The Common Vein

October 2009

Copyright 2009

Terry Levenberg

Terry posted this a while back and at first did not want it published ? at my pleading ? since it was the start of a hot and important debate  ? and an important aspect of our lives he has given permission for publication

Hello chaps?.I?m back. BUt this one isn?t for publishing. Just quiet contemplation and open debate if you so choose.

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you

There are two kinds of people in life. Those that give oxygen and those that deplete it. They are easily recognized. The first smiles and laughs a lot. They don?t have a ?but? hidden in every sentence. They make mistakes often and rebound as often. In fact for the first kind, making a mistake is simply a part of the learning process.

And then there are those who are afraid. Afraid to try, to give, afraid of the unseen. They won?t taste new things. They believe that somehow evil is hidden in all things waiting to come out.

I always believed that what characterised the repressive Afrikaaner regime was their capacity to stifle energy. To celebrate the dull and the dour. To wear clothes that removed colour from our earth. A repressive attitude to sex and to women lies deep in the belief system. Yet somehow, whenever there was a report on sexual proclivity or acts of sexual aggression they were over represented in the statistics. And it isn?t just them.

You don?t have to look far past most religious sects to identify the same quality.

They don?t have discovery as a word in their lexicon. They run lagers around their given knowledge and won?t allow it to be challenged by science. We have prayers that celebrate that we are not born as a woman. We teach revulsion against normal human physical cycles and sex through holes in the sheets.

Others stone women for being alone or talking to men or for the clothes they wear.

I am not a believer in faith. For if I did I would believe that somehow there would be greater good amongst people. I am not a believer in a vengeful god ? I hate the words of bloodlust that so often characterize the scriptures of a small minded and fearful people who had no understanding whatever of life around them.

It is true that the men who bombed the twin towers were virgins ? they had no love of life. They had no taste for life. They had no form of human contact. And it is not true as faith would have it that they would each receive fifty virgins on their ascent into heaven. What form of faith could be that insane.

It remains true that anyone who somehow purports that his or her form of belief is somehow greater than that of others, by definition is someone who has rejected the multiplicity of life.

The Da Vincis brought to Florence artists from every corner of the earth and created a place where diversity and difference could flourish. It was that simple quality which made that place an engine for creativity that lasted for 300 years.

My father feared all things which is why he was an accountant. Only numbers could be true he thought. That was until Arthur Andersen made his business an sullied one.

He needed to be in control at all times ? and so, whilst his mind was free to wander in every sphere of intellectual pursuit he would allow himself no participation in any of them. He became further and further removed from life to live only vicariously through books.

And those that withdraw from a vital life are prone to be more and more fearful of it. It happens as we age. And the few who defy ageing do so only because they remain open to every element of influence around them.

Randy Newman has a song on Harps and Angels ? it goes like this:

A President once said, ?The only thing we have to fear is fear itself?
Now, we?re supposed to be afraid.
It?s patriotic in fact and color-coded.
And what are we supposed to be afraid of? Why of being afraid ? that?s what terror means, doesn?t it?
That?s what it used to mean

We were the children of a generation of parents who brought us up to know little fear in a place where they probably should have been fearful but weren?t. We were given space and time. To be ourselves.

And what did we learn from that? What are our longings for today?
There has rarely been a time when so many people have fallen across into fundamentalist beliefs without question. The churches are on the move. They?re making the big money.

What did we learn? Our children suffer from Vitamin D deficiencies because we won?t let them out in the sun. They suffer from Vitamin G deficiencies because we won?t let them play on the grass. We smoked it but they can?t play on it? Even though there is so little of it left for miles of concrete and shopping malls. They suffer from Mobilitis ? the fact that if they are out of our sight for longer than a few minutes we?re hunting them down.

And we are an enlightened generation?

It is always easy to tell a successful organization from one which is not. In business, in sport, in life. Bill Bryson talks about the institution of the English Language. How today it is an $850 billion industry in teaching for everyone has to learn it ? how it is the lingua franca of all world institutions (isn?t that a hoot). And it came about because whenever any new tribe arrived on English shores from Normans, Saxons, Vikings or Latins the language said ?bring me your words?. By contrast the French put up Alliance Francaise castles designed to protect that sanctity of the tongue and in so doing they presided over its demise as a world tongue.

These words adorn a symbol we all once held in reverence:

?Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!? cries she
With silent lips. ?Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!?

America was made grand by the doors that it held open to gather in the pooor and oppressed of Europe. The people who came bringing with them the prospect of great science and art and music. The people who made it, for a short while, the Florence of our time.

Today the doors are closed. We might live in hope that this is literal alone and that a new spirit might blow them open once more.

Do we turn our faces to the sun?

My poor, poor father. Deplete of wealth.
For what good is money when you could have no joy.
What good all the earthly possessions when you could not touch nor small the earth.

There is a Kookaburra that sits in a gum tree above a rock on which there is a plaque in commemoration of my father. The plaque carries a Maori inscription which reads ? turn your face to the sun, and the shadows fall behind you.

The kookaburra laughs.

Sam Sharp

Terry, lets not close off that debate just yet. After originally reading your article I started a reply treating ?faith? more broadly, along the lines you appear to imply in your message of a few minutes ago here. Then I re-read your article and noticed that ?faith? as you use it there relates only to religion. I didn?t (and don?t) want to get into a discussion that centers exclusively on religious faith on this thread and so abandoned my response. However, I think the concept of ?faith? in the broader sense is a fascinating one. To what degree do scientists and philosophers have faith (and in what), even if they do not subscribe to a particular religion? Richard Dawkins for example eschews faith. Advocate of the supremacy of reason though I am, I think it can only take one so far.

But please be patient. I would love to get into it right now but spare time is tight. As it is, there are members of my family who already think I am addicted to this facebook thing and it is true that I am (happily) spending a lot of time here. In the meantime I would love to hear more from you and from others on this.

Lindsay Leveen

Sammy have faith I will respond in good time. Faith is not easily defined and could take us to Hope and then we will have to ask Obama and Bill Clinton about Hope. Mich please tell me the hebrew word for faith Sam I am pondering Faith and will write a real response. On Hope I know it is a word politicians use to paint a brighter future at the end of their yellow brick road. Pretty much the rallying cry of the Dems. Maybe the GOP is losing out becuase they are all about faith and not about hope.

Philip Cramer

Lev, in my admittedly biased opinion the GOP claims that their worldview is based on Faith when it is actually based on a perversion of Faith that believes that anyone who doesn?t hold the same views as they do is either misguided or evil. Theirs is a selfish, greedy and uncaring worldview where humiliating an opponent is more important that ensuring that people can get adequate access to health care. Witness the GOP Congressman the other day who told a constituent suffering from cancer to look for charity to help her out. They remind me more and more of the Nats who of the 60?s and 70?s in South Africa who did nothing but abuse the concept of faith.

Lindsay Leveen

Phil a brilliant and witty response. Sure the Nats and NGK professed faith in their misguided beliefs. So therefore faith in misguided beliefs is ?worse? than no faith? As for Hope the only hope is in a third party. You and I can start it and our motto will be ?Be Green ? Vote Leveen? I am still thinking of what Rhymes with Phil but how about ?Send Phil to Capitol Hill?. I could be the posterchild for the screwed up health care system. I could be the poster child for the screwed up energy policy that has come from Donkeys and Elephants alike. These parties are a dull gray and will never get Green. Since one can spell Gray Grey perhaps each of the two parties should simply change their names. One to Gray and the other to Grey. All these guys are gray like rats and our hair.

To stir the pot some more. We had JFK, we had LBJ, we had FDR and now we have BHO. I told my buddy Andrew Tobias the treasurer of the dems national committee that BHO stood for the Best Hopeful Option. In strategic planning Eric will tell you that Hope is not a Strategy. Time to elect Nero at least he payed his lyre (not a fiddle) while Rome burned. If things dont gel soon BHO will stand for Bloody Hopeless Option.

Sam Sharp

Terry wants to talk about Faith. He gave us the topic but not yet the direction which is good since we are freed up to interpret this the way we wish to.

Faith is acceptance without the requirement of proof or evidence. It is most frequently associated with religious belief but I think it is inescapable regardless of one?s world view. For example, atheistic philosophers who like to pour scorn on faith nonetheless are subscribers of a faith of their own. It is known as Reason. There can be no proof of the validity of Reason because this cannot be turned on itself. And so it is accepted without proof. Even the postmodernists, who like to deny any overarching narrative, principle or ground, are quick to defend their views by means of an appeal to Reason.

Scientists have an unshakeable belief in the principle of causality. Only Hume of the great philosophers was skeptical about its validity. But causality cannot be proven ? it is a metaphysical concept and so is beyond the reach of empirical or rational confirmation ? it is an article of faith. Scientists have other types of beliefs which cannot be established, at least not yet, with the usual empirical approach. For example, no-one has yet seen an electron. Yet it is close the very foundation of atomic theory. As my friend Tibor likes to say, all of science can be summed up as a quest to answer one question: ?What must the world be like to explain what we observe??. And current theories of physics posit the existence of the electron precisely because it plays this role. We can say the same about energy or force. These are epistemic constructs designed to help us explain the world. I think a lot of faith is involved right there.

We all, Rabbis and priests included, demonstrate a faith in the laws of physics each time we get on an airplane or use the internet. Yet the Rabbis will not accept some theories born of the same scientific tradition, e.g. the theory of evolution. And the laws of physics cannot be proven. They are postulated and we wait for a falsification.

But faith is not certainty. Are there degrees of faith or belief? This could be a direction we follow if this debate goes anywhere.

I will end here for now and look forward to others? views.

But talk of the theory of evolution reminds me of something my father said a year ago. It was Erev Yom Kippur and he was in hospital with a life-threatening infection. At his bedside I reminded him that it was almost time for Kol Nidrei. He smiled and said he was not aware of this and that he had become such a heathen. He said that he had no sense of faith in religion (even though he had been a choir boy in Cape Town, said Kaddish for his parents, Kiddush every Friday while I grew up etc), and that it meant nothing at all to him. He said that he had only two heroes: Einstein and Darwin. He then said ?My only regret is that Darwin was not a Jew?. Go and explain that!!

Terry Levenberg

Is it not in the very divide hat you define here, between preparedness to prove or not that blind faith and the nature of religion sits. It is the lack of preparedness to be proven false that makes religious faith so false.

I have no truck with tradition if that is your bag.
It is nice to have a script for Fridays.
But I have always found, as did your father perhaps that the simple pursuit of tradition without interrogation leaves one bereft of faith.

To me an understanding of universal structure through proof an evidence is a far more convincing platform for the belief in the divine nature of our universe. And there is enough in it which is of such remarkable magnitude and wonder that there is little room for the need of faith to explain what will one day be explained.

Thanks Sam ? love your logic and your father?s story resonates so deeply with me. I love Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and Gustav Mahler and am so proud that somehow, I am of their identity (despite myself). I had this idea for the school here to produce banners that would be space 6 feet apart down every corridor that would celebrate the life of someone who had contributed greatly to the way we see the world for their origins as a Jew.

A step too far for a traditional community I am afraid and they dive straigt back into an antique language which provides no solace and only distance for the majority as Latin does for the Catholic Mafia.

Sam Sharp

Terry: Well said regarding the understanding of universal structure. If I ever feel ?religious? or spiritual, it is in the context of occasionally being witness to the conversation of giants across centuries about this type of understanding. Whether this be Plato and Godel about the nature of mathematics, Newton and Einstein about the nature of the cosmos, Kant and the anti-realists about the nature of knowledge or Aristotle and everyone about the nature of ethics.

In defence of tradition:
I have a friend who has an absolute abhorence for tradition. He had a Catholic boarding school education and is scathing of the whole idea. But he is nonetheless a creature of tradition too in various areas of his life which I like to point out to him from time to time. We all are. We draw comfort from it. And so I imagine religous
traditionalists draw a certain security and comfort from it too. My Rabbi talks a lot about custom. I feel that this is as it should be. Certainly if religion stayed out of science and focused on how we should live, it would have a more relevant role to play, even if we took Faith right out of it.

I don?t think that tradition requires interrogation. It lies in a different realm. There does not have to be a reason. Our family does its Seder a certain way because my grandparents did it that way. That is reason enough. I often think when sitting in shul (not been in a while aside from the past few weeks) that this is about the only activity of my life that would have any intersection with that of my grandparents. That is reason enough. Tradition is a harmless (provided it really is) expression of our habitual natures. You probably know of the true story of a Jewish tourist who visited an old synagogue on Simchat Torah somehwere in Europe. He noticed that during each of the seven circuits performed while carrying the Torah, every member of the procession bowed when he reached a particular location. When the tourist inquired as to the meaning of this unusual aspect of the ritual he was told that in the previous synagogue there had been a archway at the corresponding point and everyone had to bend to get through. Yes. Traditions are meaningless in themselves but they clearly have some value. This is true of probably most aspects of our lives.

About Jewishness ? and pride.
I love Leonard Cohen, Bobby Dylan and Mahler too but never really think about their Jewishness. Cohen went Budhist for a while didn?t he, and Dylan, who grew up in the same state where I lived, denied his heritage when he got to New York and claimed to be a cowboy from Arizona of all places and later became a born again Christain. I know what you are saying but I am puzzled by it as you are (?despite myself?). I don?t know that I would go for the school banner idea either though for entirely different reasons. It seems a bit elitist. What connection does their vision of the world have with their Jewishness? Certainly not about Faith. Perhaps it is only because we come from the same group. I once got into deep trouble with my wife for saying publicly (well at a dinner party and very untactfully in front of some religous Jews) that Jewishness is a club we are born into and we feel an allegiance at that level. In retrospect I should have used the word ?family?. Perhaps it is simply familial identity as you suggest.

A few years ago I heard a different Rabbi, during his sermon, deny vehemently the charge that Jews have a superiority complex. ?We are not elitists? he thundered. ?Its just that we are the chosen People?.

But I am also perplexed at the whole concept of pride at any level. It is a silly emotion though I feel it too (despite myself) when one of my daughters is acknowledged for something achieved. But why do I feel proud? Is the achievement a reflection on me? Because they carry my genes? Is this just pure ego? I want to relinquish this feeling and celebrate their achievement just for THEM. Perhaps we are just programmed to feel this way.

Lindsay Leveen

I have another ten minutes till vanpool so more on my diatribe. Reembering efes to nefesh we have the reverse going on in America. We took America and changed it into Am Reyka. If I remember my henrew rekka is empty. America is an Am running on empty. Not for lack of faith and not from lack of hope but from lack of leadership. I joke about ?be green vote Leveen? or ?sned Phil to Caipitol Hill? but in truth compared to the folks up there we would be a welcome change. The citizens are zombielike now that they have been duped once again. The Who sang ?we wont get fooled again? and guess who fooled the zombies once more. Those in the gray flannel suites. Nancy Palooka, Barak Obama, as well as their loyal opposition. I wast last in DC in March 2005 when with great fanfare the US secretary of energy handed out $100 million to GM for their fuel cell (fool cell) program. I gave this talk that GM would die and the Hummer was a Bummer. Did any one give a shit besides me? No they had faith in GM and vodoo engineering. The secretary of enegry one Sam Bodman had a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT. Of course he new that the fool cells were never going to work but he had faith that GM would give his party millions of dollars for lobbying and he could hand over a hundred million in return. We can write our kak on FaithBook but these guys who write the checks are lagging at us all the way to the bank. Like Ash I now have to start my machine of the day and be a slave to the pooligans in the van pool so we can all put medicine in botlle to give a poor soul some hope their cancer will be cured

Michelle Hellman

Had decided to unthread myself for a while but interesting discussions sucked me back in. Faith and hope the imponderables and both dependent on belief which needs another whole diatribe. No time now but hope one of you will flesh it out. Linds, emunah is faith by the way. What play on words for that and please deny the tattoos! You wouldn?t!

Eric Stillerman

When am I going to find the time to enter into this debate ? he asked! OK ? here goes ? my last hours indulgence before bed.

Terry, let?s consider what Mich calls the ?imponderables? or the unknowables or the unverifiables. Some general philosophical and existential, rather than religious examples to ponder: what is the purpose of life? why are we borne? why do we die? why be moral or good? what is good or moral? will good prevail in the end? what is the realm of experience beyond the rational or logical? is there connectivity and synergy or entropy and ultimately chaos in the realms of the universe?

As children of modern science (as one of our cultural parents) we tend to try explain and verify as much of the world as we can ? and we tend to have ?faith? or ?belief? in the philosophy of science that (almost) everything is knowable, verifiable, and ultimately manipulable and ?curable? towards some ?good? state.

Some might ?believe? that the ?imponderables? are verifiable in principle, even if not in practice any time soon. Others come to a realisation that logic and science do not have the answers to all the questions, either in principle or in practice.

In the absence of definite answers, we tend to form world views, philosophies or ?belief? systems that make sense of the world, give life a sense of meaning and purpose, and give us a reason to get up in the morning beyond the pathos of not knowing what it?s all about.

From a psychological perspective, as you probably know, logic and science tend to locate in the ?left brain? which is pretty orderly but not that creative. The right brain tends to be the bubbling place of emotion, creativity, motivation, energy ? and yes? inspiriation, belief, resonance, connectivity and all that high stuff!

The right brain, which is also the realm of our dreams and unconscious, doesn?t follow the normal rules of time, space and causality. The right brain tends to sense a gestalt of patterns and emotions which gel or resonate rather than prove the value of imponderables like life, art, music, beauty, goodness, integrity, menschlikheid and upliftment.

Look forward to the feedback and engagement

To be continued?.

Lindsay Leveen

Mich thanks for the word emunah. A wonderful word with a celestial body in the middle. Reminds of Canadians looking at the lunar eclipse Eh moon ahhhh

Sam Sharp

Eric. Welcome to the debate. Excellent to have you participate. Great questions to ponder ? and I think well expressed.

I don?t think that science claims to have the potential to answer all questions. For example, it is not capable of answering the ?why? questions only the ?how? questions. Science deals with causes only.

The attempts at answering these below are given seriously and with respect. I don?t mean them to be provocative or ridiculous. For what its worth (probably not much) this is what I think.

Q: What is the purpose of life? Why are we born?
A: I don?t think that there is an objective purpose to life. It just happens they way everything else in the universe happens. We might ask what is the purpose of the moon. Living organisms and the moon have much in common. They are made of the same material. Life is mysterious certainly but the presence of the moon was once also not well understood. Biology has many answers though not yet all. It will one day explain how life began ? already there are plausible theories ? Stuart Kauffman, a doctor and a biologist has some very interesting views. We may provide ourselves with purpose or meaning and this can be sustaining and motivating but this is purely subjective.

Q: Why do we die?
A: Research attempting to answer this question was rewarded this past week when an Australian and two Americans were awarded the Nobel prize.

Q: What is morality and why should we be moral.
A: Learning to survive in society has included the idea that our interests are best served by not attempting to have them served absolutely. If we lived in isolation there would be no morality, no need for it. Ultimately, moral behaviour is an expression of self-interest. We have evolved and survived because we developed self-preserving instincts. A sense of morality is one of those. This may seem cynical but is not meant as such.

Q: What is good?
A: I don?t think good is a fundamental quality. I think it is a derivative of a fundamental human experience ? pleasure or freedom of pain. The pain-pleasure spectrum is at the heart of all human behaviour. We call something good if it promotes pleasure or inhibits pain.

Q: Will good prevail in the end?
A: Probably not. Pain dominates pleasure in this world. This seems pretty clear to me. The volume of suffering overwhelms the volume of pleasure at any given moment. Further, it is not possible to imagine a pleasurable event that overcomes the worst tragedy but it is easy to imagine a tragedy that will wipe out the most intense of pleasures. There are no pleasure equivalents of the effects of earthquakes and tsunamis, disease or genocide. The world is simply a dangerous place. This, I think, is why it is so important to grab the small joys of life.

Q: what is the realm of experience beyond the rational or logical? is there connectivity and synergy or entropy and ultimately chaos in the realms of the universe?
A: Whew! Perhaps I don?t fully understand this. There is ecstasy, there is euphoria. These are chemical reactions in the brain that have nothing to do with the rational or the logical. There is synergy, the joy of connecting and finding harmony with people (like I have in these threads with you all). Perhaps here I part here a little from Terry who wants to see truth not restricted to numbers and by extension I presume, mathematics and philosophical reasoning. I might be guilty of his charge. I don?t see truth in art or music. I see joy, pain, comfort, trauma, darkness, light ? but not truth. This last sentence is a proposition that might be said to be true or false but these are not to be found IN the music.

Chaos? I think that this (like ?goodness?) is a human concept. The Universe just Is. We observe and where we find patterns we see order. Where we don?t we see chaos. Perhaps we just don?t see well enough. Perhaps it is all order. Perhaps there is none at all but our brains, evolved in this world, develop in a way that harmonise with certain natural behaviours which represent to our consciousness something akin to pattern or order. Since we cannot step outside of our consciousness, and so never experience the world with any other lens, we can never distinguish the effects of the external world and those tricks that might be played by that lens.

I look forward to your responses. That is if I will be allowed to stay in this thread!

Lindsay Leveen

Sam not only do you stay but you are hereby awarded the Nobel Shamas Award for excellence in threading. Profound answers to profound questions. I think that we live in a world where shift happens. We all move our tochases around to accomodate the shift. We cope with life by constant shifting. Terry shifts in words, Ash in art, Sam in numbers, etc. etc. The word shiftless is somewhat derogatory and the dictionary gives a definition of lacking in incentive, ambition, or aspiration. Slothful and indolent are synonyms for shiftless. Shift is a result of entropy that cannot be stopped but can be slowed if we move our arses. I am the Green Machine that is trying to slow the rate of man made shift. Natural shift is going to happen whether I am Green or Red. Man made shift is what we can philosophise about. Some shift can yield postive results and some can yield disaster. Guys like Eliot see only vertical shift as the cream rises. We have to see four dimensional shift of three dimensional space and time. The expanding universe is about shift. Let?s think of ourselves as Shifters. S o all of us must simply get off of the chair and do something.

Sam Sharp

Lev. Thanks . I agree completely about shifting. Man/woman-made shift (like your activism) can appear to run against the natural trend of the Universe until we remember that nothing can do that. One only hopes that the Program includes sufficient Lev?s to rescue things. Your letter is brilliant. We all hope it is taken with the seriousness it deserves. However, hope not being a strategy, we should all be supporting you more actively. Tell us how.

I wanted to say that:

Phil, your analysis of stamps and Obama were spot as usual on though I, like many, was surprised by the Peace Prize. It was acknowledged before the announcement that there were no clear favourites for the award, with Morgan Tsangurai being mentioned as a possibility. My preference for this award generally would be along the lines of winners over the past few years such as Medicins Sans Frontieres, Internatial Atomic Energy Agency, Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore (I know Lindsay woulnd?t agree here) rather than politicians who on some level have their peace agendas, if they exist at all, diluted by the interests of their constituencies.

Mich, your response to the Leveen/Davis imbroglio some time back was perfectly expressed.

Lev again. Thanks for your multiple inquiries about my parents and also your good wishes for them. My Dad is fine thank you. Came through his procedure very well.

Ash. On your request for some excerpts or stories from my Dad?s memoir. I have suggested he add a related episode that occurred about ten years ago which I think would stand-alone as a little article. That is his project for the week (he refers to me as his slave-driver but he doesn?t need one at all) and so I have not yet seen it yet but if suitable will upload on the thread. There may also be other bits and pieces that make sense without too much context. I will know more this week because I have to start the final editing and chronology checking.

Have a good week all.

Lindsay Leveen

Sam You are a gem even if you think Alfalfa is a green grass. I spoke with Gary this morning. He called and we chatted for quite some time. No hard feelings between him and I . I will chat with him again and be certain to refrain from saying genoeg is genoeg. I have received several emails from from pretty smart folks in the engineering world re my letter. All were supportive and want to see results. The most supportive was from a prof who retired from the job as a director of an engineering think tank at Stanford. The chair of the department of petroleum engineering at University of Texas also thought the letter was excellent. If this does not light a fire I may have to go back to rubbing sticks. As far as your support in the matter, you have all given me a thread as a forum to express myself. Knowing you guys read my stuff and perhaps tel one or two others is wonderful.

Mich has told us the hebrew word for Faith as emuna and as long as you don?t call me eluna I will keep on going all the way to Washington. On the subject of shift I have a rather interesting (perhaps boring) technical story. In the mid ninetees when I was at my peak of knowledge of computer chip fabrication there was this scare that Moore?s Law would stop because the circuit line width in computer chips was approaching 200 nanometers. The light sources (extreme UV) used in the lithography tools have wavelengths of similar dimension and folks thought that we would have to move to Xrays to make chips with thinner circuits. A guy who was not even working on lithography had this notion that one could phase shift the light and make it cast a shadow that was much smaller than its wavelength and hence get lithography to print circuits that are much smaller than 200 nanometers. This actually worked and by tricking or shifting the light we now have integrated circuits with line widths of 45 nanometers. This may sound boring to some but because of this we have flash memory sticks with 32 gigabytes and we have iPhones and a whole bunch of things. Shift can happen as long as we get off of our arses. Even light can be tricked to shift. Perhaps we will see around corners.

Terry Levenberg

Hey chaps ? sorry for my silence but I have been reading all this thread avidly. Unfortunately, and in complete contrast with the picture I have been weaving of Godzone, we had a robbery in our home Saturday night. We were downstairs and a burglar went into an upstairs room and stole all Rhona?s jewellery (not that she had much). But most of it came from her mum and so had special memories attached. Burglars never know about that aspect of what they take. In truth, we will get over it quickly. The intrusion is horrid but if you live in fear of these random events then you lose so much more.
Sam, I read your piece with a sense of awe and wonder. If you were to be banished it would be only for having silenced us with your erudition. I am sure I disagree with some points you made but am going to have to think hard about them before I venture into discussion.
I was reading a discussion between Barenboim and Edward Said ? Barenboim says at one point: I am not a person who cares very much for possessions. I don?t care much about furniture or reminiscences from the past. I don?t collect memorabilia ? so my feeling of being at home somewhere is really a feeling of transition, as everything is in life. Music is transition. I am happiest when I am at peace with the idea of fluidity. And I am unhappy when I cannot really let myself go and give myself over completely to the idea that things change, evolve, and not necessarily for the best.
In this short piece he gave me comfort about the loss of jewels. He addresses the idea of shift that you talk about, not with fatalism but with positivism. Things do always change. We hold on to ideas and pieces as if they would somehow give us permanence.
I like the idea that Zimbardo talks about the optimal temporal mix ? I will post the link from Ted. Again it is about the capacity to shift. It is because of the constant repetition of the grievances of history that keep situations locked in conflict. Fundamentalism of any sort seeks reversion. It promotes fatalism in the present and focuses on transcendence in a future life. It can offer us no solutions for the present. Real life cannot be ruled by taboos and prohibitions against critical understanding and emancipatory experience said Said, a Palestinian. Ignorance and avoidance cannot be adequate guides for the present.
When we were in our last year of school we were taken to an encounter group with Black Sowetans. It was transcendent for its normality. Across these great divides of time and place, we have probably discovered that whilst we have all led different lives most of us have in common the love of our children and our desire to see them grow up without pain or threat and with life?s opportunities availed them. Sting hoped that the Russians loved their children too.

Michelle Hellman

Terry am not sure whether I read the same piece but in an interview with Barenboim in the Financial Times he talks about his lack of attachment to ?stuff?. Loved his ability to shift and think that marks the true level of evolved man. So often one reads or hears of events or attitudes that lead one to think that we have not evolved at all.

I remember a forum we went to in matric and am not sure if this is what you are referring to, but it was the first time we had been exposed to black kids that were not the children of domestics. There were also Indian and coloured kids and we debated issues that were of interest to kids in general. And it so woke us up to the universality of kids, regardless of background. And so it continues?.

I am sorry about your burglary. I know it is just stuff but one?s heirlooms have meaning nonetheless. Rhona will now have to start the chain from scratch. And that has promise.

Sam Sharp

am missing the early morning weather bulletins from Boston.

I was also conscious of the long silence from our trans-Tasman correspondent but am happy to see his reappearance. Terry, sorry to read of your burglary. It must be an aweful experience, quite apart from the material and sentimental loss.
Thanks also for your comments. I look forward to your re-entry into the debate. ?It is because of the constant repetition of the grievances of history that keep situations locked in conflict.? Has a truer sentence been expressed in these threads?

I heard a Barenboim/Said discussion years ago and was struck by it. Their friendship was remarkable. Said disappointed me a little by his analysis of the Middle East situation ? not because he attacked Israel but for his apparent failure to see the great complexity of the situation. I also saw a TV documentary on the Israeli/Arab orchestra that Barenboim has assembled which was inspiring and provided a sense of what could be once the insanity recedes.

Mich I am aware of a great responsibility to get my Dad?s story out. So many have expressed to me, the way you have, a regret at the loss of history through a reluctance of members of that generation to tell their stories. Among them is Tevis in relation to both his parents.

Lev, you would freak if you were to hear what is going on in the Opposition party here. It is a coalition of a Liberal (in broad terms read ?Republican?) party and a rural-based National Party. The latter are in total denial for the need to come up with a carbon reduction plan and the former are split with the leader struggling to maintain a semblance of unity and preserve his job. And this in a First World country which has the highest per-capita carbon footprint in the world, even if in absolute terms the contribution is small ? between 1% and 2% I believe. This is the problem of conservative parties. They see change as the enemy, never seeing need for ?shift?. This is Terry?s point in relation to fundamentalism.

Eric Stillerman

Mich, it?s good to know you and Terry also remembered the life shaping multi-cultural encounter we had (not sure if it was in Form 3, 4 or 5?). I recall it was at the SA Institiute of Race Relations and was organised on our side by Eddy Webster and Dave Adler.

Sam ? we seem to agree that there are imponderables which are unverifiable and beyond the scope of science eg. the ?why? questions. As you put in an earlier piece, even causality is an epistemological assumption which cannot be verified, as one of the articles of ?faith? in a ?belief? system called the philosophy of science.

Your responses to some of the imponderables are essentially ?beliefs? which are largely unverifiable objectively or empirically. As you point out, ?belief? systems are necessary to make sense of the world, as sets of untested assumptions which make thinking, functioning and conversation possible.

Beliefs themselves may be analysed, debated and explored in terms of various independent criteria and principles such as logical consistency, utility and plausibility. Thomas Kuhn for example, demonstrated the processes of paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions towards more ?productive? lines of research.

Some of the criteria which are used to evaluate beliefs are themselves beliefs or ?moral? values, some of which are relatively universal and long-standing such as the value of human life.

We are thus not really debating the validity of the domain of belief and faith per se ? this is common cause. In moving forward it seems we can productively explore the content of belief systems in terms of some of the criteria indicated above.

It?s a bit late ? so I?ll look forward to your feedback and continue next time.

Saam Sharp

Eric. Thank you for your response. You have generalised the proposed topic of discussion somewhat and taken it to an abstract level which is perhaps more interesting ? and safer.

Can we characterise a belief system? I think at a minimum it consists of deductive rules along with a set of foundational values. The rules are required for consistency while the values are simply assumed given and cannot be established by deduction. This definition would cover mathematical systems, formal languages, political systems and religions. Provided that the values (axioms) are mutually consistent, the system should have this property too provided the logic is sound. In some cases this consistency is deeply buried in the value system. For example some conservative movements would include amongst their values the sanctity of life, the right of a foetus to be born and the right of the state to implement the death penalty. There is a consistency there somewhere ? it is just not easily observed on the surface. By introducing exceptions and further rules, it can probably always be established. The additional complexities are set up expediently to preserve the fundamental value ? whatever that is ? that makes the whole thing coherent in some minds.

I have heard it said that a single axiom separates a believer from a non-believer.

I am certainly no expert, but some of the teachings of Judasim and Kabalah that I have been exposed to seem to have some deep and wonderful consistencies. I am often made aware of how interpretations given to various customs and rituals relate in a non-contradictory way to the teachings found in the Tanach. Would not the whole system lose credibility if it were shown to have inconsistencies? However, I am sure that it is also possible to find features perhaps similarly introduced to diffuse any apparent threats of contradiction. I am aware that certain Zen teachings appear to be inconsistent but that seems to be by design.

You are correct to say that my responses were largely beliefs which cannot be verified objectively or empirically. This is probably true of all science too. For as you would well appreciate, scientific theory, not matter how well established, is never out of danger of falsification on the discovery of some new piece of evidence. Of course it is when these pieces mount up that the Kuhnian paradigm shift to which your refer kicks in.

Much of what I said rests on value rather than on logic. However, all I can strive to do in positing those views is to ensure that they are consistent with each other and with others tenets that I might hold. Discovery of a contradiction would represent a crisis and a threat to the whole system.

Eric Stillerman

Hi Sammy
Thanks for the feedback. Just a quickie now in my last few minutes of lunch time, and hopefully something chewy later.
It would be good to move the discussion forward to the nature and value of belief systems in general and some specific examples. I?d rather not get too technical, in favour of a meaningful conversation which could be of value to us individually and as a group.

Terry Leveberg

I am trying desperately to keep up with you chaps but don?t have a dictionary nor a brain incisive enough to do so. Please translate this conversation into language that ordinary mortals like me can get if you can.

Surely, Sam the inconsistency of the sanctity of life and the right to take life makes the conservative movement one which is fundamentally flawed.

My naive requisite of religiosity is that it should lead to a place where we can be at one with ourselves and with those around us. (Im ain ani li mi li vim ani rak latzmi, mah ani)

But the interpretive latitude you describe here is the very process which allows the fanatic to drive wedges into society, to justify immorality and to heighten difference rather than commonality. In our own time we witnessed the religious justification through interpretation of the Nederduitse Gereformeede Kerk of an universally acknowledged sin against man.

Or what if the values espoused run entirely contrary to what we know to be true of the world we live in rather than consistent with other obscure preachings. Say for example the role of woman in society as portrayed by ancients faiths versus what we know today to be a simple justification of an imposed set of limitations that in a self predictive way simply disallowed the full enfranchisement of woman? That in fact, the religions have been guilty, almost without exception of portraying a role for passive/subservient role for women.

Richard Holloway is a pretty cool ex Head of the CHurch of Scotland ? he says this:
Marx said that the philosophers only interpret the world, but the point was to change it. Marx?s name will always be associated with an attemt to change the world which became monstrous in its ruthlessness. Schemes for universal redemption, religious or political invariably end in cruelty. Pity may only be weakness to the monster but it is the only strength of the saint. When I read the words of some of the other threads that regurgitate the violence of mob thinking and the racism of generic grouping I bear witness to the fact that religious fervour, like nationalism has as its only outcome the portrayal of difference as an enemy and an object for hatred. How do we differ from the mullahs of hate if we gather up all of a faith under the epithet of killers.

I don?t want to deflect your discussion. But it would be useful if you would try and find concrete examples that help illuminate the points you are making in the context of our lives now.

By the way Richard Holloway said that unless the church found a way of ensuring that in this next 100 years there would be a female pope, then it would not survive intact.

I find it inconceivable that people of our generation, with the depth of education and insight we have , should be flocking back into fundamentalist religion. In ancient times religion thrived when unexplained phenomena lie earthquake and flood wreaked havoc on society. Is it perhaps the very uncertainty driven by inexplicable fanaticism that is driving people back there again now?

Eric Stillerman