Yesterday was one of the worst travel days I’ve ever experienced, and that’s saying something. After 7 hours at the airport, I decided to rent a car and drive back, about 6 hours. Yes, I could have been home before I even left. Got home just before 1am, with a speeding ticket to boot. I might also mention I had barely slept in two days. And there’s about 2 hours of road in New Mexico where you can’t pick up a radio station. And another good hour and a half of nothing but golden country hits. Wasn’t this Dante’s seventh circle?

The previous day I read Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. Never been a big Vonnegut fan, but I started reading it in the bookstore and had to finish it. That’s two fiction books in a week, unusual for me. I guess I usually read fiction in short bursts like that.

Starting to do light calisthenics with the left hand. Rehab.

At least I recorded 17 hours of work yesterday so I could take the day off.

More on the topic of belief:

To understand the views of Aristotle, as of most Greeks, on physics, it is necessary to apprehend their imaginative background. Every philosopher, in addition to the formal system which he offers to the world, has another, much simpler, of which he may be quite unaware… The sophistication comes in by way of refutation of refutations, but this alone will never give a positive result … The positive result, however little the philosopher may realize it, is due to his imaginative preconceptions, or to what Santayana calls “animal faith.” (Russell)

The word “faith” does have overlap with “transformational belief”, but to me carries additional connotation of intention. I would normally use the word when associated with a choice, whatever the basis.

This “animal faith” is yet another beast, different from even what later philosophers would call a priori knowledge. The key descriptor is imaginative preconceptions. A nice way to describe old world mythos. If one were to ask an Ancient Greek whether they literally believed their mythical stories, I think they either wouldn’t understand the question or think it inappropriate. Such literal belief is a relatively modern phenomenon. They simply organized their world in imaginative terms, where myths gave form to truths beyond the literal interpretation of events. I would say the animal faith described above consists of these perceived truths.

I don’t have to invoke Blake here, do I? Well, dammit, if you insist:

In your own Bosom you bear your Heaven and Earth & all you behold; tho’ it appears Without, it is Within, in your Imagination, of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow.(J 71:17)

Monster Cranium Splitting Eye Strain Headache.

Looking over my previous week’s entries, there is very little record of my own activities. This is mostly due to me not being satisfied with things as they are. I have a strict aversion to airing my dirty laundry in public.

I will never produce a “what I did today” type of blog, but neither do I want to lapse into pure commentary.

I will be in Albuquerque for most of this week. Luckily (sort of), Niko has just those days off, so we won’t have to make other arrangements for the dawg. But, this way we occupy non-contiguous vicinities of space-time for 8 days.

The motel we stay at in Alb. is situated right next to a huge Border’s., so you know what I’ll be doing.

Upon returning, I may visit a physical therapist about my left hand. Being limited to the open strings is a major contributor to my sorry state of affairs.

I felt like watching Fight Club, so I popped it in, but it just wasn’t doing it for me. So I turned it off, went out, bought the book, read it, then watched the rest. I have to say the movie is actually better, but it’s very interesting getting a glipse at the choices made in adaptation. I can’t imagine reading that, and seriously considering making a film from it. The novel reads as a rough proof-of-concept. In the liner notes, the author, script writer, etc. talk a bit about the process. At the end, the author says: “Everybody involved brought so much more to the story, I felt a little ashamed of the book.”

The read also provided additional context to many details in the film. There’s so much attention to, and intention behind, every frame. This is all that matters.

From Mr. Fripp:

Silence is richer than music, but so wishes to be heard, it accepts forms of limitation to bring it within our audible range. In this sense, music is an echo of silence, which “shapes” & contains the silence. In this view, music is between the notes, rather than within them.

Yow! The Kabbalah of Music.

As we hit the lobby on the way to lunch next to the Assembly, a professional autograph “collector” approached T & myself with a bag full of goodies.

I rubbed shoulders with such professional collectors a while ago, in this case sports memorabilia dealers, when I was in the hockey scene in Denver. There is something very uncomfortable about these people. Comic collectors, for instance, usually love the object of their obsession: a particular form a fantasy literature. But those making a living off other’s scrawled names seem to have lost the original impulse, and harbor self-loathing.

One might call them collectable-mongers. I’ve always loved the term “collectable”, I mean, what isn’t collectable? One could collect dirt. And many do. Some even have good reason. What’s more fascinating is a whole category of objects whose sole purpose of existence is to be collected. Or perhaps, more appropriately, an object whose features are so otherwise exceptionally un-noteworthy that to be ‘collectable’, a universal property of all objects, becomes its primary and most important characteristic. What is it that one that loves to collect collectible things loves?

A more appropriate nomenclature might be “purchasable.”

Ack. MySQL barfed on me and Geo (owner of host) was in Vegas. Oh well. I have plenty of writing to post-post.

From a highly recommended article on 9-11:

Yet, paradoxically, this failure to understand the enemy can arise not only from a lack of sympathy with his position, but also from a kind of misplaced sympathy: When confronted by a culturally exotic enemy, our first instinct is to understand such conduct in terms that are familiar to us — terms that make sense to us in light of our own fund of experience. We assume that if our enemy is doing x, it must be for reasons that are comprehensible in terms of our universe.

It would seem GWB’s entire cultural experience is based in comic books.

A Fantastic description of two common types of belief, a distinction I have been trying to articulate myself:

But the concept of belief, as it is used in this context, must be carefully understood in order to avoid ambiguity. For us, belief is a purely passive response to evidence presented to us — I form my beliefs about the world for the purpose of understanding the world as it is. But this is radically different from what might be called transformative belief — the secret of fantasy ideology. For here the belief is not passive, but intensely active, and its purpose is not to describe the world, but to change it.

Many mistakes are made my blending, or simply failing to recognize, the differences in use of the word. Another excerpt:

While the Sorelian myth does aim, finally, at transforming the real world, it is almost as if the “real” world no longer matters in terms of the fantasy ideology of radical Islam. Our “real” world, after all, is utterly secular, a concatenation of an endless series of cause and effect, with all events occurring on a single ontological plane.

This is not the “real” world most people, and most notably those in Washington, recognize. This relates to another comment I wanted to make about the concept of fantasy ideology. We all create a self-image to occupy a role in our model of the world. The worlds of the supermodel, construction foreman, university professor, and suicide bomber are all vastly different. The ontological plane of elementary particles has no more influence on the self-image of a nuclear physicist than an abortion clinic bomber. In fact, the cloistered exisistence of deans & chancellors seems more removed from the real world than the ordinary existence of coffee-plantation slave laborers. The distinction, then, is one of degree: how well does one’s fantasy role conform to actual social organization, and what function does it play?

At the end of the article Harris adeptly defends Bush’s use of the term “evildoers” as being totally appropriate to the reality of radical Islam’s fantasy ideology. What he doesn’t address, however, is the necessary counterpart- the role of the hero, which Bush casts upon the USA. If he had truly recognized the theatre of the situation, he wouldn’t have jumped on stage. Instead, he adopts the role Bin Laden penned for him. If you have any doubt, I refer you to the rediculous “axis of evil” language. If this isn’t a blatent exercize of fantasy, I’ll be growing that idestructable skeleton I’ve always wanted.

Fascinating era of Shii history. Facing constant persecution from the Umayyad rulers, the sixth Imam withdrew entirely from politics. The Imam took the role of spiritual leader, one who obtained direct transmission of a divine wisdom, similar to succession of the Zen patriarchs in China, and in contrast to the transmission of a divine authority in Catholicism. What I find most intriguing is the view Shii’s adopted toward the necessity of a secular state, especially considering Islam’s emphasis on realizing the ideal society. The idea was, the material world is just too fucked up to be compatible with divine world. Practical matters were thus best left to a secular authority (until the return of the occultized twelfth Imam, but that’s another story).

This is a very different mechanism of secularization than adopted by enlightenment revolutionaries, where the church was forced out of politics essentially as punishment for severe abuse of power. While many enlightenment scholars were adopting truly secular world views, their political philosophies were not inherently incompatible with state religions, so I think doctrines of separation are mostly reactionary. Because of this, true separation has not been realized. The Shii case is remarkable because the religion removed itself from politics. Of course, this is easier when you are a minority and have no political power to begin with. I know of no instance where state empowered religion (or religion empower state) has not been plainly fascist, the obvious strategy of enforcing divine province. When Shiism was later adopted (i.e., imposed) as the state religion, the mysticism and flexibility of the religion was quickly replaced with enforced doctrine and intolerance.

We may pass our knowledge to another (and this is very hard in itself) but I don’t believe it is possible to transfer understanding. We may pass our feeling to another; & we may pass our technical expertise to another (assuming certain conditions). But our understanding doesn’t travel. (R Fripp)

I have always used the word ‘understand’ in this limited and powerful context, as I think most physicists do. This is something experienced in learning and teaching physics. We must present students with the information and lead them to the correct problems to work out, but the student must build his/her own understanding by doing, using, applying. When I looked a professor in the eye and said “I understand.”, the significance of the statement was… well… understood.

To hell with Iraq, let’s invade Delaware!