A geometric proof of the impossibility of angle trisection by straightedge and compass « What’s new.

you don’t have illusions. there are NO illusions – unless the whole thing is an illusion, which is pretty conceivable. I mean, I have no problem accepting that I can ONLY perceive the world vicariously, as a by-product of my sensual perception mechanisms, combined with the cerebral mechanisms used to interpret the sensory input. it’s pretty lean and clean psycho-biology.

yet, that alone makes is complete voodoo for most of this hapless, under-educated society! science is way more mysterious to the minds of the sheeple than religion. still, if they will accept either one, they accept it wholly, blindly, without examination, and decry the other – the one they didn’t accept – as instrumentations of the devil!

then there’s the problem that both my sensory organs and my “mind”mental” interpretive mechanisms” are by-products of “accidental” training – we don’t consciously train those mechanism – because we think we can’t? or, we just don’t think… so, we have the two key players in our ability to perceive and interact with “the world”, running along as untrained, unavailable, Willy Wonka machines!

for whatever reason, I got to train my sensory tools – through painting, dance, music, etc. so, IF any accuracy is possible in these mechanisms, those training system seem to be the way one would go about achieving that accuracy.

the cerebrum, on the other hand, is problematic. training “the mind” to interpret “the body” accurately is likely impossible – because we have no idea what “accuracy” would look like. oh, we THINK we know – we say shit like “common sense”, “logical” – those are all just more systems invented by humans! they are tautological – there is no empirical test for the quality of empirical methods themselves!

maybe t’ai chi and things like that get closer at making a clean refined connection between the incoming sensory data and a clear mental interpretation of that data – not because the Asians are ALWAYS better at this kind of thing – but because the test of the combination of the mechanisms – a system! – is also possible: if you react, say, in fencing, and your reaction is effective, then you have successfully made the circuit –

1. in with the opponent’s data,
2. interpret that data and
3. formulate a response,
4. encode that response for your own psycho-biological output
5. press “go”.
6. if they are dead when you wake up, especially if they are really dead, with a pinpoint wound in the carotid artery on the neck – voila!

It really would be he same mechanism we would apply to any act of perception/reaction, even though this might not be apparent at first. But, you would have no problem if I compared fencing to, say, an argument with your spouse, right? the difference – and this IS the deal, man – is that you don’t EVER practice communicating with your spouse, do you? I mean, sign up for T’ai Chi and pay $300 a month – for absolute precision training! But, what have you ever signed up for, as far as communication training? Marriage counseling? With someone who has a 2-year certificate in “marriage counseling”, which is based on which 5000-year tradition of mind-body coordination? What a joke….

in “Gigi,” Aunt Alycia says “Love … is a thing of beauty, like a work of Art. And like a work of Art, it is created by artists. The greater the artist, the greater the Art.” The Marchesa Casati once said “I want to be a living work of Art!” So, how do YOU make your life a work of Art? How do you make Love in your life a work of Art?

oh, that old question…don’t think Gig and Marchesa Casati were the only two to suggest it.

if you agree that art is not creation, but transformation, through work, of one thing into another, by the artist, then love is a transformed re-creation of something (don’t know what that is – perhaps it could lit be “any thing”) into a work of art.

although many artists mistakenly take ownership of this, they were in fact, only the transformers. so, love does not belong to the transformer;

however, it will take on the likeness and image of the transformer.

like having children – they look and act like both people, but they are not the possession of both people.

further, they have some quality which comes from neither parent – that is the “original” – the thing that was transformed.

I don’t want this to be another rant against industrialist societies, like the one I live in, and their misappropriation of a religious holiday. the society itself is not to blame, of course, since it is the people in it who do the dirty work, only to separate themselves using some kind of psychic trick from their monster creation, whenever they look at the thing and see it’s ugly.

nor was it ever really that religious. the old folks will reminisce proudly of their deep commitment to humanity – now lost on toady’s youth.  these, the same folk who brought you World Wars I and II (boxed set) and dropped the A Bomb on a human civilization. those same people set up their wise men with gifts in front of their plastic baby – a little Jewish boy with blond hair and blue eyes. you know the drill.

we’re all hypocrites. good thing we don’t have to wear an hypocrisy Geiger counter.

because my personal view is that it isn’t all that bad. there is this hipster tendency – actually, its own religion! – to dis everything that is traditional – clearly a misconception not worthy of such mighty intellects. one man’s tradition is another man’s new age. did they really think that acting like Hindus was revolutionary? that the Buddhism practiced by the Dalai isn’t steeped in thousands of years of dogma, and dominated by men? please….

my maternal grandpa brought two dressed chickens to a Black family,in Spencer, Iowa   some Christmas during the Great Depression. this is Karma.

I wish I was in high school – then my writing wouldn’t wander so much…….

there was this girl we call Mary – the Virgin Mary, they call her. she was 14 years old by most scholarship when she told her husband, some older man (The Talmud recommends that a man marry at age 18, or somewhere between 16 and 24.), that she was pregnant, not by him. this quote always kills me

Matthew 1: 19 New International Version:

19] Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

sorry, but what an asshole. I mean, in our fear of the truth, we don’t actually apply what we know to what we read. and that is a problem for me. if this happened to a friend of yours – a 14-year-old girl gets pregnant and her husband wants to divorce – because, he says, he doesn’t want to disgrace her? got it. asshole. luckily God intervened for his dumb ass, and changed the way history would view him.

of course, she would not have been “disgraced” – she would have been stoned to death: Adultery (specifically in the case of an engaged woman having sex with a man other than her fiancé) (Deuteronomy 22:23-24). and he, would have had to tell someone that the child was not his. so, if he divorced her, do you think she would have been”ok”? this is not a society that honored women, in my opinion.

so Mary, with her crazy crazy story – was a freak and an outcast. for sure. whether you believe the story or not, is irrelevant. in a scholarly sense, “history”, as written at that time (let’s say 70 – 200 CE), was not the same as “history” as we view it now (even though it is probably exactly the same, in fact, it is not the same in the way we view it). historical tales were mnemonic devices, since they had been largely oral. their purpose was to “remind” you of the nature of facts and things that happened at some time in history. the exact time, or place, or people involved, were likely not important. it was the message!

and this message is that God chooses marginalized peopled every time. the affluent, the “normal”, the adult, the mature, the wise, the perfect – all these people are there only to watch the miracles. yes, the crux of all Christian history belongs to a little girl who was pregnant!  love it! such a girl would be shunned by most of the people who darken the stoop of the church on Christmas Eve.

my favorite perspective on this is Lauryn Hill’s world-famous hymn, Zion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwJ3u2wk0Ko).

Unsure of what the balance held
I touched my belly overwhelmed
By what I had been chosen to perform
But then an angel came one day
Told me to kneel down and pray
For unto me a man child would be born
Woe this crazy circumstance
I knew his life deserved a chance
But everybody told me to be smart
Look at your career they said,
“Lauryn, baby use your head”
But instead I chose to use my heart

Now the joy of my world is in Zion
Now the joy of my world is in Zion

How beautiful if nothing more
Than to wait at Zion’s door
I’ve never been in love like this before
Now let me pray to keep you from
The perils that will surely come
See life for you my prince has just begun
And I thank you for choosing me
To come through unto life to be
A beautiful reflection of his grace
See I know that a gift so great
Is only one God could create
And I’m reminded every time I see your face

first, let me say that I was driven to writing about this some time around midnight, in a downtown hotel in Mexico City.

second, let me explain my position on Zarathustra, with whom I have had a long relationship.  I do not agree with the translation of Übermensch as “Superman”.  In fact, I find this ignorant.  It astounds me that despite such incredible scholarship devoted to Nietsche, no one, not even the native German-speaking scholars, bring this point into question.

The allegory of the tightrope walker provides some clarity on this very issue: he walks a tightrope, above the crowd – the German word über means above, not super. Certainly in US culture, Superman is this guy from Krypton – not from earth. And what makes him super is his strength – that’s it! Consider the beautyr of this quote:

But even the wisest among you, he is only a discord and hybrid of  ghost and of plant.  But do I bid you to become ghosts or plants?

He is not asking us to abandon our humanness –  our earthly essence, as would be the case with the man from Krypton. This is so exactly the notion of “maya” in Hinduism – that the dichotomy between spirit and body is false. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_%28illusion%29)

The Übermench is the meaning of the earth….remain true to the earth

I don’t want to write and exhaustive (exhausting!) critical exposition of this here.  So tired of intellectual babble!  This is a simple reality, something to be used by people, on a daily basis.  It is human and earthly – a practical guide for living.  I consider Jesus’ teachings to be the same.  Theology and Philosophy came later, from men with bigger egos than penises.  The allegory of the tightrope walker is for you and for me.

The rope symbolizes us now – a transition between our animal nature and our ultimate human nature. When Jesus talked of the narrow  path and the straight gate, he was speaking of this same path.

Because strait [is] the gate, and narrow [is] the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it,” Matthew 7:13-14

Jesus wanted us to become Übermench, too – right here on earth, while we are alive! There could be no narrower path that a tightrope.  Z. says,

what is great about human is that it is a bridge, not a goal

I particularly like this because it contrasts a very common metaphor among us – that life is a path, and that there is some goal, which  is what? A bridge simply connects two points – one is not the goal, more than the other.  The point to bridge is connection. And we must “step as a spirit across the bridge.”

Back to the story – the tightrope walker falls, because “the devil” – actually, a brightly-colored clown –  trips him up.  Z. explains to him that there is no devil.  And clearly, the choice of a clown (often translated as “buffoon” – but what modern English reader knows what a buffoon meant at that time, since N. did not mean “just some stupid guy”, as we understand the word buffoon today).

So, the clown freaks out the tightrope walker.  There is no bedevilment – just confusion at brightly-colored entertainment.  We all suffer from that daily, right?

Z. comforts the dying tightrope walker by honoring him and his choices in life. His life is redeemed because he chose danger as his profession, and died in the line of duty. Of course, we need to be smart here – it’s an allegory – we are not meant to honor trick motorcycle riders over all other humans!

It just  means you have to take chances in life, push yourself, dedicate yourself not to the safety of your couch and your remote, or even your NPR and your NPR coffee mug, but to extending yourself, all of yourself, to the pursuit of finding the truth.  The truth is, inevitably, somewhere outside your comfort zone.

I was drawn in, again, to Eliza’s candied web of self-deception, and I will probably begin working on her in earnest. I mean the Eliza invented by Joseph Weizenbaum of MIT’s AI Laboratory in 1966, that simulates a Rogerian psychologist in interaction with the human inputter.

Of course in the 60’s people were quite stupid (prior to the Revolution, the Soft Parade Revolution, lead by Jim Morrison and John Lennon); actually, people remained quite stupid, even after this revolution. But I’m talking about the TV talk shows like Johnny Carson, who would say things like, “Scientists believe that, in the future (that is part of the stupidity), computers may actually be able to think just like humans.” Then, Johnny would say something intelligent like, “Gee whiz, are computers really regressing that rapidly?” followed by uproarious canned laughter, Ed-chortle, Johnny secretly thinking about snorting coke and fucking three women in the same bed in the same night, Ed farting silently, most other Americans thinking “huh, huh, huh, imagine thoses scientists thinkin that kind of thing computers thinking jest like hyoomuns never gonna be thinking jest like ME, no sir-eee,” and then they go to focusing on the real America at that time, which can be summed up with the word “high-ball.”

back to Eliza, though… The point is, at that time, computer scientists were kind of dumb too, and so were psychologists, so all new AI programs were subjected to the (Alan) Turing test, which has human subjects try to guess which of either another human or the AI computer is the actual computer, not being able to see either one, of course –

Gawd! dey weren’t DAT stoopid back den!

– with the 60s-funny conditions that both the computer and the human “foil” would be allowed to lie, i.e., if asked, the computer would say “no, I am not a computer,” and the human…well, you know what the human would be allowed to say, by now.

finally…I might be edging toward the interesting part… most of the web sites, and even (God forbid) the encyclopedia, erroneously report that “people couldn’t tell the difference!” Of course, they could, and did. To date, no program has passed the Turing test.

no, the interesting thing about Eliza was precisely that people DID know she was a computer program, but chose, even after the experiment was over, to GO BACK TO HER. yes, indeed, the byte-chair psychologist – naturally, a chic – sucked the psycho-sick society in. it’s really not so strange, nor does it have anything to do with AI.

I think Eliza is the same as the I Ching, except that Confucius was much smarter than Joseph Weizenbaum, or , Roget, for that matter. The I Ching has a large collection of life scenarios and wisdom-bits, linkable to one another by the metaphorical richness of Chinese folk sayings, but made oddly ‘real’ by the incorporation of chance – in a practice using I Ching, you toss 3 Chines cash coins, then construct a pictogram derived from the head/tails combinations; the pictograms are numbered, and, describe full metaphorical connections. In contrast, the goal of Eliza is to use logical predication combined with a vast lexicon, so that Eliza’s responses are precisely NOT random, or based on statistical probability in any way.

now, the easiest way to write an Eliza is to use the probability – you have a key word, followed by multiple responses, which have probability ratings. This has a logic “flavor” to it, but it usually pisses me off when I see this kind of Eliza – mostly because it might be valid if the programmer were to create an exhaustive analysis of the response-probability, based on an actual lexicon which contained a gargantuan collection of actual responses to all the words/syntax patterns “in the dictionary”. That would be all right, and maybe, more accurate than the logic programming approach, which allows us to string together a long discussion thread. The probability approach just gives you request-response pairs; the only “thread” would be going on in YOUR mind; the logical Eliza would have a thread going on in her mind, as well, and it would likely match yours.

but, now, I question whether the symlogic Eliza is better than Confucius. consider this: the danger of logic, at least the propositional calculus we have developed to represent what we THINK is some kind of natural causality, this type of logic is, ultimately, finitely predictable. That is, using propositional calculus, we can prove anything to be true that we want to – it is a discrete system, immune to the empirical method. in other words, it resembles precisely the way that we as humans lie to ourselves – already! we didn’t need fucking mathematicians to tell us how to rationalize our own behavior, in a way that was most pleasing to ourselves! what we need is someone who challenges us – who surprises us with a radically different way of looking at our problems, which we have analyzed into complete paralysis on our own. This is why I like the I Ching – and the Celtic Runes, and the Tarot, etc… their randomness allows us to use them as “personal oracles” – you don’t know what the oracle will say, because she incorporates that mysterious idea of “fate”. I’ve found even the Catholic Rosary, if you use it in its original, bi-planar way – that is, chant the mantra while simultaneously considering a metaphysical construct (ok…a “miracle”), your own mind becomes the random generator, in that, as with dreaming, the sub-conscious mind will scatter, while the conscious mind will attempt to order – a chaotic feed into a rationaliz-er…eliz-er….Eliza.

so today, I went shopping for an new Prolog implementation; found Visual Prolog, with C and C++ interpreters, to begin building my next-gen Eliza; this time, though, I’m throwing some I Ching into her; and I’m naming her Angelina…