Saturday Book Quote

From Chaos: Making A New Science by James Gleick.
  “Feigenbaum knew what he had, because geometric convergence meant that something in this equation was scaling, and he knew that scaling was important.  All of renormalization theory depended on it.  In an apparently unruly system, scaling meant that some quality was being preserved while everything else [...]

The Joys of Torture

How should I torture? Let me count the ways.
I torture to the depth and breadth and height
Thy body can reach, when pain blinds all sight
For the ends of ticking bombs and commanding thy days.
I torture to the level of abject submission
With excess humiliation when given permission
I torture freely, as sadistic measures proceed
I torture purely, as [...]

Sublimation

Expression has multiple purposes, but some purposes are more refined than others.  One of the primary achievements of Greek culture was to distill by reason the nature of the world.  The echoes and correspondences of the universe are elegant and mystifying.  Although we may bow to the unknowable ultimate question of why, we should advance with determination upon [...]

Fuzzy versus Formal

The title refers to types of logic.  Another way of saying it is continuous versus discrete.  The approach among nearly all philosophers is that one or the other type is irrelevant or that these types converge on a single answer.  To paraphrase, truth is one but error is infinite.  As Nietzsche puts it, supposing truth is a woman – what then?
Suppose that [...]

Saturday Book Quote

A look at the Big Easy through the eyes of a comic tragic figure named Ignatius.  New Orleans lives up to its reputation as the place where the Bible Belt is unbuckled.  From A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
Dear Reader,
A great writer is friend and benefactor of his readers. – Macaulay
  Another working day is ended, gentle [...]

Paranoid Predator

I would comment about this, but I might end up on his Orwellian ”enemies list.”

Thoughts on Metapolitics

Looking at the previous post, there are some interesting tensions between the various ideals.  The goal of liberalism over radicalism has some implications that I thought should be explained.  In some ways, this is really about information integrity, because a fair, democratic process has the benefit of allowing objective review of facts, although partisans will inevitably spin those facts to [...]

Metapolitics

Metapolitics Go-meme
How should politics be conducted? I’ve marked in my positions on the 7-point scales below. To participate yourself, simply copy this entire post (including links), and mark your choices accordingly before posting it to your own blog.
a) Liberalism – X – – – – – Radicalism (2/7)
Do the ends justify the means? Procedural liberals [...]

Graceful Days

From one of the most hopeful songs I have heard recently. 
I need someplace simple where we could live/ And something only you can give/ And that’s faith, and trust, and peace while we’re alive. 
From “Better Days” by the Goo Goo Dolls.

Miscarriage and Choice

From what I have read on the subject, miscarriage is a fairly common event.  It occurs often enough that it affects half of all fertilized eggs, and about seventeen percent of all implanted eggs.  So nature, on its own, is rather particular about letting just any zygote continue on its developmental journey.
How this correlates to choice is that abortion adds an [...]