A Biophysical Analog of a Higher Order Process Embedded in Apparently Random Mutations

As I pointed to in an earlier post, Riemann's mathematical method in approaching "chaotic" disordered functions through elimination by degree of arbitrariness should prove instructive in applications for applied sciences. Now a new microbiology discovery bears this idea out:

When cells are confronted with an invading virus or bacteria or exposed to an irritating chemical, they protect themselves by going off their DNA recipe and inserting the wrong amino acid into new proteins to defend them against damage, scientists have discovered.
These "regulated errors" comprise a novel non-genetic mechanism by which cells can rapidly make important proteins more resistant to attack when stressed, said Tao Pan, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago. A team of 18 scientists from the University of Chicago and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease led by Pan and Jonathan Yewdell published the findings Thursday in the journal Nature.
"This mechanism allows every protein to get some protection," Pan said. "The genetic code is considered untouchable, but this is a non-genetic strategy used in cells to create a bodyguard for proteins."
Proteins are constructed through a process called translation where cellular elements use the genetic code to guide the assembly of building blocks called amino acids into the correct sequence. First, a copy of the DNA, called messenger RNA, is made and transferred to a cellular structure called a ribosome. Transfer RNAs (tRNA), one for each of the 20 amino acids used in building proteins, read the messenger RNA code and bring the proper amino acids to the ribosome, where they are bonded together to form a complete protein.
Each tRNA can be attached to only one of 20 amino acids, a specificity that prevents errors during the construction of proteins. In artificial laboratory preparations, scientists have observed that only one out of every 10,000 amino acids is placed into a protein incorrectly, and thus protein errors were thought to be exceptionally rare.
But Jeffrey Goodenbour, University of Chicago graduate student and co-lead author along with Nir Netzer of the NIAID, decided to look at how often tRNA errors, called misacylations, occurred in live cells. After developing a novel technique for measuring these errors, published for the first time in this paper, the authors were surprised to find a much higher error rate in those cells for the amino acid methionine. As high as one out of every 100 methionines was incorrectly placed in proteins, they found.
When the cells were stressed by exposure to a virus, bacteria or a toxic chemical such as hydrogen peroxide, that error rate went even higher, as up to 10 percent of methionines placed into new proteins were different from what the gene specified.
"That was 1,000 times more than the textbook says should be there," Pan said.
Further experiments revealed that it was always the same amino acid, methionine, placed incorrectly into new proteins. Methionine is one of only two amino acids to carry sulfur atoms on its side chains, a feature that allows it to neutralize dangerous molecules called reactive oxygen species (ROS) that form inside an infected or stressed cell. ROS can damage proteins through a chemical process called oxidation, but methionine can be oxidized (and restored through a process called reduction) without being permanently damaged.
"The idea is that methionine can protect you from having oxidation of the active site of protein, which would ultimately completely block function of the protein," Goodenbour said. "You end up reducing the total reactive oxygen species load in the cell. It's a very interesting mechanism."
Cells normally put methionines near important parts of a protein to protect those segments from being damaged by reactive oxygen species. When the cell is under stress, and the amount of ROS increases, the number of methionine "errors" is ramped up tenfold, allowing new proteins to be even more resistant to attack.
"Think of a boxing match," Pan said. "If you put methionine close to active site, the reactive oxygen species has to get past it to get to the active site residues for oxidization. You've put something right in front of it so a protein can take a hit. If you have a lot of methionines, to knock this protein out will take many, many hits. So this is a strategy used in cells to create a bodyguard for a protein."
A remaining puzzle is to determine why extra protective methionines are not encoded as part of the DNA in the first place, instead of being left to the post-genetic random placement described in this paper. Pan suggests that random placement of the amino acids makes proteins even more resistant to attack, since no two are created alike.
"This sounds chaotic and doesn't make a lot of sense according to the textbook," Pan said. "But this way the cells can always ensure that a subset of these proteins is somewhat less sensitive to the extra hits. I think that's the most important part of this - to make every protein molecule different - and you cannot do this genetically."
Source: University of Chicago Medical Center

Apparent errors/mutations in RNA translation of protein production lead to extra methionine amino acid randomly being attached to proteins. But this is now shown to be purposeful because these "misreadings" of the protein genetic code lead to protection against reactive oxygen species when cells are under attack by disease or stress and these errors are then greatly accelerated. So, the question that this begs is what is the higher order functional mechanism that directs this apparent disorder? This is precisely where the zenith of scientific epistemology exemplified by nineteenth century Riemann's radically constructive non Euclidean approach needs to be brought to bear.

Fast and slow brain waves as analogue carriers versus digital information model of brain

My last entry on Fechner's concept of non interfering waves in reminiscences has gotten an interesting empirical support from new research:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2009) — The human brain is bombarded with all kinds of information, from the memory of last night's delicious dinner to the instructions from your boss at your morning meeting. But how do you "tune in" to just one thought or idea and ignore all the rest of what is going on around you, until it comes time to think of something else? Researchers at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Centre for the Biology of Memory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have discovered a mechanism that the brain uses to filter out distracting thoughts to focus on a single bit of information. Their results are reported in 19 November issue of Nature.
Think of your brain like a radio: You're turning the knob to find your favourite station, but the knob jams, and you're stuck listening to something that's in between stations. It's a frustrating combination that makes it quite hard to get an update on swine flu while a Michael Jackson song wavers in and out. Staying on the right frequency is the only way to really hear what you're after. In much the same way, the brain's nerve cells are able to "tune in" to the right station to get exactly the information they need, says researcher Laura Colgin, who was the paper's first author. "Just like radio stations play songs and news on different frequencies, the brain uses different frequencies of waves to send different kinds of information," she says.
Gamma waves as information carriers
Colgin and her colleagues measured brain waves in rats, in three different parts of the hippocampus, which is a key memory center in the brain. While listening in on the rat brain wave transmissions, the researchers started to realize that there might be something more to a specific sub-set of brain waves, called gamma waves. Researchers have thought these waves are linked to the formation of consciousness, but no one really knew why their frequency differed so much from one region to another and from one moment to the next.
Information is carried on top of gamma waves, just like songs are carried by radio waves. These "carrier waves" transmit information from one brain region to another. "We found that there are slow gamma waves and fast gamma waves coming from different brain areas, just like radio stations transmit on different frequencies," she says.
You really can "be on the same wavelength"
"You know how when you feel like you really connect with someone, you say you are on the same wavelength? When brain cells want to connect with each other, they synchronize their activity," Colgin explains. "The cells literally tune into each other's wavelength. We investigated how gamma waves in particular were involved in communication across cell groups in the hippocampus. What we found could be described as a radio-like system inside the brain. The lower frequencies are used to transmit memories of past experiences, and the higher frequencies are used to convey what is happening where you are right now."
If you think of the example of the jammed radio, the way to hear what you want out of the messy signals would be to listen really hard for the latest news while trying to filter out the unwanted music. The hippocampus does this more efficiently. It simply tunes in to the right frequency to get the station it wants. As the cells tune into the station they're after, they are actually able to filter out the other station at the same time, because its signal is being transmitted on a different frequency.
The switch
"The cells can rapidly switch their activity to tune in to the slow waves or the fast waves," Colgin says, "but it seems as though they cannot listen to both at the exact same time. This is like when you are listening to your radio and you tune in to a frequency that is midway between two stations- you can't understand anything- it's just noise." In this way, the brain cells can distinguish between an internal world of memories and a person's current experiences. If the messages were carried on the same frequency, our perceptions of the world might be completely confused. "Your current perceptions of a place would get mixed up with your memories of how the place used to be," Colgin says.
The cells that tune into different wavelengths work like a switch, or rather, like zapping between radio stations that are already programmed into your radio. The cells can switch back and forth between different channels several times per second. The switch allows the cells to attend to one piece at a time, sorting out what's on your mind from what's happening and where you are at any point in time. The researchers believe this is an underlying principle for how information is handled throughout the brain.
"This switch mechanism points to superfast routing as a general mode of information handling in the brain," says Edvard Moser, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience director. "The classical view has been that signaling inside the brain is hardwired, subject to changes caused by modification of connections between neurons. Our results suggest that the brain is a lot more flexible. Among the thousands of inputs to a given brain cell, the cell can choose to listen to some and ignore the rest and the selection of inputs is changing all the time. We believe that the gamma switch is a general principle of the brain, employed throughout the brain to enhance interregional communication."
Can a switch malfunction explain schizophrenia?
People who are schizophrenic have problems keeping these brain signals straight. They cannot tell, for example, if they are listening to voices from people who are present or if the voices are from the memory of a movie they have seen. "We cannot tell for sure if it is this switch that is malfunctioning, but we do know that gamma waves are abnormal in schizophrenic patients," Colgin says. "Schizophrenics' perceptions of the world around them are mixed up, like a radio stuck between stations."

This further refutes the nonsensical delirium that the human mind could ever be modeled as a complex "digital" system. Anyone who has ever experienced the nonlinear leap of creative insight best exemplified in Beethoven's compositions, immediately recognizes the absurdity of such misguided behaviorist assumptions about truly human thought.

Gustav Theodor Fechner

Recently, in examining Bernard Riemann's influences from his philosophical fragments, I came upon the work of Fechner. Today, Fechner is almost exclusively remembered as the father of the field of "psychophysics." In particular, his logarithmic function for the threshold of conscious perceptions. However, Riemann was very much captivated by Fechner's writing on Zend Avesta. It is quite remarkable that Riemann's work on sonic shockwave propagation predated the actual demonstration of the said phenomena by some decades. The reason for this is, I believe that the principle involved actually transcends the narrow application that Riemann gave it in that instance, i.e. of pressure and the speed of sound . That is that given a wave being propagated beyond the speed at which the medium is capable of accepting a shockwave aggregates perforce. As this continues over time the shockwave can be thought of as a negatively curved horn surface. This idea immediately links to Riemann's habilitation thesis wherein he details the non Euclidian geometries as the basis of choice for metric for physical space. It is the moving over from positively curved propagation to a negatively curved time series that is there in germ form in that thesis of Riemann. And I believe that likewise Fechner in the Zend Avesta evinces the germ of autowave phenomenology when he states (in English translation from the German): "Our future spheres of existence, though all incorporated in the same great body, the earth, will not disturb, confuse or efface each other. Even here our spheres of existence necessarily cross and intersect each other, as the means of mutual intercourse, which in the here after will only increase in intimacy, variety and consciousness; and in our brain the material changes connected with our reminiscences cross and intersect each other, leaving them nevertheless undisturbed and uneffaced." (my emphasis added) I believe that this is a remarkable instance of how a method for viewing interconnectedness of physical and psychological phenomena leads to a correct hypothesis of neurological characteristics before any experimental apparatus is available.

Elephants hear through their feet!

This research appears on first glance to be quite straightforward reasoning from the premise that extends the concept of ground based vibrational communication from bugs to mammals. But, if you review Riemann's philosophical writings and interpolate his work on hearing, then you get an interesting congruence with this research. His view of time being relative to the species and the electromagnetic wave nature of sound as primary combine quite elegantly here. By the way, the notion that all of the biological substrate persists as a kind of soliton is I think a wonderfully apt characterization.

Upon learning of Obama's new Internet Mining Policy

Obama is cool.
Obama is the real deal.
Obama is the man.
Obama is for change.
Obama is our hero.
Obama is the best president ever.
Obama is the yes we can man.
Obama is a man for all seasons.
Obama is a never ending story of hope.
Obama is an American hero.
Obama is a jazzy dude.
Obama is the biggest thing ever!

Krugman: the Laputan?

Krugman opines thusly:

So new budget projections show a cumulative deficit of $9 trillion over the next decade. According to many commentators, that’s a terrifying number, requiring drastic action — in particular, of course, canceling efforts to boost the economy and calling off health care reform.
The truth is more complicated and less frightening. Right now deficits are actually helping the economy. In fact, deficits here and in other major economies saved the world from a much deeper slump. The longer-term outlook is worrying, but it’s not catastrophic.

I retort:


In the rarified precincts of ivory tower of Nobel Prizedom, (or rather Nobel Prizedumb) the erosion and collapse of the manufacturing base means less than nothing to such high falluting intellects, of course. The fact that the government has encumbered itself with the greatest speculative bubble known as derivative securities to the tune of untold hundreds of trillions, why that is irrelevant saith these Laputan folk. Besides Hamilton's report on manufactures where he establishes that there exists a physically productive economy and attacks Smith's Wealth of Nations by name is so 18th century. "Why we live on our floating island of Laputa on information alone now" they declaim commiserating with my ignorance. But why should I cast these topics before such celebrated professors in the first place? A fools errand I'm sure.

Monkeyshines

Flash -- this just in:

(PhysOrg.com) -- Entropy can decrease, according to a new proposal - but the process would destroy any evidence of its existence, and erase any memory an observer might have of it. It sounds like the plot to a weird sci-fi movie, but the idea has recently been suggested by theoretical physicist Lorenzo Maccone, currently a visiting scientist at MIT, in an attempt to solve a longstanding paradox in physics.

This thesis parallels the monkeys typing a Shakespeare play in infinite time. It proves that given even an infinite amount of time a physicist of the reductionist sort will never discover that he has a brain. I.e., the human mind is proof of a non entropic process (when its applied, that is.)

Prometheus Rebound

These days there are some pretty savvy global warming researchers. Sometimes I am awestruck. The latest just in is a dandy, indeed. It seems that Zeus is the original environmentalist. Who knew? What do you mean with such blunderbus you ask? I can't make this stuff up, I retort.

"Agricultural methods of early civilizations may have altered global climate, study suggests

Massive burning of forests for agriculture thousands of years ago may have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide enough to alter global climate and usher in a warming trend that continues today, according to a new study that appears online Aug. 17 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews."

Why does this involve purely mythological figments like Prometheus and Zeus? Stay with me here. Prometheus was worshiped as one of the older Titanic gods that rivaled Zeus. His sin was giving mankind fire. You see his brother Epimetheus must have been a fraud or have doublecrossed Prometheus. (He was the one who had the gift of foresight.) He should have known that fire would eventually doom mankind through global warming.

Now this puts Christianity in a whole new light. It turns out that all this talk about the meek inheriting the earth is hokum. They are for the big multinational polluters in reality. Bring back Zeus, bring back Gaia. Io Pan, io pan! Yo' mama. Big mama.

Obamacide?

Let's see if I get the Obamacide health care bill rationale correct: Insurance companies are rationing healthcare. Rationing health care leads to people unnecessarily ill or dead. That's bad. The oversight board set up by the healthcare legislation will have the final say on appropriate coverage for patients. That means rationing care (or "triage", if you prefer). Now the government can take over from the greedy insurance companies that are causing patients to go without health care. In the current budgetary crisis we must have a major cutbacks on health care costs. Why? Because we are spending trillions to bail out too big to fail banks (e.g. Goldman Sachs) and insurance companies' (viz. AIG) gambling debts (also known as derivative securities). Therefore I believe now our liberal government under Obama wants to be brought into the business of doing evil liberally in its own right. Bravo!

Obfuscations abound

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama's top advisor on the healthcare overhaul, says he opposes euthanasia. But when you read his actual writings it is clear that he thinks some lives have more value than others. For example, the elderly have less value because they have less years of productivity left. This logic is absolutely consistent with the idea of useless eaters propagated by Dr. Josef Mengele's Nazis. Now who is obfuscating whom?

Common Sense

Let me add a little something here to the healthcare debate, if I may. We just bailed out an insurance behemoth AIG to the tune of oh $100 billion or so. Mr. Obama wants to save $200 billion on Medicare. Can none of you left wing or right wing fools see the connection here? When money is put ahead of humanity the economics of scarce resources leads inevitably to tyranny. The war reparations placed upon Germany after WWI lead to the bestial final solution. The logic of bailing out criminal speculators too big to fail leads down that same path. If you are not able to understand this it is because you refuse to look this evil in the eye. It really is just that simple. Thank you.

A Fishy Story

One fine morning in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama awoke to find himself metamorphozed into a large fish. He immediately panicked and reasoned thusly: "I must now get help to put myself in water or I will surely drown". (He not being used yet to living life as a fish really should have thought suffocate instead of drown.) So he began flapping for all he was worth. Soon he tumbled to the ground of the Presidential bedroom. Immediately at the door appeared a wide eyed secret service agent named Bill. Bill guffawed. "This must be the biggest practical joke ever played in the White House ever'" he thought. "Well, I guess I'd better just play along." So with almost super human strength he bounded forth and scooped up the large fish and ran out of the room.

Barack meanwhile was gurgling bubbles through his gills and thinking to himself, "I think I can get out of this jam now, because Bill is going to find me some help." Sure enough, Bill ran to the Presidential fish tank and gently eased Barrack into its confines. Barack felt very peculiar as he slid into the tank as well he might, having only been just turned into a fish. He did his best to scream at Bill that he was the President, but no sound at all came out of his mouth no matter how hard he tried.

"At least I'm alive," he resignedly thought to himself after a long pause. "Maybe there's a way out of this. If I can only retrace my actions from yesterday. Maybe there will be some kind of explanation. There must be some kinda way out of here. Think Barack! Think! What could have lead to this? What was I doing that wound me up transformed into a fish. What kind of cruel magician could have cast this spell on me?" These thoughts were running over and over in his head while he swam back and forth in wide circles in the fish tank.

In the meantime, a large group of secret service men gawked at him from the outside. They were frantically talking to each other on their Blackberries. "We cannot locate the President," were the words that went crackling over the airwaves. "We are on full alert. Only Cosmic Clearance and family will be informed. Let's get Biden down here now."

To be continued.

Napoleon's Detractor

ETA Hoffmann is said to have lost his government post when he caricatured the French occupiers of his homeland. I wonder if someone is being dismissed at this instant for some saucy Obama as Hitler cartoons. Hmm...

An Unhealthy Dilemma

Now let me see. Obama when questioned on the charge that his health care reform will mean rationing shoots back that health care is already being rationed. I will now try to reason through this logically to see if this is true, because I believe we can come to some meeting of the minds so to speak. When my elderly mother had a benign brain tumor removed a few years back, she did not have to succumb to any outside board inquiring whether such an operation would be cost effective. Medicare was not under any such mandate. Therefore, her treatment had no taint of being rationed whatsoever. Now, correct me, I beg of you, if I am wrong here, but wouldn't the current legislation (or the one that Peter Orzag desires) set up just such an oversight board to determine whether her operation would be cost effective from the standpoint of metrics like life expectancy, quality of life, and other such rubrics? In fact, I know I will be accused of engaging in the logical fallacy of slippery slope here, but isn't this the essence of the meaning of the term "Useless Eaters" that the Nazis used during their reign of terror? And isn’t the same type of statistical manipulation that Dr. Emanuel engages in with his "lifeboat ethics" type discussions in the New York Times which also underlies the mathematics of the so called “quants” that led us to the collapse of the speculative bubble. And why is it that we simply had to bail out insurance behemoth AIG to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars (much of which is why Goldman Sachs is doing so well today) without flinching, but can't afford too expensive medical procedures on the other hand? Please would Mr. Obama or his any of his surrogates like to enlighten me in my state of confusion on these issues?

Why Science Benefits Humanity

No matter how much we as a species may uncover by explicating the mechanics of certain classes of phenomena, it is demonstrable that we will nevertheless remain an infinite distance from ascertaining a lasting mechanistic resolution of them.

These phenomena are of the type that Nicholas of Cusa referred to as the incommensurable cardinality spanning the divide between the other and non-other. However, following Cantor, we can further refine that notion of a quality of transfinite incommensurals. This being his distinction between the absolute infinite and transfinite. We may now locate certain classes of scientific investigations on the peripheries or boundaries of the transition from the Vernadskyan categorical domains as having a precisely analogous character. Firstly, the transition from the inorganic to the organic/biosphere. (This for today's current hypotheses is included among the "RNA World" hypothesis and Astrobiological pursuits.) Secondly, the transition from the biosphere to the noosphere. (One aspect of this, for example, would be the the research of neurogenesis and its correlation with a hippocampal locus for memory.)

Taking the latter case poses a stark case in point of a fundamental incommensurabilty. When the mind functions, whether through memory or other distinguishable modes, there is a correlated physical creation of new neuronal networks. Is it not apparent that while we may continuously define sundry connections at an ever greater infinitesimal scale of this biophysical domain, we can never come to a thorough resolution along this boundary because of the unique way that the universe is composed? However, we can expect that proceeding to investigate anomalies along these boundaries should spark breakthroughs that will of necessity benefit humanity's unceasing requirement for technological innovation.

Leibniz understood that it were a fool's errand (a la R.D. Laing) to attempt to unravel the labyrinthine paradox of the number continuum, because it is merely a mental artifact of the underlying issue to which I am referring here and not physical reality. Unfortunately, Cantor and Goedel, inter alia, did not.

Global Warming, Climate Change-- or Atmospheric Deterioration?

"The unwashed masses are like sheep which we educated ones have a duty--nay, a burden to enlighten. Let us cry out so all and sundry may understand: THE SKY IS FALLING. THE SKY IS FALLING! SAVE YOURSELF! (SAVE OURSELVES.) OH! HELP... HELP!"

Chicken Little
(proud to be a founding member of the World Wildlife Federation)

Waterboarding

What's in a word? "Harsh interrogation techniques"-- formerly known as torture. Hmm. I guess noticing Orwellian doublespeak has become passe these days.

History and Drama

I'm just finishing up another excellent forgotten play. Cato by Addison. I was thinking what a wonderful theme it would make for an historical study on many fronts. There are several ironies about this. Firstly, this Addison was an ally of Swift in his mission to free Ireland from the yoke of an oppressive British empire policy of looting its satrapies. Second, today's Cato Institute is the complete opposite of anything resembling true patriotism. (Perhaps they should be renamed the Sempronius Institute.) Third, there is a forgotten tale to be told which is worthy of any scholar's enterprise. Diametrically opposite of the popular entertainment of today, there was a time in our country when drama was a vehicle for nation building. View in your mindseye this play actually performed at Valley Forge in the winter of our nascent Republic's own discontent. Regard the remnants of an even greater forgotten dramatist and historian Schiller-- today only known as a nameplate for many monuments and parks around the country. (I suspect that this lapse in education was probably the result of the anti German jingoism dating from WWI.) Lastly, what more appropriate vehicle could drama today be put amidst the onrushing dual calamities of suicidal economic and military policies foisted on a mesmerized and basely "entertained" US public?

Beethoven and Riemann: Polemicists against Chaos Theory

Figures that hover above their own epochs sometimes not only anticipate happy developments but also unfortunate declines. Both Beethoven and Riemann attacked in advance the absurdities of today's Chaos "Theory" on their own terms. The Grosse Fugue presents the hearer with an apparently arbitrary sequence which is "resolved" through the ensuing movements of the piece. Thus Beethoven established a high water mark for all musical composition and anticipated the Listian descent into manneristic chromatic irrationality of today. Riemann's Zeta function/prime number hypothesis inter alia, likewise provides a method (via Dirichlet's principle) for resolving with functions of apparently arbitrary disorder. How unlike the probabilistic unreason leading to today's information, string and chaos theories, et al!

What more fitting spectacle than seeing the march of doom of the so called "quants" on Wall Street today.

A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH.

By the blue taper's trembling light,
No more I waste the wakeful night,
Intent with endless view to pore
The schoolmen and the sages o'er:
Their books from wisdom widely stray,
Or point at best the longest way.
I'll seek a readier path, and go
Where wisdom's surely taught below.

How deep yon azure dyes the sky,
Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,
While through their ranks in silver pride
The nether crescent seems to glide!
The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,
The lake is smooth and clear beneath,
Where once again the spangled show
Descends to meet our eyes below.
The grounds which on the right aspire,
In dimness from the view retire:
The left presents a place of graves,
Whose wall the silent water laves.
That steeple guides thy doubtful sight,
Among the livid gleams of night.
There pass, with melancholy state,
By all the solemn heaps of fate,
And think, as softly-sad you tread
Above the venerable dead,
'Time was, like thee they life possess'd,
And time shall be, that thou shalt rest.'

Those graves, with bending osier bound,
That nameless heave the crumbled ground,
Quick to the glancing thought disclose
Where Toil and Poverty repose.

The flat smooth stones that bear a name,
The chisel's slender help to fame,
Which, e'er our set of friends decay,
Their frequent steps may wear away,
A middle race of mortals own,
Men half-ambitious, all unknown.

The marble tombs that rise on high,
Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,
Whose pillars swell with sculptured stones,
Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones;--
These (all the poor remains of state)
Adorn the rich, or praise the great;
Who while on earth in fame they live,
Are senseless of the fame they give.

Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades,
The bursting earth unveils the shades!
All slow, and wan, and wrapp'd with shrouds,
They rise in visionary crowds,
And all with sober accent cry,
'Think, mortal, what it is to die!'

Now from yon black and funeral yew,
That bathes the charnal-house with dew,
Methinks I hear a voice begin;
(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din,
Ye tolling clocks, no time resound
O'er the long lake and midnight ground!)
It sends a peal of hollow groans,
Thus speaking from among the bones:

'When men my scythe and darts supply,
How great a king of fears am I!
They view me like the last of things:
They make, and then they dread, my stings.
Fools! if you less provoked your fears,
No more my spectre-form appears.
Death's but a path that must be trod,
If man would ever pass to God:
A port of calms, a state of ease
From the rough rage of swelling seas.

Why, then, thy flowing sable stoles,
Deep pendent cypress, mourning poles,
Loose scarfs to fall athwart thy weeds,
Long palls, drawn hearses, cover'd steeds,
And plumes of black, that, as they tread,
Nod o'er the 'scutcheons of the dead?

Nor can the parted body know,
Nor wants the soul these forms of woe:
As men who long in prison dwell,
With lamps that glimmer round the cell,
Whene'er their suffering years are run,
Spring forth to greet the glittering sun:
Such joy, though far transcending sense,
Have pious souls at parting hence.
On earth, and in the body placed,
A few, and evil years, they waste:
But when their chains are cast aside,
See the glad scene unfolding wide,
Clap the glad wing and tower away,
And mingle with the blaze of day!'


Thomas Parnell



So it must be with all things that have such a mournful and useless appearance on this earth. Most especially the current monetary system and its apologists!

AIG Bonuses

If we as a nation are so crazy as to forgo bonuses for AIG employees whoever can we possibly get with the requisite expertise to take their place now that Bernard Madoff is going to jail? Maybe he could get a work release. (Alas.)

General Relativity, the Monadology, Harmony of the Worlds and the Degeneracy of Voltaire

When Plato's Socrates is situated declaiming on the degenerate profligacy of the wayward arts in the Republic, the perspective that must be allowed him should only be delimited to satirizing bacchantic frenzies as art that would masquerade as anything approaching truth in beauty. This perspective or weltanschauung is the Republic's myth of the cave or the island of Sancho Panza's governiate -- the make believe world of Lewis Carroll's Flatland or the false dichotomy of right brain/left brain of art versus science. It is the phony chop logic of Dr. Pangloss mock tragedy of Leibniz' genius, i.e. the eternal and continuously reenergized monadology.

Take, for example, Dante's Paradiso as a template. Did he not situate a sort of immortal dialectic or Socratic dialog on the completely relative frame of reference of the earth's moon in contradistinction to the idiocy of the Ptolemaic banality of "Mother Earth" Gaia corybantic phrensy (as in "Neoplatonic" cabbalists magic hokum)? Isn't this indeed that which Albert Einstein continued? The best of all possible worlds as opposed to the rock and rolldom's 666 Beast Aleister Crowley, is Einstein's own truly "gauge fixed" general relativity. Isn't this concept sempiternal? -- As it undergoes a continuous timely updating relative to one's own "mortal coil" in the here and now?

Image, if you will, the peculiar multifunctionality of the biophysical domain juxtaposed to the merely inorganic substrate whence it derives. The distance from that dead continuum to the plenum of the living realm is a "poetic" equivalent of the distance from the the living to the thinking self reflexive creativity of human endeavor. It is Cantor's transfinite conceptual updating of Nicholas of Cusa's non-other. Which is the refutation at once of both "cybernetics" and the degenerate Cartesian Grassmanian Wienerian fiction of "absolute entropy". (As opposed to the relative correctness of the Carnot cycle.)

This Schopenhauer-like world weariness emerges from a Mephistophelian myopia. In the make believe land where supposedly "we all agree that no one foresaw the current economic crisis" (except for modern day Epimethius LaRouche) we kowtow to feces on a canvass as art. This is the true aesthetic excresance of the misbegotten progeny of Mr. Voluntaire's misconception.

Is Our Future Happiness Subject to the Whims of Mere Chance?

When a promising, brilliant youth is struck down by what seems to be the indiscriminate scythe of our earthly scourge, it is only natural that we question whether justice is an but an illusion. Yet, if we look to the lights bequeathed us from the best minds humanity has had to offer, we may not only draw solace, but redouble our own dedication to make this brief lifespan mean more than the passing alternation of ephemeral joy and sadness.

Look in your heart at the scene, if you will, of Socrates becalming the tearful dread of his acolytes at the approach of the quickening poison which ended his journey among us. You will see there that the tyranny of the mob which sentenced him could not quench his perfect equanimity at the prospect of the beneficence of a knowable goodness that will forever spur mankind on to discover the ever elusive fruits of this creation. This future is so designed as to permit us to pass on something to our posterity of lasting and continuing goodness. If only we heed that challenge, then our contribution however passing cannot be for naught. For the great tapestry of civilization's delicate woof allures and encompasses all our best endeavors. And we may let our fairest Adonais be grieved to the requiem of this our imperfect inkling of immortality.

Riemannian approach to biophysical and physical phenomena

It becomes quite startlingly apparent when surveying recent biophysical experimentation that there inheres a plenum-like density of multi-valued biophysical phase space.

A genome-wide study of transcription in yeast redefines the concept of promoters

Genes that contain instructions for making proteins make up less than 2% of the human genome. Yet, for unknown reasons, most of our genome is transcribed into RNA. The same is true for many other organisms that are easier to study than humans. Researchers in the groups of Lars Steinmetz at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and Wolfgang Huber at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Hinxton, UK, have now unravelled how yeast generates its transcripts and have come a step closer to understanding their function. The study, published online in Nature, redefines the concept of promoters (the start sites of transcription) contradicting the established notion that they support transcription in one direction only. The results are also representative of transcription in humans.

Investigating all transcripts produced in a yeast cell, the scientists found that most regions of the yeast genome produce several transcripts starting at the same promoter. These transcripts are interleaved and overlapping on the DNA. In contrast to what was previously thought, the vast majority of promoters seem to initiate transcription in both directions.

Not all of the produced transcripts are stable, many are degraded rapidly making it difficult to observe what they do. While some of the RNA molecules might be 'transcriptional noise' without function, other transcripts control the expression of genes and production of proteins. The act of transcription itself is also likely to play an important role in regulation of gene expression. Transcribing one stretch of DNA might either help or in other cases interfere with the transcription of a gene close by. Moreover, transcripts without a current purpose can serve as 'raw material for evolution' and acquire new functions over time.

The results shed light on the complex organisation of the yeast genome and the insights gained extend to transcription in humans. A better understanding of transcription mechanisms could find application in new technologies to tune gene regulation in the future.

The above, for example suggests "branch points" of a biophysical phase space of 2 sheeted surface of n functional dimensions. This is only one recent example. But it is quite obvious that there are a whole domain of instances wherein we find such a multi functional phase space embedded within the proteome. It is likewise becoming demonstrable that there obtains a similar ordering in many extreme regimes of the physics of the abiotic. For example, it has recently been shown that the superconductivity/permittivity band gap may coexist in certain alloys rather than being separate phases.

Transport properties of high transition temperature (high-Tc) superconductors apparently demonstrate two distinct relaxation rates in the normal state. We propose that this superficial inconsistence can be resolved with an effective carrier (quasiparticle) density n almost linear in temperature T. Experimental evidence both for and against this explanation is analyzed and we conclude that this offers a clear yet promising scenario. Band structure calculation was utilized to determine the Fermi surface topology of the cuprate superconductor versus doping. The results demonstrate that an electron-like portion of the Fermi surface exists in a wide range of doping levels even for a p-type superconductor, exemplified by La2−xSrxCuO4−δ (LSCO). Such electron-like segments have also been confirmed in recent photoemission electron spectroscopy. The Coulomb interaction between electron-like and hole-like quasiparticles then forms a bound state, similar to that of an exciton. As a result the number of charge carriers upon cooling temperature is decreased. A quantum mechanical calculation of scattering cross section demonstrates that a T2 relaxation rate is born out of an electron–hole collision process. Above the pseudogap temperature T* the normal state of high-Tc cuprates is close to a two-component Fermi liquid. It, however, assumes non-Fermi-liquid behavior below T*.

This bridging of the abiotic domain to the biotic domain represents a boundary layer whereby a kind of potential shockwave forcing curvature operates. That is, scientists may, by forcing an ordinary physical phase into an extreme configuration "mimic" a rather ordinary biophysical condition. (For instance, quasi-crystals and the Bose Einstein state also immediately come to mind.)

Now, the movement across this boundary may also be seen as a multi-sheeted Riemann surface. Photosynthesis represents one such sheet in this overarching manifold; whereas, technological intervention creating such extreme regimes would represent another higher order sheet whereby the noetic domain reorders the characteristic biophysical space. Likewise, noesis (technological creativity) may operate upon the boundary between the biophysical to noetic domains as is evident in the history of advances in agronomy and medicine, inter alia.

As I have referenced elsewhere, it is via a combination of Riemann's method that accurately predicted sonic shockwave theory, and Cantor's transfinite sequencing of nested manifolds, that this functional interplay among Vernadsky's identification of three qualitatively distinct domains comes into focus. This overview represents a long term project orientation for science.

Tilting at Windmills

Indeed, I believe you are quite right to abjure this delusory modern day jousting at windmills by the environauts. However, the solution to the current deleveraging of the multi-trillion dollar speculative derivatives bubble is neither neo-Keysnianism nor gold bug/Ron Paul phantasmagoria. Both of these mindsets hold that wealth is a material "thing." Either money for the Keynesian monetarist or some quantity of gold for the anti National Bank Jacksonian populists. These are just two sides of the same coin. The crisis we have now to overcome is due to the abandonment of the funding of our physical economy. It has broken down. Trying to save the bubble of speculation is like a doctor trying to save the cancer rather than the patient. We need to put the speculators through chapter 11 bankruptcy and set up a new credit creation mechanism not controlled by Wall Street ala the Federal Reserve. We need credit investments in infrastructure, rail, power grids, waterways, and power production, i.e. nuclear. It doesn't matter if we hoard all the gold in the world in our fallout shelters with our tinfoil hats. Investment in that which progressively improves the standard of living is what we must move into. If we don't then I'm afraid we will live to sorely regret it.

Fickle Fingers

This is a scream, although I'm exhibiting a longer middle finger for the financial traders.




"Abstract

Prenatal androgens have important organizing effects on brain development and future behavior. The second-to-fourth digit length ratio (2D:4D) has been proposed as a marker of these prenatal androgen effects, a relatively longer fourth finger indicating higher prenatal androgen exposure. 2D:4D has been shown to predict success in highly competitive sports. Yet, little is known about the effects of prenatal androgens on an economically influential class of competitive risk taking—trading in the financial world. Here, we report the findings of a study conducted in the City of London in which we sampled 2D:4D from a group of male traders engaged in what is variously called “noise” or “high-frequency” trading. We found that 2D:4D predicted the traders' long-term profitability as well as the number of years they remained in the business. 2D:4D also predicted the sensitivity of their profitability to increases both in circulating testosterone and in market volatility. Our results suggest that prenatal androgens increase risk preferences and promote more rapid visuomotor scanning and physical reflexes. The success and longevity of traders exposed to high levels of prenatal androgens further suggests that financial markets may select for biological traits rather than rational expectations."

Lucrezia Borgia: Epitome of an Historical Lesson

Diane Yvonne Ghirardo has taken a page for the method of historical investigation from Dupin's purloined letter of Poe's fable. Fiction: which is stranger and more real than the flatulent pedantry of empiricism. Ms. Ghirardo, society owes you an undying debt of gratitude (of historic proportions) for your detective work.

While history's dunces compliment one another on their oh so profound erudition like Goya's educated donkeys. Their deviltry having even pulled the wool over Shakespeare's eyes anent republican Machiavelli, they have scoured the sewers of Rome with their poison pens. But Lucrezia has cleared herself by draining the stinking fens and doing what no mere diabolic female was meant to do: the work of Ben Franklin's Mrs Dogood.

Hail to thee - most divine ladies all. Your ethereal irony has thwarted the pestilent lackeys of the creeping Hoggian ilk.

Leibniz' prophetic method

If Newton had even reformulated Kepler's laws by inversion to produce the gravity inverse square formula, it would at least be somewhat of an accomplishment. But he did not. He stole this from the Royal Society "gopher" Robert Hooke. This, of course, is in keeping with his nonsensical claim to be the inventor of the calculus.

Now, here we have arrived at the denouement of applying a wretched philosophy to our economy fully in keeping with Newton's avatar John Locke. It is quite lawful that he (Newton)wound up as the chief bean counter in Britain. For what else monetarism but an alchemical belief in the magic of the market place, fit for a predecessor of Aleister Crowley?

However, as Leibniz informs us, the world is so constructed that we can be rescued from the economic pendulum in the pit, as if by a miracle, so long as we apply our native ingenuity to do the good and throw off the mental shackles which bind us, lo these many years.

The Fed's Insane Madhatter Gambit

The problem here is the simple inability to fess up by Mr. Krugman, et al. that we have been living in a chimerical, nightmarish fairyland of post industrial/information age/consumer driven false economy for lo these many years since the 1960s. It is now come tumbling down. Alas, wheelbarrows full of greenbacks won’t put us back to the direction of a technologically vectored producer oriented economy. This sad nostrum is as old as mud and a lot more toxic. Weimar, anyone?

What went wrong?

Well, since the economics blogs are on the subject of what was done to quell speculative excess in the 1930s, the "800 lb gorilla in the room" happens to be Bretton Woods. Why? What led to derivatives (recently rightly referred to in Congressional testimony as the latest incarnation of Bucket Shop practices) engulfing the world monetary system? It was none other than the end of the system of settling imbalance of trade among nations in gold. After the Nixon administration pulled the plug on this in 1971 the scene was set for a global casino of currency speculation. One bubble after another was created and blown out. Now we are at the point of either attempting insanely to further hypothecate our economies or to return to the Bretton Woods system of stability.

Question for Paul Krugman

Mr. Krugman, would you have advocated during the collapses of the South Sea Island, the Tulip, the Mississippi Land, et al. speculative bubbles that governments should have simply printed up more such promissory notes to give the speculators proper government backing? What does this do but promote a more vicious hypothecation of the self same bubble? By the way, it is wrong to characterize this crisis as resulting from merely the latest incarnation of monetarist speculation, i.e. the housing bubble. The credit default swap derivatives the are undergoing de-leveraging are but a small proportion of the cancerous multi hundred trillion derivatives "markets." Until this insane gambling casino mentality is extirpated and replaced any attempt to prop it up is foredoomed. You can bet on that.

Honorable men ?

If you recall the congressional testimony during Oliver North Iran Contra hearings, one thing that conspicuously stood out was so many Republican "character witnesses" incessantly referring to North as an "honorable man." Yesterday it was widely reported that John McCain stood up for Barrack Obama in like manner when some woman at one of his rallies assailed Obama as an "Arab." McCain, pulling the microphone from her hands, declaimed that Obama was an honorable man, or some words to that effect. Well now, it seems that the old saw "it takes one to know one" perfectly applies in this case. McCain, after all, dumped his ailing crippled wife for a young beer heiress and then went on to choose a ex-beauty pageant Governor as his running mate. Why wouldn't such a man admire how Obama parlayed his many years long connections with the Ayers family into a successful run for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, all the while keeping it at arms length. What was it that Roosevelt said about Joe Kennedy?

Prediction from Thingumbobesquadamus

Today, Messer George Bush will regale the nation with this needful admonition: "Remember, my fellow Americans prosperity is just around the corner." ... or words to that effect.

Dance with a corpse, anyone?

I'm afraid it is much worse than merely losing one's spectacles. The bankers' ball has admitted a number of putrefying corpses onto the dance floor. They tell us, imploringly, they are just now oh so sure that if only we will believe. Yet I'm afraid all the perfume they have applied so far hasn't done the trick. Why, the erstwhile bon-vivant suitors are perspiring off the dance floor holding their sides and retching. Such a scene is unheard of. Lack-a-day.

Way too little, way too late

While today's NY Times article exposing the SEC does a service after the fact in uncovering some of the chicanery unleashed by the pro deregulation crowd, the economic problem that has been posed from the beginning of the creation of exotic and esoteric derivative instruments of speculation goes unchallenged. However, it is the mindset that created these speculative instruments that are now "deleveraging" on a gargantuan scale that is threatening us all with a financial collapse of historic proportions. Until and unless that mindset that created this disaster is effectively exposed and replaced by a return to sound credit policies instead of attempts to bailout the malefactors at the expense of the real economy, all such analyses, however enlightening are merely the proverbial whistling past the graveyard.

As those that refuse to see

Well now, do you really think that printing up billions of dollars in bailouts will do anything other than cause a hyperinflation like the prewar Weimar mefo bill or current Zimbabwe cases? You illiterate bloggers have lost your marbles (if you ever had any.) How moronic is the true rallying cry of the Fed and Treasury: "Save the bubble, blow it up bigger than ever, that's the ticket!" There are none so blind..

Who lost the debate?

We are facing a great depression in this nation again. Neither of these candidates have a clue. And yet all the political blogs and television commentators mindlessly carry on about debating style. Barack Obama and John McCain had absolutely nothing to say about what to do to get the nation out of this disaster. Who lost the debate? America.

Treason

For the Congress to vote for a bill which abrogates the constitutionally mandated separation of powers is prima fascie treason.

Night of the Living Debt

This bailout is like the night of the living dead. The feds are trying to make the bankrupt financial houses walk after they are dead. Pretty soon the stench of rotting flesh will force the populace to hold their noses, retch, and flee.

FLASH: Theorists spot Hidden Dimensions

It has come to my attention that the notorious blackboard photo of the PAMELA satellite's data does not merely further validate dark matter WIMP parameters. It seems that after a late night confabulation the two distinguished professors Drs. Kraus and Scherrer, to whom I have so lately delivered my heartfelt panegyrics, have lit upon a remarkable discovery. To wit, by a new technique of information neural network fuzzy logic coupled with a reversed cloaking superluminal device, they have retrieved the reverse side of said blackboard, where it turns out there is proof positive of the postulated hidden (until now) dimensions of string theory! The reason that this has remained under wraps for now is that given the current meltdown of the derivatives markets this could put the kibosh on any further funding for the Large Hadron Collider, since its raison d'etre is now in doubt. Therefore, don't expect to see a paper on the arXiv from our two illustrious protagonists, it has been embargoed indefinitely. Alas.

All that flesh is heir to...

Some concept in the body of art and science of a nested transfinite sequence of singularities that produce a necessary pathway for global redefinition of work function of the three domains of connative existence is evinced from time immemorial. All expression across all possible fields of endeavor that coheres in outlook with this perspective is truthful. Moreover, this is perfectly equivalent to what aesthetics designates the beautiful and the statecraft happiness.

In science, astrobiology is situated at the cusp of the transition that links the domain of the non living with the living. This arena will provide for the foreseeable future of humanity an unending and enduring orientation in mission. All physics and biophysics hinges on this transition. Likewise, the transition from the biosphere to the noosphere, which as yet is only defined negatively by the ill conceived failures of neuropsychology or worse information theory, will define a further such mission.

The soul sick plagues of positivism and its coordinate methodological absurdities will be relegated to history's garbage heap as sure as has been the mythological pantheon of the Olympian gods.

A Gorey Truth: A Deduction from Certain Premises

It is the case that the Internet is indisputably a major, if not the major cause of enormous amount of energy usage around the world. Furthermore, it is beyond dispute that former Senator Gore profoundly and publicly prides himself as a major player of promoting said Internet (if not its inventor.) It being the case that our global climate change is putting the fate of humanity, nay all living beings in peril (as averred and propounded most vociferously to widespread renown and accolades by the aforementioned Mr. Gore.) Furthermore, the headlong promotion of a perverse technology which so threatens us all being akin to a palpably criminal enterprise, it would seem that those purveyors of this poison, including DARPA (a.k.a. the military industrial complex) be summarily charged with crimes against humanity. This certainly may be brought up in a court of law commensurate under the provisions of hate crime. It is a crime which will destroy in its course perhaps everybody and every living thing. It is therefor beyond the promotion of simple genocide. In fact, it has been hypothesized by serious scientists that the very earth may be plunged off its orbit by climate change. Indeed there can be no greater degree of criminality ever contemplated. Q.E.D.

(I say: to the Hague with Mr. Gore and his ilk!)

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: opportune forcing moments ? (Or more of the same balderdash?)

The problem here, ladies and gentlemen, is only to be situated from the standpoint of an Hamiltonian alternative to the nation's existential economic throes. For the remedy is to use debt as a means to grow those sectors that are in a ramshackle state of decay. This was the response of Hamilton, Lincoln, and Roosevelt to the enormity of like crises facing our nation in their day. A word to the wise: please educate yourselves, while we still have time and dump such silly palaver re bailouts vs. privatizations-- while we still have time...

Ireland saves civilization again

Hooray for the Irish! Jonathan Swift is smiling from above. How can a treaty that would be rejected by any nation's voters be disguised by "technocrats" as anything other than a naked power grab? These are the disgusting Malthusians who would oh so modestly propose the end to sovereignty. Let us send them all packing back to whatever oligarchical hell whence they came!

Motivation for a Biophysical Metamathematics via Multiply Connected Phase Space

There are really very few original philosophical roots for scientific endeavor. In fact, to put a fine ironic point on the matter, in essence there is only One. Or, perhaps an act which is neurotic distortion whereby the mind willfully turns away from such a method. This turning away is epitomized precisely by a faulty inculcation of fantastic chimeras as science. Such are the notions of thermodynamic and temporal reversibility. To dispel this as pure sophistry at best, it were necessary to recapitulate the principle of the Parmenides dialogue as Cusa has done in Learned Ignorance and the microcosm to macrocosm functional ensemble. (Also see Moses Mendelsohn's Death of Socrates from the standpoint of a Leibnizian reworking of Plato's principle of Deism and immortality.)

Firstly, we can only falsely imagine a walled off division of "space" which is not functionally interacting with the totality of the "universal" space. In our wrongful such imagining, we then compound the error with a false construct of energy potential. That is, for a reversal of so called entropic disorder, we imagine a chimerical isolated event that can supposedly be reversed in forward extension of time. This is patently absurd, as is the equally absurd construct of time reversal, due to the reification of time as the "fourth dimension." (Interpolate Leibniz' principle of the monad as a "window" on the universal substance or more importantly everywhere embedded process of striving for perfection.)

Secondly, this leads directly into the necessary debunking of dimensionality qua dimensionality. While it has been useful to depict multiple dimensions as a tool in the theory of functional space, the idea that we should believe that there are "hidden" physical extra dimensions a la "string theory" is quite frankly infantile poppycock. When we believe that the mere labeling of points in an extended Cartesian coordinate space is somehow a substitute for reality, as Felix Klein appears to have done, we really lose our moorings in an Alice in Wonderland sort of way. In this way , we make several untested hidden assumptions about the essence of what constitutes space. This, by the bye, is why Riemann's dissertation on the groundwork of space is so lastingly "immortal" in the sense given above.

Why should we insist on imagining such points given by a Grassmanian network of simultaneous linear equations in an extended flat entropic multidimensional grid as anything other than purely at best a useful fiction at times? Can anything actually "live" in this at worst nightmarish imaginary domain? (Unfortunately, alas, this is precisely the miasma that high energy theoretical physics terms an elegant universe today.)A related dead end stultification, in this regard is the wrongheaded question of the transfinite power of the numerical continuum. The problem here is that not every such quest will by necessity bear fruit as has the development out of the "imaginary" number field the complex functions. Indeed, it is this idea of "functional space" which gets to the quick of why this is so. The physical continuum can only be properly approached in scientific methodology as distinguished by a capability of producing a necessary existent creative cognitive being, and nothing less than this. As Cusa has so forcefully epitomized there can never be an end of a progression toward the universal principle perfection in this finite noetic domain. (This, as an aside, is what characterizes the theme to a degree in all art that is truly sublime.)

It is apparent in surveying the current state of biophysical science, in the broad sense, that there is a density of diverse multi-modal functions within the proteome. It is here that a sweeping reorganization of scientific method for the better may be forthcoming. This is so because the mission at its base of saving and perfecting human practice can not so easily be perverted by the malaise of the cult of Schopenhauerian death wish pervading our intellectual "culture" today.

Reply to "Give Kids the Vote"

Firstly, children already vote in school. Right? Secondly, the whole argument that you are making is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of political economics shared by the average voter today. To wit: the idea that there is just so much “stuff” to be gotten in this life which must be apportioned out by this or that constituency. This sort of “lifeboat ethics” is what has lead to the horrors in the extreme case of Nazi Germany. It was the philosophical justification for the policy of “Lebensraum.” The alternative to such a debased Hobbesian conception of an interminable war of “each against all” is a society founded upon continuous increases in the standard of living through the application of scientific progress. Please read Alexander Hamilton’s Report to the Congress on the Subject of Manufacturing. Read it and perhaps you might mature a little wee bit. Thank you.

The Cochlea as a Model of Metastatic Shockwave

The elegant breakthrough recently announced that the helical function of the cochlea determines the range of pitch of hearing has breathtaking and far ranging implications.

This directly bears upon my theme here in these postings from their beginnings. It is of no small import that it was Riemann who both identified the shockwave as the form of negative curvature (the "Mach cone" seen over time) induced when the pressure wave exceeds the capacity of the medium to transport it AND further carried out research into the fundamental design of the human hearing apparatus as consistent with his view of the positive and negative curvature in his "Hypothesis" dissertation. In fact, it is the point of departure with which he closed that thesis, i.e. that the forms of curvature among n dimensional manifolds are not merely mathematical relics, but are in reality physically causal.

What we have in the case of the cochlea is precisely such physical causality. Firstly, this is an instance of what Riemann and collaborators referred to as "retarded potential." The ever present helical chiral form across all levels of the biological domain is what Leibniz would have characterized as sufficient reason of a living monad. The fact that sound can "bunch up" because of the number of turnings of the helix is indeed the equivalent of the principle of a shock-front of retarded potential of the electromagnetic spectrum as a metastasis. This is further the embedded principle that inheres in DNA and the chirality of all living things. It is the so called autowave or pacemaker wave form and the energetic mechanics of ATPases.

Furthermore, the development of a succession of biotic speciation occurs precisely as the biophysical domain is no longer able to "carry" or sustain the energy of the system with the lower species up to that point. The physical continuum (as opposed to the merely numerical) "heals" the rift caused by creation of new life forms of a higher ordering. (This is the idea of higher "power" in the sense of Cantor's transfinites.)

When the human mind "creates" via technological innovation it is precisely as a sort of micro-cosmical recapitulation (in Cusa's sense)of this macro-cosmical potential. That is, the previous technological domain had to be superseded by the introduction of new resource in order for the continuous sustaining of society. Thus we see not only this model of metastatic shockwave as invariant across all biophysical levels of organization, but as the underlying motive of the living and thinking domains, or what Vernadsky called the noospere.

Elitism on parade

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that when the flap surfaced about Senator Obama being rumored to be a Muslim, he responded in one of his rallies that he prays to Jesus every night. And now he tells us that small town rabble cling to religion as a salve to allay their bitterness. But didn't he cling to religion as a salve to ensure his election stays on course? Is he then bitter or perhaps just thoroughly ingenuous?

Implications of the non linear basis of aesthetics

The recent article in Scientific American: The Human Instrument elegantly demonstrates several interlocking transcendent principles of both art and science. The first is the inherent non linearity of the biophysical vocal instrument. (This in juxtaposition to the inert metallic or previously living wooden instrument's composition.) The distinction between the inorganic and biosphere in the sense developed by Vernadsky is clearly evidenced here. This non linearity persists in the substrate of the living as its sine qua non, as it were. The quality of feedback enhancing the efficacy of the biotic in non linear ways is being rather continuously demonstrated in innumerable instances at the microscopic domain in living tissue.
This issue feeds into the divide between the community of physicists and biologists. (Although stochasticism has crept in through the back door via a reductionist methodology among an over compartmentalized segment of the latter, in areas including such novelties as random molecular walks and attractor predator/prey dynamics.) The point being that linear, entropic systems are prevalent for the most part for the physicists and color their outlook.
The second issue that the researchers bring up is what they refer to as inertial resistance. This is conformal with what Riemann and his pupil Weber referred to as retarded potential. Thus the wave nature itself is transformed via its action upon biota in a peculiar way. If one adds the further cognitive, noetic element of the propagation beyond the means of the means of the medium to carry the wave, one arrives at the shock wave principle. In the case of human singing this would correspond to the composition moving beyond the fixed domain of musical harmonic "laws" to presage the continuing ongoing non entropic development of human society. (This to be understood not in the silly "time reversal" model a la "unscrambled eggs" of negative entropy of Maxwell et al, but rather as the non linear step functional model of the increased reducing power of technological innovation.)
This brings us to the final aesthetic principle that unfortunately the authors don't distinguish between the primal scream therapy of a rock singer and the bel canto principle of covering the voice which also protects it from percussive deleterious effects that can cause nodules. But given the false dichotomy of nonsensical right brain left brain mumbo jumbo separation prevalent in today's college curricula this is understandable. The fact is that the emotion of discovery associated with scientific advancement is decidedly not different than the conveyance of the beautiful or the sublime in art.

A theodicy that coheres with science

Given the rash of recent ballyhoo in the media regarding the so called Anthropic Principle versus atheism, I wish to propound a simple observation. To wit: the issue of the proof of a Creator is indissolubly part and parcel of the advancement of science, period. G.W.F. Leibniz' opus being the case in point. Newton, on the other hand is a mere cat's paw for the sorcerers of the black nobility.

The question is whether in this almost infinitesimally minute segment of space and time we refer to as human history, it has been sufficiently demonstrated that no matter how much we discover the inner workings and inter relationships of the physical, biophysical, noetical domains, there will forever continue to be more to discover. This is the only coherent and valid sense that one can claim any intuition of infinite extension. Everything else as far as a putative cosmology is concerned, including such masturbatory whoppers as the "stringy landscape", is pure phantasmagoria.

The Democratic Mainstream of Conciousness

These days the inner dialog of the congressional Democratic party principals must go something like this: "In the interests of comity, (because the polls show that the people don't like it when we go negative)and not to appear as an "extremist" I must strip, bend over, grin and bear it when Mister Bush and company come a calling." O Tempores, O Mores...

In Defense of Time

It seems that the aforementioned professor Krauss has gotten into the Kickapoo joy juice again. It seems we have now somehow transcendentally just kicked the universe into a hyperdrive paroxysm of heap big heat death entropy by playing peak-a-boo with it. But don't worry, I think if we can just hitch a ride on the time reversal theory of unrelativity we can undo our fate, mayhaps.
Joking aside, the extraordinary discovery of DNA coiling like a sort of mainspring in cyanobacteria compels me to speculate on a real quality of connection between our conception of time and the earth's diurnal rotation. I believe there must be a coherence between a biological wave form like the pacemaker or autowave and this coiling and uncoiling activity of gyrase and topoisomerase enzymes. In human terms, this quality of time is like a sort of carrier wave. Gauss' higher arithmetic supplies the framework for Riemann's multi-dimensional manifold conception. Which is to say, that we can model a multitude of interconnected cycles exhibiting dimensional qualities. (But this in no way gives us the latitude to believe that we can reify these dimensions as truly physical a la string theory.)
But there is something beyond this biological clock conception of time which is distinctively human. Riemann also supplied the means to model a wave function that supersedes the speed at which the medium can carry it. And it is here that the wave form moves from a positive curvature simply radiating outward through the Mach cone series to a negative curvature.
Now carry this image over into the multi-dimensional manifold of human societal relations. Our economy at any one phase should be able to sustain the population. We have a nexus of resources and technologies that make this possible. But due to the relative limits of resources in any historical epoch, there is a necessity to develop new resources that redefine the technological manifold in much the same way that the formation of a shock wave changes the curvature of space for sound. So for humanity there is a kind of built in necessity for scientific progress. Kraft Ehricke referred to the extra terrestrial imperative. If we view time on the grand scale of mankind's mission to colonize other planets and solar systems, then the constraints upon society become our relative imperfect understanding of physics at any point in our history. This truly is the analogy to a kind of projective mapping out to infinite time via a technology vectored purpose for humanity. It is analogous to Einstein's conception of a world line.

Question for Heisenberg

And if upon gazing into the intricate potentiality of the universal conative composition, all that you see reflected back is a void, shall you therefore impose as a would be universal principle that which you call mere chance? What have you brought back but the soul sick pessimism with which you began your investigation? If you wish to see only chaos rather than self similar pre-established harmony you have made that choice for yourself, but wouldn't it be tyrannical indeed to attempt to shackle Dame Science with this cognitive malady of yours?

The Principal of Connectedness

How stunningly art connects the student of humanity across the millennia! If we adhere to a cognizable compositional principle in poetry, song, or the plastic arts, our very act reconnects us in an filial mode to the past and future. And what is the basis of this reconnection if not the meaning of what Plato demonstrated in the Meno dialog, among other places, as the mnemonic power of mind? Is this not the bounded condition of a connected compact Riemannian manifold, while being finite as well as potentially infinite?

The Paradox of Consciousness, Quantum Mechanics, and Metamathematics

All things being equal, it is apparently demonstrated that through the act of observing the "objectively" dual nature of wave versus particle somehow collapses a probabilistic "superposed" state. Any attempt to supply a rigorous description of consciousness compatible with the mathematical language of physics is facilely derided as "mysticism." And for the most part, I would agree with that characterization. While Kurt Goedel’s devastating demonstration of the utter folly of regarding symbolic logic as capable of representing even arithmetic completely, let alone all other aspects of reality was extremely useful, I’m afraid his attempt at a sort of symbolic theodicy via logic is a failure hoisted by his own petard. Because Cantor’s series of transfinite numbers is only completed in the absolutely infinite or what Cusanos described as the non other (non aliud), it would seem that arguing for an approach which would condition consciousness within the bounds of the transfinites must be disallowed as a metaphysical encroachment on “pure physics.” However, the growing importance of characterizing self ordering phenomena as central to many facets of present day scientific investigation under the rubric of “fractal” dimensionalities opens the door to the broader issue of self reflexive modalities.
Permit me, dear reader, to introduce an item here to illustrate this principal more concretely from the standpoint of a seemingly simple stratum of biota. The macrophage is from all reasonable experimental perspectives capable of continuously evolving in order to “outflank” the potential defenses of its host. This in an extreme sort of way evinces a “power” inherent in a conatus or striving of all orders of recognizable biological existence. But what of the ordering principle (or transfinite ordinal power) of the conscious mind that is capable of recognizing the seemingly preternatural ability of this species of living organism to evolve? What power shall we assign to that very same consciousness that can perform such an order of operation of reflective re cognition of this very same biotic power? Is it not immediately self evident that it were absurd not to advance the acceptance that the order of such a noetic consciousness is in a very well defined sense on another non arbitrary higher level of transfinite? And further, does this not permit us to view the concept of power from the standpoint of conative substance as not merely a sterile set theoretical category, but rather as the integument which inexorably leads us to affirm a principle of living orderings which proceeds to an encompassing power of conscious and creatively powerful thought or noesis?

The Subprime Housing Bubble

The reason that so few can conceive the presence of various bubbles going back to the tulip and the John Law bubbles is that monetarism is a pathological belief system. Monetary values are not reality as Mark Twain humorously limned in one of his writings (I forget which one at the moment.) What is real about the economy is whether or not it can adequately sustain a population in the here and now AND in the future. The recent visible collapses of our nation’s infrastructure are the product of the ideological delusions wrought by monetarism’s salacious grasp upon the body politic (pardon the mixed metaphor.) I write this knowing full well of course that most readers will have very little idea whereof I speak due to the execrable state of our education system in this regard.

When mathematical reasoning has been found, it checks political faction and increases concord, for there is no unfair advantage in its presence, and equality reigns. With mathematical reasoning we smooth out differences in our dealings with each other. Through it the poor take from the powerful, and the rich give to the needy, both trusting in it to obtain an equal share... Archytas

An indulgence from Bush

When the crusades were in full tilt, a papal indulgence would be issued to the valiant Christian soldiers marching off to vanquish the Saracens. Bush's recent commutation of Libby's sentence is a sorry farcical instant replay of the same.

The physical and metaphysical application of residues

When Cantor attempted to approach the question of the cardinality of the continuum, there was a fundamental flaw in the very positing of the problem to be solved. Leibniz warned of this when he designated the continuum as a labyrinth. The line of attack was in essence the same blunder that is the faulty axiomatic basis for information theory. That is, a Manichean yes/no, on/off, zero/one reductionism which is radically incommensurate with the actual energetic living and thinking processes which characterize the composition of reality. What Gauss was tackling in his Disquisitions, is an elaboration of the principal that Leibniz adduced that monads never truly are without existence, no matter how much they may be apparently diminished in physical scope. Which is to say, that the posited mechanical principal of entropic heat death is in fact subsumed by a higher reality which is anomalous and contradictory and will always show up as residual in any attempted linear or modular representation. That is indeed why Riemann's study of non Euclidean curvature and Gauss' higher arithmetic are indissolubly connected, and that Cantor's principle of transfinite density functionals is a continuation in the same direction.

Any misguided attempt to create a sort of topological "covering" from a fixed order to an ever potentially evolving substantial universal process is foredoomed to failure and quite frankly madness. As Cusa elaborated for his own time, the microcosm of the human mind or what Leibniz referred to as the thinking monad necessarily recapitulates the entirety of the development of the macrocosmic inert, biophysical, and noetic strata of the universe, no matter how imperfectly and cannot fail to do otherwise except through an obdurate negligent choice. Thus bringing in the element of free will, which can never be accounted for in a system that attempts to reduce or restrict choice to the radically absurd assumption of a simple on/off stochasticism. When the mathematical artifact is taken as the reality then indeed we are confronted with some quite literally insane hypotheses, such as reversing time and hyper-dimensional "m" or string theory.

True or false?

The Supreme Court disintegrates the schools for Jesus.

A curious method whereby to disprove the big bang

Now not to be overmuch ribald, but only a male ego could have idealized this kind of monstrousmoonshine bigness to begin with. Just as Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether were wont to prove in times gone by, the world as we surmise was begat with not a whimper but a bang. Aha! -- you say-- but where's the proof? But that brings us to yeast and fermentation does it not? I mean the proof in the pudding, of course. Silly boys. I'm talking inflation here -- and not that wag of a Socrates' baker's fart, either. Hold on, let's get to the premise, shall we. Now in the merest fraction of infinite time we shall not even know anymore that we came from this universe. What the? Ya, ya... this is so. In a trillion years give or take, (and what's a trillion among friends?) we will have lost the ability to know from whence we came. Balderdash, you say. Tut, tut, I say. Introducing straight from a simulation in Monte Carlo, or some such place, Drs. Krauss and Scherrer, I'm not making this up. (This study was supported in part by the US Dept. of Energy (or is it entropy?)) It seems that our cosmic event horizon will develop a robust case of astigmatism so we won't even know the rest of the now visible universe was even here in a trillion years, or so. Alack and alas. Woe is us. But wait... I have it. Let us redirect our hard earned cash from such mountebanks and create a new project for SETI. Let's give um some pizazz, shall we? Okay, so here goes. All we need now is a little note from about a trillion years ago, not a dissertation or treatise, mind you. Just a tidbit, scrawled on a post it note, if you will, of just what the universe looked like before we lost sight of it. (By we, I mean us sentient intelligent beings, of course... before we got bent out of shape.) Now how's that for a mission?

Implications of the Biophysical Meaning of Clock Genes Role in Repotentiation

The method of composition which is the most true heretofore in human history was exhibited in the seminal work of Ludwig von Beethoven-- in particular, his string quartet, the Grosse Fugue. Why? Because this work successfully demonstrates a victory of the very principal of classical composition over apparent arbitrariness. Once you actually take the time to either truly listen to that piece anew or for the first time the principal I am emphasizing becomes self evident.

To wit, given a function which exhibits a rather profound level of seemingly chaotic randomness, it must always be possible to tame this critter by at least one less degree of arbitrariness. (For those in my audience who attempt to keep up with today's astonishing welter of meta mathematics known as category theory, one might say that the very last statement is an ironic categorization, if you will, of Bernhardt Riemann's dealing with arbitrary functions equivalent to Beethoven's principal.) Now look at the Ninth Symphony in this light also. The fourth movement evinces a musical method of capturing and recapitulating the essence of the preceding three movements and bringing them thus to their inevitable crisis or denouement. Finally, the Promethean crescendo is produced which resolves this at a higher functional level.

Now, this last point is critical to the subject of this essay and will be brought into focus anon. The question of why there is a sort of built in cyclical necessity to mental development, both in the broad spectrum of human history and in one's own mental microcosmic recapitulation of that history, is intimately tied up in the issue of why we need to dream. I was frankly astonished yesterday, when I came across this posting in Nature: "Rhythmic growth explained by coincidence between internal and external cues." Heretofore, it appears that the study of circadian oscillators (here I must interpolate my prior insistence on the importance of so-called biophysical pacemakers or autowaves in energetics) proceeded without taking into consideration the variable of the "external cue" of the diurnal dark to light cycle's effect on helix-loop-helix clock gene in regulating plant growth patterns. Even though, it appears, that previous experiments were carried on in the artificial light of the laboratory, there was a metaphorical darkness thereby akin to Goya's excellent cartoon -- The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. But shift one's viewpoint to an eagle's eye overview of the entirety of the functional process here and it becomes clear what the functional energetics of the interplay of internal and external cues are.

Now bring to mind the foregoing image from Nicholas of Cusa and Leibniz of the interplay between the micro- and macrocosm of thinking monads. Is it any wonder therefore that dreams themselves of great players on the human stage of history were given such a preternatural or outre distinction? That which on the surface of things might appear to be an arbitrary or chaotic juxtaposition of mental images in dreams, in fact has as its genetic principle a repotentiation of the societal interplay of human growth and development.

Giving Pause

A simple walk through the neighborhood

Brings to mind the birth of stars mirrored

In blooms of tulip tree blossoms that shoot out

Like delicacies of prose found in memories of posies.

A surface on the lake just when the ice is melting

Shows dendrites like those astrocytes on the manifold

Of mind. A slice of our senses like the shadows

On the wall. We see now in the glass as a laser

Gives out the critical phase, so the tongue marshals

Our slight ken. Ever diminished in light of the receding

Spacetime locus. But growing with the zenith of reason

To a higher non linear curve. Why are we not astounded

When at every resolution there is a striving for perfection?

It is not the heavy ladened mechanics of those dire prophesies

Of perpetual frozen matter insensate like Dante’s Satan’s lair.

No not those chaotic screech owl like random walks,

But a nobler resolution as true as the gift of the lightning rod

Through freedom to convoke communion in purpose.

We see an axis in the cosmos like sugar and protein

And impossible configurations to shift toward the light

Synthetic of the mindseye. If there be not here a motive

To surcease of sorrow, then there will never be one.

What madness hath overtaken us like children of Gorgon

Only to be forever reliving our Atreus like poisoned

Genetic dance? Yet the motion of helix can be a disease

Or a blessing. We are built like Damocles through and through.

Which way will you choose, oh futurity? There is but one path

On the labyrinth of causation. Eureka, aye and anon.

The bird flies as our heart lifts we exhale our soul’s sail.

Recapitulation of an Ordering Principle

The recent analysis of alignment in chirality of spiral galaxies along the so called "axis of evil" points to an ordering principle of development which subsists across the inert/biophysical/cognitive domains in an interconnected way at all levels of resolution. As I introduced the concept earlier, there is an analogy of "choice" in some primitive sense in the simplest biota. The resolution of the paradox of the numerical continuum can only be had with the understanding that it (the continuum) is a resultant of human thought. Therefore its scope is conformal with a world line of discontinuous progress in the arts and sciences. Take all of human history and determine whether there is the equivalent of an axis of asymmetric organization across cultures. Wilhelm von Humboldt's study of linguistic variability as it influences the capability of human creativity is precisely an endeavor in this direction.

A true notion of a multi dimensional manifold of a strictly functional sort here begins to come into focus. (This in thorough contradistinction from the idea in string theory of hidden physical dimensions.) Firstly, the functional form of significance is premised upon a notion of useful work being performed. The development of heavy elements in the interior of stars systems including their shockwave creation in supernova is "work" being done on a spectacular cosmic scale. It is not unconnected with the fact that progress in human society is forged from a development of tools as knowledge of metals is fostered. Likewise, the use of metal ions to process the complex folding of proteins in the biophysical realm.

Just as the notion of choice is expanded, by reflection on its equivalence across realms, so is the notion of work. This is the truth of a theory of geometrical "connections" among a multi dimensional framework. It is only in this sense that the associated mathematics is non trivial. Bearing this point in mind, the issue of apparent randomness of action, for instance Brownian motion, quantum fluctuations, etc., must be redefined. The generation of a cyclical wave function of any kind gives the lie to characterizing the universal ontology as "chaotic." For one must put forward the question of why any such wave function should exist in the first place. Ignoring this issue, can only be accomplished by mental gymnastics of denying that the form of question has any validity. And yet, even by the very act of denial, there exists an asserted non chaotic universal substance. Whatever the future direction of biophysics determines regarding the scenario of the emergence of the "RNA world," the distinct principle of higher ordering emergence can not be neglected. This quality of emergence is not somehow magically, spontaneously generated out of chaos as it were.

It is on the basis of an ecumenical dialog in this direction of seeing the betterment of human society as the goal of governance, that the current descent into primitive forms of surrogate warfare can be averted.

Artificially intelligent?

What is the “density” of a quantum of “information?” Say that for example, I communicate to you a method for investigating anomalies in the domains of the inert, biophysical, and human consciousness or the mutual interaction among each of them. Now this method is a dialectic. That is, it is not a fixed set of nostrums or formulas that resolve a particular problem, but rather a methodology that subsumes whatever level of knowledge that might prevail at any future historical epoch. Take Socrates as the paradigm of this. Now it is nigh unto irrefutable that the dialogues of especially Plato which centered about the historical person of Socrates when taken up afresh by successive civilizations efficiently caused transformations in society. Thereby Socrates’ ideas acted efficiently to transform the practice of humanity centuries after his life ended. If you read Moses Mendelssohn’s Phaedon, essentially you see this principal revealed. In that what this dialogue does is that it uses the death of Socrates to convey a set of principles that subsumes a particular historical incident. There is nothing untruthful in having Socrates set forth ideas which are modeled upon the writings of Nicholas of Cusa and Gottfried Leibniz because that series represents a sort of self similar continuum of enquiry which is taken up afresh by successive generations, and thereby continuously enriched (or so one might hope.) Contrast this as an evolutionary principle with the threadbare and reductionist weltanschauung of Darwin and his ilk. The notion that somehow an accumulation of percussive interactions will somehow magically add up to such a nested series of subsuming transfinite ordinals is clinically quite insane. Yet, this is the prevailing methodology (if one chooses to characterize it by a name that it doesn’t deserve) of so called information theory today. This is basis for stochastic theory emanating from the standard of radically reductionist Empiricism This is what underlies the assumptions of the probability matrix of procedures inherited from Bayes, et al. The irrational a-causality quantum mechanics that Einstein scoffed at as God throwing dice. This is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in essence.

Given this prevailing idiosyncratic failure of choice of scientific method, how is it that any progress is made despite all of these crudities as it were? Well that goes to the point there is a sort of “auto pilot” that follows from the unfolding in investigating physical and biophysical reality itself. By sticking to the course of investigating a certain class of anomalies in science a Promethean quality of agapic (or brotherly) love of humanity wins out, ironically so. Imagine the irony when that author of the US constitution, erstwhile having the nom de plume of Silas Dogood, gave the world free of patent the lightning rod. So during the course of investigating the constituents of the immune system, for example, perforce one is ineluctably driven via a vector-like design inherent in this realm that smacks of a higher ordered principle. One does the good in spite of oneself (to paraphrase Shelley.) The question is when will humanity remove those self-imposed blinders of misguided ideology?