Continued from Friday the 13th of June, 2014 :
"It's going to be accomplished in steps,
this establishment of the Talented
in the scheme of things."
— To Ride Pegasus ,
by Anne McCaffrey (Radcliffe '47)
Related material:
Click Zenna Henderson's dates for
an informative essay from April 5, 2009.
See also posts on, or about, that date in this journal.
(Continued from April 5, 2009)
"Thought can as it were fly , it doesn't have to walk."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel , fragment 273
See also a related song.
Good’s Singularity
Irving John “I.J.” Good died Sunday, April 5, 2009.
The date of his death was also Palm Sunday and the day of the Academy of Country Music Awards.
Information from Wikipedia:
Good, 92, was a cryptanalyst at Bletchley Park during World War II.
“He was born as Isidore Jacob Gudak to a Jewish family in London. In his publications he was called I. J. Good. He studied mathematics at Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating in 1938. He did research work under G.H. Hardy and Besicovitch before moving to Bletchley Park in 1941 on completing his doctorate.
At Bletchley Park, he was initially in Hut 8 under the supervision of Alan Turing…”
[Related material: the death of Turing (a major fan of the Evil Queen in Snow White) and yesterday’s entry]
Wikipedia states that “I. J. Good’s vanity car license plate, hinting at his spylike wartime work, was ‘007 IJG’…. He played chess to county standard, and helped to popularise Go, an Asian boardgame, through a 1965 article in New Scientist (he had learned the rules from Turing). In 1965, he described a concept similar to today’s meaning of technological singularity, in that it included in it the advent of superhuman intelligence:
| “Some say the symbol of Apple Computers, the apple with a bite out of it, is a nod to Alan Turing.”– from “Alan Turing and the Apple” at Flickr, uploaded on Epiphany 2006 by guano |
Above: Composite by “guano” at Flickr
Will: Do you like apples?
Clark: Yeah.
Will: Well, I got her number.
How do you like them apples?
Happy Spy Wednesday.
About the People:
Race to Witch Mountain
— President Obama in Strasbourg on Friday, April 3, 2009
"George Bernard Shaw once wrote, 'Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?'"
— Robert Kennedy, University of Kansas, March 18, 1968
|
George Bernard Shaw:
THE SNAKE. I can talk of many things. I am very wise. It was I who whispered the word to you that you did not know. Dead. Death. Die. EVE [shuddering] Why do you remind me of it? I forgot it when I saw your beautiful hood. You must not remind me of unhappy things. THE SERPENT. Death is not an unhappy thing when you have learnt how to conquer it. EVE. How can I conquer it? THE SERPENT. By another thing, called birth. EVE. What? [Trying to pronounce it] B-birth? THE SERPENT. Yes, birth. EVE. What is birth? THE SERPENT. The serpent never dies. Some day you shall see me come out of this beautiful skin, a new snake with a new and lovelier skin. That is birth. EVE. I have seen that. It is wonderful. THE SERPENT. If I can do that, what can I not do? I tell you I am very subtle. When you and Adam talk, I hear you say 'Why?' Always 'Why?' You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' I made the word dead to describe my old skin that I cast when I am renewed. I call that renewal being born. EVE. Born is a beautiful word. THE SERPENT. Why not be born again and again as I am, new and beautiful every time? EVE. I! It does not happen: that is why. THE SERPENT. That is how; but it is not why. Why not? EVE. But I should not like it. It would be nice to be new again; but my old skin would lie on the ground looking just like me; and Adam would see it shrivel up and– THE SERPENT. No. He need not. There is a second birth. EVE. A second birth? THE SERPENT. Listen. I will tell you a great secret…. |
"Listen, I tell you a mystery…."
— Saul of Tarsus
About the People
(with apologies to
Zenna Henderson):
"We've got to stop meeting like this."
Powered by WordPress
