Hot Needle of Inquiry

WARNING WARNING WARNING

2005-08-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

GENERAL PRODUCTS HULL ENGAGED IN STASIS MODE

Avoid contact with hull.
The captain of the Needle will be unavailable for the forseeable future.
Bye.

GENERAL PRODUCTS HULL ENGAGED IN STASIS MODE

The Little Mermaid

2005-07-12T23:59:00.000-07:00

Well, this is me, and this is my favorite place in the wide wide world. I won't say the name, but some of you know it. I like it the way it is, sleepy and genteel rundown...no publicity please. You could visit me there, right before the start of high season, when the frangipani and patooie trees are in bloom. We could walk upbeach to billie's, and get cracked conch and a calik for lunch, and then scuba with the wild dolphin pod in the bay. Shhh...we've been going there for twenty years and it hasn't been discovered yet.
Mostly I've had a swell time here--sure, the stones and knives hurt my feet some, and the fake legs I got from the Sea Witch weren't that awful good--the fins and scales are already growing back! And I didn't wind up with the Prince. He was taken.
But I loved it. An enchanted kingdom of ideas and information peopled with Meme-lords and Idea-Princes, true knights in memetic armor, fell trolls and scary demons. A magic place.
I always believed you really write for your self, because you have to, so I never had a blogroll. But I was influenced and inspired by many. In a year here I met at least six people that changed my life--how long would it take you to do that in fleshspace? Here is a list of those to whom I owe gratitude, in order of go, not neccessarily of importance.

Charles Johnson
Dr. Michael Ledeen
Amritas
Joe Katzman,
and Armed Liberal, Lewy14, Dan, Trent, and Robin
Praktike
Wretchard
Steven Den Beste
David Boxenhorn
Jeff Percifield
Razib Khan, Godless Capitalist, and Scorpius
Steve Sailer
Dr. Aziz Poonwalla
The Baron and Dymphna

I hope all that read this realize what a wonderful place the blogverse is.

This is me too. I will always be looking back at the land.

I will be back eventually--how could i stay away? But I will be different. Maybe i will just be a reader, or maybe I will meld with my beloved web, like Major Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell.

From the Rubiyat:

When thou like her, O Saki, do pass
Among the guests star-scattered on the grass
And reach the spot where I made one,
Turn down a glass.

I'm turning off comments. You can email me at jinnderella@gmail.com, if you like. I won't be able to respond for a while.

I will miss you all.
May your information never grow less.

Best Witches,

jinnji

Ghosts of Quantum Consciousness

2005-07-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well.
I just bought Ghost in the Shell II: Innocence (Inosensu: Kokaku Kidotai). Wow, it is so visually gorgeous. And rich and dense with meaning.
It seems to me to address the questions about consciousness and the existence of souls raised by Descartes, Batou even quotes him.

Of course, i thought alot about the orchestrated objective reduction model of quantum consciousness proposed by Stuart Hammerhoff and Roger Penrose. In Innocence, the gynoid dolls are enhanced by the addition of a "ghost", a consumeable extracted from actual human girls. The ghost makes it possible for them to do non-robotic things, like killing their masters and commiting seppuku. Is there a place for a soul in quantum consciousness? Is reality more valuable than virtual reality? Anton Zeilinger says they are the same, "that reality and information are the same."

Penrose proposes that the physiological process underlying a given thought may initially involve a number of superposed quantum states, each of which performs a calculation of sorts. When the differences in the disnibution of mass and energy between the states reach a gravitationally significant level, the states collapse into a single state, causing measurable and possibly nonlocal changes in the neural structure of the brain. This physical event correlates with a mental one: thecomprehension of a mathematical theorem, say, or the decision not to tip a waiter.

I wonder how we could verify the presence of a soul. We don't have the compute power to validate the Hamerhoff/Penrose model...yet. Perhaps with quantum computing we will be able to.

I won't give up that ghost
It's sick the way these tongues are twisted
The good in us is all we know
There's too much left to taste that's bitter
Na na na na na na na (x4)
E-pro by Beck

Two Somebodies

2005-07-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

Just Somebody left this comment on my Meme Kleptarch post--

why do you say that women are oppressed in Islam. i think some of the comments made here are due to a lack of knowledge about Islam; its very easy to get influenced by the media or what a few people say, if that's your inclination to begin with.

I am thinking about this, and perhaps she is right. Take the hijab for example. I thought that was oppressive until i considered one of my own passions, english riding. We all dress the same. Because the horse is the star.

Perhaps in Islam something else is the star. ;-)
Anyways, i'm posting this in hopes of inspiring some discussion and exchange of ideas. Please put your two cents worth in.

Weaponized Wretchard

2005-07-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

This is how I imagine the mysterious Wretchard, garbed as a tribal combat poet. ;-)

I've been hanging out here in known blogspace for about a year, and this is my alltime absolute favorite essay, Memo to Osama by Wretchard. It is an exquisitely sly mock of Islamist strategy, based on C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.
I wrote just recently about the arabic tradition of tribal combat poetry and poetry contests in The Snow Queen's Mirror. I always wonder how we could use culture and history to help win the Terror War, so i was thinking about humor weapons, like Wretchard's satire and Cox&Forkum's hilarious cartoons.
Then I got this email epiphany from the redoubtable Brian Tiemann.

Heh-- great post. :) Of course, regarding the final paragraphs, I'm unavoidably reminded of that Monty Python routine where Allied forces in WWII developed the Funniest Joke Ever, which when told would make any listener fall down dead with laughter. Of course, weaponizing it (translating it into German) was a particular challenge...

Oh! What a freakin' awesome idea! We need to weaponize this armament-- translate it into arabic, and massage the content and context so it is relevent. Humiliation is the greatest weapon we have in our arsenal. Why do you think we have all the furious squalling over Abu Ghraib and the head panties? It is a traditional weapon in tribal warfare, one they understand. If our great memetic warriors can craft hilarious satires of OBL and Zarqawi, won't the arab world fall from their saddles laughing, and then turn and ride away?

The Snow Queen's Mirror

2005-07-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

Some people here in known blogspace have recently written about the biology of belief, like Steve Sailor, and how it applies to red state/blue state orientation. I also read this post at winds, on how humor is winning the culture wars. I have a severe disagreement with that premise, and the blogger's rather puerile argument seems to be "the right is cooler, so we win". Whoa, i hate to disabuse this dude, but emo-fans are never cool.
The thing is, humor cannot win the culture wars in the way he describes. Humor is not a persuader, it is a weapon, a sword. Have you ever seen anyone persuaded to change sides by being mocked? No, it just infuriates them. Humor can be a cluestick, to bash someone over the head with, or a handful of salt for an open wound, or a subtle blade under the ribs, but will it change anyone's mind? Never.
And here is the reason. Do you know the story of the Snow Queen's Mirror? Sweet scandinavian children Gerda and Kay are captured by the Snow Queen, the frozen hearted goddess of winter. She wants to keep Kay, so he gets a piece of the Snow Queen's mirror lodged in his eye, and one in his heart.
I think there are two kinds of belief--intellectual belief (the splinter in the eye) and emotional belief (the mirror splinter in the heart). The intellectual splinter is much easier to remove--by argument, logic, and facts. But none of that works on the other one. Humor and mockery only serve to embed it further.
Here's a great example of humor being unpersuasive. The immortal Iowahawk brings us this beautiful satire of the dKosians via LGF, Zarqawi: Stop Comparing Me to American Moonbats. And the the ever astute Brian Tiemann records their response in The Hatred Gap, again via LGF. Was a single mind changed by this satire? Nope. Do you think Iowahawk's mock was written to persuade? Hell, no! It was a weapon, a spear, a blade, a scourge.
Here is a great example of humor used effectively as a weapon. In the Jahilyyah (the ignorance) of pre-Islam, warfare and bloodfeuds among the bedouin tribes were conducted according to strict protocols. Opening of hostilities was always the same. The na'qaat, or tribal combat poets, would stand between the arrays of opposing warriors, on the plain of jizziya combat, and declaim original odes. Sometimes the poetry was so scathing, beautiful, and hilarious, that the opposing tribe would fall from their saddles over come with laughter, and turn and ride away. Now that is effective use of humor.
What if we could make fun of OBL or Zarqawi, make them look so foolish that the other tribesmen would mount and ride away, laughing?

Werewolves

2005-07-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

Normally I adore the company of wolves. But I pity them too. I wrote before about becoming a demon...i think that is a choice. But werewolves don't choose. Becoming a werewolf is accidental, the poor werething is forced every moonlit night to change, through no fault of its own.
The new Harry Potter book is due soon (i can't wait to gobble it up)...I wuv them all, but my favorite is the Prisoner of Askaban. I love Lupin's character, how he tries hard to overcome his curse, and do no harm. In the end he can't manage his infection, and nearly kills his friends, so he chooses to leave Hogwarts forever. Every time there is a new Harry Potter book, i hope for Lupin to come back.
Lupin is tortured constantly by his curse. I can imagine that--on constant guard for the monster to break out and take over, spreading agony and ruin. But what if Lupin had had a choice in the beginning, to become a monster or to just wink out of existance? I know what I would have done.

Sparks Flying in the Dark

2005-07-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

I really love the Front Range. And I really really love country and western music and dancing. (well, i love all sorts of dancing). I feel so sorry for you if you haven't cotton-eyed joe'd and texas-two-stepped the night away someplace like the Grizzly Rose. Some people complain about how C&W permeates the airwaves here in Colorado, but not me. It is the perfect accompaniment for a grrl driving an F250 diesel pick-em-up with a four horse slant on behind. I love Toby Keith-- he rocks. Most C&W stars are strongly pro-America and real patriotic. Fourth of July is a great time to listen to C&W.

I hope every American takes just a minute on the fourth to really love their country. To love their neighborhood and the cities and towns and forests and farms that make up our wonderful country. To love the spicy ethnic mix that divides us and unites us, and makes our genomes and memomes strong and rich with hybrid vigour.

I love the mountains and the foothills here in Colorado, and all the wide open spaces. I love driving out early when the alpenglow lights the notch in the Hogback like the trail to the lost valley of Paul-ul-Don.
And I also feel sorry for you if you've never been to a real branding, with open fires and ear notches and blackleg vaccine and rocky mountain oysters on the grill. And I feel sorry for everyone who's never been to a real rodeo, with clowns and brahma bulls and the Westernaires and reining horses and team penning (but don't clap! that's only for tourists!). You should go soon before PETA shuts them all down.

It's not always easy being a cowboy-grrl and doing the right thing. My hip-hop friends think C&W is whack (but not as bad as emo). This Sara Evans song is my favorite right now. The sparks flying up remind me of campfires and fireworks, and how much I love my whole country this time of year--but mostly it just reminds me of someone that I am about to miss the rest of my life.

Hey, you know what we cowboy grrls always say--
That's the way it goes out here in the West. ;)

A Real Fine Place To Start(Radney Foster/George Ducas)

I'm gonna do you darling
I could waste time trying to figure it out
But I'm jumping in anyhow
I've never been this far
Didn't know love could run so deep
Didn't know I'd lose this much sleep

Holding you close chasing that moon
Spending all night
Loving just who you are
Sparks flying in the dark
Shooting out lights running down dreams
Figuring out what love really means
Baby giving you my heart is
A real fine place to start
Something is going on
I can't explain but I sure can touch
It's calling both of us
Stronger than any fear or doubt
It's changing everything I see
It's changing you it's changing me
Right here right now's the perfect spot
The perfect time
The perfect moment when your skin is next to mine

Holding you close chasing that moon
Spending all night
Loving just who you are
Sparks flying in the dark
Shooting out lights running down dreams
Figuring out what love really means
Baby giving you my heart is
A real fine place
A real fine place to start

Orgasm in a Bottle

2005-07-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

Posted at Gene Expression.

Meme Kleptarch

2005-06-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

Muhammad rides into the seventh heaven in this Islamic portrait, his face appropriately veiled.

I suppose that I am alone among my conservative contemporaries, but i have to confess that I find parts of the Qu'ran quite beautiful. The Short Suras, or Desert Suras, are exquisite. Reading translations of the Qu'ran don't do it justice--arabic is an oral tradition language--its songs and poetry well formed before the first arabic letter was scrawled in the sand. I think the power of the Qu'ran resides in part in its development from the strong tradition of bedouin poetry, and the sound-vision poem that it represents in recitation.

It is important to remember that the bedouin were viewed as the authentic bearers of culture. Arab originally meant a "pastoral nomad". Every year the tribes gathered at special sites for trade and religious observances...and poetry contests. This tradition eventually was to become the hajj, or pilgrimage. Mecca, home of the ancient Ka'ba shrine, figured centrally in this tradition. When the tribes gathered, all warfare and bloodfeuds were forbidden, and trade fairs and poetry contests were held just outside of Mecca, in a place known as 'Ukaz. The seven most admired poems were embroidered in gold on rare black cloth and hung from the walls of the Ka'ba--these were known as the Mu'allaqat, or Hanging Odes, and respresented the pinnacle of pre-Islamic cultural values and verbal expression.

Poetry was also important in the tradition of intertribal warfare. The na'qaat, or tribal combat warriors would stand on the plain of jizziya combat, between two lines of warring tribesmen, and declaim combat poetry. Sometimes the poets were women, like Futayma and the Jashiriyyah, and sometimes the poetry was so beautiful, biting and witty, that the combatants would fall from their saddles, overcome with laughter, and turn and ride off in defeat.

The poets, the rawis, na'qaat and sha'irs, the bearers of the cultural values, were the most dangerous and obdurate opponents of the prophet Muhammad.

From Michael Sells, Approaching the Qu'ran--

At some point Muhammad found a circle of poets to support him as well, and the ancient poetic tradition then became a central part of the struggle. One of the most important figures in the Arabia of Muhammed's time was the poet K'ab bin Zuhayr. As the son of Zuhayr (author of one of the celebrated "hanging odes") and a great poet in his own right, K'ab was viewed within bedouin society as a cultural authority. His opposition to Muhammad continued until it became clear that Muhammad's political and cultural authority could no longer be challenged. By the standards of tribal code, as the spokesman for the losing side, K'ab was in grave danger. In a famous episode, K'ab went to the prophet Muhammed, offered his allegiance, and presented a poem in honor of the prophet. Muhammad then gave K'ab his mantle (burda), and the poem has since been known as the burda or Mantle Ode.

The five pillars of Islam all derive from the original values of bedouin culture. Muhammed discarded the parts of the culture that he saw no value in, like wine songs. But if women were so important and valued in the Jahilyyah (literally "the ignorance", pre-Islam), why is Islam the religion of opression of women and of misogyny in general?

Here is my hypothesis. By all reports Muhammed genuinely loved Kadijah, his older wife. It is possible that he blamed her infertility on her age: she was some fifteeen years older than him. When she died, Muhammad took on a series of younger and younger wives, even needing to change the islamic code for the number of allowable wives so that he could exceed it. He even took the wife of his adopted son for his own. I think that Muhammed began to despise women in general, because not a one of them could concieve with him.

Mathematical Democracy and the Fourth Level Multiverse

2005-06-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

Visual differential equations...aren't they gorgeous? ;)
To read about fourth level multiverses, go to gnxpscifi.

My favorite MaxTegmark quote:

In other words, our successful theories are not mathematics approximating physics, but mathematics approximating mathematics.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

2005-06-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

I always loved this story. Do you know it? This story is so potent for me, because I love to dance. I can think of no more seductive pasttime than to dance holes into my slippers in a secret underground kingdom every night.
The King of a far country has twelve daughters. He despairs of ever being able to marry them off because they are afflicted with a strange illness--they are always tired, and everynight their little dancing slippers worn full of holes. So he sends out for expert advice--anyone that can solve the mystery can have one of the princesses and a share of his kingdom. But there is a catch--if the hired expert cannot solve the mystery in three days, the King gets to chop off his head. I find this is often true in Faery--you get one chance, and if you blow it, off with your head! It does sort of tend to emphasize the seriousness of choice. Making the wrong choice has strong consequences in Faerey.
So, of course, comes a hero--a retired soldier who is helped by a disguised witch, because he is kind. Again, this is a strong component of Faery...virtue is rewarded, vice is punished. So the soldier's kindness is rewarded with the gift of a cloak of invisibility. Which he uses to solve the mystery.
This is my very favorite part of all, when the invisible soldier follows the princesses down a flight of stairs hidden under one of their beds, to a magical underground world of incredible beauty and splendor.

Then they came to another grove of trees, where all the leaves were of gold; and afterwards to a third, where the leaves were all glittering diamonds. And the soldier broke a branch from each; and every time there was a loud noise, which made the youngest sister tremble with fear; but the eldest still said, it was only the princes, who were crying for joy. So they went on till they came to a great lake; and at the side of the lake there lay twelve little boats with twelve handsome princes in them, who seemed to be waiting there for the princesses.....On the other side of the lake stood a fine illuminated castle, from which came the merry music of horns and trumpets. There they all landed, and went into the castle, and each prince danced with his princess; and the soldier, who was all the time invisible, danced with them too; and when any of the princesses had a cup of wine set by her, he drank it all up, so that when she put the cup to her mouth it was empty. At this, too, the youngest sister was terribly frightened, but the eldest always silenced her. They danced on till three o'clock in the morning, and then all their shoes were worn out, so that they were obliged to leave off. The princes rowed them back again over the lake (but this time the soldier placed himself in the boat with the eldest princess); and on the opposite shore they took leave of each other, the princesses promising to come again the next night.

Of course, the soldier outs the princesses to their father, and claims his reward. The enchanted stairwell is filled with rubble and bricked up. And everyone lives happily ever after.
But I always wondered what happened in the underground kingdom when the princesses came no more. Did the handsome princes no longer shout for joy, and row precious burdens across the magic lake with their strong arms? Did the orchestra fall silent and the illuminated castle grow dark? Did spiders web the wine goblets and the dance floor? Did the handsome princes grow old and decrepit, waiting by the coracles on the lakeshore? Waiting and waiting for someone that never came...
I think that is what happened. And it still makes me sad.

Whorehouse on First Avenue

2005-06-27T05:39:00.000-07:00

Wretchard's latest take on Oil for Food scandals at the UN is appropriately titled The Big Sleeze. For over a year, waves of scandal have lapped at the foundations of this once esteemed institution. I argue that the corruption is so pervasive that the UN needs to be completely dissolved, and an entirely new organization built up in it's place.
The UN's original charter has long been forgotten. In this Belmont Club piece, the gradual devolution of the UN is mapped from the original point of failure, the abject inability of the UN peacekeeping force to discharge its mission on the eve of the Arab-Israeli war.
If the original charter of the UN post-WWII was to prevent future holocausts, what does the report card look like? Pretty dismal: Rwanda, Bosnia, Saddam's Iraq, Kim's North Korea, Dafur, the Congo, Somalia....millions of people are dead.
So what is the industry of the UN today, if it is not preventing holocausts? I think it is misery. The UN administers misery, and Kofi et al are misery pimps. Since this is the main industry of the UN, there is really no incentive to eliminate it, or even to try. The UN keeps misery at a nice stable level, managing it and skimming off a respectable profit. And that is just basic misery management--not including the perks like sex with underage children in Dafur and the Congo, and giant managment bonuses like Oil for Food bribes and contractor kick-backs. This will not change. Expecting the UN to stop misery is like expecting divorce lawyers to stop divorce--it is their livelihood-- and it will never happen.

Geisha, Hetaerae, and Firefly Companions

2005-06-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

I have a new post up at gnxp scifi on the theory of evolution of mistresses.

Evil Satanic Chain Email from the Ninth Circle of Hell

2005-06-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a letter from Dymphna to me, for a switch. ;)

Jinnji,
If you haven't gotten this...well, here it is now.
I've been tagged twice so I finally did the darn thing.
Here's the orthodox version, though I had to hammer it to make it fit in to categories I could think about.
The Book Meme:
Make a post linking your tagger, and answer these questions
Total Number Of Books Owned Ever:
Last Book Bought:
Last Book I Read:
Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:
Then you're
supposed to tag someone else, also with a link. Or maybe it's fivesomeone elses.
I forget. I added another category:
Five Books I've Given to Someone:
Anyhow, good luck.
~D

Total Number Of Books Owned Ever: huh? does that mean all the books i will own in the future, and all the books i already own and all the books owned by parallel copies of me in parallel universes everywhere in the multiverse? i guess i have to say aleph0.

Last Book Bought: Neal Stephenson, The Confusion--second book in his Baroque Cycle.

Last Book I Read: Read and finished-- The Time Travelers Wife, Audrey Neffenegger
Reading in a continuous distribution-- The Road to Reality, Roger Penrose.

Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:
Finnegan's Wake, James Joyce
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
Heretics of Dune, Frank Herbert
Ringworld Engineers, Larry Niven
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card

Five Books I've Given to Someone:
Cryptonomicon, Stephenson
Snow Crash, Stephenson
The Light Princess, McDonald
The Possibility of Time Travel in Einstein's Universe, Gott
Chapters of the Sages, Bulka

hmmm...i don't know yet who i will tag yet -- be afraid, be very afraid. ;)
As for you Dymphna, you know very well who populates the Ninth Circle--betrayer!

Open Question for the Terri-Bloggers

2005-06-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

FOX News has just aired the autopsy results from Shiavo. I am just curious to see how the terri-bloggers will cover the information. Will they admit that they were had by the Schindlers and the MSM, and that they never actually read the medical reports and trial transcripts? If you look at my past posts you can see i started out undecided, and reached my conclusions by reading the evidence--there was plenty available here, for anyone interested.

I think the most telling conclusion from the autopsy is that Terri Schiavo was blind. Kind of puts a stake through the heart of the "balloon video", non?

I thought this place was supposed to be the well of truth, the center of fact checking in the known universe. Here is Discarded Lies list of Terri-blogs--will any of them (including 'Lies) admit that they were wrong? Is is truly possible that all these blogs were suckered by the Schindlers and the MSM? And that now not a one of them will admit it?

I'm betting we will hear a lot of conspiracy theory rants. Exactly like before.

Religion of Testosterone Poisoning

2005-06-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

Dymphna posts here on the charming practice of throwing acid. This isn't new, it is just an improved version of ritual scarification or face cutting for unfaithful wives. It has been around a long time. This sort of stuff isn't just Islamic--women have pretty much been in for this all along--child brides, suttee, and divorce by immolation have been around in India for a long time, for example. A rejected guy/stalker threw acid in the face of the object of his affections here in the states. But maybe Islam has significantly more of it, and it is codified as Shari'ia Law.

My friend Razib Khan once said Islam should be gelded. I wasn't sure at the time what he meant--should Islam be prevented from reproducing? But now I think he was really talking about reducing endemic testosterone poisoning. Islam is basically by, for and about men. Mohammed built a special caste of warrior celibates (like the Turkish Jannissaries) with the plural marriage concept--reducing the number of available women. Mohammed established a slave class--women. Women were evil, untrustworthy and basically sub-human. They were the source of evil and wrongdoing through temptation.

I reccommend a sort of radical solution in my satire, A Modest Proposal: Y Not?. But I think we do not need to be so Draconian. In order to change the balance of power in Islam, just change the testasterone/estrogen ratio. How do we do that? I would argue that it is already happening--but not fast enough to suit me or Dr. Ledeen. In Letter to Dymphna I talked about giving Islamic women folk heroines and cultural icons that are women. Newscasters and movie stars, singers and female qu'ranic recitation artists, all the above. But perhaps the most important is protection of women under the law. Imams need to soften Shari'ia law towards women, and shed the archaic symbols of repression--debunk hair-rays! Shed the hijab. Use science as a wedge.

Here's what taspundit had to say in the Letter to Dymphna comments--

Jinn, there is another thing you didn't mention - ethnocentrism.In countries with a lot of intertribal warring, ethnocentrism is selected for. I think that there is going to be less shame felt by Muslims due to our efforts (to castigate them for an inherent part of their ESS) as opposed to what Westerners felt due to the Malthusian overpopulation scares.

He is on to something important there i think--we cannot shame Islam into treating women better or giving them a fair share of power--but we maybe can shame them for being unscientific. The fundamantalists love technology, and Tarek Heggy has pointed out here--

Deep feelings of inequality with others in terms of results and achievements makes for a sense of inadequacy that is sublimated into an exaggerated and unfounded pride;

Mocking hardline fundamentalists with scientific refutation of hair-rays and frog-births will shame them more than direct attacks on their treatment of women.

Testosterone is the drug of aggression. Let's soften Islam with an estrogen infusion.

Translation to the Paradise Plane

2005-06-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

Do you know what today is? The day after Hayao Miyazaki's newest anime opens in Denver. I love Miyazaki the best! You can see the trailer here. Naturally I will see the movie tonight with my anime posse--my 8- and 12-year-old girl cousins and my 9-year-old niece. ;)
I suppose you might think it sad that I am seeing a movie with a bunch of pre-teen girls on "date night", but it's not. As far as Miyazaki is concerned, I'm really just a thirteen year old with a drivers license. That is part of Miyazaki's appeal--every film I have ever seen perfectly captures the intense wonder and discovery of being a child again. So the current arrangement works fine for me.

I want very badly to go to the Miyazaki Museum in Japan some day. Pictures are not allowed anymore from inside, but here are a few from the opening in 2001. Someday I will go.

I hope Miyazaki never stops making films. There is no one that can do what he does. And I am very, very grateful that he does it!

Mathemagicians

2005-06-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

I really like to hang out at Little Green Footballs. The whole place has the ambiance of an elite battlegroup ready to spring into action on the WoT at anytime. But while waiting around Charles' campfire, the comrades-in-arms have all sorts of fascinating discussions. But this one sort of dismayed me, largely because i think it reflects the views of the majority of Americans.
You can see what i read here, Sarah D. Hates Calculus, read down. Now Sarah is a pretty popular commenter, and pretty soon most of the other lizardoids on the thread are chiming with why they hate Calculus, too. Since i happen to LOVE Calculus, this makes me really sad.
I know I was lucky to have gifted teachers. The thing about math is, that if you can do math, you can make four times as much doing it as teaching it. So few people teaching math have really experienced the magic, the beauty, and the power of mathematics.
But my ninth grade algebra teacher was one. Lucky for me.
He showed me how to change mundane physical descriptions of ordinary situations into an abstract language of incredible power, algebra. Just like a medieval Alchemyst he magikked up universal solutions that could be mapped onto all sorts of intriguing puzzles. It was there i first learned the maxim that would benefit me so much later, when i studied Artificial Intelligence--Representation is All.
In college i had a wonderful teacher for Advanced Calculus. AC is the first class were you get to see the beautiful bones of theory peeking through the mechanics of differential, integral, and multivariate calculus. My East Indian professor was no example of sartorial splendor--he wore plaid golf pants from the bargain bins at Sears, and horrible gnarly sweaters (for the cold Michigan winters), that looked like he had scavanged them out of dumpsters. But I will never forget how he would cover the board with some elegant, exquisite proof, and then step back, his broad brown face shining radiantly, and exclaim, "See the Beauty!"
Because of him and my other gifted teachers, i can see the Beauty. And i know how lucky i am.
I am reading a terrific book, The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose. My friend Razib Khan reccommended it. It took Penrose eight years to write it, so it will take me a while to read it. And yes, Razib-- i am working some of the equations-- for fun! Why can't mathematics be fun for most people?
Penrose says in the preface,

"...there are some who, when confronted with a line of mathematical symbols, can only see the stern face of the parent or teacher who tried to force them into a noncomprehending parrot-like apparent competance--a duty, and a duty alone--and no hint of the magic or beauty of the subject might be allowed to come through."

Yes! But are all those people never even to catch a glimpse of the magic and beauty of Mathematics? Penrose describes himself as an incurable optimist, and offers four different levels for readers to experience his book--so even the Calculus Challenged can experience the glories of this other dimension--spacetime, quantum field theory, supersymmetry and string theory, twistors and electrotweaks, time travel, loop variables, and spin networks, exotic particles and Calabi-Yau spaces, M-theory, dark matter....c'mon Sarah D.--you just have to try! ;)

SHUT UP! And Play the Music

2005-06-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Trent Reznor;
I have had such a tremendous case on you, ever since i was a teeny-bopper. Pretty Hate Machine rose like a monolith over all other music, and pretty much informed my taste forever. I never minded that you were a jerk to all your otaku, after all, being a dark genius is tough! One never expected to see Baudelaire or Poe signing autograph books. But this is outside of enough! Why do so many musicians with a modicom of talent expect to be able to terraform the political landscape with their personal ideas? I am not interested in your political views--you have no creds!! You have never served in the armed services, studied law, or managed a Fortune 500 corporation!! So stand down on this Bush thing. Or else.
Do you think i am going to stop listening to you in disgust? No way! I will still enjoy your talent--i am just not going to pay for it anymore. You see, i figure you have broken your covenant with me with all this sermonizing. So in the future, i will not buy, i will pirate, i will share, i will steal and disseminate for free. We can go back to our previous arrangement at any time, but until you knock off this 60's style pretentious sermonizing, you're not getting another dime from me!
So there!
Best Witches, jinnderella

disclaimer: ok, ok, i haven't actually done anything yet--but is thinking it as bad as doing it, just like in catholic school?

Star-Crossed

2005-05-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

"How do you like falling in?" said the prince.
"Is that what this is?" the princess said.

It is no secret that i am interested in the idea of True Love. I posted on it here, and here. I have to agree with evolutionary psychologist David Buss, author of The Evolution of Desire, that regular love is common, but True Love is rare. Consider the probability that a particular set of genes and environment are somehow sculpted into the perfect natural mirror of your every need, every desire, and then, that these two reflectors actually connect! Improbable! And that is prob'ly a good thing. Because I think True Love might be deadly. Romeo and Juliet? Tristan and Isolde? Even Clare and Henry in The Time Traveler's Wife. Tragedy and doom.

As a child, I read constantly. In my Treasury of American Short-stories, one story about True Love particualarily impressed me--The Pearls of Loreto. Ysabel, la Favorita, the Star of Monterey, vows to marry no man until he should bring her a lapfull of pearls. Of course, she falls in True Love with a handsome stranger, and would willing forego her vow--but he brings her the pearls anyways! This exchange sums up the concept of True Love, I think--

"Thou has murdered thy immortal soul--for me?"
"Ay, Ysabel!"
"Thou lovest me like that! Oh God, in what likeness hast Thou made me? In whatsoever image it may have been, I thank Thee--and repudiate Thee!"
She took the cross from her throat and broke it in two with her strong white fingers.
"Thou art lost, eternally damned: but I will go down to hell with thee." And she threw herself on him and kissed him on the mouth.

The important part here is, Vincente did not need to provide the lapfull of pearls that results in eternal damnation for them both--he wanted to, he needed to, to demonstrate True Love.
I love the old song, Bar'bry Allen. I know all the words by heart, because i sing it often, while feeding, or hand walking an injured or collicky horse. And i wonder, is that yet another consequence of True Love? If the lovers can never be together, does it always have to end like this?

Young Jemmy was buried,
In the old kirk yard.
And bonnie Bar'bry
In the choir
Out of his breast
There grew a rose
And out of hers
A briar
They grew and they grew
Up the old kirk wall
Until they couldn't grow no higher
And there they twined
In a true lovers knot
For all true lovers
To admire

And I don't actually think one gets a choice. I think True Love happens, like a cliff falling on you. But would you escape if you could, if given the choice not experience the other dimension of pleasure and pain, and just live a normal life?

"Dostoevsky, who faced a firing squad and spent years in Siberia in prison, once remarked that people don't realize it is possible to have a momentary experience that is so powerful that it can outweigh an entire lifetime of ordinary experience."

I think I will try for it. ;)

Memetics 101

2005-05-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

I see a lot of abuse of the word meme here in the blogverse. Here's the wiki. That is fine, but there are some parts of the wikidef that i would like to clarify, (and contradict).
Wilson's original concept was called a culture-gene . That implies that memes are analogous to genes. The most important way that the wikidef fails (IMHO) is that a gene is defined as the smallest discrete unit of genetic inheritance, so a meme should be defined as the smallest discrete unit of memetic inheritance. The Wiki talks about songs and religions as being memes-- not so-- those are meme complexes and memomes. The analogy is, of course, gene complexes and genomes.
The other place the wikidef is lacking is the concept of receptors. Now these are virtual receptors, capable of accepting or rejecting a particular meme. The hypothesis is that receptors are tuned to the existing memetic environment, to allow similiar memes entry, but reject radically different ones. Most of the research being done now is on building "universal memes", memes that will pass all or most aperatures. But Lurker, famous Winds of Change commentor, gave me a different idea. What if memes could be engineered to change the receptors, to widen the aperature of acceptance? Wild. ;)
So that's my meme rant. Feel free to disagree. ;)

Nausicaa

2005-05-16T01:48:00.000-07:00

Although Full Metal maybe my current favorite serial anime, Kaze no Tani no Naushika (Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind) is definitely my current favorite Miyazaki. Nausicaa lives in the distant future, where the earth has been largely turned into a toxic wasteland in the aftermath of a great holocaust, where the giant God-soldiers nearly destroyed the earth in "The Seven Days of Burning". Nausicaa is the daughter of the King of the Valley of the Winds, a small kingdom on the edge of the vast desert that separates the liveable territories from the ever encroaching Toxic Jungle.
I identify strongly with Nausicaa-- her life is about animals! She even has a rapport with the terrifying giant Ohmu of the forest, who look like enormous mutant pill bugs.
I want to be like Nausicaa in other ways, too. She has no fear. Twice during the anime she opens her arms to onrushing death, ready to sacrifice herself to make things better. And twice she succeeds. And here is why. She always tries to do the right thing.
Her vision is clear. The right thing to do is to preserve life, to end suffering. To be kind. To love science and learning. And revenge and anger and fear just don't enter into it. At all.
I won't write spoilers for this. I think you should watch it, and experience it yourself. I've been into revenge, been angry, schemed to get my way. I've been really afraid.
But not anymore, I am going to just do the right thing.

Chimeras

2005-05-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

My absolute favorite anime right now is Full-Metal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi). (Well, except for Nausica) Den-Beste-sama would hate the way i'm watching it, i'm sure-- the first disc became available in the US in February, and i just got the second one yesterday. I watch it also on adult swim, and since there are 51 eps on 13 discs, i will prob'ly have seen all the eps on the terebi before I can buy them.
Yesterday's eps, five through eight, include The Cry of the Chimera. It is so sad. The chimera of the child Nina and her dog is heartbreaking, beautiful, but in terrible pain from the forced merge of two disparate biologies, and horribly sad from the knowledge of what has been done to it.

I get plenty of crits about my obsession with anime and science fiction. But I think science fiction is a vehicle for test driving the fantastic theories and paradigms of science, before we have the actual ability to implement them. And I think anime is a powerful visual paradigm for analysing legend, myth, and humanity.

New guidelines set by the National Academies of Sciences would permit the development of human-animal hybrids. The creation of these new species would be allowed for the sake of research. According to the standards, this would be permitted "under circumstances where no other experiment can provide the information needed." The standards also recommend "strong scientific justification" for experiments where human cells are used to develop major aspects of the brain of the new animal. In addition, newly developed human-animal species are not allowed to breed with each other. These standards are voluntary, and human-animal hybrids are already under production.

Now just when does a research chimera become sentient, and perhaps even human? Will it be based on the relative percentages of human/animal cells? Where is the "Bioethics" Council to tell us what to do? If a sixteen cell cleavage stage is a human being, what about a mouse with a human brain?

The Island of Dr. Moreau
sheep chimeras

Philosopher's Stone

2005-05-09T07:50:00.000-07:00

I guess it is no secret that Full Metal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) is my current favorite anime. Den Beste-sama will not like it, I fear. It is too dark. But for me, the series embodies some of the most powerful conflicts between science and humanism.
The anime opens with young Al reading the First Law, in his hushed, childish vioce.

Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain something of equal value, something must be lost. That is
Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange.

Al understands this well, since he and his brother Ed lost significant parts of their physical bodies in a failed attempt to resurrect their mother with alchemy. The series relates their adventures in attempting to fabricate the legendary Philosopher's Stone, the magikal talisman that could restore the boys to full human status. However, Ed and Al discover that an element of the construction of the Stone comes at too high a price-- the price of a human life.

At Joe Katzman's, on this thread, I had an argument with Raymond. I envy him, it is all so clearcut and clean to him, life begins at conception. It is a matter of principle, and one must draw the line somewhere. But then I think of the awful tragedy that has just befallen some dear friends of mine, and how biotech and ESC implants could possibly help their baby, and I am not ready to give up on the quest for the Philosopher's Stone.

I am only halfway through Full Metal Alchemist, but I already have the suspicion that Ed and Al, like Alyosha in the Brothers Karamazov, will find the price too high to pay.

"Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that," said Ivan earnestly. "One can hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly.

I am hoping that the scientific community does not so find. And I don't believe we have to make Alyosha's choice. What if, instead of human lives, we can craft our Stone by offering a different exchange, paying a different price, a price of education, empathy, discipline, research, and compassion? Instead of turning away in fear of the Stone, terrified that the manufacture of it might cost us our souls, we have to understand it and embrace it, to make it part of us and our humanity. I still have hope. And hope is a powerful thing.