Logic and reason
Are never in season.
Attention is grabbed by confusion and fear.
Monday, January 21, 2019
Robert T. Lundy
['From Nostradamus to Alan Greenspan' (poem in 'Analog' July/August 2012)]
Logic and reason
Logic and reason
Saturday, January 19, 2019
Thomas Paine
[Age of Reason and the 'Introduction' by Philip Foner]
About Paine (per Foner):
Anti-slavery writings starting in 1775.
With Ben Franklin, co-authored the Pennsylvania constitution, "by far the most advanced state constitution adopted during the American revolution." (included universal [male] suffrage, democratic representation, religious freedom)
Later defended attacks on the Pennsylvania constitution's "cardinal sin of allowing the common people according to their number a voice in their government."
In the Pennsylvania legislature in 1780, wrote the "first legislative measure passed in America for the emancipation of slaves."
Helped found the Bank of Pennsylvania.
Aided the French revolution — advised on the constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, wrote Rights of Man to answer critics.
Advocated public education, welfare, pensions, funeral expenses, progressive income tax, property tax, treaties, reduction of the military (esp. the navy).
Became convinced that to preserve republican principles, it was necessary to destroy the priesthood.
Was a Deist, not an atheist.
About Paine (per Foner):
Anti-slavery writings starting in 1775.
With Ben Franklin, co-authored the Pennsylvania constitution, "by far the most advanced state constitution adopted during the American revolution." (included universal [male] suffrage, democratic representation, religious freedom)
Later defended attacks on the Pennsylvania constitution's "cardinal sin of allowing the common people according to their number a voice in their government."
In the Pennsylvania legislature in 1780, wrote the "first legislative measure passed in America for the emancipation of slaves."
Helped found the Bank of Pennsylvania.
Aided the French revolution — advised on the constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, wrote Rights of Man to answer critics.
Advocated public education, welfare, pensions, funeral expenses, progressive income tax, property tax, treaties, reduction of the military (esp. the navy).
Became convinced that to preserve republican principles, it was necessary to destroy the priesthood.
Was a Deist, not an atheist.
Introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income through a one-time inheritance tax on landowners.
- - - - - - - Paine quotes from Foner's Introduction - - - - - -
[Paine himself said he went] marching through the Christian forest with an axe.
I seldom passed five minutes ... in which I did not acquire some knowledge.
Why is it that scarcely any are executed but the poor?
Primogeniture [is] unnatural and unjust and a great waste of national wealth.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - [from Age of Reason] - - - - - - - - -
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
I do not believe in the creed ... [of] any church ... My own mind is my own church.
A revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion.
Organized religion was set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.
Every church accuses other churches of unbelief. I disbelieve them all.
[T]he Church has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue, in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.
[A]ll my opponents resort to ... Scripture evidence and Bible authority.... [They] have agreed in nothing but that Paine understands [the Bible] not.
- - - - - - - Paine quotes from Foner's Introduction - - - - - -
[Paine himself said he went] marching through the Christian forest with an axe.
I seldom passed five minutes ... in which I did not acquire some knowledge.
Why is it that scarcely any are executed but the poor?
Primogeniture [is] unnatural and unjust and a great waste of national wealth.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - [from Age of Reason] - - - - - - - - -
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
I do not believe in the creed ... [of] any church ... My own mind is my own church.
A revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion.
Organized religion was set up to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.
Every church accuses other churches of unbelief. I disbelieve them all.
[T]he Church has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue, in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.
[A]ll my opponents resort to ... Scripture evidence and Bible authority.... [They] have agreed in nothing but that Paine understands [the Bible] not.
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Georg C. Lichtenberg
[Aphorisms, Notebook J 1789 ]
... no amount of determinism can prevent [one] from believing that he acts as a free being.
or
... all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, [man] believes he has free will.
... no amount of determinism can prevent [one] from believing that he acts as a free being.
or
... all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, [man] believes he has free will.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Gandhi
[from an article about snakebites (1913)]
[Close to the mis-attributed "Be the change you seek in the world."]
If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.
[Close to the mis-attributed "Be the change you seek in the world."]
If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.
Alphabetical author list
- Saul Alinsky on sociology
- Dennis Altman anti-gay bigotry: origins and fighting it
- James Baldwin racism
- Jacques Barzun on significance and difficulty
- Gregory Bateson on the social "sciences"
- Gregory and Mary Bateson syllogism of metaphor
- Alison Bechdel on delayed gay teenage years
- Daniel Bell what history should focus on
- H. E. Booker on Bachelors and Doctors degrees
- Jorge Luis Borges on aging
- Samuel Butler on prayer
- Jorge Castañeda U.S. / Mexico relations
- Noam Chomsky domino theory; U.S. media
- Arthur C. Clarke Clarke's Laws
- Harvey Cox on specialization
- Steve Cuno on quarantine economy
- Samuel R. (Chip) Delany mainstream fiction vs. SF; civilization's built-in enemies
- Annie Dillard profligate nature
- Cory Doctorow on non-voters
- Ralph Waldo Emerson "Language is fossil poetry."
- Timothy Ferris on blind belief vs. evidence and science
- R. Buckminster Fuller on genius
- Gandhi ~ be the change...
- Adam Gopnik Christianity invented religious intolerance
- Tim Gowers on collaboration
- G. H. Hardy science is said to be useful if ...
- Eric Hoffer the learners vs. the learned
- Aldous Huxley channeling power into learning
- Ivan Illich on cars
- Molly Ivins on undeserving rich
- Gary Kasparov on propaganda
- Christina Anne Knight defining religion
- Donald E. Knuth on teaching computers
- Thomas Kuhn on reading apparent absurdities
- Timothy Leary on age
- Ursula LeGuin secret desires; endless growth; "I don't believe in evolution, I accept it."
- Ursula LeGuin on suicide
- Georg C. Lichtenberg on determinism / free will
- Robert T. Lundy logic, reason, confusion, fear
- Scott McNealy zero privacy
- HarveyMilk coming out
- Candida Moss Christianity violently opposes pluralism of thought
- Catherine Nixey Christianity invented religious intolerance
- Thomas Paine
- Robert Pastor U.S. / Mexico relations
- Thomas Piketty on non-voters
- Cecil Rhodes on the lottery of life
- Richard Rorty on worship and on social goals
- Richard Rorty objectivity; physics vs. psychology
- Richard Rorty personhood, awareness, civil rights
- Jane Rule inventing heaven and hell
- Joanna Russ "Women ought to run things ... "
- Martha Shelley having to keep being gay secret
- Michael Shermer "overidentify patterns and causation"
- Baruch Spinoza
- Neal Stephenson on agreeing on facts
- Adlai Stevenson "That's not enough..."
- Jonathan Symons anti-gay bigotry: origins and fighting it
- William Irwin Thompson on entertainment
- William Irwin Thompson on sociology
- William Irwin Thompson on political virtual reality
- William Irwin Thompson on just war
- Mark Twain on bad habits
- Gore Vidal "do as I advise"
- Tim Wu on economic concentration
- William Butler Yeats fed the heart on fantasies
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
R. Buckminster Fuller
[NASA speech (1966)]
There is no such thing as genius, some children are just less damaged than others.
There is no such thing as genius, some children are just less damaged than others.
Friday, May 18, 2018
Ivan Illich
[Energy and Equity (1974)]
The typical American male devotes more than 1,600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly instalments. He works to pay for petrol, tolls, insurance, taxes and tickets, He spends four of his sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering his resources for it.
And this figure does not take into account the time consumed by other activities dictated by transport: time spent in hospitals, traffic courts and garages; time spent watching automobile commercials or attending consumer education meetings to improve the quality of the next buy.
The model American puts in 1,600 hours to get 7,500 miles: less than five miles per hour. In countries deprived of a transportation industry, people manage to do the same, walking wherever they want to go, and they allocate only three to eight per cent of their society's time budget to traffic, instead of 28 per cent.
What distinguishes the traffic in rich countries from the traffic in poor countries is not more mileage per hour of life-time for the majority, but more hours of compulsory consumption of high doses of energy, packaged and unequally distributed by the transportation industry.
[paragraph breaks added]
The typical American male devotes more than 1,600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly instalments. He works to pay for petrol, tolls, insurance, taxes and tickets, He spends four of his sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering his resources for it.
And this figure does not take into account the time consumed by other activities dictated by transport: time spent in hospitals, traffic courts and garages; time spent watching automobile commercials or attending consumer education meetings to improve the quality of the next buy.
The model American puts in 1,600 hours to get 7,500 miles: less than five miles per hour. In countries deprived of a transportation industry, people manage to do the same, walking wherever they want to go, and they allocate only three to eight per cent of their society's time budget to traffic, instead of 28 per cent.
What distinguishes the traffic in rich countries from the traffic in poor countries is not more mileage per hour of life-time for the majority, but more hours of compulsory consumption of high doses of energy, packaged and unequally distributed by the transportation industry.
[paragraph breaks added]
Arthur C. Clarke
Clarke's Laws:
Every revolutionary idea — in science, politics, art, or whatever — seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases:
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Every revolutionary idea — in science, politics, art, or whatever — seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases:
(1) "It's completely impossible — don't waste my time";
(2) "It's possible, but it's not worth doing";
(3) "I said it was a good idea all along."
(2) "It's possible, but it's not worth doing";
(3) "I said it was a good idea all along."
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