eva matthews

On my profile page, 'male' seems to be the default, as is 'Singapore' for time zone'. Perhaps some noticed that, to? So am I Malay or ethnic Chinese? In any case, these errors bunch nicely with my spelling as for viable cause: i'm always in a rush & simply don't bother to correct what's otherwise a 'social' (non-academic) endeavor. In this way, among others, I'm a typical, slobby student: jeans, little makeup, 5-6 slender, inter-mural soccer (all-state high school!). I'm not really 'looking' for another steadyguy, as I enjoy the freedom after a two-year relationship. My special side is having been raised a college brat (particle physics, psych) & having tested 3-400 level college apt in math at 10. Last year I did teach theoretical math, but this year I'm working with mom in experimental psych. I padooddle the numbers, of course. My intellectual extras do include philo, but also lit and, now, anthropology. My take on Libertarianism is somewhat minoritarian, but actually not by much. Lowering taxes has nothing to do with freedom, rather, the practicality of freeing more money for the private sector. Consequently, I'm hard on Rand because a misstated philosophical solution is a fly in the soup, as far as realistic political action is concerned. EM

General Relativity (GR) predicts a finite universe that's in a steady state. With the observations of Hubble, however, we know that the universe, while finite, is expanding. This required a revision of GR that was done by others, based upon the differential geometry of Wyl...another story. Independent of any theory, we also have 20+ year old evidence that waves bounce off of the universe's rim, and are therefore received. So the search for gravitational waves is normal science, given said ability to receive, which is an instrumental issue. In this respect, there's the possibility of an announcement tomorrow! Because Special Relativity (SR) demonstrates the conversion of matter to energy and back, gravity adheres to both. This tends to clump gravity, making the calculations based upon light obviously a bit difficult. Fortunately, this bending of light around gravity was calculated by Einstein the original GR formulation. The curvature is said to be 'Ricci', expressed as a Riemannian 'tensor'. The reason why this is important is that the article referred to GR, but erred I believe, as to why GR is important. It's the process of measurement, not the finite, 'rooftop' prediction. EM

The subject in question, Smith, seems rather fond of the altruism issue as raised by Rand; the reference to his article is attached to all of his postings on OL. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that Smith gives Rand’s ideas unnecessary gloss. This, of course, is important in the sense that it firewalls the writer from a he-said-she-said confusion of cross purposes. For all extent and purposes, Smithrand is Randsmith. As such, Rand’s thesis is simple: altruism stands opposed to selfishness. Now this is obvious. One is said to be either thinking of others’ interests or of oneself during moments when the dilemma presents itself. Rand goes on, however, to link altruism with reason. By consequence, altruism is unreasonable. Yet this can easily be seen to either be false or a tautology: ‘false’ in the sense that most of social life involves putting a collective ahead of oneself in order to achieve future gain. It’s a ‘tautology’ because if all acts of giving have an ulterior purpose ( and are therefore ‘reasonable’), the notion itself of altruism becomes senseless. An excellent example of how altruism works can be seen in the Pauline texts, ostensibly beginning with 1Cor13— “agapion demeicho, outhern emi’—without giving, I am nothing. The point, here, is that the act of giving (Lat ‘caritas’) creates the requisite circulation of goods and services which binds the community together. Because Roman incursion had destroyed the social networks of all lands they had seen fit to ‘visit’, a new religion was needed to bind people back together into a ‘soma’ (body, community). In terms of basic Anthropology, one needs look no further than Malinowski’s study of the Trobriand Islands. Suffice to say that the inhabitants discovered the virtue of altruism prior to the intrusion of the missionaries! So I could go on and on, but you see the point: all viable societies understand the natural pitfalls to selfishness, and adapt accordingly with rules of how to share. Aristotle, btw, called this ‘metadosis’. Spinoza, for his part, defined the organization of democracy with this particular in mind. His own account of human behavior was that of ‘conatus’, or ‘striving’, and also went on to say that “after all, all humans always want to be right and to have their own way”. His solution, then, was rather straightforward. Social organization is always a matter of all of the particular individuals understanding that their collective power (potens) is greater than that of multiple singularities (potestas). So in modern industrial society, one might infer that organized collectivism, or formal redistribution, has simply supplanted social custom. Nowhere do we see total altruism or total selfishness. Everywhere they function together, at least where functionality can be discerned. Now this leads to my point about Comte. Briefly, Randsmith asserts without proof that his writings somehow serve as the basis for the modern welfare state. And, of course, we have this silly polemic between the opposite 'great ideas', somewhere in the Hegelian spacetime manifold of 19th century thought. Perhaps, then thisis where Smithrand really belong? This leads to my own two points, which I call the ‘Borodino syndrome’ and the ‘hysterical historical’. First, this past summer was that of the ‘familial split’. I went to Paris, Sissy to London, and Momndad to Athens, Budapest (family)…then on to Russia. All of us returned home with endless stories—so here’s my fave from the parental unit: While in Moscow, they decided to take a tour bus out to the Borodino battlefield of War and Peace. The tour director was fluent English, even with no accent. “Here”, he said, literally in tears, “is where Pierre manned the cannon against the charging French infantry!” “But”, said, my dad, “even by Tolstoy’s account it was ‘here’ on the parapet that the French broke the Russian lines, killing everyone. And if Pierre didn’t survive, he could not have married Natasha!” Well, it’s obvious where I get my smart-ass nature, but the larger point is that one cannot substitute fiction for reality. Newsflash: Smith talks of Galt and Tuhoy as if they were real, historical examples, rather than stickboard figurines drawn from screenplay. In other words, that Tuhoy is ‘altruistic’ and Galt is selfish’ proves absolutely nothing other than the obvious fact that rand’s characters lack prerequisite complexity to pass as real humans. Moreover, absolutely no other example is offered by Smith as to how altruism and egoism work themselves out in the real world. They’re real-life ‘opposites’ because that’s how they’re described as characters In Rand’s novels. How pathetic. As for the ‘hysterical historical’, we have Smith claiming, as a Randian mouthpiece, that the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Inquisition, etc… were all caused by ‘altruism’. But no proof is offered (of course!), rather, merely a blind, hysterical assertion. Now Smith should know better. His book on liberty was accepted for publication by Cambridge –quite an honor!—because of the scholarship and research involved. Yet he writes on history as if the same standards do not apply. So given his capacity to do legitimate work, this digression into Randite doxology is shameful. Or rather, et’s just say that after the glory of the Cambridge publication, he renounced scholarship for screed. Lastly , regarding Rand herself, her employ of ‘The Borodino syndrome’ and the ‘hysterical historical’ drives my point home, once again, that she was a put-on who, intellectually speaking, knew better. These errors are childish to the point of lacking standards of a decent high-school. EM EM

Jules, No one denies that a minority of scientists disagree with human-caused global warming. Likewise, the HGW debate is clouded on both sides by scientists whose work is not directly involved in the issue. Yes, only .45 of 1% of our atmosphere is CO2. This corresponds back to earth mean temperature on the Keeling Curve. An additional part of CO2 will give a commensurate raise in temperature, ceteris paribus. Obviously the debate centers around accuracy of the measurements and data access. Of course,the large x factor is the absorption of CO2 into the oceans, obviously a huge problem in itself. Lastly, both the measurements and the stochastic use of Keeling have been dramatically refined since they were first used by Hansen; with loopback configurations (Baysean, With new variables) the problem seems to be getting worse... So where the 'no' side talks of ambiguity and contradiction among the 'yeses', the reality is that the data differences are new versus old, with modern simulations going 'chaotic'--which is obviously really, really bad. EM EM

So at least we can agree that you amerikans have the wherewithal to look up 'anthropocene yourselves on Wiki, and perhaps 'Keeling curve, global ocean warming' as well? Progress, at last! EM Such a petulent child. such a lazy ignoramus

I'm afraid I've searched the article in vain for a working definition of 'cultural Marxist'. I do know the obvious one, however: certain people claim to be 'Marxist', which can be verified by comparing their utterances to what you, as a normal, intelligent person, understands Marxism to be. They then apply said Marxist concepts to issues of culture. To this end, most socialists are not only not Marxist, they violently disagree with his theories much in the same way that Randites denounce the Republican party and Libertarianism, too. Although it's easy to disagree with both of them (as I do!), their political behavior and ideology is quite different. Even within the context of Marx, there are huge differences. One, in fact, is that which the author blundered into himself. Brecht claimed Marxism for himself, and likewise denounced the Stalinist state as as anti-Marxist as you could find. Now this is not a trivial point by any means: Sidney Hook wrote the same thing in a cute article entitled 'Marx from heaven', or something like that. Hook, btw, was the guy who gave Peikhoff his PhD at Dust Bunny U. EM

Then why did he call the cosmological constant his biggest mistake? Ellen He added his "cosmological constant" in order to have a steady-state universe. Hubble's observations proved beyond doubt that the universe is expanding. Had Einstein left his equations alone he (or others) would have predicted on the basis of theory that the universe is either expanding or contracting. He would have scooped Hubble just by theoretical means. Ba'al Chatzaf I know why he added the cosmological constant, Bob. Eva stated - see above - that Einstein "stubbornly believed , to the end, that the universe was fixed." If indeed Einstein had believed to the end that the universe was fixed, why would he have called the cosmological constant his biggest mistake? I.e., Eva is reporting incorrectly. Possibly what she's thinking of is Einstein's persisting dislike of quantum mechanics. Ellen The equation for General Relativity gives infinite time (Friedmman), yet finite space (Ricci). In this sense, if one were to say that Einstein 'believed' in his own equation, he likewise believed the universe was 'fixed'. Stubbornly enough. Here it must be noted that the first real Big Bang model of Lemaitre did not allow for an expansionary universe as such The Cosmo constant was a blunder because the coefficient doesn't work. Rather, it's allows for instability. Because at any 'time' along the spacetime manifold gravity would take hold, the system would collapse. In other words, a gravatational collapse need only happen once, and that's that. Again, this is inherent in the equation itself. CC failed to solve the problem inherent in GR. Then came the Hubble discovery. In terms of 1930-ish science, GR could accommodate the fact that galaxies were moving away, as long as they did not expand the dimensions of the universe itself. That would come around 1990, or so and, again, require a revision of GR in terms of Wyl geometrics. So Einsteins second 'blunder' was the proposal of a CC, as such. Accepting Hubble, it wasn't necessary; acceleration itself was overcoming gravity well enough as it was. Einstein did not dislike QM, as he was an original founder. He simply did not accept the Copenhagen solution for wave/particle dissimilarity of equations: accept both, on different days. Nor was he inclined to accept probabalism. as a final solution. Therefore, most of the talk of wave/particle 'duality' and Heisenberg 'uncertainty' comes from his side of the debate with Bohr, per all those letters. This, of course, did not impede him from working with Bose on an integrative path for special relativity into the particle world by means of said 'Heisenberg', probability-laden as it was. Lastly, whenever you decide to be polite, i'll be happy to explain the math of physics for you. Otherwise, there's always google. EM

So at least we can agree that you amerikans have the wherewithal to look up 'anthropocene yourselves on Wiki, and perhaps 'Keeling curve, global ocean warming' as well? Progress, at last! EM

Civilization as we know it has flourished during the current interglacial. That last ice age is what separated the neanderthal from the cro mag. The cro mags were able to put their social and technical skills to work to figure out how to survive the Ice. The neanderthals did not make the grade. The disappeared about 30,000 years BP. We have been spoiled rotten by an interglcaial period of 10-15 thousand years and many believe the climate we now enjoy has been the "normal" climate of Earth. Bzzzzt.... Not true. When the next Big Freeze comes modern homo sapien will be put to as rigorous a challenge as faced neanderthal and cro mag. Given the accumulated technical skills of over 10,000 years of civilization we probably will make it. I think.... I hope... Ba'al chatzaf Frequently, geologists are using the term 'Anthropocene' to describe our present age as one in which human behavior drives large-scale geological factors. The melting of the ice sheet is due to an unfortunate factor that's frequently overlooked when human-caused global warming is discussed: a huge amount of the heat associated with carbon emissions goes into the oceans. This, of course, will throw the predicted increase in atmospheric temperatures off (Keeling Curve); but nevertheless it's still there... EM

Actually he was down on the Imperialism of his nation. He degraded those who put their faith in "reeking tube and shard". He knew at some level the game was up for British Imperialism. Ba'al Chatzaf I believe you're citing "God of our fathers..."? 'Interesting interpretation! Mine is more run-of-the-mill: as we colonialists are doing god's work, me must not forget (him). EM

Then why did he call the cosmological constant his biggest mistake? Ellen He added his "cosmological constant" in order to have a steady-state universe. Hubble's observations proved beyond doubt that the universe is expanding. Had Einstein left his equations alone he (or others) would have predicted on the basis of theory that the universe is either expanding or contracting. He would have scooped Hubble just by theoretical means. Ba'al Chatzaf Extended into a field equation, GR 'predicts' on the basis of the acceleration of stars (spacetime tensor). So yes, increase the tensor's values and you'll get an 'escape', or the famous 'hyperbola', when you padoodle the math. (In case you haven't noticed, my physics really sucks. I just do the equations & dad comes around to tell me what they mean..."Oh, so when the values go ++ on the two functions on all 4 coodrinates, that means the universe is expanding? Like, totally cool!") Anyway... So yes, has Al known of the expanding universe due to real Hubblish evidence, he would not have had to fudge in a coefficient to justify his--and everyone else's-- beliefs. But GR as written in 1915 would have only been 95% correct. This is because stars 'way out' are off the gravatational tensor. Again, the solution was offered by Wyl who, i hasten to mention, is one of my math-people. Moreover, according to my 13 year old niece, her idol, Peyton List, explains Wyl so easily that gravity is now referred to by tweens in the know as 'gravy'. EM

If you seriously think that the introduction is nothing more than that which is restated by the conclusion --and not an intent to prejudice--then you're one dumb motherfucker. Sincerely, the Bitch.

And what has given you insight into the physiology of optics? Cite your sources. Back up your claims with proof. Let's revist my alleged "hissy fit." You had claimed that "the sensation of depth and shimmer that Vermeer, et al, achieved was enhanced by glossing the surface." My alleged "hissy fit" consisted of nothing but my asking for clarity on what you meant by "glossing the surface," and my asking you to explain how you had scientifically determined that "glossing the surface" resulted in the effects that you claimed, versus other possible explanations. Here's what I asked you: See, the reason that I asked you to clarify your comment on "glossing the surface" is because there are different possible methods of achieving gloss effects. I was trying to determine if you were referring to a flood coat of varnish on a finished painting, or if you were referring to selective applications of other media in discrete areas, or something else. It is amusing that you take someone's asking for clarity as a "hissy fit." You're not actually discussing physiology or biology as applied to the visual effects of varnish, but rather your own personal misinterpretation of physiology or biology as applied to the visual effects of varnish. Apparently you misread and misunderstood a textbook or wikipedia entry, and now you imagine that you're an expert on the subject. What do you mean that I have nothing concrete to say? How did you miss my post #195? In it, I offered something quite concrete in response to your pretend information about vision and the effects of varnish: Eva, the problem with your approach of pretending to know what you're talking about is that you overlook the fact that reality is much more nuanced and contextual than what your ignorant pronouncements allow for. The effects of gloss or matte finishes are different in different lighting scenarios, as well as when applied over different hues, values and levels of saturation. Depending on the context in which a painting is viewed, a matte finish might add to the effects of the illusion of depth, or it might subtract from it. The same is true of gloss finishes. It's not one-size-fits-all as you suggest. I also offered the concrete challenge that you must support your claims by citing sources: So, I think what you need to do is to cite the sources from which you imagine you're getting your information on "the physiology of optic depth-reception," and then maybe some of us can review it and help you resolve your misunderstandings, errors and contradictions. You didn't respond. Where is the science to support your claims? Cite your sources. Let us review your research. Ah, so we have yet another Pigero in our midst, who has somehow acquired better artistic consumer tastes than everyone else? Heh. Is that your big achievement in life, Eva? You've somehow achieved the outstanding accomplishment of acquiring superior consumer tastes? How did you do it? By anointing yourself an expert on physiology you also somehow received the magical bonus of superior artistic taste? Heh. But seriously, Eva, what have you accomplished in life? I mean, I think we all get it already: You look down your nose at everyone else's achievements and creations, and you seem to want to believe that you're so much smarter and better and more tasteful than everyone, but yet you don't seem to produce anything yourself. It's as if you need to believe that negatively judging others' productivity or tastes will somehow make your lack of productivity virtuous. It's obviously not working. Clearly you're not succeeding in fooling yourself or anyone else, because you keep coming back for more and more fixes for your addiction. May I make a suggestion? Instead of trying to derive self-esteem from your consumer tastes and negative judgments of others' productivity, you should work to derive it from producing something of value yourself. Try to play in the leagues that you're currently jeering at from the cheap seats. Let's see how that goes. J Actually, the best response to 'sources' is offered by the site's esteemed owner, Michael. It should all be on Wiki, for your convenience. Your own problem, to return the complement, is pretending to be something more than a mediocre, draftsman-artiste of flat surfaces. EM

it's not even good high-school journalism to prejudice one's source prior to making factual points. Whether or not Obama is intelligent or moral in his stance towards Israel should be a conclusion, not a premise. In any case, the author's factual presentation of the main issue is false: Israel continues to build settlements while, a the same time, talking of negotiating to halt construction. To this end, all Obama is saying offering is common-sense truth: Israel cannot use the threat of future construction as a means of negotiation. He's also saying, dismantle all the settlements, immediately, or your on your own, with no US assistance. We simply have no rationale for being involved; the support of Israel for sentimental reasons is a luxury we cannot afford, thereby working against our overall regional security, which includes peace with Iran. That an Iranian general actually said something not nice about Obama is hardly newsworthy. Lastly, if a Randite wants to write a novel that continues the adventures of John & Dagny, setting it, say, on the Golan Heights, go for it, I say! because their utopian settlement, Dollarland, is overrun by Hamas, and they all die, it's entitles 'Atlas Mugged'.. EM

They also come in many opinions, many of whom do not support the existence of a Zionist state. EM

Bob, Unless you believe in gods and call them things like dark matter and dark energy. This is a question of faith, not reason. When you, Bob, use these terms, you are using them as placeholders. When others use them, it's an act of worship. Uga-uga... Michael Who, exactly are 'others'?

Assuming your logic that Kipling was a stalking horse for racist imperialism, Alinsky was a stalking horse for marxist racist imperialism. As to asking you a question, I did in post # 13 supra... A... Sorry, i missed that. 'Glad to answer. For me, again, I take the Spinoza line that something is what it does. Hence, poetry answers the question, 'what can language do?' Let's begin with Browning, with his sense of irony. conversation, and play. What's important here is that how he expanded the meter; by doing this, he was able to enjoin seemingly contradictory ideas: "...The soul, doubtless, is immortal, whre a sould can be discerned'. Then, Yeats appears as the monster of lyricism and craft, moving effortlessly between the feeling self and abstract judgment: 'I lay it out in verse: Mcdowell, McBride, Connoly and Pearse. Not and in a time to be whenever green is worn The times are changed, utterly-- A terrible beauty is born. Eliot, of course, both early and late (Prufrock and Little Gidding) Two arguments here: One must see the aridity of the Wasteland to obtain the spiritual. The not ceasing from exploration concerns the exploration of language, not 'life'. Auden: "As the poet whispers, startled among the pines..." Then the greatness of Frost, & Stevens will take us to Jorie Graham and 'Dream of the unified field', an inquiry that every parent faces: how to impart a unified vision of the world onto a child that will make sense? Finally, Sissy (Susan Matthews): "Where the brine greets the yellowgreen grass There, I reposed upon the tombstone slab And gazed out into the nickel shroud. Monet-etched in charcoal posed the span. The brickish fountain spoke all a-gurgle-- Yet lacking child on wall on wall and fount today Where once, some time ago, a decade lost, We'd laugh and splash and play To chase down rows of palm To sing our waterfall song Beneath the tangerine dreams of the dying day." Charleston City Park, 2011, at 15 EM

Ah...the Putin manuever. Never answer, ask another question...some Greeks had a name for it. Alinsky was smart enough to understand the foundational memes that underlay the American mindset. Sadly, he also had a great attack plan that is working as we sit here today. A... Kindly ask me a question & i'll be happy to try to answer it. What dies Alinsky have to do with Kipling?

This sounds like the argument of old that gods who throw lightening bolts out of the sky truly exist. We just don't know that much about these gods. But we do know we see the lightening bolts, therefore the gods have to exist. So gods are reality, dudes. Get with the program. Michael No, using the term 'Dark Matter' suffices to indicate that we really don't know much about it (Dark='obscure', metaphorically speaking). So by the same token, 'gravity' indicates a phenomena that's taken as real, too, although we don't know mush about it. either. OTH, gods cause lightening only to the extent that one believes in 'god' to begin with... EM

The term in the Einstein Field Equations was originally put in to produce a static (non-expanding) universe. Einstein later declared that term was his greatest blunder. Now it is used to explain or at least describe the accelerating expansion. Even Einstein's mistakes prove to be of value. However non of this explains so-called "dark matter". The rotation curves stars way out from the galactic centers have non-Keplerian motion. Why? Qien Sabe. Ba'al Chatzaf You're asking two questions which, to a certain extent, are un-related. First, again it was Wyl who developed a revision of sorts of the Einstein relativistic field that would accommodate an expanding (non-static) universe. Of course this wasn't important to Einstein himself because he stubbornly believed , to the end, that the universe was fixed. Wyl's differential geometry was an update of the 'simple' Riemann stuff of 1840 that was laboriously explained to Einstein by Hilbert--"tensors". It's pedigree came from Abel and Lie, who were accessible to Einstein in terms of time, but not of understanding. Basically, a Wyl group serves as a co-efficient to the equation of general relativity, demonstrating that both 'far reaches' of the equation can offer meaningful results. There are no real 'singularities', as the Einstein equation indicates, as written. In other words, in the Wyl universe, far-space is not 'space' because it's a closed system even as it's expanding. OTH, Wyl geometry predicts not only black holes, but escape out the side. Re dark matter, i believe that it's necessary to stress what we do know. Otherwise, you get bogged down in some philosophical-sounding mumbo- jumbo about 'virtualities'. I also want to offer my personal pov re knowledge in general, which is hopelessly Kantian, witch-doctorish as it might be. Because we always ask more questions than we can answer, knowledge is by definition always incomplete. So what can be said of dark matter is that we know enough to say that it causes galaxies to spiral and stars on the outer fringe to wobble. In other words... without dark matter, and by doing a quick tab on the total mass of stars and an initial inertial frame, galaxies would have quickly collapsed. What both retards this collapse into a spiral is the extra mass, which we cannot identify. This mass of dark matter can be easily calculated by a reiterative process of padoodling the total MV of the galactic system, then backing out the total MV of the stars themselves. The only thing that's bizarre is that the dark matter total accounts for 80% of the whole! Moreover....calculating the weak gravity on the far reaches against the constant of dark matter, the wobbliness of outer limit stars is predicted! So 'dark matter' has a corroboration of singular stellar wobbles and general galactic shape. This is 'something', indeed! Eva Dark Matter hypotheses are made on the assumption that our theories of gravitation are correct. In a sense dark matter corresponds to as yet undiscovered gravitating substances to explain the anomaly in the rotation curves, much like an as yet undiscovered planet was postulated to explain why Uranus had anomalous motion which contradicted Newton's Law. Ultimately some kind of non-radiating gravitating matter will have to found or we will have a modern day version of aether, which was postulated purely to support electromagnetic waves. Waves have to wave in something, right? Actually not. We shall see how all this goes down in the fullness of time. Aether hung around for several hundred years before it became clear it did not exist as an elastic substance in space that was stiffer than steel, rarer than virtue and did not heat up when celestial bodies went flying through it. Maybe dark matter will hand around for a long time until it is either observed or tossed because a better theory of gravitation has been created. Ba'al Chatzaf Dark matter is not a 'hypotheses'. Rather, it can be said that we don't know a lot about it. What makes it a 'reality' is that whatever it is, it causes two observable phenomena: the spiral motion of galaxies and the gravitational instability of the outer stars. Moreover the quantity of matter associated with these two events corroborate against measured gravity at any particular locus within a galactic field. EM

Then why did he call the cosmological constant his biggest mistake? Ellen Hubble demonstrated empirically using the 100 inch telescope that the Universe was expanding. Hubble actually saw other galaxies (he had the instrument to do it) and he further showed that most of them were moving away from us at increasing speeds proportional to their distance from us. Einstein then realized that the tensor he added to keep the universe steady state and stable was a blunder. Einstein was a theorist par excellence but he also realized that facts trump theories and philosophical positions. Ba'al Chatzaf General Relativity uses two tensors, one for gravity and the other for space/time on a curved continuum. Upon completion of GR, Einstein immediately converted the equation into a field theory. This, was around 1915, when it was generally assumed that the universe was fixed and stable. What he then discovered was that the application of GR made the universe unstable. Gravity would push and pull, eventually collapsing everything into a singularity. The 'cosmo constan't, then, was a fudge coefficient that would enable the universe to maintain a steady state--again, as it was assumed to be. So the closest Al ever came to admitting an expanding universe was to admit his 'worst mistake'. And yes, the equation of GR as written cannot explain stellar behavior at the furthest reaches. For this you do need anther coefficient of sorts--said Wyl geometry. This, however is neither another cosmo constant nor an aether. Rather, it's more like a glorified acoustic expressed as an exotic differential geometric. EM

I haven't had time yet to read either of the reviews by Michael Quante which I linked. I only quickly skimmed them. The impression I pick up is very much along the lines you're saying. Same from a couple other things of his I found. I think Quante is subtly pushing for state control of medical decisions, maybe even with a "eugenics" underlay. I hadn't heard of him, and was curious to find out why a quote from him would be used in the endorsements for Against Autonomy. Presumably, his is a name that "those in the club" would recognize. Seems that he's got a substantial number of publications, and a large interest in biomedical ethics - as well as in Hegel, on whom he's written several books and multiple articles. Ellen PS: I'll be back with further comments next week. Haven't time today. Uncle Fred, You really need to get over this 'tribalism' thing of yours. It's a bad metaphor. 'Tribe' is the social organization that refers to a hunter-gatherer-milpa farming subsistence group. It's religions tend to be somewhat animistic--a worship of natural forces--for obvious reasons. Lkiewise, group coherence is rigidly enforced. When you're out there on horseback trying to hunt down buffalo, everyone has a job to do. Many large 'state' societies have been known to break down into tribals due to either positive or negative change in economic circumstance. For example, the Sioux broke down into tribalism with the arrival of the horse, thanks to the Spanish, ostensibly because riding a horse is more fun than extended farming. Others, in Amazonia, were not so lucky, Huge cities were destroyed by the Spanish presence (garlic, germs, steel), thereby resulting in all the different groups known and loved by the anthros here at Dust Bunny U. So the lack of individuality in the modern world has modern roots-- the question here being, to what exytent do we need to conform? That for its own sake only reinforces authority and power. By consequence, it's evil because it has no rational basis set within the context of economic survival. EM . Eva: re: You really need to get over this 'tribalism' thing of yours. And of course, by the projection of that young emperor-in-training imperative, what you meant to convey is the fact that I really don't need to do any such thing. What you meant to convey is, you don't like the metaphor for mobbed up herd mentality collectivism/group think, the tribe uber alles. Well no shit. The 'anthros' at my Dust Bunny U. were nothing short of hilarious. They were the ones trying to hard sell me the insight that the film "Nanook of the North" was all about the devastation of capitalism ravaging the soul of mankind. The emperor-in-locus in my case always showed up to precept wearing a disconnected 35mm SLR lens strung around his neck with a multicolored string/lanyard. Often, i the middle of one of his Marxist tirades, he would be so overcome with his urge to project his art that he would stop suddenly, grab the lens, and jarringly frame the reality around him, as if he was Godard --dammit -- setting up the next shot in his opus grande, "How I saved the World From These Nascent Little RatCake Capitalists By Feeding Them My Bullshit." Some of the chicks thought he was really 'groovy' when he did that. And some of the guys. It probably got him laid, even though he was kind of a sad sack chubber. Bless his little heart. Armand Hill was in that class; it was his major. He played some great basketball. Love to hear more about the anthros at your Dust Bunny U. Right after I watch ESPN. March Madness is coming up, and that memory of Armand Hill, the anthro, reminded me. Oncle F. Dear oncle Fred, I'm terribly sorry to hear about your devastating experience in Anthro 101. Since 'Nanook' discredits any use of 'tribe' other than what you care to have it mean at the time that you say it, feel free to metaphorize away. EM

I see that exactly the opposite. Elitism can only exist with a general population of degenerates who are incapable of properly ordering their own lives. Contempt for the indecent is both earned and deserved. Greg So you believe the anti-authoritarian, skeptical-of-the-state components of American liberalism are the BAD parts, and that the "I'm going to use the government to make you a better person" parts are the GOOD parts? Frankly I disagree. There is no evidence at all that the moral character of human beings (in general) has gone down over time (the whole "what's the matter with kids these days?" thing started under Plato and has been consistently disproven by every successive generation.. in spite of the old religionist stasist neophobes claiming that Batman made kids gay and video games cause school shootings, civilization has not collapsed). The idea that the "general population" are degenerates is heinously prejudiced, and the idea that the general population are "incapable" of "properly ordering their own lives" is the enemy of the classical liberal, enlightenment individualist tradition. Contempt for the contemptible is indeed deserved, but the majority of human beings do not deserve contempt. They may be mistaken on some issues, but they are not necessarily degenerates. Throughout human history, elitism has ALWAYS been the enemy of freedom. Freedom (in the classical liberal sense, i.e. the libertarian sense) has always been the right to control your OWN life and live it on your OWN terms. It has always referred to a universal self-sovereignty. Elitism opposes this on both levels by being a particularist violation of self-sovereignty. Even Ayn Rand was not, in fact, an 'elitist'. She wrote heroic novels but in her nonfiction works she displayed a great deal of confidence in the common man. She believed the common man was good, simply not philosophically informed. It should be noted that in both Fountainhead and Atlas, Rand's villains were members of the social elite. And she insisted on universal self-sovereignty. Compare this to the Progressives who believe "enlightened intellectuals" should control society. Compare this to the Frankfurt Schoolers who believe pop music and TV shows and advertising indoctrinate people with false consciousness. Compare this to Feudalism's aristocracies. Which tradition begins with "all men are created equal" and then says that as a result they have an equal right to their own lives on their own terms (the absolute liberty of all restrained by the like liberty of each), and which tradition begins by annointing "superior people" (whether that annointment is performed by a God or a specific university department is irrelevant) to control the lives of the Fucking NASCAR Retards? Elitism is not our friend. What's interesting is how the word 'elite' has undergone a transformation from that of natural leadership via education to one of snooty disdain for others. The 60-ish set of profs here on campus remember it well: the intellectual elite ('best & brightest') lost all credibility for their support of the Vietnam war. Moreover, they were responsible, in great measure, for the suppression of dissent. As such--with or without the 'E' word-- within any democracy there's always an inherent push/pull between majoritarian voice and that of the educated-- always, by definition, lesser in number. This plays back to the Founding Fathers, as well: Jefferson versus Adams and Hamilton, etc...if all men are created equal, how do you explain difference in intellect and knowledge, ant to what consequence? EM

Is anyone stopping you from discussing the subject? Note, it was you who "slid over into the realism of photography as such" by making pronouncements which were challenged by someone - Jonathan - who you might by now have realized is an accomplished and knowledgeable visual artist. Looks to me as if you're hoping that Michael will intervene to head off your being creamed. Ellen Jonathan knows how to paint. That hardly makes his ex-cathedra pronouncements on either photography or optic neurology either 'knowledgeable or in any way correct. You seem to fall for the 'artiste' bit. I don't. EM So, let me get this straight. My decades of hands-on experience as a professional artist, which include applying paint and varnish, as well as other media, to hundreds if not thousands of works of art, and observing and controlling their effects, are dismissed as just an "'artiste' bit" that others are "falling for," but, on the other hand, your inexperience with paint and varnish, as well as with photography, somehow make you an expert on paint, varnish and photography? Btw, my "knowing how to paint" isn't all that I bring to a discussion on the effects of varnish on oil paintings versus what is possible with photography. In addition to being a painter, I'm also a professional photographer. Prior to the digitalization of the industry, I was using, and sometimes inventing, very advanced special effects techniques combining large format cameras, stat cameras, masking techniques, the combination of multiple film styles and formats, selective surface embossing techniques, etc. Why are you so upset about the fact that others know more about certain subjects than you do? You seem to be quite fragile and insecure about the idea that someone else can gain more knowledge through decades of study and experience than you can gain from emoting and doing a quick wiki search. What's the problem? Do you feel small and insignificant when you're not posing as an expert on every subject? Do you actually fool yourself with your posing? Does it make you feel better? J Granted, knowing how to paint gives one a bit of insight into the physiology of optics. From Renaissance to Impressionism, great painters have tried to understand how the eye catches and processes light; they have written accordingly. Moreover, much of what they passed along to their students in terms of technique deals with these insights. You, as a competent artiste, paint flat surfaces, with or without varnish which, btw is another word for 'gloss'.(Upon my use of 'gloss in a previous post, you pitched a hissyfit, but now you admit to its use in your own work!) But again, eye physiology is 'biology', which is not 'art history' or skill with brush and oil. That you've nothing concrete to say in this particular means simply that: you paint, therefore you rant. That you have a peanut galley of followers means nothing more than their ignorance in physiology is matched by their mediocrity in artistic taste. EM

The term in the Einstein Field Equations was originally put in to produce a static (non-expanding) universe. Einstein later declared that term was his greatest blunder. Now it is used to explain or at least describe the accelerating expansion. Even Einstein's mistakes prove to be of value. However non of this explains so-called "dark matter". The rotation curves stars way out from the galactic centers have non-Keplerian motion. Why? Qien Sabe. Ba'al Chatzaf You're asking two questions which, to a certain extent, are un-related. First, again it was Wyl who developed a revision of sorts of the Einstein relativistic field that would accommodate an expanding (non-static) universe. Of course this wasn't important to Einstein himself because he stubbornly believed , to the end, that the universe was fixed. Wyl's differential geometry was an update of the 'simple' Riemann stuff of 1840 that was laboriously explained to Einstein by Hilbert--"tensors". It's pedigree came from Abel and Lie, who were accessible to Einstein in terms of time, but not of understanding. Basically, a Wyl group serves as a co-efficient to the equation of general relativity, demonstrating that both 'far reaches' of the equation can offer meaningful results. There are no real 'singularities', as the Einstein equation indicates, as written. In other words, in the Wyl universe, far-space is not 'space' because it's a closed system even as it's expanding. OTH, Wyl geometry predicts not only black holes, but escape out the side. Re dark matter, i believe that it's necessary to stress what we do know. Otherwise, you get bogged down in some philosophical-sounding mumbo- jumbo about 'virtualities'. I also want to offer my personal pov re knowledge in general, which is hopelessly Kantian, witch-doctorish as it might be. Because we always ask more questions than we can answer, knowledge is by definition always incomplete. So what can be said of dark matter is that we know enough to say that it causes galaxies to spiral and stars on the outer fringe to wobble. In other words... without dark matter, and by doing a quick tab on the total mass of stars and an initial inertial frame, galaxies would have quickly collapsed. What both retards this collapse into a spiral is the extra mass, which we cannot identify. This mass of dark matter can be easily calculated by a reiterative process of padoodling the total MV of the galactic system, then backing out the total MV of the stars themselves. The only thing that's bizarre is that the dark matter total accounts for 80% of the whole! Moreover....calculating the weak gravity on the far reaches against the constant of dark matter, the wobbliness of outer limit stars is predicted! So 'dark matter' has a corroboration of singular stellar wobbles and general galactic shape. This is 'something', indeed! Eva