Considering the amount of discussion that an offhand comment on fidelity and monogamy stirred up, I’m considering returning to a chapter by chapter overview/discussion of what I feel is the hands down best book on the subject of relationships, dating, and marriage. Namely the compilation by Amy and Leon Kass entitled Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying.

This book is not polemical or one which takes any position in particular. The purpose of the collection is not to drive the reader to any particular conclusion but instead provide a resource of thoughtful discourse on the insights of the great thinkers of the past on the subject. In that vein, it follows more in the line of a Great Books approach, and comprises with a few exceptions a fairly complete series of excerpts collected from the Western Canon which deal specifically with courtship, romance, and marriage. Each excerpt includes a brief half page to one page introduction describing the piece, providing some thoughts to motivate the reader, and in some cases assist the reader to penetrate the stylistic methods employed by the author. Contributors include Rousseau, Aquinas, Darwin, Shakespeare, and many more.

I began that endeavor a year or more ago but set it aside, should I return to it? Would that be interesting?

1. Rome had hundreds of religions beneath its wings. Why kill the Christians?
2. A journal noted, Syriac Studies.
3. A great rider’s win noted.
4. Another coveted prize noted as well here.
5. Read the bill?
6. “Incite?”
7. That’s not what “persecution” means I think.
8. Mech-speak.
9. After the horror, the wife of the slain speaks.
10. Popular song as lede.
11. A short secular argument against abortion.
12. Imagining what it should look like.
13. A pretty bike.
14. Odd, the “bonuses” given to politicians like Obama aren’t mentioned in this piece, and many are larger than those mentioned here.
15. Beer. Map.
16. A tax noted.
17. I suppose actual mega-church members will disagree.
18. Obama’s buddy.
19. On drawing the line.
20. On extraordinary claims and evidence.
21. Freeman Dysan, two statements, here and here.

The phrase “In but not of” is heard in Christian circles, entreating and encouraging the Christian community to live and love their neighbors but to remember that many of the concerns of the secular community affect the faithful differently than the secular. Catholic Saint and Jewish philosopher Edith Stein had a sea change in her life. She went from being from one of the preeminent German philosophers and an atheistic Jew and converted to Christianity, becoming a Carmelite monastic and ultimately perishing in Auschwitz. According to the intellectual biography of her life by Alasdair McIntyre, her conversion was in a large part driven by the surprising (for her) reaction of her Christian friends to the deaths of family and friends during the trials of the Great War.

Apparently today we are undergoing great global economic trials. Our response to stressful times is an opportunity for martyrdom (which means witness). And it will be witness to our beliefs … or lack thereof. And, I suggest that if our reactions and our actions are indistinguishable from our secular neighbor … then our faith is indistinguishable as well.

1. OK. Bullet proof them … then what?
2. Succinct advice.
3. Chicago corruption coming to the beltway … or what?
4. Alternative answers to warming trends.
5. Classically speaking slavery has not just been about labor and wages.
6. Tiring.
7. Links? Notes? Both at once, courtesy of Brandon (on happiness too).
8. Epistemology of dreaming.
9. LOL.
10. Exactly right.
11. Big tent verse.
12. Lies.
13. China and power projection.
14. Coincidence.
15. Big rig efficiency.
16. Worst person? Now … love him.
17. New car access ideas.

What I’d really really like to see sometime is the following:

Ayn Rand and discussions of John Galt and her Atlas Shrugged abound everywhere these days. For a while, every time that I saw someone mentioning Ayn Rand I’d pop in with “did you ever read Matt Ruff’s Public Works Trilogy?” Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy is an absolutely hysterical book. It’s just a little dangerous … in the “you’ll laugh so hard you’ll be in danger doing harm to yourself and those around you.”

So, what would I like to see. I’d like to see someone take my advice and read this book and then tell me how much they enjoyed it. I’ve lent it to people and they’ve really liked it. Libertarians and the like are enamoured of Ms Rand it seems. Do they not have any sense of humor. Why does it seem that they’ve never heard of this book. And why do they ignore the chance to read this escapes me.

So humor me. Read the book, and when people start talking about “going John Galt” we can mutter about, “By which you really mean Harry Gant.”

1. Zoom. And Whack.
2. Defense of labor.
3. A question for the latest “great” plan.
4. A dissertation recommended … and now online.
5. A links post with an awesome title tag.
6. Octo-bots.
7. A question.
8. Exactly. That headline might make a better slogan than “abstinence education” for educational aim and program.
9. A reaction to our President.
10. An uncharity request for donations.
11. An interesting essay.
12. Confessions.
13. An important list.
14. Considering condoms.
15. One more lie.
16. I really really hate the illustrative use of equations. It bugs me and mathematically speaking is virtually meaningless.
17. Cool (and wet).

Henry Neufeld, long time blog neighbor, owns a small publishing firm. Quite surprisingly (to me), he offered to send me a pre-publication copy of a book which he is releasing shortly, more specifically on April 15. I readily agreed and here is a short review of the book he sent me. This book, Preserving Democracy by Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. will be released next month. Mr Neufeld locates this as “a conservative” book, and I’m not entirely sure I agree with that assesment. First, bear with me for a quick overview of the book (my impression at any rate from a somewhat cursory/quick read) after which I’ll explain what I mean by that that claim.

Mr Hushbeck’s book is an eminently readable exposition detailing point by point what might be described as political or cultural catchpoints with each chapter addressing a different catchpoint. These catchpoints are issues which, if matters go unchecked might be seen as most likely stumbling blocks for our American political experiment. Taxes, Law, Central planning, Voting, Language and other issues are covered succinctly and simply. The language is plain spoken and non-technical with liberal illustrative examples from current events and past history. Graphs and charts are frequently used and contain no evidence of the sorts of trickery used to mislead via manipulation of axis, the data is honestly presented (and the source data cited).

Another item which I must praise highly is that Mr Hushbeck doesn’t fall into the all to common “Thomas Paine” fallacy. John Adams, according to his biographer, praised Mr Paine for being very good at “tearing down” and assisting the American efforts at Revolution but noted that Mr Paine was not well suited for “building up.” It is terribly easy to criticize. But criticism is incomplete without an offer of a solution. Mr Hushbeck in each of his chapters in which a catchpoint for our society is identified and located also then briefly sketches a way to avoid or steer clear of the problem.

My only criticism of the book is that some of his historical allusions to highlight a modern problem gloss over historical details perhaps stretching some points in order to make a point. Allow me to give one example, in the first chapter in a long historical overview of the (Western) Roman progression from Kingdom to Republic to Empire … Mr Husbheck notes that:

It was only with the fall of the Roman Empire 500 years later and the subsequent rise of Christianity that a new set of values would dominate the culture and slavery would be questioned

and to this a footnote expands

Slavery did disappear in Europe following the rise of Christianity, only to reappear following the Renaissance as the Church’s hold on the culture weakened and Europeans explorers started sailing down the coast of Africa encountering and then becoming part of the slave trade.

I’d take issue with that reading of the history of slavery and the Christian influence … setting aside the very Western reading of Christianity in general as an member of the Easter Orthodox tradition myself as well, e.g., Rome finally fell in 1453. It might be argued that the timing of slavery disappearing from the West in a large part coincided less with the spread of Christianity than with the economics of Western Europe. Western Europe slid back into late Bronze age subsistence economic and social conditions. Organized and widespread slavery needed a higher level of culture and standards of living in order to exist. When economic and social conditions improved … slavery returned. This aside is a brief sidelight to the main point of a brief summary of Roman political history. My only point is that Mr Hushbeck in painting the historical situation with a broad brush, well to be frank, paints with a broad brush and in doing so occasionally makes claims which when examined in detail are questionable.

Aside from that (minor) criticism this book makes for a very readable overview a number of issues facing America today. However, in conclusion I’d like to return to the claim that this book is not conservative. The issues chosen are in fact issues which conservatives would identify as the most serious issues facing our nation today. However by and large the methods used to address these issues and way in which these issues are framed are not “conservative” per se, but more aligned with classical liberalism. Mises and Hayek, the Founders, Locke, Smith and so on (for example) are quoted as much if not more often by Libertarian writers as conservative and these sources are used liberally in this book. I don’t see a Libertarian or Conservative disagreeing with much that is said in this book. What exactly a liberal/progressive would disagree with … that might be a task more suited for a different reviewer. 🙂

1. Office rules, some years back.
2. Echo.
3. Mr Obama’s notions of bi-partisanship.
4. Mr Obama’s promises.
5. And a little “if Bush did” what Obama’s doing exercise.
6. Joy and life.
7. Intelligence reports in the UK.
8. Al-Qaeda.
9. Data loss.
10. A feast tucked in the midst of a season of repentance.
11. Or it might be just a failure of imagination? Take the wished for “third way” noted in that piece for the low impact lifestyle has to be imagined as better in tangible ways before people will really embrace it. On the other hand some have opted for the radical solution.
12. Cops.
13. Money for blogging?
14. Does the left have no shame?
15. One response of Mr Obama at South Bend.
16. Amazing animal.
17. Of sex and abstinence.
18. So, for the pro-choice/pro-abortion crowd … explain your defense of the protest here?
19. Of word and deed … and the Word.
20. Heh.

From a short dialog today in my combox as an aside to our discussion of Natures lack of determinism and any consequences on discussions of free will.

So you think the universe is not continuous because irrational numbers are not real? Do you think that differentiability is a useful concept but doesn’t really apply to reality? Why then Wigner’s “unreasonable success of mathematics” if there is no underlying reality to those mathematical concepts (like pi).I wasn’t clear. Pi does not exist in the real world. It’s not that we can’t measure pi exactly, but that it’s literally impossible for it to exist, exactly. How could you have a circle in the real world whose radius or circumference is an irrational number? You couldn’t. So pi, and math generally, is just an elegant approximation of reality.

This is worth a little elaboration. Continuity, mathematically speaking is all “about” that dense uncountable set of irrational numbers. Differentiability likewise requires not just continuity but that the manifold in question be “smooth.” Pi as was noted in a following reply is not limited to the ratio of circumference and diameter but crops of in a myriad of places. My interlocutor JA offers that just like that ratio for pi, all these others are “idealizations” and don’t reflect any reality.

When we make mathematical models of the Universe in Physics the common way of approaching these models is to assume that our measurements are inexact and that many of these models are closer to what is “really” being measured than our inexact measurements. When pi appears in descriptions of electron orbits we think that this value pi is “real” and the measurements of electron energy levels which depend on fundamental constants like pi and Planck’s constant and the electron mass are approximate. Someday we expect that we will arrive a a theory in which Planck’s constant and the electron mass like pi fall out as consequences of a mathematical understanding so that just like circumference/diameter all these numbers will be arrived at via fundamental relationships.

Or take the continuity/differentiability matter, which by the by depends as noted above on irrational numbers as well. Early astronomers like Galileo and Kepler took very imprecise measurements to deduce some relationships to describe motion. Newton and a host of later mathematicians went to work with this erecting an elaborate and very beautiful framework which today are known the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian descriptions of classical mechanics. These equations then can be pressed into service many many orders of magnitude past their original measurements without requiring modification and allow for example cis-lunar docking of spacecraft. These descriptions as well drive our methods and intuitions in the quantum (very short distance or high energy) regions and the relativistic ones as well. One suggestions as to why the mathematics of continuous differentiable manifolds is so important and successful at describing nature is that this description of nature (as continuous and differentiable) is accurate, that is it reflects reality.

Current Physics understands a number of fundamental particles to be “point-like”, that is to say that their best description physically speaking is as a “point.” A point in space is commonly thought to be an idealized mathematical concept. There is no “such thing” as a real “point.” Small dots or specks of dust are used to illustrate for the imagination what something approaching a point might be as a learning aid. However quarks and electrons, for example (and setting aside String theory for now) are described in the theory which we use today that best describes nature, the Standard Model, are point-like objects. Our best description of these (real) things is as a point (and it might be added that protons, neutrons, and baseballs are not point-like in our best descriptions). My eldest daughter recoiled when she heard my description of an electron as “point-like.” The principal problem for her was that electrons could not be point-like and massive. Yet mass is just a property. Like spin and charge, mass is just a numerical value assigned to that point-like object which affects how it interacts with other objects.

That being said, which is more real? The inexact measurement values or theoretical value which they approach? If the things you see with your eyes and other perceptive senses are seeing things which you believe to be real, then I offer that these concepts, pi, continuity, and point-like electrons represent our best understanding of what that reality “really” is. They are as real as the chair you sit upon for they are fundamental pieces of our understanding of how that chair is best described. If the chair is real then there are only two possibilities. Either our current (Standard Model) as our best description of that said chair reflects reality (in which case pi, irrational numbers and so on are also real) or there exists a future theoretical model (consistent with our current measurements) will replace it. If that future theory also has properties like continuity and constants (some irrational like pi) arise naturally in that future (correct) theory then … aren’t irrational numbers therefore real? How could it not be so?

1. Quoting Williams on Dostoevsky. I found Williams book difficult, requiring of the reader a familiarity with the Dostoevskan canon that I didn’t have. When I do, perhaps I’ll return to it.
2. A quote. This is not unrelated.
3. Heh.
4. Self and Salvation … missing communion.
5. A big wind shadow.
6. Of time and measure. It is, I think, important to remember that employment is not a zero sum game.
7. Kosovo.
8. Lexicon and love.
9. Seeking global currency, now that the US is showing it is to provincially minded for the dollar to be used as such.
10. Starting young.
11. Hmm, a concise wrap-up of the latest plan, “Even if it were brilliant of itself, it doesn’t really address the issues including in the administration’s fiscal spending package, which includes tons of pork and politically motivated programs; it has nothing to do with the debate over carbon trading, health care, or education. In other words it might be a cherry, but still a cherry atop a mud sundae.”
12. Of God and the Dr Pepper matter.
13. Energy policy.
14. Zap.
15. Bang bang … and why.
16. Home away from home.
17. Speaking out.
18. Of stink and men (and truck).
19. Sign of the times.

1. The feminization of Christianity (and Jewish Orthodoxy) … I think that the example of the role of women in the Church in Russia during communist rule is an important point. The women save the church there in times of stress and the prosperity our culture enjoys currently riding the petroleum bubble is perhaps as stressful as persecution, just not in so obvious a manner.
2. Bioethics and modern (protestant) denominations as stress as well.
3. Credit crunch? Maybe not.
4. But in our minds … perceptions differ.
5. A perception of the Geithner/Obama relationship.
6. Dissent in mythical economic consensus.
7. That’s not where I’d place math in its role in our modern society … and it doesn’t have to “inspire any kid” just the ones with real talent.
8. Church and state … in the UK.
9. A prayer request.
10. Zap.
11. Boom.
12. POV.
13. School.
14. Verse.
15. Bang.
16. Two arches.
17. May God grant them many years.
18. Origen.
19. NPR, fairly unbalanced.
20. Examining economists.
21. Well, Congress gives many major league sports, baseball in particular special status regarding anti-trust. Why shouldn’t they limit their profits? It always strikes me as odd the “free market” American sports are heavily protected and structured while socialist Europe has a free wheeling market driven sports environment, e.g., compare baseball to European cycling.
22. Considering Orthodoxy.
23. Uninformed (or unlettered) liberals?

As I mentioned Friday in my blog, I’m going to begin a short discussion about this paper on some consequences of special relativity and quantum mechanics on our view of determinism and the Universe. The authors, John H. Conway and Simon Kochen, establish three “axioms” (and a “paradox”) and from these statements establish consequences which have wide ranging implications. All of these measurements and the following discussion regard the behavior of a spin 1 massive particle. Spin 1 massive particles can have three possible measured values of quantum mechanical spin, namely -1, 0, or 1.

The first of these axioms is a consequence of spin statistics known in this paper for reference as the SPIN axiom. If we take three orthogonal measurements and the norm (or square) of that spin value then the only possible value for a spin measurement consistent with quantum mechanics is that two of those squared spin values are 1 and one is 0 (or “101” in the paper for brevity). This leads to a paradox, named the Kochen Specker Paradox. This paradox arrives as follows.

If we were to set aside the more troubling aspect (from a classical viewpoint) of quantum mechanics for a moment and imagine that the values of possible measurements of the spin was known before the measurement was taken. If we then examine the set of 45 degree rotations about any and all possible axis from the original orthogonal axis. Takeing a subset of 33 of these possible axis and then attempt to assign “1” and “0” values for the axis points spread about the surface. If the measurement values were known ahead of time, then a value should be pre-assignable via some function to these nodal points. But it turns out that no such function exists. That is, it is impossible to assign these values consistently throughout all permutations these 45 degree symmetry transformations. Therefore no such function can exist. Yet of course, experimentally it does. Quantum mechanics is very well established experimetnally. This function does not exist yet this is what is observed. Which means that values of those experiments are not preassigned.

The next quantum mechanical conseqence that is used is called the TWIN axiom by the authors. This is the basics of quantum entanglement. If we create two particles “twinned” or created by a particle anti-particle pairing their squared orthogonal SPIN measurements will be the same if the two measurements of the two particles are taken on the same axis.

Finally the last axiom (MIN) isolates a particular peculiarity of special relativity and brings that into the context of this discussion. In special relatively simultaneity is not a clear cut matter as it was in a Newtonian system. An “event” in a relativistic setting is an occurrence, like the (idealized) snap of a finger which occurs at a singular point in space and time for any given observer. In special relativity two events separated in space can be seen to occur in the opposite order in different inertial frames. That is one observers moving past (and by internal frame that means the observer is not accelerating) by in different directions might observe event “A” to occur before “B” while another observer might observe “B” to have occurred before “A”. The MIN axiom basically asserts that our two experimenters measuring two entangled spin one particles SPIN measurement can independently and freely choose the axis by which they measure the particle.

Early next week, I’m going to blog about the contents of this paper, via slashdot.

Your (optional) “homework” is to read through it … so our possible discussions might be all that more fruitful.

1. Mr Obama offers a message to Iran. And Iran responds.
2. More Lenten thoughts.
3. My view is “not much” in a positive fashion, but the last month or so is showing he can certainly have a substantial negative impact.
4. Of being young and foolish.
5. Heh.
6. That poster was hung in our office for a year or so.
7. Armenia again.
8. What moroons. And more of the same.
9. Context. Context matters.
10. Of wealth and power.
11. Killer shrimp.
12. Hanging out in Dorking.
13. Of person and God.
14. Time on their hands.
15. Another quote from the Pope.
16. Make music via flash. Sort of.

Is this a worrisome slip? Via a “Podium Pundit” a ex and current political speechwriters blog, a Mr Walsh offers “congratulatory” remarks regarding Mr Obama’s “deft” handling f the AIG bonus kerfuffle. Mr Obama had said:

Listen, I’ll take responsibility. I’m the president. So — we didn’t draft these contracts. And we’ve got a lot on our plate. But it is appropriate when you’re in charge to make sure that stuff doesn’t happen like this. So we’re going to do everything we can to fix it. So for everybody in Washington who’s busy scrambling trying to figure out how to blame somebody else, just go ahead and talk to me. Because it’s my job to make sure that we fix these messes, even if I don’t make them.

Now this Mr Walsh offers his take (which I freely and almost fully excerpt):

This is perfect on two levels. First, Americans love that kind of bravado from their leaders. “The buck stops here,” someone once said. Don’t go fussing with deciding who to blame; just blame me and let’s move on. Grrrr.

Second, the president manages to accept responsibility while making it clear he didn’t actually have anything to do with the issue. “Didn’t draft these contracts.” “Fix these messes, even if I don’t create them.”

In other words, “I would like you to credit me for taking responsibility for this issue, without actually blaming me for being responsible.” Masterful.

This isn’t anything at all like the buck stops here. The “buck stops here” is a phrase intended to give two messages (and that someone was popularized by “Give ’em ‘ell ‘arry” Truman). First and foremost that phrase means that “I’m the man in charge and therefore anything that goes wrong is my fault.” As Mr Walsh notes, Mr Obama is specifically not doing that here and is specifically and clearly pointing out that this is not his fault. That is exactly the opposite of the “buck stops here” meaning. And the Administration didn’t “draft” these contracts as it is being pointed out clearly and pointedly protected them with loopholes in the carefully read and considered stimulus bill. But … it wasn’t the Administration’s fault. Yeah right.

What Mr Walsh calls “masterful” sounds more to me like more of the same ducking and weaving. Just more of the same beltway operatives piling it higher and deeper on the rest of us. And it’s beginning to look like a continuing regular pattern of deceit. Many (and not just on the right, e.g., Mr Greenwald) have noted that for example on torture, just as in this case, Mr Obama’s rhetoric feints in one direction while moving in another. Torture is denounced, yet provisions for its continuation remain. Or here, I’m responsible but it’s wasn’t my fault. Or with any other of issues one could make similar accusations in which one thing is said and another is done. Rhetoric used as smokescreen to deceive.