Monday, January 22, 2007
Jesus Had No Jury
I'm writing live and direct from the Brooklyn Criminal Court downtown, where I'm legally skipping school as I've been chosen to serve my fair city as a potential juror. Except I haven't been chosen for anything yet, so I'm sitting here dicking around on the computer. So far, the highlight of my day (aside from my 90 minute lunch break at The Brazen Head where I had some delicious brews & BBQ delivery) was a hilarious informational film entitled Your Turn: Jural Service in New York State that they showed us at the very beginning of the day. I walked in while they were demonstrating the medieval "trial by ordeal", by attempting to drown an alleged witch. Ed Bradley spoke to us (from beyond the grave, eerily enough) about the responsibility of living in a democracy. Images of Greek statuary accompanied his narrative about Aristotelian ethics. But then, the Romans abolished juries, and immediately, Jesus gets led away, hands bound, to the crucifiction. Pretty hilarious. This was followed by another religious image of a saint being martyred. I guess these qualify as Western history, but I think that if I were Hindu or something, I'd find the Christian symbolism out of place in the halls of a secular government...
Biked over here with frozen knuckles -- I guess winter finally came. A far cry from my bike ride two weeks ago, on a 70 degree Sunday, relaxing on the Brighton Beach boardwalk with delicious pastries, watching maniacs kitesurf, getting 10+ feet of air over the icy North Atlantic waters. But on the plus side, got to take some ski runs this weekend in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania...
Ooh! They just made an announcement that they're giving away NYS Jury System datebooks and calendars. Gotta run.
Biked over here with frozen knuckles -- I guess winter finally came. A far cry from my bike ride two weeks ago, on a 70 degree Sunday, relaxing on the Brighton Beach boardwalk with delicious pastries, watching maniacs kitesurf, getting 10+ feet of air over the icy North Atlantic waters. But on the plus side, got to take some ski runs this weekend in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania...
Ooh! They just made an announcement that they're giving away NYS Jury System datebooks and calendars. Gotta run.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The A/S Paradox
One beautiful thing about life is the way that being able to see both sides of a philosophical question reveals the beauty of a Zen koan. Currently, I'm awash in what might be called "synchronicities"; if you are unfamiliar with Jung's term, it refers to a coincidence, or often a series of coincidences, which have an inexplicable internal logic. One good one from today:
I was thinking about a crazy street art religious project I ran into over the holidays: a broom was laid in the middle of a busy sidewalk, perfectly aligned with the stone squares. Near the base was a small sign that read "Leviticus 7". A few blocks later, I came across a second installation, where a umbrella was bent into a backwards 7 with a plastic water jug over its handle. An identical sign was next to it. I had put the whole thing on the backburner of my mind.
Today, for whatever reason, I thought of the incident and checked out the passage. Turned out to be fairly standard Leviticus -- the instructions on how to perform a sacrifice properly.
I was messing around on the Internet when I came across this spooky/funny old Sesame Street bit about a number painter. I had just watched the one where he's painting the number 7 when I realized that the first video under "director videos" in the right hand column (which typically have nothing to do with the video you're watching) was for a film preview of some film called "Lucky Number S7even". I thought that was kind of funny, so I watched it. Turns out that the film is largely about apparent coincidences that turn out to be something more. Thought I'd post about it, and realized that the date is 1/17/07. Aside from having two sevens in it, the date numerologically adds up to seven (1+1+7+0+7=16 1+6=7). The date of my previous post was 1/7/07. I'm 27. Last night I met a guy who's 37. He said that the two of us were "the sevens".
Traditionally, seven is thought to be lucky in Western culture, probably going back to at least the story of Creation in Genesis. Seven symbolizes the union of male (3) and female (4); it can thus be seen as a hierogamy (sacred marriage of heaven and earth). In the ancient world, there were seven wonders, seven sisters, seven celestial "wanderers" (the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), and the seven notes on the diatonic musical scale. The Christians have their seven virtues and their deadly sins, and the Great Beast has seven heads. The Japanese have seven lucky gods, Snow White is rescued by the seven dwarves. and who could forget "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers"?
Skeptics think that the perception of syncronicity is a function of the will to believe, a symptom of apophenia, or seeing connections in random data. Was my series of sevens today merely a perceived connection between meaningless phenomena? Did my consciousness simply tune out "noise" to pick up an arbitrary "signal"? Shamanic traditions and New Age neo-Jungians agree that synchronicities appear as alarm clocks and signposts -- to rouse a slumbering consciousness and indicate when changes can occur. Is this belief simply a mechanism to occasionally pay mind to the possibility of change, thus self-fulfilling the prophetic belief in synchronicity, a feedback cycle of reinforcement? Or are there patterns in the dynamics of the cosmos which simultaneously organize physical and psychic worlds, thus accounting for the acausal connections? As above, so below.
The Global Consciousness Project uses random-number generators (RNGs) in a method first developed at Princeton to test for possible interactions of consciousness with unrelated physical systems. The output of these RNGs is sent to a central computer which analyzes the statistical resonance and varience of the data. The researchers are looking to see if the focused psychic energies of a large number of individuals (mostly due to a televised event such as sports contests or awards ceremonies) affect the randomness of the data produced by RNGs. Interestingly enough, the results of these studies suggest that the data produced by the RNGs is significantly more coherent (less random) during those times of mass focused attention. Supposedly the biggest spike of global coherence was while the world watched the events of 9/11 unfold on live television and, perhaps most fascinating, the coherence patterns began to rise hours before the event ever happened, implying some reverse causality. If you're interested in a possible physical explanation about future events influencing the past (and you like the double-slit experiment, quantum mechanics' answer to the koan), I refer you to the delayed choice experiment, my brain candy for the month.
One last funny apophenic/synchronous story for the night. This evening, I tried to go to an event at the gallery where my sister works. An artist they represent has published his project, "An Illustration For Every Page of Gravity's Rainbow", and they were hosting a signing. On the way I picked up a copy of The Onion. It had an interview with the artist. I was under the impression that the event ran from 8 to 10. Around 8:30, I was at the closest subway stop to the gallery, when i decided to stop in Boston Market. I hadn't been to a Boston Market for years, and I had a craving for cornbread. I ate, then walked over to the gallery. It was about 9 by then, and the gallery was dark and closed. I called my sister. She had just gotten home -- the event ended at 8. She said she had been at the gallery until about 8:30, when she walked to the subway station. She saw the Boston Market, thought to herself that she hadn't been to a Boston Market in years, and had a craving for cornbread. She must have left the restaurant just as I was walking in. How bizarre that the first time that either of us had ever gone into this establishment (which I would probably frequent regularly if it were next to my subway stop) must have been within minutes of each other, drawn by some urgent craving. Or maybe not. I like to think that, just like the particle-wave duality, or the one-hand clapping, or any other paradox, it's neither-nor as well as both-and.
I was thinking about a crazy street art religious project I ran into over the holidays: a broom was laid in the middle of a busy sidewalk, perfectly aligned with the stone squares. Near the base was a small sign that read "Leviticus 7". A few blocks later, I came across a second installation, where a umbrella was bent into a backwards 7 with a plastic water jug over its handle. An identical sign was next to it. I had put the whole thing on the backburner of my mind.
Today, for whatever reason, I thought of the incident and checked out the passage. Turned out to be fairly standard Leviticus -- the instructions on how to perform a sacrifice properly.I was messing around on the Internet when I came across this spooky/funny old Sesame Street bit about a number painter. I had just watched the one where he's painting the number 7 when I realized that the first video under "director videos" in the right hand column (which typically have nothing to do with the video you're watching) was for a film preview of some film called "Lucky Number S7even". I thought that was kind of funny, so I watched it. Turns out that the film is largely about apparent coincidences that turn out to be something more. Thought I'd post about it, and realized that the date is 1/17/07. Aside from having two sevens in it, the date numerologically adds up to seven (1+1+7+0+7=16 1+6=7). The date of my previous post was 1/7/07. I'm 27. Last night I met a guy who's 37. He said that the two of us were "the sevens".
Traditionally, seven is thought to be lucky in Western culture, probably going back to at least the story of Creation in Genesis. Seven symbolizes the union of male (3) and female (4); it can thus be seen as a hierogamy (sacred marriage of heaven and earth). In the ancient world, there were seven wonders, seven sisters, seven celestial "wanderers" (the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), and the seven notes on the diatonic musical scale. The Christians have their seven virtues and their deadly sins, and the Great Beast has seven heads. The Japanese have seven lucky gods, Snow White is rescued by the seven dwarves. and who could forget "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers"?
Skeptics think that the perception of syncronicity is a function of the will to believe, a symptom of apophenia, or seeing connections in random data. Was my series of sevens today merely a perceived connection between meaningless phenomena? Did my consciousness simply tune out "noise" to pick up an arbitrary "signal"? Shamanic traditions and New Age neo-Jungians agree that synchronicities appear as alarm clocks and signposts -- to rouse a slumbering consciousness and indicate when changes can occur. Is this belief simply a mechanism to occasionally pay mind to the possibility of change, thus self-fulfilling the prophetic belief in synchronicity, a feedback cycle of reinforcement? Or are there patterns in the dynamics of the cosmos which simultaneously organize physical and psychic worlds, thus accounting for the acausal connections? As above, so below.
The Global Consciousness Project uses random-number generators (RNGs) in a method first developed at Princeton to test for possible interactions of consciousness with unrelated physical systems. The output of these RNGs is sent to a central computer which analyzes the statistical resonance and varience of the data. The researchers are looking to see if the focused psychic energies of a large number of individuals (mostly due to a televised event such as sports contests or awards ceremonies) affect the randomness of the data produced by RNGs. Interestingly enough, the results of these studies suggest that the data produced by the RNGs is significantly more coherent (less random) during those times of mass focused attention. Supposedly the biggest spike of global coherence was while the world watched the events of 9/11 unfold on live television and, perhaps most fascinating, the coherence patterns began to rise hours before the event ever happened, implying some reverse causality. If you're interested in a possible physical explanation about future events influencing the past (and you like the double-slit experiment, quantum mechanics' answer to the koan), I refer you to the delayed choice experiment, my brain candy for the month.
One last funny apophenic/synchronous story for the night. This evening, I tried to go to an event at the gallery where my sister works. An artist they represent has published his project, "An Illustration For Every Page of Gravity's Rainbow", and they were hosting a signing. On the way I picked up a copy of The Onion. It had an interview with the artist. I was under the impression that the event ran from 8 to 10. Around 8:30, I was at the closest subway stop to the gallery, when i decided to stop in Boston Market. I hadn't been to a Boston Market for years, and I had a craving for cornbread. I ate, then walked over to the gallery. It was about 9 by then, and the gallery was dark and closed. I called my sister. She had just gotten home -- the event ended at 8. She said she had been at the gallery until about 8:30, when she walked to the subway station. She saw the Boston Market, thought to herself that she hadn't been to a Boston Market in years, and had a craving for cornbread. She must have left the restaurant just as I was walking in. How bizarre that the first time that either of us had ever gone into this establishment (which I would probably frequent regularly if it were next to my subway stop) must have been within minutes of each other, drawn by some urgent craving. Or maybe not. I like to think that, just like the particle-wave duality, or the one-hand clapping, or any other paradox, it's neither-nor as well as both-and.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
sadfunny
Whenever I've told stories about my school, inevitably, some story comes up about something that happened in school that my teacher friends and I find hilarious, but others who may work outside of education or have "values" find saddening; often in the retelling of these stories, I realize their pathos. This essay may be such a case. Despite my best efforts to procrastinate, in order to maintain a sense of professionalism, tomorrow morning I have to conference with this student about this essay. Read it to the end and I guarantee it will have you laughing. Or crying. Or crying with laughter. I pulled a muscle in my neck the other night during a recitation. Without further ado ,,,
[Editor's note: I left all misspellings and capitatlization mistakes as they appeared in the original, but followed typographic protocol. Where the author inserted a long break between two words with no punctuation, I offset by three spaces. I chose not to attempt and approximate the author's decision to insert a space between the sentence's final word and the period, but I kept it before the comma-ellipsis because I thought it was really cool.]
Simple machine
... Forces and Friction are really heavy The simple machine of pushes is when people the wind pushes them o lot. Balanced Forsess and unbalanced forces Prouduce motion. machines, Work=, Force x Distance the force has olot of energy and its strong the Force and energy that it haves. simple machince energy kinetic\ Gravity Velocity, Kinetic Gravity is like a simple m.Compound machine is a good and simple machine. Simple machine are perfect because you could study olot of that. the thing that I learned that force is very heavy and that there are a lot of kind Simple machines that what I learned. I like and study a lot. at the places the Force is a kind of energy that pushes the people back puts it Force. the most important thing is that gravity is very dangerous because it haves o lot perfect things and dangerous and that why energy tick is very dangerous I like when teachers of science are teaching and I am taking notes because its more interested that the take and I am taking perfect and exited notes I felt very happy for taking the most important notetaking in the school or at the house because at the house people can read out loud and thats what works machines are very noicy and very incredible at all times because having a treat for or from simple machine that are noicy and exited so thats what simple machines are big for a thousands of people that whant them the simple machines are Just perfect for me well I am going to draw something from the Simple machine here it is the most beutifull thing ever that science thought me well ,,,
[Here the author drew an almost perfect rendering of a force diagram from a piece she wrote about the forces on a dogsled, except the dogs or "woulf"s are facing the sled, and it appears that "people", not friction is pushing in the opposite direction of the woulfs. I'll try to scan it so you can see the ornateness of the author's handwriting.]
the simple machines is a thing that has alot of stuf that is the thing that Mr. Stine Showed me of Scianse ! ! !
[Editor's note: I left all misspellings and capitatlization mistakes as they appeared in the original, but followed typographic protocol. Where the author inserted a long break between two words with no punctuation, I offset by three spaces. I chose not to attempt and approximate the author's decision to insert a space between the sentence's final word and the period, but I kept it before the comma-ellipsis because I thought it was really cool.]
Simple machine
... Forces and Friction are really heavy The simple machine of pushes is when people the wind pushes them o lot. Balanced Forsess and unbalanced forces Prouduce motion. machines, Work=, Force x Distance the force has olot of energy and its strong the Force and energy that it haves. simple machince energy kinetic\ Gravity Velocity, Kinetic Gravity is like a simple m.Compound machine is a good and simple machine. Simple machine are perfect because you could study olot of that. the thing that I learned that force is very heavy and that there are a lot of kind Simple machines that what I learned. I like and study a lot. at the places the Force is a kind of energy that pushes the people back puts it Force. the most important thing is that gravity is very dangerous because it haves o lot perfect things and dangerous and that why energy tick is very dangerous I like when teachers of science are teaching and I am taking notes because its more interested that the take and I am taking perfect and exited notes I felt very happy for taking the most important notetaking in the school or at the house because at the house people can read out loud and thats what works machines are very noicy and very incredible at all times because having a treat for or from simple machine that are noicy and exited so thats what simple machines are big for a thousands of people that whant them the simple machines are Just perfect for me well I am going to draw something from the Simple machine here it is the most beutifull thing ever that science thought me well ,,,
[Here the author drew an almost perfect rendering of a force diagram from a piece she wrote about the forces on a dogsled, except the dogs or "woulf"s are facing the sled, and it appears that "people", not friction is pushing in the opposite direction of the woulfs. I'll try to scan it so you can see the ornateness of the author's handwriting.]
the simple machines is a thing that has alot of stuf that is the thing that Mr. Stine Showed me of Scianse ! ! !
