Finger-nails, weaklings of seedtime, scratched the soil
till by iron nails the toil was finished in the time of our need,
the sublime circle of the cone's bottom, the seed-springing surrender:
hands of incantation changed to hands of adoration,
the quintuple psalm, the pointing of Lateran:
active and passive in a single mystery,
a single sudden flash of identity,
the heart-breaking manual acts of the Pope.
From Charles Williams, "The Vision of the Empire," in Taliessin Through Logres. This is one of my favorite examples of the complexity of poetic language. To understand the above selection one must understand the general context. The world-empire, which is an earthly reflection of Heaven, is pictured in this poem as an androgynous human body. Thus, the head is at Logres where Arthur sits; students drink the milk of learning from the breasts of intelligo and credo in Gaul; the womb is at Byzantium, where the Emperor is found; the penis is at Jerusalem; the feet are at P'o-lu in Indonesia, beyond which is antipodean Byzantium, where rules the octopus-like headless Emperor, the perversion of all that is good. Tha hands come together at Rome, or, more precisely, at the Lateran hill. The quintuple psalm is the five fingers of the hand. They come together, of course, in prayer. Now, work with the hands is called manual labor; prayer is work with the hands; therefore poetically prayer is manual labor. The old Latin name for priest is Pontifex; 'pontifex' literally means 'bridge-builder'; one of the Pope's titles is Pontifex Maximus; this title is a conversion to Christian use of an old pagan title. Williams has just finished introducing this theme. All roads lead to Rome, where the Pope prays, his hands together, with contrite heart. A contrite heart is a broken heart. Thus the Pope in Lateran engages in heart-breaking manual acts, building the bridges that are the roads to Rome so that the logothetes of the Emperor can move throghout the Empire. The Emperor, of course, is a reflection of God; prayer builds bridges to God through its heart-breaking work. It is thus both passive and active; by simply putting one's hands together in prayer one engages in building the most difficult bridge of them all, the bridge to God.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Wisdom from Coventry Patmore
To call Good Evil is the great sin--the sin of the Puritan and the Philistine. To call Evil Good is relatively venial.
Coventry Patmore, "Aurea Dicta," Section CXXXVI, The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895).
Coventry Patmore, "Aurea Dicta," Section CXXXVI, The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895).
Monday, July 25, 2005
Hume Conference Pictures Are Up
If you want to see a picture of me at the Hume Conference, photos by Jane McIntyre have been placed on the web. I am here, with Yumiko Inukai (of the University of Pennsylvania, but soon to be of the University of Massachusetts at Boston). We were sitting across from these two (Steven Jauss of the University of Pennsylvania, and Reverend Jackman). I look a little red due to sun and wine (alcohol in any quantity makes my face flush like crazy). (HT: Blog of the Hume Society, which is brand new.)
Lovely Linkables
* Who knew that Yoda was a Presbyterian? "Matthew in Beirut" salvages a summary of some especially noteworthy scenes in George Lucas's movie, Backstroke of the West, in which (if I understand properly) In Elephant, the young apprentice (strong in the Wish Power) of Ratio Tile, in his journey to become big is first made by the Presbyterian Church and then seduced by the Dark World. So there's at least one reason to be Calvinist: light sabers! (HT: Positive Liberty)
* Saddled by the Spiritual Method at "Ad Limina Apostolorum" discusses spiritual exegesis.
* The Mind is Stranger than Fiction at "Mixing Memory" discusses some fascinating cog sci experiments with weird results.
* Latin in Buffy and Angel at "Laudator Temporis Acti" -- I'm sure you can guess from the title.
* In Defense of Method and More on Method at "21st Century Reformation" discuss the adaptation of some basic ideas of the Franciscan revolution for today's spiritual needs.
* UPDATE: Coturnix examines blog carnivals at "Science and Politics".
* Saddled by the Spiritual Method at "Ad Limina Apostolorum" discusses spiritual exegesis.
* The Mind is Stranger than Fiction at "Mixing Memory" discusses some fascinating cog sci experiments with weird results.
* Latin in Buffy and Angel at "Laudator Temporis Acti" -- I'm sure you can guess from the title.
* In Defense of Method and More on Method at "21st Century Reformation" discuss the adaptation of some basic ideas of the Franciscan revolution for today's spiritual needs.
* UPDATE: Coturnix examines blog carnivals at "Science and Politics".
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Bayes Craze
Dr. Pretorius at applecidercheesefudge points to this curious bit of news:
And he asks, quite naturally, I think, "So what's going on?"
It appears to be a fairly straightforward case of Bayesianism applied to a claim involving multiple lines of evidence. There are really only a few ways to avoid it: (1) deny Bayesianism; (2) argue that the Resurrection has an insurmountably low prior probability; (3) deny that the multiple lines of evidence are really multiple, i.e., that they are sufficiently independent to be treated as independent lines of evidence; (4) deny the relevance of the lines of evidence. Since I think Bayesianism is clearly false (in general because all views that take the metaphor 'degree of belief' literally are false, and specifically because I don't accept an application of Bayes's theorem unless the means of determining the probabilities are clearly defined), the point is moot for me; but Bayesians make arguments like this all the time. So that's what's going on: the straightforward application of ordinary Bayesianism. Make of it what you will.
Professor Swinburne, in Melbourne to give several seminars and a public lecture at the Australian Catholic University last night, said the mathematics showed a probability of 97 per cent [that Jesus rose from the dead].
And he asks, quite naturally, I think, "So what's going on?"
It appears to be a fairly straightforward case of Bayesianism applied to a claim involving multiple lines of evidence. There are really only a few ways to avoid it: (1) deny Bayesianism; (2) argue that the Resurrection has an insurmountably low prior probability; (3) deny that the multiple lines of evidence are really multiple, i.e., that they are sufficiently independent to be treated as independent lines of evidence; (4) deny the relevance of the lines of evidence. Since I think Bayesianism is clearly false (in general because all views that take the metaphor 'degree of belief' literally are false, and specifically because I don't accept an application of Bayes's theorem unless the means of determining the probabilities are clearly defined), the point is moot for me; but Bayesians make arguments like this all the time. So that's what's going on: the straightforward application of ordinary Bayesianism. Make of it what you will.
Two More Poem Drafts
All These Words I Speak Will Die
All these words I speak will die;
fading into endless night,
winking out, perhaps bursting out,
but inevitably out and gone,
dissipated into space's cold dust.
Every light I light will vanish away,
puffing away like candles over-lasting;
no human word lasts forever.
'Nothing but a puff of breath' --
some said this of the concept,
the universal on which we think;
more than breath, there is light,
but light endlessly fragile,
refracted through delicate crystal,
ephemeral and passing like sparks.
We write only admonitions;
by words we guide, admonish, and gesture.
Gestures by nature pass.
They do not stay and talk,
but, like our sense of time itself, move,
flowing as time itself flows,
being themselves time measured out.
Moon, sun, and stars may remain.
Words fade, to be no more.
The Point
death is a point in the room
nothing more
a point infinitesimal and no greater
yet it is the axis-point of time
around time goes
a wheel of light
around a point dark and still
that moves but never moves itself
changing by merely being
and in a room where death dwells
the room spins around that point
unmoving
it does not fill the room with brooding presence
for death is a point in the room
no more
it has no proesence
but all the room spins around it
the very axis-point of time
death does not brood
time broods on death
brooding is a circle
the sigh of an invisible point
going around
ten thousand times around the point
the only place that does not move
but moves all
the axis-point of time
but once I chanced to turn my head
and saw it from a different angle
the circle did not move but stayed
brooding in light around a point
a single point of darkness moving away
its rest a different moving
not in a cicle but in an implosion
like great stars dying in their age
that pull all things with them
through them
to some unseen and other side
unseen by light of time
which moves away from our seeing eyes
moving away at a singular point
a point collapsing into another place
punching a hole in the light of time
to something drawing it
until one day it passes
to that unseen and other side
All these words I speak will die;
fading into endless night,
winking out, perhaps bursting out,
but inevitably out and gone,
dissipated into space's cold dust.
Every light I light will vanish away,
puffing away like candles over-lasting;
no human word lasts forever.
'Nothing but a puff of breath' --
some said this of the concept,
the universal on which we think;
more than breath, there is light,
but light endlessly fragile,
refracted through delicate crystal,
ephemeral and passing like sparks.
We write only admonitions;
by words we guide, admonish, and gesture.
Gestures by nature pass.
They do not stay and talk,
but, like our sense of time itself, move,
flowing as time itself flows,
being themselves time measured out.
Moon, sun, and stars may remain.
Words fade, to be no more.
The Point
death is a point in the room
nothing more
a point infinitesimal and no greater
yet it is the axis-point of time
around time goes
a wheel of light
around a point dark and still
that moves but never moves itself
changing by merely being
and in a room where death dwells
the room spins around that point
unmoving
it does not fill the room with brooding presence
for death is a point in the room
no more
it has no proesence
but all the room spins around it
the very axis-point of time
death does not brood
time broods on death
brooding is a circle
the sigh of an invisible point
going around
ten thousand times around the point
the only place that does not move
but moves all
the axis-point of time
but once I chanced to turn my head
and saw it from a different angle
the circle did not move but stayed
brooding in light around a point
a single point of darkness moving away
its rest a different moving
not in a cicle but in an implosion
like great stars dying in their age
that pull all things with them
through them
to some unseen and other side
unseen by light of time
which moves away from our seeing eyes
moving away at a singular point
a point collapsing into another place
punching a hole in the light of time
to something drawing it
until one day it passes
to that unseen and other side
Lije Baley
The robot turned to Julius Enderby, who was watching them with a flaccid face into which a certain vitality was only now beginning to return.
The robot said, "I have been trying, friend Julius, to understand some remarks Elijah made to me earlier. Perhaps I am beginning to, for it suddenly seems to me that the destruction of what should not be, that is, the destruction of what yuo people call evil, is less just and desirable than the conversion of this evil into what you call good."
He hesitated, then, almost as though he were surprised at his own words, he said, "Go, and sin no more!"
Baley, suddenly smiling, took R. Daneel's elbow, and they walked out the door, arm in arm.
[From Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel.]
Preach on, Brother Robot!
I think, by the way, that in many ways Asimov's Elijah Baley deserves to be given a recognized place among memorable literary detectives. A well-written detective will have a problem-solving quirk giving him insight beyond what people ordinarily have. Baley's, of course, is that he is always, for reasons both personal and political, trying to rig the conclusion to get the most desirable result; because he tries actually to prove the wanted conclusion, he often ends up discovering the true conclusion.
The robot said, "I have been trying, friend Julius, to understand some remarks Elijah made to me earlier. Perhaps I am beginning to, for it suddenly seems to me that the destruction of what should not be, that is, the destruction of what yuo people call evil, is less just and desirable than the conversion of this evil into what you call good."
He hesitated, then, almost as though he were surprised at his own words, he said, "Go, and sin no more!"
Baley, suddenly smiling, took R. Daneel's elbow, and they walked out the door, arm in arm.
[From Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel.]
Preach on, Brother Robot!
I think, by the way, that in many ways Asimov's Elijah Baley deserves to be given a recognized place among memorable literary detectives. A well-written detective will have a problem-solving quirk giving him insight beyond what people ordinarily have. Baley's, of course, is that he is always, for reasons both personal and political, trying to rig the conclusion to get the most desirable result; because he tries actually to prove the wanted conclusion, he often ends up discovering the true conclusion.
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