Nicholas of Cusa and the "Chameleon Pulsar"

The apparently surprising news that measurements of pulsar PSR B0943+10 in radio wave and the x-ray scales of the electromagnetic spectrum are unpredictable from current theory should give us non entropic polemicists some cheer on this cold winter day.

An international team has made a tantalizing discovery about the way pulsars emit radiation. The emission of X-rays and radio waves by these pulsating neutron stars is able to change dramatically in seconds, simultaneously, in a way that cannot be explained with current theory. It suggests a quick change of the entire magnetosphere. In their research the team combined observations from the X-ray space telescope XMM-Newton and the radio telescope LOFAR (among others). Credit: ASTRON

For as Nicholas of Cusa demonstrated repeatedly in his development of Socratic reason, the composition of the universe is by necessity continuously evolving anew for the best possible outcome for humanity's future. Singularities, in fact, which overthrow previous limitations of our conceptual working framework (or grundlagen) of the physical mechanisms of that same universe are to not only to be expected, they are to be sought after. And if we are successfully solving such paradoxes these singularities should be cropping up with an increasing relative density over time. Thus does the ironical development of a fugue in classical composition provide us with the most immediate emotional correlative of ongoing universal creation.

Non Compos Mentis--A Sign of the Times?

Imagine a churlish gossip, once upon a time, hanging over the backyard fence while pausing in her taking in of the laundry and thus opining to her most appreciative busybody neighbor: "I hear tell that his honor at court even this day has declared that drunken lout of a husband of Mrs. Whatshername a regular nincompoop! Tsk, tsk. Ain't it the way of the world these days?"

Now, no one can claim to produce a more apt beginning for one of the finer and more useful epithets in our English lexicon than this. For who can mistake an instant understanding when this description is pronounced upon the antics of a regular nincompoop?

In fact, these times seem to have produced a downright cult of nincompoopery. And the truth is there does not appear to be any psychical sort of vaccination in the offing for the pandemic of nincompoops now plaguing even our very communication devices.

Dreams, Checks on Conscience, "Crowdsourcing"

What might seem like a mishmash of impressions has struck me just now that I think might perhaps be useful to an admittedly, shall we say, narrow audience of mine (whether internal or otherwise.)

First, earlier I had a dream which I awoke from an early evening nap. Usually, the story lines of such dreams are merely discarded as inconsequential and so instantly dissolved into the subconscious abyss. But as this one seemed to illustrate a kind of principle of dreaming, I kept it in memory:

My mother wrote a check that she gave me to take to her bank and deposit in her account. It was unstated yet understood that this was to be kept secret, for some unspoken reason, from my father. The check was for $950,000. At the same time, I was to get her some highly desirable ice cream she wanted called "futon." I went to the bank, presented the check and successfully deposited it. Now, I am a little hazy whether that same bank was also the venue for the ice cream counter. But, at any rate, the "futon" ice cream that I sought was slushy and melting and the server directed me to another venue to get some scoops that were frozen. I remember walking to another counter perhaps outside the building and getting two different scoops of this variety of ice cream. Then I awoke.

Now none of this foregoing is embellished in any way. Why I think this might be interesting, is that a principle of mind could be sought here. I had read recently several chapters of Cotton Mather's history of the biographies of the early deans of Harvard (who were at one and the same time pastors for their students.) One thing that stood out was his insistence on highlighting and praising their rather agonizing diaries of humility, doubt, and self effacing/mortification as being unfit to serve as role models for the faithful. I must admit that I had never quite run across such public and fulsome praise of this quality of conscience. It brought me back to my own childhood experience with religion in America. The church at the end of the street was a Methodist one, which I attended very seldomly. But I distinctly remember a very strong feeling of religious rejection especially in dreams at that young age. The image of God as an old man shaking his head in rejection at me has still stuck with me viscerally. But this is precisely the sort of primitive "agenbite of inwit" that Mather's "Magnalia Christi Americana" reignited in me.

Now the reason I have brought these two preceding seemingly disparate reflections together is to illustrate a function of mind which I believe is universal. Much palaver is wasted these days by academics in search of a metric for intelligence. Usually the bawdlerized version that is popular (of which the significance of, I will go into later) would be to treat of intelligence as analogous to a test of strength of the faculty of memory or perhaps the inventiveness (quirkiness ?) of imagination. But almost nothing is noted of a remarkable evidence of what I consider to be the actual mark of "genius." That is simply an unerring ability to direct or self-edit the flow of thought along a course consonant with a "humanist" philosophical standpoint. 

This is in total contradistinction to the asinine heralded opinion floating around in "cyberspace" of the much touted "wisdom of crowds." So, for instance, when Leibniz writes that he must reject out of hand any physics (in particular DesCartes' version) that stipulates the violation of the efficacy of the ontological or final cause as the principle of least action performing the most potential good-- this is precisely such an instance of the faculty of genius. And this has nothing to do with any miraculous quality of performance and functioning of the physical synapses in the human brain. It is entirely another, higher function of mind. This proceeds from what Cusa terms "filiation" with the Creator, or what I would restate as love of communing with the ongoing process of continuing perfection of universal creation. It is the attempt to bring to bear a principle in human government to allow the orchestration of beneficence for their future well being. Which is to say the complete and utter opposite of the oligarchy's ruse of the bloody shirt of "democratic rule." 

Above: Ostrakons used to democratically banish the enemies of the oligarchy.

           

                                                                                                                             Socrates.

The New Pied Pipers Unveiled

Most people attempt to flee from an amorphous indefinable anxiety that seems to hover over their daily routine. They know not what. This is a universal trait in the human psyche. What it signifies is the unfinished state of cultural warfare of two irreconcilable paradigms. It is only the rare individual who can summon up the courage for self examination in order to question the viability of a world of hidden assumptions that constitute the rationale for his or her actions.

But, were it not for a continuity of precisely such minds engaging in a supra-historical dialogue, humanity itself  would be sunk. For its very ability to rise above the apparently insoluble paradox of civilization's mortality is inextricably dependent on this sort of victorious fugal chorus.

Unfortunately, there is a countervailing rather infernal dialogue of sorts that has seemingly forever victimized the mass of our somnambulist citizens. It comes in as many varieties as there are tongues among the peopled history of the planet. Of late, for the last century or so, its innermost motif proceeds roughly along these lines:

"The new pied pipers will lead America back into the fulsome embrace of her Mother. First use their greatest vulnerability. Their lack of perception of cultural warfare. The science of behavioral manipulation.

"After the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima note the psychological retreat away from Roosevelt's promise to end the colonial methods of Empire. So, first ignite a nice little colonial war to challenge America's image as beacon of liberty against the nasty godless communists. They will send their sons who thought they learned to escape from responsibility just like their parents did in caving in to McCarthyism and the fear of the atom bomb.

"Yes escapism must be our theme. It sells and sends a population step by step into a fantasy world where they no longer care. And there is no end to useful idiots to recruit to enable this scenario."  

Toward a Universal Metric of a Culture's Evolutionary Fitness

If one approaches the issue of the type of psychology of a language culture that has what Leibniz might refer to as sufficient reason of viability of development, then it were conceivable to establish the basis of a rigorous metric of that self same culture. This concept is the synthesis of a series of the work of leading thinkers, and as it were, motifs produced since especially the golden Renaissance of fifteenth century Florence.

Start with Nicholas of Cusa's principle of projective principle of qualitative evolution of scientific method. That is, that there is by necessity an open ended capacity inhering in the potential intellectual development of the human species. Further it is only through the acceptance of that principle of such potential in every unique human being's intellect (or Leibniz' thinking monad) that an adequate system of government may be established. The attempt by Riemann to establish a geometric surface function that proceeds to projective infinity through Gauss' method of conformal mapping of  a spherical unit of normal curvature is germane along these lines.

Wilhelm von Humboldt's principle of the intellectual progressivity of language groups emerges as a correlative to a society's mode of physical potential productive power or what Lyndon LaRouche refers to as relative potential population density. Gustave Fechner applied Humboldt's idea to measurable universal psychological phenomena. It is no accident then that this informed Riemann's approach to the cyclic resolvability (following again on Gauss' work on higher arithmetic) of the planet's biologic interdependence of that which Vernadsky would later denominate as the (Cantorian transfinite) cardinal relationship step function of Lithosphere to Biosphere to Noosphere.

It is only from this higher standpoint that it is admissible to adjudge the health of a psychology of such a language culture. The species of psychology required is to be found in the approach of Wolfgang Kohler toward creative discovery inherent in his theory of gestalt. Further, it is a practical mission orientation resulting from such a healthful outlook that must set the agenda of self government. In this context, was Roosevelt's program of rural electrification an outgrowth of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation which in turn led to JFK's clarion moon mission pronouncement.

On the downside, the introduction of cultural pessimism through the promotion of false irrational "freedom" traceable to such projects as the Congress of Cultural Freedom, the Smithsonian project of "Folk Culture," the British intelligence psychological warfare bureau's homegrown uptake of R&B and Rock and Roll, and finally Timothy Leary's LSD propaganda is indicative of the push back against these virtuous tendencies.

Phiilip Veit

Why Your Money is Funny

Everyone knows that massive amounts of money are being created out of thin air these days by the Federal Reserve's helicopter Ben. No, the problem is not a lack of money. The problem is that those in the City of London and Wall Street who control the banking system have been allowed to deliberately loot the real productive economy through lunatic speculation. By productive economy I mean that which sustains and increases our standard of living. Which thereby enables us to afford medical care as overhead cost (similar to education cost.) It includes the physical plant and equipment, transport infrastructure, energy, agriculture and fresh water. The very opposite type of economics that the Nobel prize winning ideologues at today's hyperinflated college campuses promote these days, i.e. "free trade," postindustrial, information age, service sector, derivative securities, consumerist swindle of a race to the bottom, junkheap economy. There is no hope for seniors, or for that matter, anyone else without scrapping this self destructive speculative economy.