Wokism Is Fake, And That’s Why It’s Useful To The Establishment

“What is the point of university? It used to be, when Harvard was founded in 1636, “to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity”. But in recent years the university has taken on an altogether narrower character. Learning is no longer enough. Activism is demanded. Yale and Harvard have come to resemble the mythical Ouroboros, eating their own tails to satisfy an insatiable appetite for conformity…” Ayaan Hirsi Ali points out. She is a famous Islam critic, who had to flee her native Somalia, was elected Dutch MP, barely escaped assassination by enraged theologians, and is now a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Her latest book is Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights.

New and better Veritas comes from debate… which originally meant beating thoroughly. So one cannot throw a light, lux, let alone establish veritas without a modicum of mental violence. New and better truth is always an aggression against the established mental… let alone financial or economic… order. This is why, historically speaking, most of humanity’s top thinkers blossomed in only a few places and times… And yet found themselves to be the object of violence, often fatal, at a rate much greater than the average population.

New truth, better veritas, always contradict the established order, this is what deep and genuine novelty does to minds. 

Instead, plutocratic universities, aka legacies universities, teach the established order, and how to get inserted within. Enough money and effort is deployed by students and, or their families to attend elite universities, so as to ensure that students have the appropriate mentality of, and for, plutocratic insertion. Thus rebellion within is unlikely. Wokism has become a purity test of dedication to the fake truth of the established order. Exhibiting enough wokism demonstrates that one is eager, and one can display enough hypocrisy and polish, to rule the gullible masses… and thus join the master class.

Theories adverse to the established order are adverse to the plutocratic universities’ sponsors, thus will be discouraged by administrators and teaching staff. Whereas theories which make no sense or are deeply regressive are friends of the established order, and will be encouraged. 

This will go on until, and if, the established order is wiped out by a tsunami of veritas… or then total civilizational collapse… something easily engineered with nukes… Harvard did play an important role in establishing Yeltsin’s Russia… which then installed Vlad, modulo a genocidal war in Chechnya… It all fits together nicely.

Wokism is a mood of explaining all what matters most as mostly flowing from racial prejudice and discrimination… Thus hiding deeper causes. Wokism is greatly fake, but so has been the fight against the pollution crisis (in particular the CO2 crisis, aka acidifying global heating), or, for that matter, the taxation schemes which have only ensured ever greater global power and wealth inequality in the hands of the few… A fake and silly universe, such as wokism, will often hide another, much more dangerous, such as increasing feudalism. 

Ayaan Ali got married to historian Niall Ferguson in 2011. He divorced for the occasion his wealthy and powerful long time wife… They have two sons. Ferguson teaches at Harvard and gets $100,000 for one hour speeches to hedge funds… That’s what a book about the Rothschild will do to you, if well written in a way pleasing to the powers that be… Wokism does not like Ferguson for his ideas… And now Ferguson’s own life with Ali shows that Ferguson’s ideas did not emerge from racism… Thus disproving the fundamental thesis of wokism…

Better Rationality Forces “Irrational” Jumps

“It’s reasonable to expect people to NOT behave reasonably. Especially innovators.” Discuss.

This essay below is a set of trivial remarks, however, they apparently need to be made. It is standard to oppose and contrast “reason” and “irrationality“. The idea, the hidden axiom in this, classically taken for granted since the so-called Enlightenment, is that the two domains, reason and unreason, are mutually exclusive. However, that’s not correct: reason and unreason are entangled. One doesn’t go without the other. Indeed, the elaboration of any new logic requires to break or supercede the preceding logic. Thus the act of creation of significantly new logic can always be called irrational… from the preceding logic’s reference frame.

Any logic L1 is derived from a finite number of axioms. Any discovery, itself factual, emotional or… logical, if not a consequence of these preceding axioms will require another logic L2. Going from L1 to L2 is only logical in a Meta Logic, LM. In any case L2 and LM are NOT rational in L1. That means irrationality is what feeds rationality!

Thus one sees that one needs irrationality to perfect new, better, improved rationality. Hence, one can see that any better system of thought is going to be attacked as irrational… Because, in a sense, the old sense, it always is so. One may even say that any major advance in understanding, a change of paradigm, will be characterized as not just appearing, but being “irrational“. [1]

Suppose a logic L1 is found to have just ONE flawed axiom. Then one needs to change the axiomatics of L1, and a completely new logic is born, L2. It may, or may not, contain the logic L1. The nature of the change is decided by the application of still another logic, a metalogic, LM.

The jump from L1 to another logic L2 should be called “well ordered” when L2 contains L1. For example turning Newtonian style gravitation into a field theory (a turn initiated I think by Laplace, and fully exploited by Einstein and company), created a theory with a finite interaction speed which contains Newton’s theory. (Well ordering corresponds to L1 being a subcategory of L2…)

By the way, Sub Quantic Physical Reality, my own SQPR, does exactly this finite interaction speed trick to Quantum Theory (L1), and Dark Matter pops out… To use set theory symbolic: QM C SQPR, so the logical switch is well-ordered… (On the other hand, MOND theories, which have been proposed to dispel DM, are not well ordered with Newton gravitation…)

The  shock from L1 to L2 can be brutal, especially when L1 contains blatant lies, or, even worse, excruciating stupidities. An example is the creation of the world according to Jesus and company: creating all the world 6,000 years ago was immensely stupid. Indeed, it used to be well known that animals evolved, since domestication exists (the last 10,000 years in the most advanced parts). A mix of human and natural selection was practiced in ancient Greece, 25 centuries ago to breed world famous superior cattle…. Switching from “God” having created all the species 6,000 years ago to what people have practiced for 10,000 years required more than recognizing one’s naivety. Those who believed in the 6,000 year old magic (that included Newton, it is said…) found very hard to switch to the obvious, as they had to admit they were idiots, to have believed in a stupid theory… Or as it compromised the Christian church and its associated fascist imperialism. For example, Napoleon threatened Lamarck in various ways, as Napoleon was keen to show his attachment to the Christian view of the world.

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck handing the book ‘Zoological Philosophy’ to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, 1920 (pastel on paper) by Ezuchevsky, Mikhail Dmitrievich (1880-1928); State Darwin Museum, Moscow.  The French naturalist research professor at the prestigious Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, Lamarck (1744-1829) published ‘Philosophie zoologique’ in 1809. In it, Lamarck outlined two new mechanisms to fosters evolution (which he had demonstrated on mollusk fossils). One corresponds to present day epigenetics… The other is probably true, as a consequence of Quantum Theory (to be demonstrated in the future)… Lamarck, having demonstrated evolution scientifically, as a process over millions of years, was hated by the Christian Church… and thus Napoleon. Lamarck is wearing the costume of a member of the Institut de France. Lamarck had become a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1779, 30 years exactly before his confrontation with Napoleon. Anglo-Saxon ideology dislikes Lamarck, as he was outlawed in English universities. Lyell and Darwin were instructed in his science at Edinburgh, Scotland, more than a decade after the scene above.

Another example: I believe there is only a finite number of numbers, and probably most people who know mathematics will accuse me to be crass ignorant as they would (erroneously) believe in the simple, elementary school 3,000 year old demonstration of infinity… which I can demonstrate is false, and then, rendered perfectly mad by the fact they didn’t see something obvious would scream I deny calculus too (no, calculus works in computers, and computers use only a finite number of operations).

We are in times, and in a situation, where an unimaginable catastrophe is upon us. We need new ideas, new emotions, completely new logic. We will be called names and threatened as we propose them. My daughter’s elementary school proposed to install a gigantic, very expensive ($200,000) artificial grass cum artificial toxic soil, field containing at least three different products know by the State of California to cause cancer (that’s “California Proposition 65“): urethane, (artificial) silica sand, polyurethane… As my spouse pointed this out to the school administration, our daughter, the best student, overall, at her grade level (nota bene), was threatened with immediate expulsion, if we talk to ANYONE about this, through “ANY medium”, and “similar activities”. Somebody is getting something out of this, and we don’t know what it is… But they are really angry about it.

That, while the Secretary of the United Nations just declared war on plastics… Sure enough, the USA was one of a few nations, in contrast to 187, which refused to sign an amendment to the Basel Convention on pollution addressing plastic [2]. Since I don’t like increased plastic usage, either, it makes sense that my daughter be threatened with expulsion.

So you see, any change, even something as simple as any proposition to keep natural grass, is hard, and can involve unforeseen dangers, and punishment with outrageous injustice… and threats against children are an old stand-by: how can the little ones defend themselves?

Changes of logics are hard, so everybody prefer to defend their own turf. All too many ecologists hate nuclear: that’s so simple. Never mind that nuclear gives us life, in more than one way… Right now, 93% of the energy created in 2019 (“primary energy production”) is from MAKING CO2. To diminish this only a massive effort on the three forms of nuclear energy (fission, thorium, fusion) and hydrogen (for storage of renewable energy) can work. Solar is not enough.

What human beings do best, is changing logics. This is also most expensive, and thus what they hate, & resist most fiercely: their advantage, or their survival, is at stake. It’s all about turf. Logical turf in the situations we consider. You see, there is only a limited amount of turf available, mental or physical. To avoid having too much people on a single piece of turf, the species has evolved to engage into violence against each other. That makes the stakes of human logical evolution quite high: those who don’t think correctly are threatened with extinction. In real life. Just as species are extinguished if they are not fit enough, in real life.

All this is very practical: it explains a lot of the hatred around. it is also crucial for advancing science at the highest level. Newton famously debated these questions extensively, modifying the editions of his Principia accordingly, and hiding carefully the existence of a meta logic which had driven him, as he admitted in previous editions! Du Chatelet, writing a bit later was much better on all this, but she was a woman… So only Newton left his mark, all too long…

All this to say that, to think anew is to suffer… if not between the ears, certainly, from others…

Patrice Ayme

***

***

[1] Kuhn may, or may not, have said this, in his famous book on the “Structure of Scientific Revolutions“.

***

[2] The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal, which is backed by 187 countries excluding the U.S…

Roasting Shakespeare and Rousseau… As FADS Corrupting The Youth.

Maybe many people are stupid and base because, while young and naive, they were ordered to read stupid, base stories and obligated to find them smart, elevated. That inversion of all clear values surely would cause TDS (Total Derangement Syndrome, in particular, the Trump obsession). That would be particularly true if focusing on literature too much: science. being a description of truth, can’t be stupid, not base, it’s just reality.

Jean Jacques Rousseau is particularly famous, a reference on property:

Was there anything ever written more stupid than that? Yes. But not as famous and respected.

Rousseau never heard of chimps’ behavior, and didn’t have the slightest sense of ecology, let alone common sense. But his ignorance was most seductive to those who are ignorant… or wanted to promote ignorance, so as to better exploit “fellow” men. And exploit women, as JJ Rousseau did!

[After reading the first version of this essay, my most voracious reader told me ferociously that I completely misunderstood the statement of Rousseau above. According to that vision, Rousseau agreed with me, and simply insisted that the first to stake a land grab claim was the founder of civil society… Something Rousseau approved. Instead I persist and sign that Rousseau didn’t understand that, to be an agriculturist, one needs to take care of a particular piece of land, and defend it against others, including all sorts of pests and vermin, such as insects, rats, birds, etc. This defense is called “ownership”.]

In truth, the Earth belongs to us all. It’s our common wealth, and we can destroy Her. Or more exactly, we are presently destroying the biosphere, which we threaten, relatively short-term with a stupendous rise of temperature of 14 degrees Celsius (first 6 degrees, then clouds will disappear, computer model made in 2019 show, explaining a few temperature jumps which happened in the last 300 million years). Then only the poles will be livable… Baring spectacular jumps in science and technology enabling us to terraform Earth Herself….

No, civilization is not just that. It also enabled Rousseau to write, created Paris, Geneva… Bread. No wonder we got Hitler from this sort of wormich thinking.

Another adulated author, among the great traditionals, is Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet is probably his most famous work. Here what friend John Michael Gartland thinks of it:

Romeo and Juliet is not a Love story. It’s a 3-day relationship between a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old that caused 6 deaths. The six people who die in Shakespeare’s romantic bloodbath Romeo and Juliet:

1. Tybalt killed Mercutio because Lover boy Romeo wouldn’t fight, so Mercutio dies.

2. Romeo cowboys up and kills Tybalt because Romeo wanted revenge, blood lust.

3. Insane killer boy Romeo kills Paris because Paris was trying to stop him. (Well…that escalated fast).

4. Romeo kills himself because he thought Juliet was dead. Fake news.

5. Juliet killed herself because Romeo was dead). Romeo Derangement Syndrome, get a grip girl, it was a one night stand and we are now finding out that the blood-thirsty boy has a nasty temper).

6. Lady Montague (Romeo’s mom) died of a heart attack because of the grief over her son Romeo. (Really sad )

Sex gives love a bad rap…

Excellent analysis, JMG! More generally, one may wonder why people love murder, horror and deranged stories so much… While claiming to be all about the opposite. Aren’t these same people claiming they are good and wholesome, indeed? What’s so fascinating to them about madness, that one should glorify it? And claim the description of particularly insane and base forms of it to be the greatest works of writing there is? What’s so inspiring there? What is the hope, the vision, the encouragement to greater goodness or more profound thinking?

My own mom, who just passed away, used to tell me that she prefered facts to fiction. Thus, she preferred to read about science, history, geography, real people. She read continually. She also read novels, but not as much. Indeed, the real world is big enough… and disheartening enough, all too much: who needs meek human imagination? Yes, sometimes imagination soars, but only if it is exceptional. Why to love so much to wallop in hopeless misery? Why to embrace gloom and doom novels full of human madness?… And no, this is not an attack against Les Miserables and, or Hugo. Hugo gave a message of hope, in often unparalleled prose… And his description of reality was also often mesmerizing and instructive.

I am not advocating not to read Shakespeare or Rousseau. But they are among the great classics, like Hegel and Kant… Or Freud for that matter, or Marx, thinkers whose reputation is overdone, while deeper thinkers are scrupulously ignored… and some of these ignored, deeper, thinkers are women; ignoring women thinkers, especially if deep, is a must in fascist society.

A good example of an ignored thinker is Jean Meslier, an 18th-century French Catholic priest who was discovered, upon his death, to have written a book promoting atheism, while attacking Christianism with rarely seen before realistic ferocity. Voltaire acquired, to great cost, an original copy of Meslier’s work. Then he proceeded to steal and distort his work.

For that matter, what about reading about the Cathars? The Cathars has many observations which should seem cogent today….

Let’s fight FADS… Famous Authors Derangement Syndrome!

Patrice Ayme

***

***

Note: Ignoring deeper thinkers is particularly dramatic in science, and extends from science to the natural evolution of systems of thought, which it mangles to the point the latter stops being instructive. A lot of it results from an anti-French Anglo-Saxon bias, the real history of thinking in the last millennium… Starting with free-thinkers in the Eleventh Century (predecessors of Meslier, just as extreme, a bit more polite, yet not waiting to reveal their work after their death). Going on with Buridan (Copernicus just read Buridan), Du Chatelet (a woman discovered energy, etc….), Poincaré his E= mcc, and his Relativity…

Against powerful stupidity, the most subtle intelligence contends in vain.

Why so much blocking of the truth? Latest grotesque example: The New York Times just censored my observation that the right to exist of Israel came from its own long-term history, and that the destruction of Israel by the Romans had been illegal according to Roman law itself. … and that the Romans themselves found that out, and tried to correct it… (But fate, and red-hot fanatical imperial, tyrannical, lethal Catholicism intervened, re-establishing the horror… all the way to Auschwitz…)

The NYT is generally viewed as pro-Israel, pro-Jewish, etc. so, when someone provides them generously with a sophisticated, cogent and deep argument supporting their general somewhat Zionist position, one would guess they would be enthusiastic. Instead, they sent my long comment to Hades, as if it were a piece of Nazi propaganda. Stupidity has no bounds, even self-preservation doesn’t get in the way of reasoned idiocy. Better die content and stupid, than sad and smart, say the chicken and they cackle, self-admiring.

One is reminded of this happy period when prominent German Jews signed petitions to support the anti-Jewish policies of the German Chancellor cum President, the Guide, Adolf Hitler himself…. (Hannah Arendt fustigated the Judenraten, the Jewish Councils for that 20 years later, and was ostracized in turn. I don’t have a problem there as ostracism is a good thing for the wise to look for… As wisdom, and nothing but wisdom is plenty for a lover of wisdom, and stinging critters can get in the way, if one has to apply too much repellent)  

Friend John Michael Gartland intervened: “Stupidity seems to be contagious if you aren’t careful.”

Patrice Ayme: Indeed. Stupidity is certainly contagious, because the most energy laden activity is creative thinking. Thus, the most efficient way to save energy is by thinking as the sheep does, that is by pure duplication: follow the leader, typically another sheep, or then a meat-eating sheperd. Not following the rest of the sheep is not just energy expensive, it is uncomfortable, scary and dangerous. Only fools or philosophers will engage in it. Paradoxically, those obsessed by self-care should opine that, to think like a sheep is superior. Superior thinking is often just about superiority, not care.

Polish NAZI salute,

AUSCHWITZ 

 … the ultimate insanity. These three blonde idiots, teenagers from Poland, don’t even know that, according to Nazi doctrine, they were (probably) subhuman Slavs, and that Auschwitz was actually initially created to mass destroy Poles. There was a deliberate Polish extermination program, launched as early as Fall 1939. The extermination of the Jews was launched much later (after the Fall of France). Thousands of dark-haired Nazis assassinated hundreds of thousands of blonde Slavs, French and Jews… Officially from their self-contradictory racism, but truly from their fully unhinged Darkest Side.

The official Polish government report on war damages prepared in 1947 put Poland’s war dead at 6,028,000; 3.0 million so-called ethnic Poles and 3.0 million Poles who happened to be Jewish too, not including losses of Polish citizens from the Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnic groups. (Depending upon chosen borders, some scholars put the numbers slightly lower now.)

Meanwhile, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum has just implored visitors to respect the memories of the 1.1 million people who were killed at the extermination camp — and not to balance on the train tracks, being pictured with beaming smile and two thumbs up at the entrance of the extermination camp, etc..

Decency and respect are in short supply nowadays. It’s as if these notions ceased to exist. Instead snowflakes cry as soon as the heat of critique shines upon them. Considering Nazism for what it was, a monstrous infamy, not a joke, is a duty, to be accomplished with thorough respect to the victims. Engaging in lack of respect for the victims is exactly repeating how the Nazis launched themselves, mimicking exactly what the Nazis did!

Stupidity by mimicking the herd doesn’t just economize effort. Stupidity is also selfish in other ways than plain brain economics. Stupidity by following the herd’s moods, emotions and ideas is also the key to power. Power sharing. One charging buffalo amounts to little; a herd of charging buffaloes is everything.

Thus a key to truly modern morality and probity is to refuse to follow the herd, as a matter of principle, in first approximation. Instead the mood of old fashion education has been the exact opposite, as youth is driven, like cattle, through a succession of rituals to pound into their thick skulls how they are supposed to behave, feel, and think.

Why? Old fashion education was made to support empire, empire the old fashion way, the gun boat style, or Kaiser style, or Lenin-Stalin way. Old fashion imperialism needed minds fit for that mission, minds all made in the same way. Minds who know how to go to the ball, get drunk, and don’t think too deep.

The requirements of civilization are now the exact opposite. The danger now is that as never before have the mental requirement been higher, because the Sixth Mass Extinction is fully engaged, and the thermonuclear gods are watching.

Young people should ask themselves why they are asked to do what they are asked to do. Starting with vaping, dating, celebrities, posing, prancing around, and believing goofing around in a socially acceptable way is the ultimate. Go to Auschwitz, you the naive and ignorant and learn that considering Hitler and his 80 million cretinous, vicious followers unbeknownst to themselves, is an excellent beginning of the conversation of humanity as it is, with itself.

Patrice Ayme

 

Saint Patrick, the Trinity, and the Primacy of Secular Law, the Logos

Saint Patrick, A (Mental) Power Story

Mental power is the ultimate power, and the power of life, in the end, is all about intelligence. The argument has been made by many a top biologist (and not just Lamarck, but recent contemporary biologists, some Nobel laureates) that life is intelligent. That eukaryotic cells are intelligent.

Intelligence is much more Machiavellian than Machiavel. An example is Christianism, a triple headed system of thoughts and moods, which appears very different, depending the way one looks at it. Key to its success is that its secret God is the essence of humanity, the Logos. Saint Patrick’s day is a good day to remember this. Irish Catholicism, in its first phase, as taught by Patrice, and as mitigated by the people of Ireland, four centuries before the centuries of savage wars with the Vikings, was extremely open-minded.

Ireland was conquered by the Logos, not by the Sword. That is the difference with many other lands conquered by other religions (in particular the lands conquered by Islam which, in the first century at least, were all conquered by the sword, and a sword drenched in the blood of millions!)

***

Judges Can Be Of Some Use For The Progress of Civilization:

Today in New York the Alien Tort Act was activated by a Federal Judge. She ordered Germany to pay reparations for the attempted eradication of the Herero and Nama people, between 1904 and 1908. Half of the Nama were assassinated. This holocaust was warm-up for the German attack on the world in August 1914, another war crime, even greater. Neither the Namibian massacre nor the war crime of the German engineered world war of 1914 were excoriated, condemned, nor, a fortiori understood. Hence the repetition by the Nazis.

(A few years ago, Germany presented formal excuses to the state of Namibia, and “helps” Namibia; however that does not directly addresses the legitimate grievances of the Herero and Nama…) 

Teaching The Heathen, Or What Philosophers Have Always Done, And Will Always Do. Thanks to the Conversion of Ireland, Romanitas, the Greco-Roman Civilization Spread Where The Legions Didn’t Reach

***

The Difference Between Sotus and Scottus:

Saint Patrick started as an English boy. During one of many raids of the savage Scotti on Roman Britannia, he was captured when he was 16. He was enslaved for 6 years.

The Romans called the Irish, “Scottus”, and so did the Europeans for centuries to come. Charles the Bald, king of Francia Occidentalis and Roman emperor as Charles II, was a promoter of fundamental research. He became an excellent friend of the philosopher Scotus Erigena (“Erigenus” means Iris-born). Charles had named Erigena head of the Palatine Academy of Laon, thus becoming a successor to Alcuin of York. (Alcuin was Prime Minster of Charles I, Charlemagne). Erigena spoke many languages, including Irish, Frankish, Latin and Greek.

Once the emperor and the philosopher were pleasantly drinking across a table. The emperor asked Erigena: “Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum? (What separates a sot  from an Irishman?”[“sot” means idiot, the word sot is still heavily used in French]).

Quick as lightning, Erigena retorted: “Tabula tantum” (Only a table). So Erigena called the emperor an idiot.

Of these little piques great civilizations are made.

Notice in passing the difference of smarts with Islam: even if nowadays one calls Muhammad a “sot” (a particularly uninteresting idiot), the righteous Muslim will want to kill you. Or, at the very least will have to kill you. If said Muslim considers that what is written black and white in the Qur’an is an order from “Allah”, as it is supposed to be.

And the same extends to all the Caliphs, and other Muslims in authority (Surah 4, verse 59). So no wonder Islam never acquired a sense of humor, let alone supreme intelligence. Remember the context above: Charles the Bald headed an empire mightier than the Islamist empire (as it had heavily defeated it in the Eight Century, and would push Islam out of Europe for centuries… before ending all the way to Jerusalem a bit more than 2 centuries later). But Charles II, like Charles I, had a sense of intellect, humor. Although “sacred” by the Popes, they didn’t take their own holiness too seriously (European emperors would quarrel with popes, on and off, for the next 11 centuries…)

***

Saint Patrick Was a Franco-Gallic Product, to a great extent:

But let’s come back to Saint Patrick, four centuries earlier. He escaped slavery and Ireland, by hiding on a ship, and fled to what was becoming Francia (as the Franks, in military control conferred to them by the Roman Empire were slipping into governmental control).

The cleric Patrice was educated in Auxerre, Tours, and Cannes, Provence, more exactly at the monastery of the Lérins Abbey. He then returned to Ireland. (When Patrice came to Ireland, his name was mispronounced as “Patrick”.)

Hence Saint Patrick was pretty much a product of the Gallic-Catholic church (in contradistinction with “Roman-Catholic”). That Gallic-Catholic church would soon get in a conflict with the Pope in Rome, about secular teaching. The gallic-Catholic church thought that secular teaching was necessary. The Pope, as a good Jihadist keen to bring forth further apocalypse (the apocalypse in Christian and later Muslim texts, was a precondition for the Final Judgment, a desired act where the worthy are welcomed to paradise; hence its desirability). The conflict between Gallic bishops and Rome got so vicious, that Pope Gregory the Great threatened to have the bishop of Dignes burned alive, if he persisted with secular teaching (late Sixth Century). But the Gallic bishops had the army of the Franks, that is, the Roman army, to protect them (this fight between Gallo-Romans and the Popes was thus a continuation of the conflict of the Frank Arbogast, Magister Militum of the Occidental Empire with the Catholic fanatics of the Orient, in 394 CE).

Saint Patrick no doubt succeeded in Ireland, because he was taught tolerance in Gallic Francia.

***

Christianism As The Triumph Of The Logos:

After making Christianism the official Roman religion, Rome used what Constantine called “Universalism” (= “Catholicism”) to spread Romanitas at a distance and through the limes (armed physical border of the Roman empire, the “Wall”). That worked extremely well. And, to be honest, so great was the appeal of Christianism to the uncouth that under Nestorian form (for example), it spread ahead… All the way to Mongolia (Genghis Khan was adopted as a refugee child by a Christian tribe).

Thus, when the Barbarians invaded, they were already Christian, so they looked up to Rome spiritually. But for two significant details:

1) the Franks spurned Christianity, as their association with Rome was older… and founded upon a sturdier, deeper basis, secular law.  

2) Eastern Europe, outside of the Roman Limes, had been converted to Christianism by Arianus and his disciple. Arianus, an Egyptian bishop, did not believe in the Trinity (this is also why the Muslims don’t believe in it, either). This would bring their disappearance: the dozens of millions of Roman citizens were Catholics. Craftily, when they “converted”, the Franks decided to become Catholics. That can be viewed as a testimony of their political acumen. 

But there is much more: converting to Catholicism was converting to the Logos, to debate, the intellect, thus, tolerance. Let me explain.

The Franks helped Constantine, who started by fighting them, conquer the entire Roman empire. They refused to convert for nearly two centuries, as they knew how the Christian sausage had been made and why. Then, under Consul-King Clovis (“Louis”), they got the better idea to do as Constantine had done, and rewrite Christianism, their way.

The subtlety of the Trinity escaped the Arians totally. The Trinity meant that the Logos, that is, LOGIC, was God. And even as a primacy to the rest. That helped convert to Christianism the millions of Neoplatonists who led the empire. It also meant that all those who thought that the (secular) law of man, the Logos, came before any superstition, could also be Catholic without contradiction.

***

θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος: LOGIC IS GOD:  

This genuflection to logic is the master idea of Christianity, hidden in plain sight: the Evangel of John starts this way: ”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

In the original Greek, the last four words of John 1:1 are: “θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος”. Literally “God was the Logos”.

If Europe is the modern Rome, as it is, or used to be, what is the modern equivalent of Roman Christianity spreading ahead of Romanitas? The United Nations machinery, spreading around the planet the religion of democratic secularism, the only religion worth having. Because that’s the only religion corresponding to the deep nature of the humanoids.

Patrice Ayme’

What Is A Logic? Just A Piece Of Mind

I would propose that a logic is anything which can be modelled with a piece and parcel of brain.

I will show, surprisingly enough, that this is a further step in Cartesian Logic.

At first sight, it may look as if I were answering a riddle, by further mysteries. Indeed, but with mysteries which can be subjected to experimental inquiry (now or tomorrow).

What is a brain? A type of Quantum Computer! And what is Computing, and the Quantum? Well, works in progress. There is something called Quantum Logic, but it does not necessarily defines the world, as exactly what Quantum Physics is, is still obscure.

In practice? Logic is what works, a set of rules to go from a set A of statements to a set B of statements.

In this perspective, Medieval logic did not decline. Instead it transmutated into mathematics.

The teaching of Logic or Dialetics from a collection of scientific, philosophical and poetic writings, French, 13th century; Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, Paris, France. The 13th century was a time of extreme intellectual activity in Europe, superior to anything else in the world, centered 800 miles around Paris. In particular the heliocentric system was proposed by Buridan, after he overthrew Aristotelian Physics, by inventing and discovering inertia.

An article in Aeon, “The Rise And Fall And Rise Of Logic”,

https://aeon.co/essays/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-logic

Reflects on the importance on the history of the notion of logic:

“Reflecting on the history of logic forces us to reflect on what it means to be a reasonable cognitive agent, to think properly. Is it to engage in discussions with others? Is it to think for ourselves? Is it to perform calculations?

In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Immanuel Kant stated that no progress in logic had been made since Aristotle. He therefore concludes that the logic of his time had reached the point of completion. There was no more work to be done. Two hundred years later, after the astonishing developments in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the mathematisation of logic at the hands of thinkers such as George Boole, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Alfred Tarski and Kurt Gödel, it’s clear that Kant was dead wrong. But he was also wrong in thinking that there had been no progress since Aristotle up to his time. According to A History of Formal Logic (1961) by the distinguished J M Bocheński, the golden periods for logic were the ancient Greek period, the medieval scholastic period, and the mathematical period of the 19th and 20th centuries. (Throughout this piece, the focus is on the logical traditions that emerged against the background of ancient Greek logic. So Indian and Chinese logic are not included, but medieval Arabic logic is.)”

The old racist Prussian, Kant, a fascist, enslaving cog in the imperial machine turned false philosopher was unsurprisingly incorrect.

The author of the referenced article, Catarina Dutilh Novaes, is professor of philosophy and the Rosalind Franklin fellow in the Department of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Her work focuses on the philosophy of logic and mathematics, and she is broadly interested in philosophy of mind and science. Her latest book is The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Logic (2016).

She attributes the decline of logic, in the post-medieval period known as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, to the rise of printed books, self-study and the independent thinker. She rolls out Descartes, and his break from formal logic:

Catarina writes: “Another reason logic gradually lost its prominence in the modern period was the abandonment of predominantly dialectical modes of intellectual enquiry. A passage by René Descartes – yes, the fellow who built a whole philosophical system while sitting on his own by the fireplace in a dressing gown – represents this shift in a particularly poignant way.”

Speaking of how the education of a young pupil should proceed, in Principles of Philosophy (1644) René Descartes writes:

After that, he should study logic. I do not mean the logic of the Schools, for this is strictly speaking nothing but a dialectic which teaches ways of expounding to others what one already knows or even of holding forth without judgment about things one does not know. Such logic corrupts good sense rather than increasing it. I mean instead the kind of logic which teaches us to direct our reason with a view to discovering the truths of which we are ignorant.

Catarina adds: “Descartes hits the nail on the head when he claims that the logic of the Schools (scholastic logic) is not really a logic of discovery. Its chief purpose is justification and exposition.”

Instead, Descartes claims and I claim that a new sort of logic arose: Medieval Logic transmuted itself into mathematics (Descartes does not say this, but he means it). And mathematics is not really logical in the strictest sense. As it has too many rules to be strictly logical.

Buridan, a great logician who studied well the Liar Paradox (which gave the Incompleteness Theorems) had students such as (bishop) Oresme, who demonstrated what, it turned out, were the first practical theorems in calculus (more than 2 centuries before the formal invention of calculus by Fermat, and Fermat’s discovery of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, that integration and differentiation are inverse to each other).

For example, under the influence of Buridan and then Oresme, graphs and later equations themselves were invented. So logic became mathematics. That was blatant by the time Descartes invented Algebraic Geometry. Algebraic Geometry gave ways to deduce, to go from a set A to a set B, using a completely new method never seen before.

In turn, by the Nineteenth Century, mathematical methods contributed to old questions in Logic (the most striking being the use of Cantor Diagonalization to show incompleteness, thanks to the Liar Paradox, self-referential method.

In this spirit, not only Set Theory, naive or not, but Category Theory can be viewed as types of logic. So is, of course, computer science. Logic is whatever enables to deduce. Thus even poetry is a form of logic.

Logic is everywhere there is mental activity, and it is never complete.

If logic is just pieces of brain, then what? Well, some progress in pure logic can be made, just paying attention to how the brain works. The brain works sequentially, temporally, with local linear logics (axonal and dendritic systems). The brain tends to be deprived of contradictions (but not always, and nothing infuriates people more, than to be exposed to their own contradictions and gaps in… logic). Also all these pieces of brain, these logics, are not just temporally ordered, but finite.

As we try to use logic to look forward, as a bunch of monkeys messing up our space rock, it is important to realize that what logic is, has not been properly defined, let alone circumscribed. Indeed, if, surprise, surprise, logic has not been properly defined, let alone circumscribed, much more is logically possible than people suspect!

Patrice Ayme’

 

Shakespeare Versus Sade

Why were the English, or even the Spanish and the Portuguese so much more successful in establishing a world empire than the French? On the face of obvious facts, it’s curious that France did not do better. Nowadays Latin America speaks Spanish or Portuguese, entire continents are English-speaking. Only some of the wastes of Africa speak French. How come? Why did France not grab a continent for herself? Was France… too civilized? Is too much civilization an infection?

France was the most powerful, most populous, most innovative, most central, not to say most belligerent, of the European countries, for at least 13 centuries… Besides being the creator of Europe since 360 CE (election of Julian). France led a healthy reaction against Christian terrorism, and became the center of military and imperial power which made Western Europe one (rather united, “Christian”) civilization.

Too Much Civilization Goes To The Wolves

And, precisely, more civilization and more centralization may have been the problems, which made France come short. If one is too civilized, one may respect the Natives so much, that one may forget to take their place. This is clearly what happened to the French in Canada. The French civilized and settled the Hurons. Then the Iroquois Confederacy came down from the mountains, and exterminated the pacified Hurons. And so on. Turkeys cannot built a civilization under the watchful eyes of lions.

If one is more centralized, while civilized, one will be unable to exploit the Natives as required for a successful settlement, in a timely manner.

True, Louis XIV, the famous Sun-Tyrant, made “legalized” slavery in the French West Indies, with the “Code Noir”. However, there was no slavery in French Canada and Louisiana, while slavery was lawful in English colonies, starting with Massachusetts…to immense economic success: some English American states were mostly people by African slaves cultivating tobacco, under the white whip, terrorized by their white masters. Tobacco had made English America profitable.

So what the difference in the imperial patterns of various European powers? Moods. Basically, the French had too little too late, of the … Dark Side. I mean real Dark: the king of Portugal harassed the Pope to obtain a Papal authorization to enslave Africans (Frankish law forbid to enslave Europeans explicitly, and Charlemagne had created the Papal state). Their Catholic Majesties, Isabella and Ferdinand harassed Borgia, a fellow Spaniard and Pope to authorize the Inquisition (then used to exterminate Judaism and Islam in the Iberian peninsula). Portugal and Spain were then ready to lash out. A planned crusade to exterminate Islam, was redirected more profitably towards the conquest of the Americas.

How come the greater friendliness of the English government to the Dark Side? Not coincidentally,  the rise of Shakespeare and of the West Country Men was simultaneous in England. And they were entangled: the (ex-Scottish) King James I, one of the West Country Men (basically) supported Shakespeare. (As Dominique Deux said) the success of Shakespeare comes from his parade of monsters.

Shakespeare, just as Allah in the Qur’an (following Yahweh in the Bible), made monstrosity honorable. Thus monstrosity became a strategy at the ready, something normal to do.

One may object that it’s not clear why monstrosity worked so well for the English and not so well for the Muslims.

Well, as a metaphysics of war, Islam was superb: the initial Muslim empire went from France, through Spain, North Africa, all the way to Central Asia and India, within 89 years of its launch in 732 CE. On the way it defeated the two most powerful empires outside of China, annihilating one, eating more than half of the other.

The feat was renewed later: in the Eleventh Century, the Turks, a decade or two after converting to Islam, defeated three large empires in West Central Asia, including a mauling of the Roman empire (which called the Franks to the rescue, launching the crusades).

So Islam’s monstrous side is excellent to motivate primitives for war.

This is proven as we speak: yesterday and today, January 7 2016, two Jihadist attacks in France (some terrorists tried a car attack against soldiers, no doubt inspired by happenings in Israel, and another attacked policemen with a meat cleaver, screaming “Allah Akbar”, and carrying a fake explosive belt, he was shot to death).

However, fanaticism does not rise to the motivation and power of free, knowledgeable men, as Islam’s crushing defeats at the hands of the Franks (starting in 721-732-748 CE), would prove in the next 13 centuries). Or the reconquest of Ramadi from the Islamist State by the Iraqi army and Sunni tribes.

So how come the English were so successful: it’s simple: in the case of the English, monstrosity was an adjuvant. I was listening to the Queen’s 2016 message the other day. She charmingly, succeeded to quietly claim that her family invented Christmas (a 4,000 year old tradition). She was completely unfazed by the monstrosity of her claims. (One could easily imagine her claiming Macbeth invented Christmas, just as unfazed.)

Monstrosity worked well as an adjuvant to other, more democratic structures in society, such as Common Law, Parliament, the Monarchy, with the oath to it that all males had to take at 14 of faithfulness to the King. In the case of the Qur’an, the Qur’an was all there was. Interpreted literally, the Qur’an is unbalanced monstrosity 100% of the time (with the major inconvenience that everybody can be suspected of apostasy, something punished by death).

Admiring Macbeth’s statement that life… is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, is a perfect slogan to go kill Irishmen (as the West Country Men did). And then American Natives (as the colonies founded by the West Country Men in America soon did).

Make no mistake: the Bible is full of genocides. Just as the Qur’an, which it inspired, it enables major monsters, bent on holocaust, to claim they are doing God’s will. Shakespeare is a secular version of the same mood with which to handle the world.

In the USA, many a school children spent an entire year studying Shakespeare shaking his spears all over human society (Shakespeare himself made jokes about the spear in his name, wanting it as his coat of arms).

Some could sneer that Sade wrote worse things. True. And actually I do think that writing terrible things is not just good, and instructive, but fights boredom, and feeds the mind. However, the obsessive exposition of Anglo-Saxon children to Shakespeare (or the Queen and her grotesque lies), while presenting that author as the epitome of classical humanism is deeply wrong.

Sade did not claim to extol classical humanism as he described horrors with relish. He was actually highly critical. Differently from Shakespeare the bard, about whom we know little, we know very well that Sade played a major role in the 1789 Revolution (including instigating the attack against the Bastille). Not just that, but he personally saved thousands (and got nearly executed for his troubles, escaping at the last moment thanks to the coup against Robespierre).

Sade’s main theme is that man is (potentially) immensely cruel, and politicians even more so, as they need cruelty, just to relax.

Power is cruelty, and absolute power is absolute cruelty.

A society where spears are shaken all the time, does not just shoots itself in the foot, or the head, very much. It also shoots everything that is in the way, all too readily. Shakespeare is viewed by the Anglo-Saxons as classical, while some of what is viewed as his most classical parts is just as bad, if not worse, than the worse in Sade (who, at least, was conscious of cruelty, while extolling it). The same objection can be made, and should be made, against the devout followers of the Bible, the Qur’an, and other various books of horrors. They say it’s classical, and should be respected.

No. Those books are classical, they should be known, but then they should be debated, fiercely, and dragged in the mud, as needed. Identify, condemn, and cut off the gangrene, the gangrene of the mind, as needed.

The West Country Men, powerful plutocrats as they were, sent soldiers and “endured servants” (white slaves) to America to make a profit. The French founded Canada for the “Mission Civilisatrice” (mostly). The West Country Men, operating in connivence with Justice, sent derelicts and miscreants to America. The French government carefully selected a moral elite to go to America, help the Natives.

However, in the real world, the sheep, however clever and cultivated, does not vanquish the lion. The former eats grass, the latter, sheep. It’s as simple as that. One lesson? Instead of just criminally prosecuting Africans, the International Court of Justice in La Hague should think about engaging a procedure against ex-president G. W. Bush, for instigating so many war crimes in iraq. Then, logically, the ICJ should move against the Saudis and all those businessmen doing business with them.

Indeed. Think about it. Culture without claws and fangs, and the will to use them, is only a betrayal of civilization.

In the Sixteenth Century, the Conquistadores enslaved the Indians, made them dig for oil, grow food for them. After they exterminated the Indians this way, they brought African slaves. When, finally the Frenchman Charles Quint, Spanish king and Roman emperor was forcefully appraised of the extent of the Holocaust by men of conscience (Bartolome Las Casas, etc.), the emperor autocratically ordered a halt to the Conquista (after a supreme tribunal got hung up). Otherwise all the Americas would be speaking Spanish.

Then Charles V retired. His son, Philip II, was less French. When Philip learned of French (Protestant) colonies along the “Carolina” coast, he sent an armada to exterminate them to the last French baby. A French relief fleet was dispersed by a hurricane (showing that god, were it to exist, is not friend of goodness). The French babies got killed, down to the last one (although some may have been rescued by Indians).

Not defending goodness with fang and claw surrenders it to the wolves. The good human is not an inert human. Goodness cannot just be lauded, it needs to be defended. Being inert, is inhuman.

Patrice Ayme’

Classical Nihilism: Shakespeare & Qur’an

Is life a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing? Shakespeare evoked the idea. He created a mood. Out of it Bush, massacring all the Natives? Shakespeare, the Master Thinker is much admired in the Anglo-Saxon world, and beyond (perhaps in the hope of seducing Anglo-Saxons by loving where they come from?) The Bard was gifted with words, but some of the terrible ideas he lent to his characters have seeped into the world consciousness, as we must approve of them. Maybe it was no accident, not all Islam, when a Jihadist from London executed many, for the camera, in the name of the Islamist State. (That assassin was executed by an American drone, a good usage of the technology… for a change!)

In 1984, a program of reintroduction of Golden Lion Tamarins brought nine of these heart melting primates from the Washington Zoo to a reserve to Brazil’s Mata Atlantica. At the time no more than 200 were left in the wild. However, Western zoos had their own populations, some dating several centuries (the cuties were popular at the French court).

If Shakespeare Feels Life Is An Idiocy That Signifies Nothing, Does It Mean We Have To Die? Oder Arbeit Macht Frei?

The Washington tamarins had been specially trained, for months to life outside. Logically enough, within weeks eight were dead. So much for Anglo-Saxon training (too much Shakespeare?). Subsequently, the Brazilians trained the tamarins themselves, with great success. (Now there are 2,000 in the “wild”. A “wilderness” full of freeways and high tension lines…)

The brutality, witchcraft, lethal ambition, and madness of a play such as Shakespeare’s Macbeth leaves images, and phrases, ideas and moods which pervade the Anglo-Saxon universe, and what it influences, namely the rest of the world from New Delhi to Beijing, Tokyo, even Moscow.

Who does not know “To be or not to be?”. It’s the opening sentence in Hamlet. The character is pondering suicide.

A new commenter on this site, Robin, subscribes to the Shakespeare cult, and quotes The Bard as an authority on my own idiocy. First Robin quoted the very last sentence of the following passage in MacBeth Act V scene 5::

LIFE’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Robin kindly explains that I am the idiot, by quoting me: “So on the eve of yet another disastrous day of tragedies, to read: “The more powerful we humans become, the more perfect our government has to be. Thus, the more We the Citizens have to be perfect. Thus, the keener we will have to be to find the truth, and impose it, when lives, or the future, are at stake.” made my blood curdle.

Yet another clarion call to humanity composed of rhetoric, but absent of meaningful content.”

Robin took a sentence from The Bard, and made it into an aphorism. I have several disagreements here, both with the method (Shakespeare did not talk about me, but about life), and with the aphorism itself.

Shakespeare seems to believe that a tale told by an idiot signifies nothing. Quite the opposite. Idiots and madmen have much to tell, that’s the all idea of Shakespeare, come to think of it.

I replied that Shakespeare here is in total contradiction, not just with humanism, but humanity itself. Humanity’s task is to give meaning to life. Shakespeare may have been an idiot full of sound and fury, like Hitler. As, indeed, the Nazis agreed fully with Shakespeare’s preceding quote. So they were destroyed by those who give meaning to life. May reciting Shakespeare literally be quite a bit like reciting the Qur’an literally?

Reading Robin, one see analogies: “As for Shakespeare, well, he pretty much stands alone – a man who invented 27% of our language… It is the ACTIONS, not the form, which produce results of good or evil.” Similarly, some doctors of the Islamist faith will say the Qur’an invented Arabic. And they would be mostly correct about the written form! As far as English and Shakespeare in concerned, it’s pretty grotesque to say he invented English. 85% of English is mispronounced Franco-Latino-Greek, and of the remaining 15% much is in common with Old Dutch, the language of the Franks…

So Shakespeare obsessed about “form”, and “Action” (see extract of Hamlet below). What happened to thinking? Is thinking in Shakespeare? Yes, “Conscience does make Cowards of us all”. (Hamlet below, again.)

Modern law has started to discover that THOUGHT CRIME is a real problem (notwithstanding that it was made fun of by the fashionable Sci-Fi author, George Orwell).

French and German law punish Nazi holocaust denial with prison. They have been imitated with a number of countries (including Hungary after 2010, where a would-be Nazi was since condemned to several years in prison suspended when he agreed to visit a number of sites where Nazis perpetrated holocausts, and to write a reports about what he learned after each visit).

Here is the beginning of Hamlet; we can either suffer, or commit suicide. Forget about political change:

“To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer

The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,

Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep

No more; and by a sleep, to say we end

The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks

That Flesh is heir to? ‘Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,

To sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes Calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,

The Oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s Contumely, [F: poor]

The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay, [F: disprized]

The insolence of Office, and the Spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his Quietus make

With a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardels bear, [F: these Fardels]

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn

No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of.

Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,

And thus the Native hue of Resolution

Is sicklied o’er, with the pale cast of Thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment, [F: pith]

With this regard their Currents turn awry, [F: away]

And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orisons.”

Be all my sins remembered

The fact remains that believing that “LIFE’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing…”

Is as bad as nihilism goes. For people like that why does killing children mean anything? Is it what they mean?

Why not engage in various inanities and murders, then, to give life some spice, more meaning? Was then G.W. Bush’s presidency straight out of Shakespeare, fretting on a stage, heard of it no more,  “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”… In other words, was G. W. Bush’s presidency straight out of Shakespeare, something classical, natural, a normal way of behaving?

It obviously was.

Shakespeare is a double edge sword, and the handle itself is a blade too. By grabbing it, as if it were a well of wisdom, one cuts all tendrils of wisdom.

Kudos to Obama for crying at the White House when evoking small children cut down by automatic weapons’ fire. And why were those small children killed inhumanely, tortured to death? Just because idiots telling furious tales, full of sound and madness, have decided life means nothing as long as it cannot be cut down by automatic fire.

Reading Shakespeare, just as reading the Qur’an, should be done very carefully, under advanced philosophical supervision. Lest it feeds the idiots with the mood that life signifies nothing, and thus may as well be welcome as a tale told by an idiot (Hitler, or some other “Prophet”?), full of sound and fury.

Wisdom is not just blossoming with sophisticated ideas, it also avoids reeking of foul, dangerous, sadistic, cruel, nihilistic, vicious moods.

Patrice Ayme’

Feynman Renormalized

In quantum field theory, the statistical mechanics of fundamental fields, and the theory of self-similar geometric structures, renormalization is a collection of techniques used to correct computations which otherwise blow up infinitely. Feynman was one of the pioneers of renormalization, and got the Nobel Prize for it.

That work was definitively made possible by a (philosophical) understanding of the “infinite” processes at hand, so Feynman was just not an “accidental philosopher”. Feynman made brutal, but amusing remarks about the uselessness of (some) philosophers in fundamental physics, something which made connoisseurs such as yours truly smile (I knew Feynman, he was complimentary, and kind, not at all putting philosophy down, differently from some recordings out there. Feynman accepted questioning the foundations maximally. His son became a philosophy major.)

The World Is Not As Simple As That, Nor Should It Be So Rough

I agree with the mood behind Feynman’s uttering, the spirit of what he wanted to say. However, the context of Feynman’s remarks needs to be… renormalized. (This is an example where the mood behind a precise theory in physics, namely Quantum Field Theory, can be carried over to bring the perspective of a new method to philosophy.)

As a physicist, I admire Feynman who wrote great lectures on physics, and is mostly famous for “Feynman Diagrams” a splendid, and perhaps deep way (Feynman himself was not too sure), to denote terms in the sort of power series expansion one has to consider in Quantum Field Theories.

Feynman’s statement  depends upon what one means by “government“, the type of government one is talking about. For clarity, I will consider that “government” here SHOULD mean “Direct Democracy“, the most perfect form of democracy, what democracy really means, where the People (Demos) exert Power (Kratos). That means, in particular, that We the People rules and legislates.

Feynman, who contributed to the Manhattan Project (the making of nuclear bombs crowned, for want of a better concept, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki) seems to naturally expect the sort of fascist war government he took part in.

If one expects something too much, to the point of forgetting about possible alternatives, or how grotesque and cruel that thing is, one condones it. Feynman expects government to be tyrannical. But tyranny is not ethologically human: it’s not natural, just natural in case of war. Feynman should have realized that the government he knew was not the one we should have looking forward.

Revolution begs for distanciation. Lack of distanciation is how too much tolerance can become a crime.

Thus Feynman’s statement was to some extent self-referential, and self-condemning. Indeed, in the government Feynman was used to, there was an abyss between government and citizens. Feynman witnessed the McCarthyism witch hunt (when his own career was fully launched; Feynman saw his Manhattan project superior, Robert Oppenheimer, go down in flames, just because Oppenheimer was “not trusted”).

In Direct Democracy, a government by the citizens, for the citizens, the distinction between government and citizens disappear. Abusive “representatives” (such as Richard Nixon,a Congressman, and Senator MacCarthy) altogether disappear, as We the People represents itself.

By expecting such aa abysmal distinction, between government and citizens, Feynman seems to expect that government will have to be, forever, the sort of government he played a role in. That government Feynman was involved in was a dictatorship of some sort, out there, and up there.

Government, in the most general sense, includes the legislative, judicial, and police processes and even the army, and the laws they built, enforce, and which created them. As such, the government is deeply involved in finding out what is true, and which philosophies are valid, and which are not, supported by a rather rigorous view of history.

So Feynman’s statement should be not just be reinterpreted as a warning to the citizenry to govern with an open mind. It also indicates a sort of naivety, a sort of Manichean view of the world out of physics.

Unfortunately, just as Quantum Field Theories themselves, our interpretation of the real world is self-referential, and non-linear. Our view of reality is constantly renormalized (in a way similar to what Quantum Field Theories do). We cannot separate government from truth, and especially not perfect government. And when truth is found, it has to be enforced.

No government nowadays tolerate a religion conducive to human sacrifices (wait…) Because it was found such religions were not optimal, in the context of more advanced socio-economies guided by more evolved philosophies. And that is so much the truth, it’s legislated that way, all over.

The more powerful we humans become, the more perfect our government has to be. Thus, the more We the Citizens have to be perfect. Thus, the keener we will have to be to find the truth, and impose it, when lives, or the future, are at stake.

Truth is obtained by debate, and by making mistakes. So the fact that “We The People” can err should not be condemned: after all, dictatorships and oligarchies (what we have) also err. Erring, if done in good faith, is part of the learning process. Tyrannies, oligarchies, plutocracies are, by definition, not in good faith: as they feel that the few should overlord the many, they are by definition vicious and idiotic.

So the Slovenian People, consulted in a referendum, just rejected same-sex marriage.  The vote was 63.4% against. Interestingly, the Slovenian Parliament had passed such a law, but a rather sad group appealed to the Slovenian top court, forcing the referendum. In Europe, Britain, France and Spain recognize same-sex marriages. But this is all part of the learning process: propose, reject, debate, accept. Better let the Slovenian gay inside come out of the closet willingly, after reflection. Instead of staying stuck inside in Putin’s all too warm loudly anti-homosexual embrace.

Truth, and the lack thereof, are not an innocent bystanders. If lies are allowed to grow too big, just one citizen, in a future soon to be, could condemn the “human race”.

Some truths, or lack thereof, cannot just be considered matters of state. A Cult of Death cannot be authorized as a legal religion, for example.

In Direct Democracy, truth will not just have to be a way of life, but the only way to have government, and that includes imposing it on We The People. This is exactly the main effect of the Climate Conference, COP 21, which happened in Paris. All the nations of the world united with one voice, one truth, and declared:”Earth, We have a problem!”

We have to redefine “normal”. The best renormalization of society implies much more truth than ever before.

Earth is our home, but a home is something small, thus fragile.  A home cannot be inhabited by violent, potentially lethal lies.

Patrice Ayme’

ISIS Wants 100% Qur’an Enforced

ISIS was very clear that it killed depraved sinners because they were depraved sinners, and “IDOLATERS”. Idolaters of the good life, sitting in cafe’, going to a concert. 20 foreigners were killed, by the way.

But no humanity is alien, when confronted to barbarity.

The mass killings in Paris, unfortunately confirm several of my most disagreeable theories, and did not surprise me at all. What surprised me was that I was more affected than I expected to be. A Rubicon was passed. No least, precisely, because I had seen it all before, I came to realize, considering my own history. I will come back to these more introspective and interesting questions another time.

The French president gave a discourse to the Congress in a special solemn huge room in Versailles reserved solely to this effect. He proposed to change the constitution. I think that, as the FN proposed, all known Jihadists returned from Syria should be locked up right away (in a French super-Guantanamo, but under judicial supervision). There are 1,500 of them. (And another 3,500 who did not go to Syria or Paradise, yet.)

What we have with Salafism, that is, Literal Islam, needs to be exposed. Only from the truth shall the solution springs (and that is to put in jail anyone preaching Salafism, for the same exact reason as one should put immediately in jail anyone preaching Nazism; that does not mean that remedy is sufficient: it’s not).

Pariser Platz, Berlin, November 2015. Franco-Germania At Her Best

An excellent article in the Atlantic Monthly recaps some of facts I expose on Islam over the years.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

[However the part on “Quiet Salafism” is idiotic, as it contradicts the following quotes in the Qur’an, and similar ones, all over. Those are, fundamentally, orders. Orders from “Allah” no less, the creature who more or less controls the universe (he has to share power with “Djinns” and Shaitan, that is Satan, Pluto, Hades, Belzebuth… but He does not like to talk about that (says He in the Qur’an, a grotesquely funny book sometimes). Fundamentally, Islam was devised as a war religion, and was highly successful that way, establishing the world’s largest empire, from the creation of the religion, within ONE GENERATION.

Islam did this because it was the ultimate war religion: die for Allah, go to Paradise (see below).

What ISIS wants is the Literal Qur’an. Here is a little recap on some of the bases of the Qur’an (hey don’t blame me, I did not write it!)

Question: Can a follower of literal Islam (Salafist) avoid hell by killing for Allah?

Fundamental Answer: Muslims spend time in hell for their sins.  After this punishment, some Muslims will then be allowed into paradise. Muhammad made an exception for prophets (ie. himself) and for anyone dying in battle for the cause of Allah’s religion. Those go directly to paradise. So much for the religion of peace. Here is the proof:

Qur’an (4:95) – “Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home).  Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward.”  Allah prefers the Muslims who fight and die in Holy War.  Non-violent Muslims will not receive the same reward as the Jihadis.

Qur’an (8:15-16) – “O ye who believe! when ye meet the Unbelievers in hostile array, never turn your backs to them.  If any do turn his back to them on such a day – unless it be in a stratagem of war, or to retreat to a troop (of his own)- he draws on himself the wrath of Allah, and his abode is Hell,- an evil refuge (indeed)!”  Not only does Muhammad lay down the principle that a Muslim can serve time in Hell, but failing to kill unbelievers when directed is a sure way to bring this about.

Qur’an (9:39) – “If ye go not forth He will afflict you with a painful doom…”  It isn’t enough to believe.  Muhammad is telling those who do not want to fight that they will be sent to hell if they do not join the battle.

Qur’an (3:169-170) – “Think not of those who are slain in Allah’s way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord; They rejoice in the bounty provided by Allah: And with regard to those left behind, who have not yet joined them (in their bliss), the (Martyrs) glory in the fact that on them is no fear, nor have they (cause to) grieve.”  Martyrs go directly from life to paradise, where they wait for those who must first go through the Day of Judgment.

From the Hadith:

Muslim (20:4678) – It has been reported on the authority of Jabir that a man said: “Messenger of Allah [Prophet Muhammad], where shall I be if I am killed?” He replied: “In Paradise.“…

Muslim (20:4649) – The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: ‘All the sins of a Shahid (martyr) are forgiven except debt.’

Bukhari (52:46) – I heard Allah’s Apostle saying, “…Allah guarantees that He will admit the Mujahid [warrior for Allah] in His Cause into Paradise if he is killed, otherwise He will return him to his home safely with rewards and war booty.”

Abu Dawud (14:2515) – I asked the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him): Who are in Paradise? He replied: “Prophets are in Paradise, martyrs are in Paradise.”

Is this clear? Not necessarily: reading comprehension has not been favored in recent decades. What is clear is this: tons of flowers in front of the French embassy in Berlin.

It Took A While To Vanquish The Plutocracy Which Oppressed Germany. But Now The Revolution Has Won For Good

We are governed and led by idiots. Not really their fault: there is need for much more debate those fools are deprived of. The Atlantic Monthly article says what I have long said about Islam and Obama. Let me quote:

“Western officials would probably do best to refrain from weighing in on matters of Islamic theological debate altogether. Barack Obama himself drifted into takfiri waters when he claimed that the Islamic State was “not Islamic”—the irony being that he, as the non-Muslim son of a Muslim, may himself be classified as an apostate, and yet is now practicing takfir against Muslims. Non-Muslims’ practicing takfir elicits chuckles from jihadists (“Like a pig covered in feces giving hygiene advice to others,” one tweeted).

I suspect that most Muslims appreciated Obama’s sentiment: the president was standing with them against both Baghdadi and non-Muslim chauvinists trying to implicate them in crimes. But most Muslims aren’t susceptible to joining jihad. The ones who are susceptible will only have had their suspicions confirmed: the United States lies about religion to serve its purposes.

Within the narrow bounds of its theology, the Islamic State hums with energy, even creativity. Outside those bounds, it could hardly be more arid and silent: a vision of life as obedience, order, and destiny.”

If a Muslim does not believe in the Qur’an, she/he is an apostate. The Qur’an orders to “SLAY”. Surest ticket to paradise.

Many, if not most, of our esteemed intellectuals are, and have long been, complete idiots. I am thinking of individuals such as Edward Said, who professed that anyone not from the “Orient” thinking about the “Orient” was a racist.  Those stupid intellectual leaders have been adulated for their stupidity, their inability to read what they profess to admire..

They don’t just admire the Qur’an, they admire the so-called “Free Market”, in other words, plutocracy, and hide this behind obscure love of all sorts of tribalisms. Anything except the central core of humanity.

This is what we have to get rid of. Salafism will follow down the chute.

Patrice Ayme’.