Sunday, May 25, 2008

The Variaties of Love

The Varieties of Love .
Andre Willers
26 May 2008

For Egbert Louw Sr

A Present Day understanding

1.Falling In Love
Falling in Love is a obsessive compulsive mechanism to ensure more offspring . It is not a cultural thing . I hesitate to call it a disorder , since it is so obviously pro-survival in an evolutionary short-term sense . This is quite common , and mostly lasts lifetimes . Unsuccessful examples are called infatuations .
As expected , it has a description “ Falling in Love” , not as catchy as a single Greek word , but very real . The basis of most novels (read alternate Universes)

The mechanism is reduced myelization between mirror-neuronal networks .
Mediated by MHC , pheromones , etc
The mirror-neurons describing the Beloved develops patches in the myelin sheaths that allows easier dendrite communication . The Self mirror-networks has much closer connection with the Beloved’s mirror-neurons .
Self-identification occurs . Love .
This is why young people are so prone to this type of infatuation . Sheathing the axons in myelin happens mostly after 25 .
If the whole machinery goes wrong , it is called an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

2. The other varieties of Love are heavily influenced by cultural systems .
Cultures are transmitted by languages .
The Greek language was good at splitting meanings . Having words for the different meanings meant that they could be transmitted via the spoken or written word .

1.Philia : Brother , comrade , nefie , nephew , uncle , etc . A weak affection , but still used . (How’s it my bra?)

2 Eros:sexual affection (darling , love , etc)

3. Agape : Strong non-sexual affection .
This is what you feel for good friend or colleague . A Comrade in arms . A Marine will say “Semper Fi” .

The Roman Catholic Church thoughtfully removed even the word from the lexicon .
The church is an exercise in Agape , and any other one is a direct competitor .

It worked well for a long time , but it led to Nationalism . Humans seem to love to identify with larger groups .
So let us create some:




3 .The Agapo .
Like-minded people acting in the same way .
Agapo’s supersedes companies and nationals .

Social co-ordination systems like Facebook apply .
These are political systems superseding the tired old national and supra-national systems .

We only need some names :These are like seed-crystals bringing about a phase-change .

“We are Agapo” denotes a very strong bond between entities . Stronger than marriage

“Human Agapo “ The humans on Gaia .

“Gaia Agapo” : strong affection for the planetary eco-system

“Jesus Agapo” A revitalized Christian system .

“Mohammed Agapo” A revitalized Muslim system

“Buddha Agapo” A revitalized Buddhist system

“Jane Austin Agapo” ,
”Energy Agapo” . “ Spaceflight Agapao” etc, etc

Stronger than a multinational , faster than a email .

Obedience. “Love is obedience”
This is a meme found in the Old Testament . The underlying logic is that fear of the hereafter will force a present behaviour in favour of the priests of the Established Religion . Obey or else! And you have to work at it .
The corollary is that you can earn salvation by your actions .
The Christianity model of giving away Salvation for free has been in continual conflict with the old Obedience Model .

The Priests try to force it into an obedience model , which favours them , since they set themselves up as the only allowed intermediaries .

Since the Christianity model gives salvation away for free , it is interesting to see how the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches has twisted the system to suit themselves .





From Wikipedia: Agape
Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love. Greek philosophers at the time of Plato and other ancient authors have used forms of the word to denote love of a spouse or family, or affection for a particular activity, in contrast to philia—an affection that could denote either brotherhood or generally non-sexual affection, and eros, an affection of a sexual nature. The term 'agape' is rarely used in ancient manuscripts, but was used by the early Christians to refer to the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity, which they were committed to reciprocating and practicing towards God and among one another.


Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love. Greek philosophers at the time of Plato and other ancient authors have used forms of the word to denote love of a spouse or family, or affection for a particular activity, in contrast to philia—an affection that could denote either brotherhood or generally non-sexual affection, and eros, an affection of a sexual nature. The term 'agape' is rarely used in ancient manuscripts, but was used by the early Christians to refer to the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity, which they were committed to reciprocating and practicing towards God and among one another.

Agape as a term for love or affection is rarely used in ancient manuscripts. According to Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Love definition) the word is believed to have been coined by the Bible authors from the verb agapao.
A title of the goddess Isis was agape theon, or "beloved/darling of the gods," denoting her role as a fertility/life goddess and her pairing as a partner with the masculine god aspects. While this pairing was often sexual in nature, the term "agape" implied a genuine affection and deep love for the goddess.
Although some sources claim Agape appears in the Odyssey twice, the word is in fact not used. Instead, two forms of the word agape may be found: agapêton and agapazomenoi. Agapêton is found in Book 5 of the Odyssey and means "beloved" or "well-loved". Agapazomenoi is found in books 7 and 17 of the Odyssey and means “to treat with affection”.
Agape and the verb agapao are used extensively in the Septuagint as the translation of the common Hebrew term for love which is used to denote sexual desire, affection for spouse and children, brotherly love, and God's love for humanity. It is uncertain why agape was chosen, but similarity of consonant sounds (aḥava) may have played a part. It is not impossible that the Greek concept even originated as a transliteration from some Semitic tongue. This usage provides the context for the choice of this otherwise obscure word, in preference to other more common Greek words, as the most frequently used word for love in Christian writings.
[edit] Agape in Christianity


Fresco of a female figure holding a chalice at an early Christian Agape feast. Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Via Labicana, Rome
See also: 1 Corinthians 13
Agape received a broader usage under later Christian writers as the word that specifically denoted "Christian" love or "charity" (1 Corinthians 13:1–8), or even God Himself (1 John 4:8, Theos ein agape, "God is Love"). The New Testament provides a number of definitions and examples of agape that generally expand on the meanings derived from ancient texts, denoting brotherly love, love of one's spouse or children, and the love of God for all people.
The Christian usage of the term agape comes directly from the canonical Gospels' account of the teachings of Jesus. When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus said, "'Love (agapao) the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love (agapao) your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-41)
At the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:
You have heard that it was said, 'Love (agapao) your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love (agapao) your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Christian writers have generally described agape, as expounded on by Jesus, as a form of love which is both unconditional and voluntary. Tertullian, in his 2nd century defense of Christians remarks how Christian love attracted pagan notice: "What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look,' they say, 'look how they love one another'" (Apology 39).
In the New Testament the noun agape is often used to describe God's love. However, the verb form agapao is at times used in a negative sense, where it retains its more general meaning of "affection" rather than divine love. Such examples include:
2 Timothy 4:10—"…for Demas has forsaken me, having loved [agapao] this present world…."
John 12:43—"for they loved [agapao] the praise of men more than the praise from God."
John 3:19—"but men loved [agapao] darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil."
[edit] Agape as a meal
Main article: Agape feast
The word agape in its plural form is used in the New Testament to describe a meal or feast eaten by early Christians, as in Jude 1:12, and 2nd Peter 2:13. It is sometimes believed to be either related to the Eucharist, or another term used for the Eucharist.

The Variaties of Love

The Varieties of Love .
Andre Willers
26 May 2008

For Egbert Louw Sr

A Present Day understanding

1.Falling In Love
Falling in Love is a obsessive compulsive mechanism to ensure more offspring . It is not a cultural thing . I hesitate to call it a disorder , since it is so obviously pro-survival in an evolutionary short-term sense . This is quite common , and mostly lasts lifetimes . Unsuccessful examples are called infatuations .
As expected , it has a description “ Falling in Love” , not as catchy as a single Greek word , but very real . The basis of most novels (read alternate Universes)

The mechanism is reduced myelization between mirror-neuronal networks .
Mediated by MHC , pheromones , etc
The mirror-neurons describing the Beloved develops patches in the myelin sheaths that allows easier dendrite communication . The Self mirror-networks has much closer connection with the Beloved’s mirror-neurons .
Self-identification occurs . Love .
This is why young people are so prone to this type of infatuation . Sheathing the axons in myelin happens mostly after 25 .
If the whole machinery goes wrong , it is called an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

2. The other varieties of Love are heavily influenced by cultural systems .
Cultures are transmitted by languages .
The Greek language was good at splitting meanings . Having words for the different meanings meant that they could be transmitted via the spoken or written word .

1.Philia : Brother , comrade , nefie , nephew , uncle , etc . A weak affection , but still used . (How’s it my bra?)

2 Eros:sexual affection (darling , love , etc)

3. Agape : Strong non-sexual affection .
This is what you feel for good friend or colleague . A Comrade in arms . A Marine will say “Semper Fi” .

The Roman Catholic Church thoughtfully removed even the word from the lexicon .
The church is an exercise in Agape , and any other one is a direct competitor .

It worked well for a long time , but it led to Nationalism . Humans seem to love to identify with larger groups .
So let us create some:




3 .The Agapo .
Like-minded people acting in the same way .
Agapo’s supersedes companies and nationals .

Social co-ordination systems like Facebook apply .
These are political systems superseding the tired old national and supra-national systems .

We only need some names :These are like seed-crystals bringing about a phase-change .

“We are Agapo” denotes a very strong bond between entities . Stronger than marriage

“Human Agapo “ The humans on Gaia .

“Gaia Agapo” : strong affection for the planetary eco-system

“Jesus Agapo” A revitalized Christian system .

“Mohammed Agapo” A revitalized Muslim system

“Buddha Agapo” A revitalized Buddhist system

“Jane Austin Agapo” ,
”Energy Agapo” . “ Spaceflight Agapao” etc, etc

Stronger than a multinational , faster than a email .

Obedience. “Love is obedience”
This is a meme found in the Old Testament . The underlying logic is that fear of the hereafter will force a present behaviour in favour of the priests of the Established Religion . Obey or else! And you have to work at it .
The corollary is that you can earn salvation by your actions .
The Christianity model of giving away Salvation for free has been in continual conflict with the old Obedience Model .

The Priests try to force it into an obedience model , which favours them , since they set themselves up as the only allowed intermediaries .

Since the Christianity model gives salvation away for free , it is interesting to see how the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches has twisted the system to suit themselves .





From Wikipedia: Agape
Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love. Greek philosophers at the time of Plato and other ancient authors have used forms of the word to denote love of a spouse or family, or affection for a particular activity, in contrast to philia—an affection that could denote either brotherhood or generally non-sexual affection, and eros, an affection of a sexual nature. The term 'agape' is rarely used in ancient manuscripts, but was used by the early Christians to refer to the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity, which they were committed to reciprocating and practicing towards God and among one another.


Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love. Greek philosophers at the time of Plato and other ancient authors have used forms of the word to denote love of a spouse or family, or affection for a particular activity, in contrast to philia—an affection that could denote either brotherhood or generally non-sexual affection, and eros, an affection of a sexual nature. The term 'agape' is rarely used in ancient manuscripts, but was used by the early Christians to refer to the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity, which they were committed to reciprocating and practicing towards God and among one another.

Agape as a term for love or affection is rarely used in ancient manuscripts. According to Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Love definition) the word is believed to have been coined by the Bible authors from the verb agapao.
A title of the goddess Isis was agape theon, or "beloved/darling of the gods," denoting her role as a fertility/life goddess and her pairing as a partner with the masculine god aspects. While this pairing was often sexual in nature, the term "agape" implied a genuine affection and deep love for the goddess.
Although some sources claim Agape appears in the Odyssey twice, the word is in fact not used. Instead, two forms of the word agape may be found: agapêton and agapazomenoi. Agapêton is found in Book 5 of the Odyssey and means "beloved" or "well-loved". Agapazomenoi is found in books 7 and 17 of the Odyssey and means “to treat with affection”.
Agape and the verb agapao are used extensively in the Septuagint as the translation of the common Hebrew term for love which is used to denote sexual desire, affection for spouse and children, brotherly love, and God's love for humanity. It is uncertain why agape was chosen, but similarity of consonant sounds (aḥava) may have played a part. It is not impossible that the Greek concept even originated as a transliteration from some Semitic tongue. This usage provides the context for the choice of this otherwise obscure word, in preference to other more common Greek words, as the most frequently used word for love in Christian writings.
[edit] Agape in Christianity


Fresco of a female figure holding a chalice at an early Christian Agape feast. Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Via Labicana, Rome
See also: 1 Corinthians 13
Agape received a broader usage under later Christian writers as the word that specifically denoted "Christian" love or "charity" (1 Corinthians 13:1–8), or even God Himself (1 John 4:8, Theos ein agape, "God is Love"). The New Testament provides a number of definitions and examples of agape that generally expand on the meanings derived from ancient texts, denoting brotherly love, love of one's spouse or children, and the love of God for all people.
The Christian usage of the term agape comes directly from the canonical Gospels' account of the teachings of Jesus. When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus said, "'Love (agapao) the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love (agapao) your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-41)
At the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:
You have heard that it was said, 'Love (agapao) your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love (agapao) your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Christian writers have generally described agape, as expounded on by Jesus, as a form of love which is both unconditional and voluntary. Tertullian, in his 2nd century defense of Christians remarks how Christian love attracted pagan notice: "What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look,' they say, 'look how they love one another'" (Apology 39).
In the New Testament the noun agape is often used to describe God's love. However, the verb form agapao is at times used in a negative sense, where it retains its more general meaning of "affection" rather than divine love. Such examples include:
2 Timothy 4:10—"…for Demas has forsaken me, having loved [agapao] this present world…."
John 12:43—"for they loved [agapao] the praise of men more than the praise from God."
John 3:19—"but men loved [agapao] darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil."
[edit] Agape as a meal
Main article: Agape feast
The word agape in its plural form is used in the New Testament to describe a meal or feast eaten by early Christians, as in Jude 1:12, and 2nd Peter 2:13. It is sometimes believed to be either related to the Eucharist, or another term used for the Eucharist.

Friday, May 23, 2008

To Impress

To Impress
AndreWillers
23 May 2008

Synopsis:
The Desire to Impress Others is a fundamental driving force , shared by any organism that has a sufficiently complex Neural-Net Architecture .
The very fact that I do not have to define what “To Impress” means signifies that it is basic axiom (primitive) for humans .

Discussion :
We will first look at humans from the top down , then look at why .

Humans desire above else to impress other humans . This surpasses any other fundamental drives , even personal survival or survival of the genes or memes .
It even defines human . A person who does not act to impress others is seen as at least anti-social , at most a sociopath .
.
In WW I , soldiers went over the top to assured death to impress their comrades .

The whole Fashion industry is based on it . People have beggared themselves and their offspring to “Impress” .

Athletes will kill themselves with drugs and pain to impress .
Ever heard of the Solitary Olympics ?

The highest achievement a Roman could get was a Triumph . To Impress on a grand scale . Cf Crassus , the richest man in Rome , trying for military glory to get a Triumph and dying in the process .
It is like Bill Gates becoming a Captain in Iraq to have a ticker-tape parade in Manhatten .
Instead , Grand Circuses of Donations are held .

Louis IV turned it into statecraft , following the Roman Emperors .

The Empty Cellphone .
The most telling example I know is the empty cellphone .
When cellphones were first introduced , you could buy empty cellphone casings to impress other people . The advertisements did not even try to give a rationale .
There were ,and is , none . Any closer acquaintance would show it up for the fraud it was . Yet it sold . The desire to impress , irrespective of any putative advantage , was the driving force .

The Pocketwatch .
(History Today Jan 2008 p44 “Time Piece”)
The idea that time was valuable .
Pocket watches became fashionable from about 1740 , amongst those least able to afford them and with no industrial need . From court-cases , the watches (usually silver backed) were stolen from ploughmen , sailors , etc . Thomson tried to make a case that Industrialization required timekeeping . No 19th century industrialist who wanted to remain in business relied on his workers’ timepieces to get them to the factory .
There were sirens , bells , a special corps of TimesMen to chivvy workers in . Remnants of these can still be seen in that most conservative of organizations , the US School Board : Truant Officers .

The only reason they bought pocket watches was that some marketing guys with a surplus of watch-production convinced them that they would impress others .

Eye-Glasses.
They got this idea from the proliferation of eye-glasses after 1298 AD . This had some real need in the management-classes , to read commercial documents after most manager’s eyes could not focus well any more (See previous posts) .

A top-class manager (Executive) , his Time became valuable . He now could and had to read each item in a very busy schedule . He needed a watch .

But since their invention by some unsung genius in 1298 in Northern Italy , mass-produced glasses became so cheap so quickly , it stimulated the wannabes to get a pair.

Having a pair of glasses impressed other people .
I can remember grandparents and their peers being proud of having glasses . They pushed it forward in a discussion , showing that they too read books . It is not about literacy , but about literature . If you lived their boring life , you would probably do worse .

But since glasses had a real effect , it created a huge demand for middle-class educated managers . They too could learn accounts , then reading . Note that accounts came first . It is like an AI sneering at 0’s and 1’s .

Then printing became viable , as there was an already existing market (literate base).Then Newspapers . Then The Sun , the apotheosis of 4 centuries of human striving .

Ostentatious display
Potlatch , Nero , Timurlane , Versailles , iPods , Laptops , Vernon Koekemoer , etc .
You get the drift . Ostentatious display is to impress .

The Why :

A bit of background :

Attractor Basins :
“To Impress others” is an Attractor Basin in a Chaotic Theory sense .

To understand an Attractor Basin :
Imagine a basin . Drop many marbles all around near the rim . All will spiral to the bottom . Each different marble is a different cause , and starts from a different position . Yet , they all end up at the bottom of the Attractor Basin . What , then , is the cause of the state at the Bottom of the Basin of the Attractor ?

If you measure the path of any marble in very short increments , the path seems straight and the cause(1)->result(1) pair is our classical understanding .

At the bottom of the basin , there are many causes but only one result
Cause(n) –> Result (1)

Note that the basin definition is not included in Cause(n) . If it is , the general relationship would be
Cause(w,n) –> Result (w,1) , which describes w Attractor basins in at most, a (m+3) space , where m would be the number of dimensions in the original Cause(n) system .
(A definition of quantal superposition. )

The Nitty-Gritty :
Neural networks learn . That is their function . Why bother learning all the various positions of the marbles if all you have to remember is the Basin ?

“To Impress Others” is the Basin . The rest follows by definition .

Of course impressing others leads to mates , children ,riches ,etc . The normal expected evolutionary rewards . The marbles of evolutionary rewards . But there are other losing marbles even in the same basin , as we all know . Foolishness in 20-20 hind vision .
But in a proper basin such foolishness would not be possible , but , alas ,other foolishness would be .

A properly constructed hopscotch or labyrinth symbolizes such a basin . See previous posts .

“Impressing Others” can then be treated as a fundamental cause . The entire society is constructed around it .
There are innumerable conflicts between self-interest , family-interest and “Impressing Others”–interest . Fertile ground for all the therapists taking in each other’s washing .

Learned Helplessness and Mirror Neurons .
Successful neuronal networks have a problem that parts of them end in Learned Helplessness . Learned Helplessness is defined as where the “weights” in the neuronal network is randomized , because the difference between the actual and expected output neurons is random . Ie a part of the brain is not being used . This leads to apoptosis paring in childhood , the well-known paring of neurons .

At puberty , the neuron-mass once again expands faster than the myelization . There are frantic efforts as individual neurons try to survive by creating dialogues between mirror-neuronal networks . These are Socratic dialogues between elements in the brain . The brain beavers away at staving off learned-helplessness .

Hence a lack of judgement and elaborate theories that look like paranoia .Myths . It is just different elements of the brain trying to avoid apoptosis . But of course , sometimes there is a correspondence between reality and the theories . Hence the success of the Western model . It only takes an extremely modest correlation between theory and observation to send the western systems off on an ecstasy of Meaning .

This is why protected environments for this particular balance of learned-helplessness and mirror-neurons evolved : Universities in the West , Monasteries in the East . Essentially the same .

They are ameliarators of the Socratic impulse of immature humans .
In an University , Temujin would not have become Chinggis Khan .
The function of western Universities and Monasteries is to contain and channel really dangerous persons and their memes .

If Hitler or Stalin had gone to any University ,they would have made formidable heads of departments .

Note that none of the major shit-stirrers in the last two-hundred years (from Napoleon on) had the benefit of a University Education . The reason seems clear .Dilution of resources .

It makes one wonder what other Empire builders were masked behind the Universities.
In other words , things could have been much worse . But they could have been much better ,too .

In any case , the University structure seemed to be winning , until they cleverly freed the smartest people on the planet to be as selfish as they liked .

Sigh .

If anybody survives , they are in for another round of monasticism . It is the ideal format for a low-tech survivalist civilization . Yech .

Humans are too stupid to run even a Neolithic civilization . They have destroyed the underlying support-structure in the Americas and Australias , not to mention Eurasia and Africa .
They hope for a Deus-ex-Machina from resources out of the asteroid belt , while at the same time cutting the resources needed for space exploration . Basically , they deserve to die in large numbers . And they know it .

Andre

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Markets , Money and Lies .

Markets , Money and Lies .
Andre Willers
15 May 2008

Synopsis :
Money is a single-dimensional variable . This is it’s strength .
A market of any kind forces impossibly complicated and convoluted calculations in multiple dimensions down to one dimension , the transaction price .

A major casualty of this process are lies . Knowing untruths . The Offer-Bid process in the Market squeezes out lies if the Market is unbiased .

Markets used for Prediction .
Since human society and humans are about 67% lies , any reliable system that can squeeze out lies has a major advantage . It’s memes will propagate .
Note what happened to the Communist meme . The lies proliferated until the system crashed . Much like a computer virus .

So it is no wonder that it now being used to more accurately “predict” the outcome of precisely specified future events via a futures market .

A good summation
Is given in Scientific American of March 2008 P26 “When Markets beat the Polls” .
1. LC Clarke “The next Big Ideas: Placing bets on wisdom of employees” from the Sunday Times .
2. Popular Science magazine runs a futures market .
3. Others on the net :
Foresight Exchange , NewsFuture , Intrade , Avian Influenza Prediction Market , etc ,etc .

These markets have been running since 1988 .
See also “Information Markets:a new way of making decisions” at
www.aei-brookings.org/admin/authorpdfs/page.php?id=1261

Caution !
Wisdom is not being distilled . No new knowledge is being added . We only get rid of some of the lies . Since some people’s cherished truths are other people’s lies , a spectrum of values is possible and a liquid market is possible .

An example :
Company XYZ establishes a futures market to see whether a software project will launch on the specified date . It is open to anybody . Everybody in XYZ might know that the target is hopelessly unrealistic . If they can bet anonymously , the price will go down . Competitors might bid the price down and the Management might bid the price up . In other words , the normal human lies have entered the system .

By the way , this is what happened in the present futures crisis . Bonds are futures (the estimate of a series of future payments .) Any credit mechanism is . Once lies have infiltrated the system , the whole system locks up (as what is happening now)

A painful period of purging and squeezing-out of lies follows , feeding the whole mess through the mangle of the Market , involving a lot of bellowing and screaming .

Notice the importance of anonymity .
Money might be one-dimensional , but once the bidder or offerer is known , all the the money then becomes entangled in a quantum sense .

Market futures prediction for one .
Every investor knows the problem . Every day he has a different view on whether to hold , buy or sell . The books recommend a strategy .But this has the drawback of being inflexible .

He might as well use a futures market with one member .
Use real money . (Important : the mind sneers at monopoly money)
Every day , he reviews it . This way he squeezes out the lies he has been telling himself . New facts will also be incorporated .

Market futures prediction for the Family .
Use real money ($5 will do) .
Set a futures contract on a holiday at Disney Land on some future date and let her rip .
Of course , if you do not honor the implicit contract , they will have a learned a valuable lesson about commerce and lies . Unfortunately , this might also include the role of the courts in settling disputes .

Fair settlement of Disputes .
At present we know of two uncontestable fair mechanisms:
For Two : A cuts the cake and B chooses first .
For Three : A rather complicated system that only divorce attorneys understand

A Market futures system open only to interested parties could easily be developed to give all parties concerned an input into the decision making process . It has the added advantage that after being fine-tuned over thousands of civil cases , it might be used in more serious disputes .

The Software should be a bestseller .

Card game !
Call it “Unhappy Families” . Tolstoy approves .

Money and Time .
Money is one-dimensional . Time can be tacked onto it , usually through interest . The usual argument is opportunity cost and risk cost .
The union is forced .

Markets are quite efficient in squeezing out lies (ie getting a fair price ) in a single transaction not involving future payments .



Fast communication (also called globalization or Empire)
The highest risks (and hence the highest returns according to this model) are at the borders of the Empire .But fast communications ensures the same interest rates in the center of Empire as at the peripheries . But the center’s costs are always higher by definition . For the center to keep employment , it has to decrease costs (ie fire people) and increase productivity .

At the periphery , the armed forces of the Empire is used to lessen the risk at general taxpayers expense . The original high risk costs then goes into the pockets of the investors .

This is the driving force of Imperial expansion since money was invented . (The British and European Dutch and Rothschild groups plundered the American and African continents during the 19th and 20th centuries using this mechanism.)

Does this seem familiar ?

This has happened over and over again .

Early Christianity and Islam tried to break the cycle by banning interest .

It did not work because there is an underlying increase in real wealth . Humans keep on getting wealthier if left to their own resources . Without a mechanism to handle the wealth increase in terms of money , the system breaks down .

A classic example is the widespread famines , wars and depopulation in Europe circa 1530 , due to the influx of Spanish gold and silver (ie money) from the Americas.
Farmers grew cash-crops to sell for the inflated prices , neglecting basic food crops .
(Bio-fuel , anybody?)

What happens if the Empire cannot expand anymore?
The Empire has two choices :
Try to continue to expand by force of arms.
What we would call the Military-Industrial refuses to scale down .
The money-interests insist on a continuation of high returns . The marginal costs escalate (one way of recognizing an expansion limit .) The Military-Industrial complex sucks the life out the Civilian complex to maintain artificial returns on money .

In other words , direct taxes and indirect taxes(inflation) beggars the base of the whole system . Civil wars ensue as the system cannibalizes itself .
If there is heavy over-exposure to futures like the present US $460 trillion , the systems might hopefully collapse faster than civil war can commence .
The USSR collapsed in exactly this fashion .

An interesting aside is that the Roman Civil Wars can be described in these terms . They had already plundered all the easily available wealth . The Army had the wealth of the known-world . The only way the money-men could guarantee returns of 30% to 70% was by plundering from the conquerors . The money-men were about the same as today : salary slaves , with no interest in the owners .

The only wealth that could be obtained from the peripheries was by careful husbanding and trade . The returns on this could not have been above 5% .

Can you see the logic driving the system ?

Once again I have to take my hat off to Augustus . Gaius Julius Caesar must have realized the essence of the problem , hence his Gaul foray to broaden the base of Roman society .

But Augustus made it work by deliberately reigning in the Roman military machine (hence his insistence on a limited number of Legions) and by simply killing off all money-interests (senators and knights) and confiscating their assets .

In a sense it was a civil war , but where it belonged , amongst those who sent the troopies out to die for their pocketbook .

The wealth of the Roman Empire then came from trade , not conquest . The money system had to be satisfied with single-digit returns , instead of the double and triple digit returns it was used to .

Can you see how unusual this was ?
Capitalism is a good steed , but a bad master .


WWI
An example where expansion did try was the First World War . The trigger for the war was in China . France had been investing enormous amounts of capital in Russia . (Like Britain did in the US) . Germany had a deal with Peking for some industrial plants , which was torpedoed by a Russian offer of cheaper capital , funded from France . Germany’s expansion had been halted overseas (the British Fleet and Empire ) , in Russia (by the French) and now in China , the last really large economic unit . Their economic expansion had halted . The large returns of the 19th century could only be maintained by taking it from somebody else .

So the Germans tossed all the toys out of the cot .

Do not think that this is some conspiracy . This is simply large numbers of like-minded humans making similar decisions given the same conditions .

2. Maintain the empire .
This is quite difficult . The Chinese built and maintained the Great Wall mainly to maintain the Idea of Empire through succeeding millennia of growth and shrinkage . Especially shrinkage .


The Mythos : this is China . Look , there is the Wall .
It works even today .

Compare it to the Roman Empire , which had an equivalent system of borders . But Constantine the Great withdrew the legions to fortified posts (the Knights and Castles Defence) .

Both systems faced the same enemy : light horse with composite bows .

Militarily speaking , the Knights and Castles defense is superior . But culturally and Mythos-speaking you only have to look at the results . The Chinese Empire is still there , but the Roman Empire , even the Roman Catholic Empire , is gone .

Other examples are the British Empire , The Dutch , the Portuguese

To maintain or shrink , vested interests in the monetary complex have to be pacified or overthrown .

Example:
The Portuguese Empire in Mozambique and Angola is a good example . (Circa 1974 AD) . Rich families in Portugal had extremely large , profitable absentee land-holdings in these territories . These were maintained by Portuguese troops paid by the General Exchequer (ie the taxpayer) , who never saw a cent of these profits . The revolt then was from the Army (ie a Civil war , albeit a very short one )

The British Empire
The greatest Empire the world has ever known . Brought down in one year .By their revered leader , Winston Churchill , no less .
The US stripped the British empire of all it’s assets and , more importantly , reserves . It never recovered (as anyone familiar with Infinite Probes will know) . The move of the British Empire gold reserves to the US spelled the end of the British Empire . The gold would have made no appreciable difference on either side to a war of that nature , but it did after the war .

The US Empire .
The US military has been close to rebellion since Carter . The upper echelons might be in bed with the financial complex , but the Colonel level and lower gets no benefits , only orders that offend their sense of “doing it right “

The highest trained lions on the planet , barking at the orders of donkeys .

When Washington begged his officers with tears in his eyes in that tavern to obey such leaders , they were in no threat .

But today US forces , especially in the Middle-East , their lives hang by a thread .

Any time Iran closes the throat of Hormuz , the US forces are spit on the griddle . And once the nukes start to fly , they are toast . All 130 000 .

A financial collapse , closely followed by a military coup seems the highest probability after that . Wars of conquest against the handiest targets with something worth stealing is next . Probably accompanied by a communistic ideology if you are lucky . A theistic ideology would be bad . Make that very bad . Europe better watch out .England would be first .

It was interesting to see how the Warsaw-pact orders to mobilize and deploy in 1991 was short-circuited . Shevardnadze took the credit , but it was the guys in NSA that did it . Will they do the same for their own command-and-control systems ?

Half-a-loaf is better than none . The US has 300 million hard-working , tech savvy inhabitants . Do they need to rob by armed violence ? Is it easier to reform your system or become a person your mother always warned against ?

Andre .

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Virulence and Low-Fluid-Shear

Virulence and Low-Fluid-Shear
Andre Willers
14 May 2008

Synopsis:
A stagnant surrounding watery medium causes bacteria and viruses to switch on lethality genes .

Source:
Scientific American Dec 2007 p 16 “Deadly Orbits”

Discussion:
The article in SciAm arose out of experiments done on the Space Shuttle on the lethality of bacteria that spent some time in micro-gravity . Their lethality increased by at least a factor of three .

Similar results have been achieved by mimicking microgravity in low-speed centrifuges .

Bio-films starts forming , associated with the free-living state of bacteria .


Why does this happen ?
Evolutionary considerations:

Bacteria have quorum senses that count the number of other bacteria . If the organism has a large number of bacteria , lethality genes switch on . This is well known .

But who starts lethality first ?
There is a penalty in starting first while the host organism is still healthy . The immune response will eradicate a previously tolerated bacterium .

If the bacterium waits too long , it faces stiff competition from other bacteria .

Hence the stagnancy sensitivity . ( Low-Fluid-Shear to be fancy.)
If a cell or group of cells or pocket of liquid is stagnant , with no movement , the bacteria sensors detect it and interpret it as poor health and impending death .

In a typical “tragedy of the commons” response , the bacterial group with the first successful lethality response will get the most benefit out of plundering the organisms bodily resources .

This gets hardwired in by evolution in other organisms like fungi , viri , etc .

The doctors among you will recognize gangrene , bedsores , TB , etc.

Speech:
This is especially interesting . There is then a positive survival health aspect to speech.
The lungs are the most vulnerable to opportunistic infections . Speaking continuously causes a continuous Low-Fluid-Shear throughout the lungs and the heart .

Interventions :
There are four big pockets of potentially stagnant fluids in the human body :
The Intestines , the Lungs ,the Lymph glands and fats .

Exercise plus sufficient mechanical strength (Sulfur!) is sufficient for the intestines and the lungs , as they are massaged by muscles .

But the lymph system , and the lymph glands especially , needs massaging (read grooming ) . This is one of the main reasons why alpha-homonin are so ,well ,alpha . They are much freer from opportunistic infections .

One wonders whether the success of the matriarchy model has more to do the with this effect .

The evolution of menopause in human women is actually quite difficult to explain otherwise . Childbirth and rearing is very hazardous . We have discussed the fat-reserve requirements . The mortality rate amongst women were much higher than amongst men in primitive societies . Then why aren’t grandfathers longer lived ?
This is not an idle question

The answer seems to be females groomed each other more frequently . This lessening of opportunistic disease attacks , together with their higher reserves , led to grandmothers evolving .

Even today , rich females spend large resources on being groomed and massaged by other females .

Monogamy :
The poor persons’ mutual grooming society .
Each husband and wife should know at least the basics of lymph-massage and grooming . It is inherent in the basic marriage contract , but ignorance triumphs and they always look surprised when divorce strikes . Usually the parties are not even aware that their mutual dissatisfaction stems from real health considerations .

A vigorous sex-life in early marriage usually served to keep the old juices flowing . But as the fires die down , lymph accumulates and the organisms feel a general malaise as opportunistic infections switch on more and more frequently .

Mutual grooming is essential to monogamy .

And lymph-massage is an essential part of grooming .

Massages behind the ears , under the jaws , under the arm-pits , the groin and the lower calves should save many a marriage .

Temperature .
Temperature gradients is a sure way to increase fluid turbulence . Hence fevers , cold- and hot compresses . Spa’s . Roman baths .Frigidarium and caldarium .

Gravity .
A spell in a centrifuge (as used for astronaut training) should do wonders for opportunistic infections . Bungee jumping ?

A children’s whirly-go-round should do fine . The g-forces can be high enough to make you really cling on . One is tempted to say that the popularity of this playground apparatus is not the dizziness , but the freedom of opportunistic infections all children are prone to . Swings ditto . There is a steep gravity gradient , stirring things up .

This is a real , low cost alternative .

Gadgets .
Mechanical gadgets are available that shakes various parts of the body .
This is now used for fat loss . Upper-end machines operate at a high enough frequency to vibrate only the fatty layer . This obviously causes low-fluid-shear .

A more efficient use to prevent opportunistic infection would be to use a chirp apparatus . Pulses of varying frequencies .

Hand-held pulsators can be used for bedridden patients .

Immune depressed patients ( like HIV , AIDS)

Costs are a major factor . Use a playing-ground wheel

You should be able to prevent some opportunistic infections .

There is an interesting observation that monkeys can be immune . The only life-style difference with humans that has not been explored is g-force . Even a captive monkey bounces up-and-down , subjecting itself to much higher g-forces than humans . This has been disregarded , because nobody could think of a reason why this should matter. But if low-fluid-shear is a trigger mechanism for bacteria , it is certainly one for viruses and fungi as well (plasmids)

HIV could well be an opportunistic disease triggered by low-fluid-shear .

Is there an off-switch?
We know there is with most old opportunistic infections . While a young infection might go-for-broke every time it seems that the organism might die , an older one would go for it if decrepitude seems likely , but switch off lethality if the body seems able to handle the infection . The penalties for an unsuccessful insurrection involves extinction . We also know that all these buggers share this information . Both their strong and their weak point .

Thus , we can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that all opportunistic infections have a off-switch .

Gravity-gradients and coriolis-forces seem to be one such . They stir the cellular contents . Also the fluids outside the cell . Cell-docking becomes much more difficult for interlopers . This turbulence is part of the body’s defence mechanism .

Note that the older and more successful evolutionary orders like birds have a higher basal temperature . We can predict that human basal temperature will likewise rise if they survive a hundred million years .

Dancing
This must be the cheapest form of cure . Twirling round-and-round subjects the body to considerable g-stresses and coriolis forces .

Systematic :
Lying on a rotating platform (like a playground roundabout) will stir up your bodyfluids . About three times a week seems indicated . Who invented this contraption , in any case?

Auto-grooming
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Combs”
Combs made auto-grooming of hair possible . But I am not aware of any civilization that practiced lymphatic auto-grooming . The closest I can think of are the Greeks . They used massage extensively (like the Romans , Chinese , Japanese ,etc) . Some Chinese societies (like the warrior monks) might have practiced it , but did not survive since they had no children .

Lymphatic auto-grooming seems rather an orphan . Which seems strange , until you remember that it competes directly with two systems(matriarchal and monogamy) that guarantees offspring . It dies on vine due to ignorance . Organizations that keep records (like the Roman Catholic Church or Budhism) and recruits from the families do not want a competitor . (They buy their grooming)

Mk IV humans
Low-birthrate humans and weak-aspergers need such a system .

Andre

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Three-card-monte and Bats

Three-card-monte and Bats
Andre Willers
11 May 2008

Will Bats go for Three-card-monte ?

And how !

The poor suckers will be hooked from moment go .

The better the sensory equipment , the bigger the sucker . (AW)

Their sensorium can see not only the position of each card , but also the direction it is moved in . But being of a mammalian order , there is a left-hand and right-hand brain memory stack with a limited capacity The oldest item gets pushed down and out .
The brain also moves data about the left-hand stack to the right-hand stack to keep track of the object before it is painted on the sensorium . And vise-versa of course .

In humans , it has been shown by fMRI that if the switch is done faster than the left-right transfer rate , the memory at the bottom of the stack is lost . This is not an illusion . The hand is not faster than the eye . The hand is faster than a rather bureaucratic information transfer of data in the brain .

The eyes sees perfectly well , but the memory system loses track .

What is amazing here is the low frequency . The visual system keeps track at about beta-brain freq (ie about 16 herz) . Hand switching is about 4 herz .It seems to take at least 4 cycles to move data from the left-hand of the brain to the right-hand . For error-correction included , this seems about correct .

(Systems without error-correction – see amygdala systems))

So , for something not deemed critical to survival , the mammalian system gives a whole whopping quarter of a second leeway .

Like humans , bats , whales , dolphins , etc simply will not believe that they can lose track of an object moved faster than 4 times a second . They will try over and over again . It does not matter how good their sensory system is .

Another definition of being a mammalian : susceptibility to Three-Card-Monte

You can hook humans , bats ,dolphins ,whales to the internal endorphins .
Then lead them into some serious gambling .
Remember , the rewards are internal endorphin releases . Creatures in virtual isolation are extremely vulnerable . Suckers .

Then , you can teach them poker or mah-jong .

Dolphins and whales should be pretty good at mah-jong or go , but bats should be whizzes at poker .

The problem in training humans or mammalians is usually what reward makes sense to them . The endorphin reward of gambling is mammalian specific and general .
You can hook any mammal on gambling .
Then uplift them . For their own good , of course .
The unending route of effort for relative advantages .

Do birds gamble?
We know that all mammals have a primitive neural knot that releases endorphins on gambling . This is a major reason for their success and ties in with boredom .

For dinosaurs and birds we can look to the ripple effects after the KT boundary .
Dinosaur descendants quickly repopulated (large bird-like raptors) But speciation into the empty ecological niches (the small ones) was faster in mammals because of the random “gambling” nerve-complexes in mammals . Taking a chance paid off if the pay-off is biased in the positive direction .

This has been the general experience of mammalians since then .

From this , we can infer that birds (and dinosaurs before them) did not gamble .

If the bias does not favour you , you are doomed anyway . You have to bet as if the bias favours you .

You have to bet .

And try to figure out a way to change the bias in your favour .

This is why you are a mammal and not a bird-dinosaur .

PS
You can get bankrupt betting this way .

Andre

Friday, May 09, 2008

What is it like to be a fish?

What is it like to be a fish?
Andre Willers
8 May 2008

For Egbert Louw Jr

What is it like to be bat?
There is a famous philosophical treatise by the philosopher Thomas Nagel titled : “What it is like to be a bat” . Google it for the article .

In the finest polysyllabic , philosophical tail-chasing style he states that experiencing a truly alien consciousness is impossible , but he also makes the statement that we can sneak up on it . This is what he is famous for .

The relevant quote :

“This should be regarded as a challenge to form new concepts and devise a new method—an objective phenomenology not dependent on empathy or the imagination. Though presumably it would not capture everything, its goal would be to describe, at least in part, the subjective character of experiences in a form comprehensible to beings incapable of having those experiences. “

To be able to do that , we have to have a mapping method relating the bat’s sensorium to the human visual system . This is the other reason why he is famous . The bat is sufficiently alien , yet still a mammal . The underlying neurological structures are still mammalian . We can still make a map .

Echolocation:
A number of mammals have successfully adapted visual information processing brain-systems to handle echo-location . Dolphins , whales and bats are but the best known ones . This is no accident . There is a deep underlying neurological structure that makes the conversion between binocular vision and echo-location depth perception possible .

We can thus know that we can map the sensorium of a bat to an analogue of our visual system .
Evolution has already done it .

Chirping:
A pulse of sound composed of rapidly varying frequencies . By analysing the time-returns and absorption characteristics of the reflected chirp , information analogous to shape and colour can be inferred . Also used in human chirp-radars .

So , how does a bat see?
Like a myopic human with 95% vision , but with a Vector-sense of motion of objects inside the chirp cone .

He flies through a 30 metre visual bubble in which he can clearly see things and motion-curves of objects bigger than about 0.5 mm . Outside it , things are misty .

We know that they can discriminate half a mosquito length from about 10 metres . This is nearly as good as human vision . But objects in relative motion are highlighted in the chirp-cone .

This is the motion sense , which humans do not have : the alien bit . Like a vector arrow on a radar-screen . Humans have to calculate the vector of motion , bats perceive it directly . Since the refresh rate is directly proportional to the chirp-cone scanning rate , the bat perceives curved motion directly in his sensorium .

This is why they can catch insects on the fly .

The chirp-cone is flicked around in scanning cone , much like the saccades in the human eye-ball . Doubtlessly , there are some very sophisticated optimization scanning algorithms involved . The bat sees a seamless picture , like a human sees a seamless picture in his sensorium . All the low-level jittering is smoothed out in the sensorium .

Time-binding:
The alert reader will have noticed that bats have a better sense of time-binding than humans or monkeys . They can perceive trajectories directly .

Why are bats not then the dominant life-form on the planet ?
The same evolutionary trap that got birds : the atmosphere is not thick enough to sustain a flight-form with sufficient mass to have a large individual brain . If they come to land , they have to compete against superbly adapted land-predators . I have seen some videos of bats on foot actually running down small prey . But any decent cat or dog family member would soon put a stop to this .

There have been some speculations (Vernor Vinge is notable) of sound-linked communal minds . I see no inherent theoretical impossibility . But the brain has to be large enough to handle the essential data-linkages . This would require packing-protocols outside evolutionary boundaries . But , I suppose , some demented scientist could create intelligent bat-communal beings . They would out-compete any other mammals .

Bats are likely to survive an eco-catastrophe . (Time-binding goes deep . ) If surface dwelling niches are opened to them , they could very well evolve to smarter and better caretakers of the planet than humans .

What would it be like to be such a bat ?
Since they can directly perceive a trajectory , self-destructive behaviour would be much less likely .

“Catch the mosquito while diving into the ground” would be one of their favourite sayings .

More intelligent than humans in calculating consequences , but less creative .
Pak-protectors without the xenophobia .


Now we sneak up on the fishes .

First , look at dolphins , whales , etc . Their sensorium is similar to that of the bat . Their primary sense is the echo-location chirp . But water is different . A dolphin sees a three-dimensional sensorium of another water-animal . At first glance , the sensorium should be overwhelmed by too much information . There is no surface to a sonar scan of a water-filled animal. This is why the chirp is important .

Time and absorption differences to the various different frequencies in the chirp enables the dolphins sensorium to construct the “surface” of whatever is scanned .

It was thought that the dolphin saw a human in the water like we would see a glass model , with all the organs somehow magically delineated . The dolphin simply does not have the processing power to see three-dimensionally . What it does is use the tried and trusted surface-visual algorithms to do layering . It can see various sound-reflective layers . As far as a dolphin is concerned , a human is not a single entity , but a compendium of layers . But all the other living things in it’s environment is like this

It can focus on various aspects .

The critical question is : what is the definition ? What is the smallest thing a dolphin can sense with its chirp ?

The evidence suggests about half a cm . There is a heavy energy cost to generate really high-frequency water pressure waves .It is not like sound waves . The minimum necessary would evolve . The sensorium of a dolphin would have significantly less definition than that of a bat . (Factor of 10)

Dolphin Sound Spectacles .
Since humans are so enamoured of dolphins , why not give them glasses?
Not for their eyes , for their sonar .
Uplift them .

Noise-nullification technology can be easily adapted to give a dolphin the resolution to see things at cellular level . Even a classical large lens of denser than water material will do the trick . The inverse can just as easily be done , to give them the capability of zapping tumours .

They are already rumoured to be beneficial to sick humans .
I would not be so sure about killer whales .

Or zygote manipulation .

I draw your attention to the unpredictable effects of giving spectacles to human populations .

The reason why dolphins et al do not communicate is that they cannot see us . They need glasses to focus .

Do humans have the courage to do this ?

Now for what it is like to be a fish .
Fish are not mammalian . Rather trite , but true . The primary sense organ of the fish is the pressure sense . A fish uses pressure to sense how far away it is from the surface of the water .

Near the shore:
So , to think like a fish , invert . Your upside down feet is treading on the surface of the water from the bottom . If the surface is choppy , think of walking over rough ground .

It costs the fish energy and effort to maintain an equal depth .

Where would you go ?

Where feeding and turbulence combines optimally . Two thirds away from the centre of a sloop and two thirds down at that point . (Values derived from Infinite Probe considerations)

If you think walking upside-down under the sea-surface is weird , you should try me on my better days .

Bottom dwellers cling to the sky .

Scent and electrical senses also play a role .

The fish “sees” an endlessly quaking surface under it , with the mists around it riven by channels of scent , with a false top of the thermocline .

Sharks examine things close by via electrical fields . So they see the close environment as twisting network of electrical fields .

A lemon with connected copper and zinc wire should make a fine shark lure .


What is it like to be a deep sea fish ?

Untrammelled freedom .

The densities of population in the deep sea used to be lower than survival levels . Continental shelves were used for risky spawning . That is until humans conveniently started melting the ice-caps , causing upwellings of nutrient rich waters along the oceanic trenches . You don’t need shoals to ensure reproduction . Think like a fish , with about 400 million years of survival mechanisms .


Andre

PS
Tortoises and their like navigate by treading the sky .

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Charity and Malice

Charity and Malice
Andre Willers
7 May 2008

Charity is the Immune System of the Rich .

Lies :
We sneak up on Charity by examining lies .

I see you have noticed the problem with lies . The cover-up is more unforgivable than the original sin . Women or voters will forgive nearly anything except an extended period of deception which is unsuccessful.

Cf Nixon . But you don't have to be Jimmy Carter either , to confess every vagrant fancy .

How much to tell the significant other has been a perennial problem since Eve .

It is useful to use Infinite Probes and the concept of Reserves .

Always maintain sufficient reserves of regard , love and trustworthiness to weather random or malicious attacks .

Malice is a continually increasing problem as you grow more successful

Believe it . There are acquaintances who out of jealousy , spite , malice or self-interest will try to break you down . This is usually done in ways in which you cannot defend yourself .

The rumour , the whisper , the snide comment . Outright lies .
Outside of your knowledge where rebuttal is not possible .

Humans usually measure this by reflection from other people . If 37% of people think you are a good guy , your system is internally stable . Only an outside attack (like from the legal system) can broach it , and even then a lot won't believe it as they perpetuate the "good-guy" feedback system amongst themselves . Also known as "The Robin Hood" effect .

Charity:
This is the real reason why rich and successful people always are seen to give to charity .

Laws:
Most societies these days include the concept of Law .
This is a framework deliberately outside of being “nice” or a ”good old boy” .

But the Laws are made by the People (ie Lawyers ) .

If you are Rich , but without a protective cladding of seeming like a charitable person , present societies have very efficient mechanisms of mobilizing political support for new laws that attack this wealth .
There is a feeding frenzy and the lawyers grow rich .

Think immune systems .

Example:
Note what happened to John D Rockefeller , who thought that he was rich enough to disregard it .
Public opinion and Anti-trust legislation is what happened , significantly reducing his wealth .

Note the heavy involvement of persecuted minorities (Jews ,etc) in charities .

Note the correlation with anti-sumptuary laws in Christianity and Islam.

Predators:
It is my considered opinion that if you do seem like a good guy to at least 27% of the population , you and your organization is vulnerable to predators that have evolved specifically in this niche in the Legal and Religious systems .
(see http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Infinite Probes” and “Infinite
Probes 2” )

This is recursively true down to individual levels .

If malicious lies are being spread about you , your best defense would be to have an existing cloud of antibodies extolling your charities already in existence .

To paraphrase Churchill : “Bodyguard of Charities. ”

PR.
This is why , in our societies with a rule of Law , PR is essential .

There are predators lurking to exploit any weakness .

The churches are full because the congregations dare not stay away .
Only the outliers of the truly good or the truly bad are not there . And if they have anything worth having , they are soon forcibly removed of it .

Remember Voltaire about people :
“They forget nothing and remember nothing”

The “Doc Martin” model is bullshit .

Andre

Myths , Memes and Boredom

Myths , Memes and Boredom.
Andre Willers
7 May 2008

Summary :
We live by Myths .

Boredom:
Learned helplessness can be caused by boredom . The organism reaches stasis with its environment . The “weights” in the neural networks get randomized , because of lack of change over critical thresholds . This is a big no-no .

What are the critical thresholds?
Once again we haul out our trusty Infinite Probe . We can immediately say that if less than 27% of the environment shows change , boredom sets in . But if the change is over 37% , the organism runs the danger of being overwhelmed (ie insufficient reserves) .

But any successful organism has the goal of minimizing risk , ie change . The more successful the organism , the less change . The more sensory deprivation .

Sensory deprivation .
The alert reader would have noticed the connection between sensory deprivation and boredom . The successful organism then starts generating internal stimuli to prevent learned helplessness .

Language.
Language forms (shared internal delusions) . This forms a meme (language) , a true meme transmitted only in floating form from person to person .

Language is then a true meme , codified later in writing , but continuously altered .
Mother to child , by mouth . Even written language has to run as hard as it can to keep with the spoken language . Theoretically , printing should have frozen the language , but ask anybody who has wrestled with Shakespeare or Dickens . Not to mention 1930’s vernacular .

The human system gets bored quickly , so always seeks novelty , so untruths (hypotheses or myths) are formed . Myths which correlate with reality replicate with the language .

When agriculture was invented , things got even more boring in a hurry . This suited the ruling classes , since learned-helplessness is an ideal peasant state .
Unfortunately , they do not good fighters make . Even there , myths (religions) were essential to keep the population from becoming completely comatose .

The Greek Chorus
Derived from the Maze-runner chants of Northern Europe . See Hop-Scotch chants below . Maze-dances (many people linked on the maze , with a dragon motif) , Morris-dances , Chinese Dragon-dances and the Greek Chorus share distant roots .

This was vital as an anti-boredom thingi since everybody could participate . Even today , Church and Community Choruses are a vital part of human life . Not everybody can be the star , but everybody can be in the chorus . The chorus was the precursor of democratic systems , since the chorus acted like the Fates in dictating the course of the play . And the play was the mythos . And humans shaped their actions to the mythos .

Greek hoplites were required to be members of the chorus in earlier days .

Bread and Circuses .
The Roman enterprise lasted surprisingly long because of the circuses . It was actually an essential part of the whole civilization . Together with theatre , plays , etc .

Christianity and the endless nit-picking arguments also came to replace the circuses .
But more popular , since everybody could participate .

Romans got bored with gladiators discussing life in the arena compared to discussing their chances of life in the hereafter .

What finally gave the church the Coup-de-grace was glasses and cheap printing .

The alternate Universes in all their glory was born . The novel was well known in Roman times , but limited to the wealthy . Now everybody who could afford a penny and glasses could alleviate their boredom by entering an alternate universe .

The mental health of the species underwent a major change . Mirror-mechanisms in the brain underwent major expansions . Sympathy systems grew.

One thing humans of the present era cannot complain about is that they are bored .

Ho!Ho!Ho!
The amusing thing is that one can make a very good case that the population explosion since the 1700’s was because things became less boring . Understandable if you look at this reality as a holiday locale .

Even the hope of change brought about cultural radiance from Western systems would have been enough to destabilize static systems by increased birthrates .

Myths.
As you can see , myths play a central role in creating a sufficiently stimulating role for humans to prevent them from sliding into learned-helplessness ennui .

Successful myths become religions , or if they have some correlation with physical reality , sciences . Humans are inordinately proud of these .

Hop-Scotch .
Some memes just keep on existing . A good example is hop-scotch . This is a children’s game now that started life as a training regimen for maze-runners about
5 000 years or more ago . Each new bunch of children was taught by the older ones . Thousands of years later and thousands of kilometers away (Bloemfontein , 1960) , I played it without the faintest idea of the esoteric significance of its origin . A true meme .

Each pattern was accompanied by a chant going straight back to pre-homeric Greek choruses .
The Democratic tradition also still held . Anybody , rich or poor ,could play . I cannot remember anybody ever being excluded . Even the clumsy ones .

A meme-specialist would say that the entire democratic western civilization can be recreated from hop-scotch . It can be unfolded . This is truly remarkable . It has sufficient information to unfold in a structured way to recreate the structure it derived from . The closest analogue is some proteins that does the same thing . This deserves some closer study .

A Matriarchos meme ? Could be .

Do children still play hop-scotch ? Yes . A meme that has survived this long (and the disapproval of the roman catholic church) , definitely still survives . In India at least .

An interesting corollary is that schools (where children gather) has existed for at least 5000 years . This is not at all obvious , since this means teachers , principals and ways of paying them from the public coffer . Ie some form of taxation .

What could they have taught them ? Remember the Myths ? Humans always find ways of filling the space between their ears with meaningful-sounding noise .

The noise evolved to be slightly above 37% of ambient .
Stochastic resonance meant that the smartest would grasp some new elements , and be promoted as promising students . The rest would be trained into a learned-helplessness stupor .

But what would happen if the ambient noise dropped below 37% ?
What information would hop-scotch impart ?
I draw your attention to Rull-type mind-controls and information transfers .

The Matriarchos Mythos .
See previous posts .
I will summate quickly .

2 million BCE – 200 00 BCE : Homonins subject to heavy leopard predation .

200 000 – 72 000 BCE : Ropes invented by females(unweaving) . Nets . Language . Leopards exterminated . (Mk I humans)

72 000 BCE :Toba : Peace invented by females. Weaving of cloth . Co-operation of all human species under the Matriarchy . (Mk II humans)

Population slowly inceases . Experimentation with crops . Small scale war by designating dissident humans as prey .

Extensive bio-knowledge . Breeding of snakes as temperature sensors and chemical sensors and dispensers .

Breeding of humans . Matriarchal bio-engineering might have reached take-off point for singularity . Unknown .

10 000 BCE : Agriculture invented by females . Population starts to explode as climate stabilizes . Females expand war by breeding males for aggressiveness and strength .

Matriarchy breaks down as factions contend .

Extensive bio-warfare .

Horse-nomads become independent . Horse-milk developed . Possible rogue Matriarchs involved in development of enhanced nomads and horses as surrogate troops .

Bio warfare intensifies . Psychotic induction biologicals released on the borders of the steppes . Possible dooms-day weapon in the Indian Ocean affecting surface plankton and algae . Climate over Africa , Middle-East and India changed .

Extensive droughts over Middle-Asia .
Designation of humans as prey for eating by the Matriarchy .
The final mistake .

The Late Bronze-Age civilization collapses in a welter of genocidal warfare .

Every vestige of the Matriarchy is eradicated .

The betrayal hurt too much .

But not all elements of the Matriarchy were bad . They packed meme-structures to self-inflate if circumstances were right . This level of knowledge argues that they were post-singularity remnants . This fits in with the time-scale . One would have expected at least one singularity between 100 000 BCE and 15 000 BCE .

These are these same hop-scotch rites , amongst others .

If these were triggered to activate when the ambient noise fell below 37% , this would have happened at the start of the 1700 ‘s

We are watching the millennia-old unpacking and resurrection of the Matriarchy .

Let’s hope they do a better job than last time .

It would be hard to do worse than what the males are doing at the present time .

Oh well

Andre

Friday, May 02, 2008

Chins

Chins
Andre Willers
2 May 2008

Why is a protruding chin in humans associated with strength ?

“A strong jaw” has led to the concommittant “Weak jaw” . There is a spillover into myth , then into character .

The Hero always has a strong jaw . (See idealized images of the comics industry) .
But the Villain usually also has a strong jaw if he is a strong Villain .

Utterly despicable archtypes have evolved into chinless wonders .

Sexual selection by human females take the shortcut of Myth to make decisions .

This has been the source of real misery to males of sterling qualities who had the misfortune to be born with “weak” chins .
Especially since the start of the Disney era , when images of this type became a yardstick . (Not to speak about soapies . Ever seen a weak-chinned soapie hero?)

How did this arise ?

There is a sound evolutionary reason .

Pre-homonins had protruding jaws and females had small breasts .
(The human female milk gland is still the same size as that of chimps . The rest of the breast is fat and sinew scaffolding) . The protruding jaws (a general mammalian characteristic) prevented suffocation of the infant while suckling while clutching the infant during fleeing .

We have to take a step back to recapitulate the development of the large female human breast (a process described in more detail in previous posts)

The main evolutionary driver was speech . The ability to speak rapidly and clearly was so important to an individual’s survival (especially females:gossip) that selection pressure drove the shortening of the tongue . This drove the flattening of the protruding jaws . But this led to the choking of infants when the mother had to clutch the baby to her while fleeing . On a flat breast , the nostrils was blocked .

This was a choke point .

The evolutionary answer was to make the bosom conical and move the nipple to the point . Hence the conic form of the woman’s bosom , with the nipple at the point where there is maximum clearance for the baby’s nostrils ( Human babies can drink and breathe at the same time , a rather essential point) .

This conical breast was so essential that it got hardwired into the male sexual selection criteria .


But there was a teensy , weensy problem .
All mammals have a supply-on-demand mechanism while suckling , involving pressure on the breast/udder . Note how calves pump the udder . Milk machines pulsate , but do not maintain a more efficient steady sucking .

Note how the sucking effort in humans shoves the lower jaw forward . ( Suck your thumb and feel it) . In babies the lower jaw is even looser . The rhythm is also a recognition signal . Every baby will have a different pumping frequency .
This is a reflex mechanism older than homonins .

On a flat breast , a prognatious jaw is no problem . But on a conical breast , if the nostrils are clear , so is the lower jaw . Babies with an extra bony protrusion on the lower jaw had an advantage of better feeding on demand , which translated into higher survival rates and stronger adults .

Another adaptation was that the female nipple shifted a bit from the conical tip to slightly above and towards the torso , enabling easier contact between the baby’s lower jaw and the breast .

Another adaptation has to do with breast sagging after births . This chin selection effect described above gradually disappears as the baby has to pressed upwards into the nipple , coming into close contact with the breast .

This means that the chin development in the baby is also dependant on how successful its “pump-demand” is . If it is somewhat successful , but not sufficient for nutritional needs , the chin grows . Else the body does not waste essential bone-building nutrients. (This sounds like an epi-genetic response.)

Bottle feeding .
This has not been around long enough to have significant genetic impact .
But , it would have an epi-genetic impact .
Lack of response to pump-demand will lead the body to conclude that it is a waste of resources to build a chin . This will carry through at least three generations .

But you can design a bottle lets through more milk on pump-demand .
It would be an interesting experiment .

Even more interesting on adults .
Will stem cells mobilize to grow extra chin if we drink milk or coke from such bottles? The mind boggles .

The sad thing is , such a bottle will probably be commercially successful , first as a fad , then as niche market , even as therapeutic tool .

I have not touched on the psychological effects .
Response to pump-demand tells the body’s neural-networks and genetic systems in the most immediate possible terms that “mommy cares for you” .
Look at all the water bottles everybody these days are using . What do they remind you of ? All it needs is a little pressure valve at the bottom .

The effects of such a tool on the weaning process really needs some work .

Co-nutrients .
Notable chins are Roman , Dutch , Norse .
The common elements are cheese and fish products . Cheese for calcium and fish for vitD .

Bantu and Africans : cows for calcium and sunshine for vitD .

Note the small chins of steppe-dwellers (Slavs , Mongols , Easterners, etc)
This should disappear as calcium and vitD sources improve and if everybody survives long enough .

Steppe dwellers are especially interesting .
Horse milk is the closest mammalian milk to human milk , even down to many immunity markers .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com “Infinite Probes 2 : The smell of horses” for a further discussion .
Bottle feeding might go back much further than we suppose . If we postulate a matriarchal episode and a male revolt , the males would have had to raid settlements on the steppe-borders and abduct male babies before maternal bonds were solidified and the Matriarchy pursued . A mother’s milk substitute would have been essential and there would have been extremely heavy selection on mares to produce it (ie culling like with border collies) . The horse genome is nearly as plastic as the dog and more than the human genome . This approach would have brought the two closer rapidly as far as milk is concerned , with most of the culling adaptation being done to the horses .

Even so , calcium usage would be minimized . I wonder if in some area of Asia some dinosaur genes for lightweight bones are being expressed .

Dinosaurs.
Mammals diverged well after the feather-hair split . Indeed , some wonder whether this was the defining split . The crucial bit is in the lungs . Hairs were older (from bacterial cilia) . They were (and still are in mammals) used to move things out of the lungs . But feathers are split hairs .

In the lungs , this is not just an internal hairdressing problem .

Initially a bad mutation .
One solution was to dispense with hairs and go to the more efficient “bird-lung” route.

This involved a gene doubling , a well established evolutionary route : two lungs instead of one . This propensity probably occurred in the same organisms as the doubling of hairs- ie feathering . The same mechanism would have made it more probable by orders of magnitude that the bird-lung and feathers evolved simultaneously .

The two then had a party of positive feedback reinforcing , culminating in a new order, the dinosaurs .

The dinosaur lung(bird lung) is superior to the old model . The double lung evolved into a bellows in part one , and an oxygen exchange mechanism in part two . The dinosaur could breathe both on inhalation and exhalation . The rate of oxygenation and waste disposal depended on the relative sizes of the two bellows .

This enabled higher rates of oxidation (ie greater strength) .
This enabled greater sizes , but led to momentum (ie speed) problems . This led to lightweight bones .
Bones are just clumped-together hairs with a calcium filling . Combining the strength of a silicon-calcium lattice . A lot of the filling can be dispensed with : hence feathering .
This led to even larger sizes . Our fossil record show bones that had enough calcium to last . But we know that organic-type materials like Kevlar are possible , and has been produced (albeit in small quantities) through genetic engineering . We have a strong suspicion that this arms-race could have led to super-dinosaurs larger than any seen before , but who left traces that could only be found by looking for specific breakdown products of these exotic materials .

Of course , these materials would take a lot of energy to produce . There would be bugs to eat them like candy . Hence the lack of fossils . There is a danger that some of them have sporulated and would reactivate in the presence of their food : Kevlar ,etc . (A spore of this nature would easily survive 60 my . ) You have been warned .

Imagine a horde of Kevlar-armoured tyrannosaurs a hundred feet high . If the exotic material involved iridium as a trace element , the KT boundary can be explained this way , though Occam would have frowned .

Mongolians.
While such speculation is interesting , we are still faced with the problem of explaining the Mongolian pony . Not only does it produce nearly human milk , it has anomalous strength and endurance . Read very efficient lungs .
So has the Mongolian .
This is understandable if both went an extremely rigorous selection process simultaneously .

For the horses this involved inbreeding and ferocious culling . The culling was primarily on human-compatible milk , but also on strength and endurance . The two combine in the lungs . Activation of some genes going back to the dinosaur-mammal split is postulated . Note the feathering on the pony hair . The finest felt is from pony hair .
These activation markers were transmitted via the milk and bypassed the immune system because of the milk-similarities and immune-suppressants in the milk .


Immune suppressants .
I have not mentioned the immune suppressants . Mongolian horse milk is heavy in immune suppressants , which is why they have the lowest HIV rate in the world . I suspect that ordinary horse-milk also has this property , but to a lesser degree .

Cold resistance
A nice little side-effect of this for a Mongolian is extreme resistance to cold . The higher breathing rate enables them to ratchet up their metabolic rate . They don’t shiver , but breathe faster . (This should be measurable) . Of course , this makes them obligate hunters .They are ones who fled from carbohydrate bondage to fat bondage .

Well , there is only one way to settle this . Examine a Mongolian pony and a Mongolians’ bones , lungs and hair for evidence of feathering .

I have no idea what form the lung-adaptation would take , but I suspect an alveoli-to-alveoli connection close to the rib- and abdominal diaphragma . Not as efficient as the bird-lung , but better than mammalian .

The bone-structure should be more telling . Fine detail should show some feathering . They should be just as strong or stronger than normal bone , but much lighter .
Try drawing a Mongolian bow , and you will see what I mean .

We would also expect the presence of retroviruses in large eco-presence . Bubonic plague’s home is the marmoset of the Mongolian steppes . A little evolutionary shit-stirrer if there ever was one .

The only other examples I can think of where there was severe selection over centuries for strength and where horses were involved (ie a weight limitation) are the Samurai of Japan and the Knight-nobility in Europe . But whether they drank horse-milk I do not know . Ninja in Japan and China might have followed , with infusions of Mongolian blood .

Reputedly , the markers for Genghis Khan’s genes have been found in about a third if the Eurasian population .

If the above argument is correct , then we can expect extreme strength and endurance individuals as outliers . Not just freaks . Performances that would have been simply impossible for the MkI ,II, III humans .

I draw your attention to the Turkish super-weight lifter . The euro athlete that can run all day for days on end (great lungs!) .
Wolf Messier is a good example . Lung and blood function at that level is simply not possible without some major reworking of human physiology . Not the Andeans or the Sherpas could manage it . Yet many others have now done it . The genes have spread .

What does this mean?
Gene material developed over the last 200 million years is slowly leaking back into the mammalian gene-pool .

The Mongolians were and are well on the way to becoming a separate species . Some interbreeding is still possible because of the Toba fiasco . But the human and crop monocultures will favour the survival of diverse genetic groups .

If diverse enough groups do not exist , genetic engineering will probably create them
And at the forefront , of all people , will be sportsmen . The expression of performance enhancing genes is already taking place , but as usual the humans have little understanding of what they are doing . A lot of this involves reactivating old genes and trying to fit them into a survivable context . Exactly what the nomads did . And we got the Mongols for their pains .

Can this happen again ?
The Mongols were Supermen in our definition , and their ponies were even more super .
Does this sound familiar ?
Nazism . The ubermensch . Nietsche’s sister . The Ultima Thule group . Madame Blavatsky . Does 40 recent million deaths convince you that this is not a mirage?
400 million with the Mongols?

A little history lesson is in order .
About 4 000 years ago , at the time of the collapse of the late bronze Age Civilization and major climate changes , there was a ferocious civil war in India . The Matriarchy Mythos would include them , but is not essential . The details are described in the Mahabharata . In our terms , it was something like the Second World War , with the horsemen barbarians (Indo Europeans in our terms) coming as a relief . The survivors took even being conquered and a caste system as being preferable .

The survivors of the rulers fled to Tibet and established a series of what we would call fascist monastery fortresses , exploiting the locals .

A series of extermination wars followed , as the survivors fought amongst each other . The ferocity of this can be gauged by the fact that I saw a video of an open pit where the losing notables had been thrown (BBC) : they still had their original silk clothes . Nobody knew how long they had been there . The whole area around had been completely depopulated . The corpses had all their jewelry and finery intact after at least a thousand years . No looting . Nobody was allowed to disturb them . It was like seeing the pits at Auschwitch , preserved in an aspic of fear as an object lesson .Fear was the general impression . Typical of meme-warfare .

The survivors settled in like ticks on hound-dog . Meddling with their neighbours’ business . They had some expertise in meme-structures , and a view of reality where reincarnation absolves them from all moral responsibility . (That was what the final war was about) .

The question is whether reality absolves them from moral responsibility .

I hereby give notice that God has noticed them , and will have a final refutation .

As far as I am concerned , the Chinese are treating this bunch of shit-stirrers far too lightly .

There might be some merit in arguing stochastic resonance in bringing out hidden values in civilizations . But their interference in all Civilizations , especially the Grey and Ultima Thule groups denotes a selfish bias . Not to mention the Moslems and Mongols , or the burning of the fleets in 1427 . And that is only recent history where improbable events can be traced .

Random shit stirring can be tolerated .
Self-serving cannot .

The Indians kicked this bunch of bums out 4 000 years ago as being intolerable . These ne-culturny lot still have not learned anything .

They are not civilized and will not pass a rite of human passage .
They do not cry for the numberless dead .

I designate them Prey in the name of God . And may God have mercy on their souls .

Andre Willers