30, 2011

Darkness at Noon

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 pm

A Meditation on the NY Lottery of May 29

Yesterday's NY Lottery— Midday 981, Evening 275.

As noted in yesterday  morning's linked-to post,
The Shining of May 29

"By groping toward the light we are made to realize
how deep the darkness is around us."
— Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls: A Tragi-Comedy ,
Random House, 1973, page 118

One interpretation of the mystic numbers revealed by the Lottery yesterday—

981 as the final page* of David Foster Wallace's famed novel Infinite Jest

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11A/110529-InfiniteJest981.gif

275 as a page in Wallace's non-fiction book about infinity Everything and More

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11A/110529-DFW-Godel275.gif
  Gregory Chaitin points out that this is nonsense …

IMAGE- Gregory Chaitin on David Foster Wallace

As noted elsewhere in this journal, I have a different concept of "math's absolute
Prince of Darkness"— and, indeed, of a "quest for Omega." (See posts of May 2010.)

Yesterday's numbers indicate a different struggle between darkness and light—

Light —

IMAGE- Rebecca Goldstein's book on Godel- 'Incompleteness'

Darkness —

IMAGE- David Foster Wallace's novel 'Infinite Jest'

* From infinitesummer.org/archives/168 — "A note about editions:
As it turns out, all (physical) editions of Infinite  Jest  have 981 pages:
the one from 1996, the one from 2004, the paperback, the hardcover, etc.
A big thank you to the men and women in the publishing industry who
were kind and/or lazy enough to keep things consistent."

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Brightness at Noon, continued

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 12:00 pm

"What exactly was Point Omega?"

This is Robert Wright in Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.

Wright is discussing not the novel Point Omega  by Don DeLillo,
but rather a (related) concept of  the Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

My own idiosyncratic version of a personal "point omega"—

Image- Josefine Lyche work (with 1986 figures by Cullinane) in a 2009 exhibition in Oslo

Click for further details.

The circular sculpture in the foreground
is called by the artist "The Omega Point."
This has been described as
"a portal that leads in or out of time and space."

For some other sorts of points, see the drawings
on the wall and Geometry Simplified

Image-- The trivial two-point affine space and the trivial one-point projective space, visualized

The two points of the trivial affine space are represented by squares,
and the one point of the trivial projective space is represented by
a line segment separating the affine-space squares.

For related darkness  at noon, see Derrida on différance
as a version of Plato's khôra

(Click to enlarge.)

Image-- Fordham University Press on Derrida, differance, and khora

The above excerpts are from a work on and by Derrida
published in 1997 by Fordham University,
a Jesuit institutionDeconstruction in a Nutshell

Image-- A Catholic view of Derrida

For an alternative to the Villanova view of Derrida,
see Angels in the Architecture.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Brightness at Noon (continued)

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 pm

"By groping toward the light we are made to realize
 how deep the darkness is around us."
  — Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls: A Tragi-Comedy,
      Random House, 1973, page 118

Continued from Christmas 2009 and from last Sunday

The serious reflection is composed
Neither of comic nor tragic but of commonplace."

Wallace Stevens

Monday, December 28, 2009

Brightness at Noon, continued

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 pm

This journal’s Christmas Day entry, Brightness at Noon, was in response to the Orwellian headline “Arthur Koestler, Man of Darkness,” at the top of the online New York Times front page on Christmas morning.

The entry offered, as an example of brightness, some thoughts of Leibniz on his discovery of binary arithmetic.

Related material:

KRAWTCHOUK ENCYCLOPEDIA:
home > welcome > Leibniz

Omnibus ex nihilo ducendis sufficit unum

G W Leibniz

“To make all things from nothing, unity suffices.” So it is written on a medal entitled Imago Creationis and designed by Leibniz to “exhibit to posterity in silver” his discovery of the binary system.

Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (also Leibnitz) 1646-1716. Philosopher and mathematician. Invented calculus independently of Newton. Proposed the metaphysical theory that we live in “the best of all possible worlds.”

He also discovered binary number system and believed in its profound metaphysical significance. He noticed similarity with the ancient Chinese divination system “I Ching.”

We chose him for our patron, for Krawtchuk polynomials can be understood as a sophistication of the simple counting of 0 and 1…

Philip Feinsilver and Jerzy Kocik, 17 July 2001

From Mikhail Krawtchouk: Short Biography

Anyone knowing even a little Soviet history of the thirties can conclude that Krawtchouk could not avoid the Great Terror. During the Orwellian “hours of hatred” in 1937 he was denounced as a “Polish spy,” “bourgeois nationalist,” etc. In 1938, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years of confinement and 5 years of exile.

Academician Krawtchouk, the author of results which became part of the world’s mathematical knowledge, outstanding lecturer, member of the French, German, and other mathematical societies, died on March 9, 1942, in Kolyma branch of the GULAG (North-Eastern Siberia) more than 6 months short of his 50th birthday.

Incidentally, happy birthday
to John von Neumann.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Brightness at Noon

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 12:00 pm

New York Times online front page
Christmas morning:

"Arthur Koestler, Man of Darkness"–

NY Times front page, Christmas morning 2009

The photo is of Koestler in 1931 on a zeppelin expedition to the North Pole.

"The Act of Creation is, I believe, a more truly creative work than any of Koestler’s novels….  According to him, the creative faculty in whatever form is owing to a circumstance which he calls ‘bisociation.’ And we recognize this intuitively whenever we laugh at a joke, are dazzled by a fine metaphor, are astonished and excited by a unification of styles, or ’see,’ for the first time, the possibility of a significant theoretical breakthrough in a scientific inquiry. In short, one touch of genius—or bisociation—makes the whole world kin. Or so Koestler believes.”

– Henry David Aiken, The Metaphysics of Arthur Koestler, New York Review of Books, Dec. 17, 1964

From Opus Postumum by Immanuel Kant, Eckart Förster, Cambridge U. Press, 1995, p. 260:

"In January 1697, Leibniz accompanied his New Year Congratulations to Rudolf August with the design of a medal with the duke's likeness on one side, and the 'image of Creation' in terms of the binary number system on the other. Concerning the inscription on this side, Leibniz writes: 'I have thought for a while about the Motto dell'impresa and finally have found it good to write this line: omnibus ex nihilo ducendis SUFFICIT UNUM [To make all things from nothing, UNITY SUFFICES], because it clearly indicates what is meant by the symbol, and why it is imago creationis' (G. F. Leibniz, Zwei Briefe über das binäre Zahlensystem und die chinesische Philosophie, ed. Renate Loosen and Franz Vonessen, Chr. Belser Verlag: Stuttgart 1968, p. 21)."

Leibniz, design for medallion showing binary numbers as an 'imago creationis'

Figure from Rudolf  Nolte’s
Gottfried Wilhelms Baron von Leibniz
Mathematischer Beweis der Erschaffung und
Ordnung der Welt in einem Medallion…

(Leipzig: J. C. Langenheim, 1734).

Leibniz, letter of 1697:

"And so that I won’t come entirely empty-handed this time, I enclose a design of that which I had the pleasure of discussing with you recently. It is in the form of a memorial coin or medallion; and though the design is mediocre and can be improved in accordance with your judgment, the thing is such, that it would be worth showing in silver now and unto future generations, if it were struck at your Highness’s command. Because one of the main points of the Christian Faith, and among those points that have penetrated least into the minds of the worldly-wise and that are difficult to make with the heathen is the creation of all things out of nothing through God’s omnipotence, it might be said that nothing is a better analogy to, or even demonstration of such creation than the origin of numbers as here represented, using only unity and zero or nothing. And it would be difficult to find a better illustration of this secret in nature or philosophy; hence I have set on the medallion design IMAGO CREATIONIS [in the image of creation]. It is no less remarkable that there appears therefrom, not only that God made everything from nothing, but also that everything that He made was good; as we can see here, with our own eyes, in this image of creation. Because instead of there appearing no particular order or pattern, as in the common representation of numbers, there appears here in contrast a wonderful order and harmony which cannot be improved upon….

Such harmonious order and beauty can be seen in the small table on the medallion up to 16 or 17; since for a larger table, say to 32, there is not enough room. One can further see that the disorder, which one imagines in the work of God, is but apparent; that if one looks at the matter with the proper perspective, there appears symmetry, which encourages one more and more to love and praise the wisdom, goodness, and beauty of the highest good, from which all goodness and beauty has flowed."

See also Parable.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Hollywood Headlines

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 8:25 am

'Assassin's Creed' . . . . Read more "

 

 

Thursday, May 31, 2018

Quantum Suffering

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:00 pm

See as well, in this  journal, Koestler and Darkness at Noon .

Friday, January 22, 2010

Yesterday’s Man

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 pm

Anne Applebaum in the current New York Review of Books on Arthur Koestler

"At the moment, he still seems like yesterday's man, unfashionable and obsolete."

Rather like God. See this journal yesterday– Darkness at Noon.

See also David Levine's portrait of Koestler (Dec. 30, 2009)–

http://www.log24.com/log/pix09A/091230-Koestlerr-NYRB19641217.gif

— and an objective correlative to yesterday's post —

LA mayor says storm front will hit region at noon on June 21, 2010

Click to enlarge.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Artifice of Eternity

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 7:59 am

A Medal

In memory of Byzantine scholar Ihor Sevcenko,
who died at 87 on St. Stephen's Day, 2009–

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix06A/060915-Roots.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

William Grimes on Sevcenko in this morning's New York Times:

"Perhaps his most fascinating, if uncharacteristic, literary contribution came shortly after World War II, when he worked with Ukrainians stranded in camps in Germany for displaced persons.

In April 1946 he sent a letter to Orwell, asking his permission to translate 'Animal Farm' into Ukrainian for distribution in the camps. The idea instantly appealed to Orwell, who not only refused to accept any royalties but later agreed to write a preface for the edition. It remains his most detailed, searching discussion of the book."

See also a rather different medal discussed
here in the context of an Orwellian headline from
The New York Times on Christmas morning,
the day before Sevcenko died.
That headline, at the top of the online front page,
was "Arthur Koestler, Man of Darkness."

Leibniz, design for medallion showing binary numbers as an 'imago creationis'

The medal, offered as an example of brightness
to counteract the darkness of the Times, was designed
by Leibniz in honor of his discovery of binary arithmetic.
See Brightness at Noon and Brightness continued.

"By groping toward the light we are made to realize
how deep the darkness is around us."
— Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls: A Tragi-Comedy,
Random House, 1973, page 118

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Sunday November 16, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 10:30 am
ART WARS
continued

From Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, a fictional Communist on propaganda:

“It is necessary to hammer every sentence into the masses by repetition and simplification. What is presented as right must shine like gold; what is presented as wrong must be black as pitch.”

Thanks for this quotation to Kati Marton, author of The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World (Simon & Schuster, paperback edition Nov. 6, 2007). One of Marton’s nine was Koestler.

Paperback edition of 'The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World,' by Kati Marton

From another book related to this exodus:

“Riesz was one of the most elegant mathematical writers in the world, known for his precise, concise, and clear expositions. He was one of the originators of the theory of function spaces– an analysis which is geometrical in nature.”

— Stanislaw Ulam, Adventures of a Mathematician

And from Gian-Carlo Rota, a friend of Ulam:

“Riesz’s example is well worth following today.”

Related material: Misunderstanding in the Theory of Design and Geometry for Jews.

For a different approach to ethnicity and the number nine that is also “geometrical in nature,” see The Pope in Plato’s Cave and the four entries preceding it, as well as A Study in Art Education.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Wednesday March 29, 2006

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:00 pm
Darkness at Noon,
continued

It turns out that Medawar (see previous entry) also wrote a deeply hostile review of Koestler’s The Act of Creation.  (See Pluto’s Republic.)

There are plenty more like Medawar, so it may be that a further effort at documentation of Diamond Theory is needed.  See this evening’s entry, to follow.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Thursday March 17, 2005

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 12:00 pm

Readings for
St. Patrick's Day

Time of this entry: 12:00:36 PM.

Hence,

"Here the climax of the darkening is reached. The dark power at first held so high a place that it could wound all who were on the side of good and of the light. But in the end it perishes of its own darkness, for evil must itself fall at the very moment when it has wholly overcome the good, and thus consumed the energy to which it owed its duration."

  1. A commentary on "Darkening of the Light," the I Ching, Hexagram 36:
  2. Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler
     
  3. Under Western Eyes, by Joseph Conrad
  4. Narrativity: Theory and Practice, by Philip John Moore Sturgess

    Sturgess's book deals with the narrative logic of the above novels by Koestler and Conrad, as well as some Irish material:

    Narrativity: Theory and Practice
    TABLE OF CONTENTS
    Pt. I The Theory of Narrativity  
      Introduction 3
    1 Narrativity and its Definitions 5
    2 A Logic of Narrativity 28
    3 Narrativity and Double Logics 68
    4 Narrativity and the Case against Contradiction 93
    5 Narrativity, Structure, and Spatial Form 117
    6 Narrativity and the French Perspective 139
    Pt. II The Practice of Narrativity  
      Introduction 161
    7 The Logic of Duplicity and Design in Under Western Eyes 166
    8 A Story of Narrativity in Ulysses 189
    9 Narrative Despotism and Metafictional Mastery: The Case of Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds 235
    10 A Double Logic and the Nightmare of Reason: Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon 260
      Conclusion. A Reading of Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent 287
      Bibliography and Further Reading 312
      Index 317

These readings are in opposition to the works of Barbara Johnson published by Harvard University Press.

For some background, see The Shining of May 29 (JFK's birthday).

Discussion question:
In the previous entry, who represents the
Hexagram 36 "dark power" Matory or Summers?

Powered by WordPress