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The current radical and backward-looking majority of the Supreme Court has today legislated slavery and Christian theology by its overturning of Roe v. Wade.
This foolish and backward majority has upheld the dangerous doctrine of ‘Originalist’ interpretation of the Constitution. Originalist doctrine of US Constitutional law: “In the context of United States law, originalism is a concept regarding the interpretation of the Constitution that asserts that all statements in the constitution must be interpreted based on the original understanding ‘at the time it was adopted’. “ Now what that backward doctrine does is allow the bias and prejudice of the past to become the law of the land. It is not surprising that this radical majority of the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. It is important to recognize that according to the ‘Originalist’ dogma White real estate property owning males could in fact own human slaves. Women of course at the time of the found of this country were the property of their fathers who could pass over that property ownership to the women’s husband. Thus, it is no surprise that this is the fundamental intention of this radical white Supreme Court majority. It has allowed once again slavery to return to the law of the land. It has also institute Christian theology as the law of the land when it overturned Roe v. Wade. According to Christian theology any soul not baptized in the name of its cruel and dictatorial god would be condemn to eternal damnation. That is why abortion is an issue for Christianity. It invented this barbaric nonsense of eternal damnation, and it condemns anyone to those invented Hell-fires who do not submit to the will and power of the Christian Church by failing to swear allegiance to that god by being baptized in the name of their vengeful and cruel god. Thus, the soul of any fetus those not allowed to be born will spend eternity in the fire pits of Christian Hell. That is the reason for Christianity’s opposition to abortion. Now, according to the belief that the Hebrew Bible is the word of God, it is clear what the status of an unborn fetus is. Let me explain. Exodus 21:18-19: (18) When [two] parties quarrel and one strikes the other with stone or fist, and the victim does not die but has to take to bed. (19) if that victim then gets up and walks outdoors upon a staff, the assailant shall go unpunished—except for paying for the idleness and the cure. Exodus 21: 32: But if the ox gores a slave, male or female, [its owner] shall pay thirty shekels of silver to the master, and the ox shall be stoned. Note the basic principle. The penalty for harm to property is monetary compensation. Harm done but not death to the slave, it is just monetary compensation. Now notice Exodus 21:22: When [two or more] parties fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other damage ensues, the one responsible* shall be fined according as the woman’s husband may exact, the payment to be based on reckoning. The lose of the fetus is a lose of the husband’s property, thus monetary compensation is required. No harm was done to the husband’s property of his owned wife. But what happens when the husband’s property in his owned wife is harmed? Exodus 21: 23-25 (23) But if other damage ensues,[meaning the property of the human wife was harmed then] the penalty shall be life for life, (24) eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, (25) burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. The woman is a human life owned by her husband. If she is damaged then it is not monetary restitution but equal treatment to the offender. Death to the one who killed the husband’s property of his wife. The word of God as written in Exodus is clear that God has decreed that an unborn fetus is only the property of the husband, and it is not to be treated as a human life. The wife is considered a human life, just as any other slave is considered a human life, and it must be respected as such. The radical and cruel White Christian majority Supreme Court justices have return women to the status of property and have decreed that Christian theology should be the law of the land. That is what you get when you elect presidents and congressmen who adhere to the Christian Sharia-like theology and law of the so-called ‘Originalist’ interpretation of the U.S. Constitutional law.
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Perhaps, it is time to take a new tact.
Society only has limited hospital resources and perhaps those resources are being misapplied to the wrong patients. Perhaps we need to treat adults who have refused to be vaccinated against Covid the same way people who have signed a Do Not Resuscitate document. Treat them as if they have stated that they wish to be allowed to die. Resources, such as hospital beds and doctor and nurse care is limited. Perhaps the priorities need to shift to those who need them and truly want them. In the choice between treating a broken arm or a person who has Covid because they have never had any vaccination, the broken arm victim should get the treatment. The non-vaccinated adult has already agreed by theirs actions to die. Hospital resources are being wasted on treating all who come down with Covid as if they were equal. They are not. Those who have done something to protect themselves by getting vaccinated deserve attention and care, those who have not chosen to be vaccinated have chosen to die. We should just let them die. That is their choice and they should bare the responsibility for that choice. All efforts have been made to make the vaccines available to them and they have chosen the equivalent of a "Do Not Resuscitate" order. They have refused care and treatment and we should respect their wishes and allow them to die. Spend limited hospital resources on those who need and want our help. For the last couple of nights, we were listening to the opening lectures of ‘Biological Anthropology’ by Professor Barbara J. King, PhD., one of the Great Courses made by The Teaching Company. She begins her series with a defense of Evolution against the challenges brought by Fundamental Christianity. For so long this issue of the challenge to the scientific validity of Evolutionary theory has been a discussion between members of the scientific community who defend Evolution and the so-called scientists of those alternative theories. What has never happened is no one has thought to bring a religious scholar into this discussion and debate. This short essay is an illustration of what would happen if a religious scholarly perspective would be allowed to comment on the issues raised by those groups who challenge the theory of Evolution. This is important since those challenges to the theory are not really based on any valid science but depend on upon initial religious premises. Whether it is called Creation Science, Intelligent Design, or Old Earth Creationism, all of these attempts to present a religious-based challenge to Evolutionary theory in the guise of and modeled on the form and claim of being alternative science-based theories is in fact false. All of those so-called ‘science-based’ challenges fail as valid science. To be called a science is to be a system that constantly reviews, challenges, and questions the foundational beliefs and evidence behind that theory being put forth. This is what it means to be a science. This is what the science of Evolutionary theory does and it is something that all members of the scientific community that make use of the theory do. Whereas all the so-called ‘alternative science’ systems that challenge Evolutionary theory fail to do. They fail to examine, review and test their basic starting premises. Nor would they allow that starting premise challenge to ever be taught in any public school. That failure to discuss and open up to challenge their starting premise is why all of those ‘alternative science’ systems that challenge Evolutionary theory, such as Creation Science, Intelligent Design, or Old Earth Creationism, etc. fail as a science and reveal themselves as the religious theology that they truly are. So, what is the starting premise of all of these ‘alternative sciences’? It is that the Biblical text, in this case, the Hebrew Old Testament is the ‘Literal Word of God’. From that initial premise, the next premise is deduced and that is: That being the Literal Word of God what the text recounts are 100% accurate and truthful about the presentation of events it is recounting. Or to put it another way, Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible is without error or fault in all its teaching. It is this belief that the Hebrew Old Testament is the Word of God is the foundation of all those ‘alternative sciences’ challenges. However, this very premise can not and is not examined or challenged by these so-called ‘sciences’. That failure to challenge that beginning premise is the reason they fail to be a true science are revealed as only a form of religious theology. Let us start to lay out what it would be like if those ‘alternative sciences’ were actually taught as such. They would have to defend the statement:
Let’s start with the last statement, and examine just the opening segment of that statement, that is that we actually have an original existing Hebrew text of the Old Testament. In actual fact, there is no one single Hebrew text. There are actually hundreds, if not thousands of different fragmentary copies of the Hebrew text. Each is slightly different and thus proving that the textual creation and transmission was not by the hand of God but by human hands and human processes. To claim to be the “Word of God” the proponents would have to explain why there are differences in the text and how these differences could come about if God was the author and writer of the text. They will fail. They would have to show that we actually have the oldest original Hebrew text from which all the other thousands of varying fragments and differing copies derive. They will fail. We do not now, and the human species has never, owned an ‘original’ full Hebrew Biblical text. A so-called science would have to prove and defend that we have such a text and that it existed at one time. They will fail. We only have differing texts of the Hebrew manuscript. We only can demonstrate that they were the product of human transmission and authorship processes. There is no way to prove that they were made by anything other than human acts. There is no way to prove any intervention from God in the creation of the text. That failure to prove the involvement of God in the text's creation or even the bigger problem with not being able to prove the existence of God at all is the reason why all the ‘alternative science’ challenges to the theory of Evolution are not sciences but religious theology pretending to be a science in order to deceive their true purpose and intent. Which is of course the promotion of Christian religion as the only one true religion. If Old Earth Creationism or Intelligent Design, or Creationist Science wishes to be taught in the public school system then it means that all of the challenges to the foundational premise that the Hebrew Old Testament is the word of God would have to be taught. To do this would truly teach to their children that there is no evidence that God exists or that God can directly transmit information to human beings with 100% accuracy or that we have an original text or that the thousands of differening texts do not raise any problems with the idea that we still have a 100% reliable word of God. All of these issues and the failure and inadequacy of the ability to demonstrate and prove any of this would probably harm any belief in religious faith that those children have. For the children of Christian religious believers, this discussion would threaten the whole foundation of their ability to keep their religious doctrines from being questioned and their faith from being maintained. Once they realize what is at stake, that maintaining the deception and illusion that Old Earth Creationism or Intelligent Design, or Creationist Science, etc. are a scientific theory requires such a challenge to their fundamental doctrines such as proving that the Old Testament is the ‘word of God’, and how this would bring disaster upon their religions; once that is realized, then all of the challenges to Evolution being taught in the public schools would come to an end. Looking back at Daniel Craig’s James Bond
Let’s start with the lyrics to the Bond theme from Casino Royale – written by Chris Connell If you take a life-- do you know what you'll give? Odds are you won't like what it is. When the storm arrives would you be seen with me? By the merciless eyes I've deceived? I've seen angels fall from blinding heights- But you yourself are nothing so divine- Just next in line! Arm yourself because no one else here will save you, The odds will betray you, And I will replace you. You can't deny the prize it may never fulfill you. It longs to kill you, are you willing to die? The coldest blood runs through my veins- You know my name! That is who Daniel Craig is when we meet him – he’s next in line for a 00 designation and nothing so divine as the other movie incarnations with that 007 number. He is portrayed as vulnerable and replaceable who seeks a prize he may never obtain – which hints at the ever elusive sense of happiness and normalcy that keeps getting presented to him but dies in the end. He is presented as the first James Bond – working to earn the 00 designation in the opening of Casino Royale. Judy Dench as M is offered as a movie goers gift of familiarity and seemingly not to be treated as anything more. Or is it? In the third movie Skyfall – we catch a glimpse of Craig’s Bond’s family backstory and with it – somehow comes the Austin Martin DB5. For some unknown and unexplained reason Craig’s Bond has ownership of this vehicle. The very vehicle Sean Connery 007 had and used in the movie Goldfinger. Could that Austin Martin DB5 be a gift or inheritance from an elder colleague who served MI6? So, is this a hint that there does exist prior 007’s? Specifically, Sean Connery’s version? It seems to be a real possibility. Continuity between No Time to Die and the prior films is presented by portraits on the wall. “While Craig's Bond takes a shot at M, criticizing how his office looks more or less like it used to, the hallway leading in actually commemorates all the actors who played the MI6 boss prior to Fiennes, including Bernard Lee, Robert Brown, and Dame Judi Dench herself, whose M tragically perished at the end of 2012's Skyfall.” (https://www.cbr.com/no-time-to-die-easter-eggs-missed/ Egg #4) [Though I only spotted Judi Dench and I thought I spotted Bernard Lee’s portrait on my first viewing of the film and then on my second I thought I spotted Robert Brown’s portrait and not Bernard Lee’s.] “Where the multiple Bond theory picks up steam is the fact we also see a painting of Bernard Lee’s M in No Time To Die.” (https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/no-time-to-die-james-bond-codename-theory/) What all this would mean that if all the prior actors who portrayed M are part of MI6 history – then so are all the varying actors who played ‘James Bond’. With all the prior movies part of the current MI6 historical continuity. This of course also means that the name ‘Moneypenny’ and ‘Felix Leiter’ were also code names – given that these names were used by prior people in the prior movies. It is a messy concept. With no satisfactory logical grounding to hold onto. However, if we abandon literal logic and just go with the implied concept then we can now conclude that Sean Connery’s 007 was indeed part of the background of MI6 and that Daniel Craig has the Austin Martin DB5 due to that family/past (?) connection. In the opening credits to No Time To Die we see the brilliant colored dots on the screen in that early part of the sequence. This is an homage to the opening credits created by Maurice Binder of Connery’s Dr No. Once again acknowledging Connery as part of Craig’s MI6. Also seen in these opening creates are homages to Casino Royale and Skyfall. In No Time To Die we hear the song We Have All the Time in the World repeatedly. This should bring to mind George Lazenby’s appearance in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – where that 007 finds the love of his life only to lose her in tragedy. In that movie and Fleming’s book – she is killed by Bond’s enemy – Ernst Stavro Blofeld. In the very next book, Fleming’s Bond falls from his prior heights and is sent on a suicide mission to a mysterious island off of Japan where there is a poisonous garden of death – created by Bond’s new enemy and target – who turns out to be Ernst Stavro Blofeld. In No Time to Die – Bond coming off of a tragic love relationship also finds himself heading to a mysterious island off of Japan with a poisonous garden of death. Once again, the heritage and the history of 007 is brought into play as motifs for Craig’s tenure as Bond. We now have within these movies a subtle background Retcon going on – whereby Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan all prior 007’s – could they even be earlier ‘James Bond’s?’ Have we really come into an acceptance of an idea put forth in the theme song from the British TV spy series Danger Man – or as it was known in the States as Secret Agent Man, the lyrics were by Johnny Rivers. The song describes the life of a British secret service agent, such as 007. There's a man who leads a life of danger To everyone he meets he stays a stranger With every move he makes, another chance he takes Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow Secret agent man, secret agent man They've given you a number and taken away your name Thus, were the prior ‘James Bond’s’ or even Daniel Craig’s James Bond – just been MI6’s way of taking away his prior identity and giving him a new name and new number? Could this hint at the future of the James Bond franchise? At the very end of No Time To Die, there appears on the screen the famous words: James Bond Will Return. But how? Craig was James Bond, wasn’t he? Or was he just next in line for that name and that number? Was he the truly the ‘real’ and first ‘James Bond’? Or are we being told that he and all of them were being Retconned as prior James Bond 007? We know that the movie portrayal of Bond does not match Fleming’s creation. Fleming’s Bond was adequate as a marksman, adequate as a fighter, knew his way around vehicles, had specific taste in food and drink – but was no connoisseur of either. He was a ladies’ man thought he could and did fall in love – he married and lost his wife, the Contessa Teresa di Vincenzo played by Diana Rigg, in the novel On His Majesties Secret Service. Fleming’s Bond was loyal, tenacious, had a remarkable threshold to withstand pain and was just amazingly lucky. He was more of an average guy doing an extra-ordinary job. A far cry from the super suave debonair super connoisseur and jack of all trades that was the movie portrayal of the character. Nor does the movie plots adhere to the book plots – the Roger Moore era was notorious for just creating out of whole cloth the plot after borrowing a Fleming stories’ title. So, you can’t really expect that the movie Bond had much in common with the Fleming version once you left the three early Connery movies. You Only Live Twice begins the movie’s just using a title and maybe a location and jettisoning the rest of the Fleming story. What has been going on with the Bond movies is that the hero exists in an ‘eternal’ now as a fictional character repeatedly dropped into ‘today’ to play out a variation of his exploits with no attempt at continuity. With the Craig era starting with Casino Royale we had the first attempt at a true reboot – telling our hero’s tale from his beginning as a 00. Thus, with Craig we have been given a complete set, series that is unique to the movie franchise. Where do they go from there? Since as it said at the last frame of the film of No Time To Die: James Bond Will Return. What to do with James Bond can be seen through the lens of how another immortal British iconic hero has been handled. I am speaking of Sherlock Holmes. There have been two approaches with Holmes.
If they go with option #3, they could just ignore the lack of logical consistency of how to deal with the past movies and just move forward with the idea of assigning all new 007 the name James Bond. Therefore, giving a straightforward continuity with Daniel Craig era and into the future. Leaving the past films as a murky unspecified somehow prior history of MI6. The added benefits to this is that they can have ‘Bond’ be truly threatened in the films. The person holding that name is no longer guaranteed to survive even one film let alone multiple ones. Each new ‘Bond’ can have his own back story and prior baggage. They could pair the new ‘Bond’ up with Nomi, played by Lashana Lynch who was the active 007 while Craig’s Bond was either dead or MIA in No Time To Die. Perhaps she could be designated as 008? References: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1041239669/daniel-craig-james-bond-no-time-to-die https://www.vox.com/22709339/james-bond-no-time-die-review-daniel-craig https://www.cnet.com/news/no-time-to-die-ending-explained-how-daniel-craigs-final-james-bond-movie-concludes/ https://www.cnet.com/news/no-time-to-die-review-daniel-craig-says-goodbye-to-james-bond-in-style/ https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a37801989/no-time-to-die-james-bond-easter-eggs-references/ https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/10/01/no-time-to-die-easter-eggs/ https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/next-james-bond-continuity-daniel-craig/ https://www.polygon.com/22720592/no-time-to-die-ending-james-bond-daniel-craig-movies https://www.gq.com/story/daniel-craig-james-bond-legacy-no-time-to-die https://www.theringer.com/movies/2021/10/13/22723473/whos-the-next-james-bond-era-after-daniel-craig https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2021/10/review-no-time-to-die-and-the-next-james-bond/620388/ https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/no-time-to-die-james-bond-codename-theory/ First off we have to accept that there is an external world – a world external to our own experience of our mind. Getting past that one, we have to accept that there we are one of the objects that exist in this external world and that we interact with other objects in that same world. We are a mind/body unit interacting within this vast universe where we live on a planet that we call the Earth. We perceive objects that have certain characteristics – properties that we associate with those objects that we experience. We can pick up an object, such as an apple and we can describe that object by means of describing its shape, weight, and texture. We can share this object with a companion and come to an agreement about these properties that we agree the apple has. Now, what about the property of color? Is the apple green in the same way that it has a noticeable smooth texture when we feel the outer skin of that apple? There has been a long-standing agreement that all objects have two broad categories of properties, so-called primary properties which are ‘objective’ as in adhering to the object, and secondary properties which are ‘subjective’ and thus more a product of our mind. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary/secondary_quality_distinction The primary/secondary quality distinction is a conceptual distinction in epistemology and metaphysics, concerning the nature of reality. It is most explicitly articulated by John Locke in his Essay concerning Human Understanding, but earlier thinkers such as Galileo and Descartes made similar distinctions. Primary qualities are thought to be properties of objects that are independent of any observer, such as solidity, extension, motion, number, and figure. These characteristics convey facts. They exist in the thing itself, can be determined with certainty, and do not rely on subjective judgments. For example, if an object is spherical, no one can reasonably argue that it is triangular. Primary qualities as mentioned earlier, exist outside of the observer. They inhere to an object in such a way that if the object was changed, i.e. divided, the primary qualities would remain. When dividing an object, “solidity, extension, figure, and mobility” would not be altered because the primary qualities are built into the object itself. Another key component of primary qualities is that they create ideas in our minds through experience; they represent the actual object. Because of this, primary qualities such as size, weight, solidity, motion, and so forth can all be measured in some form. Using an apple as an example, the shape and size can actually be measured and produce the idea in our minds of what the object is. A clear distinction to make is that qualities do not exist in the mind, rather they produce ideas in our minds and exist within the objects. In the case of primary qualities, they exist inside the actual body/substance and create an idea in our mind that resembles the object. Secondary qualities are thought to be properties that produce sensations in observers, such as color, taste, smell, and sound. They can be described as the effect things have on certain people. Secondary qualities use the power of reflection in order to be perceived by our minds. These qualities “would ordinarily be said to be only a power in rather than a quality of the object”. They are sensible qualities that produce different ideas in our mind from the actual object. Going back to the example of the aforementioned apple, something such as the redness of the apple does not produce an image of the object itself, but rather the idea of red. Secondary qualities are used to classify similar ideas produced by an object. That is why when we see something “red” it is only “red” in our minds because they produce the same idea as another object. So, going back to the color of the apple, it produces an idea of red, which we classify and identify with other red ideas. Again, secondary qualities do not exist inside the mind; they are simply the powers that allow us to sense a certain object and thus ‘reflect’ and classify similar ideas. According to the theory, primary qualities are measurable aspects of physical reality; secondary qualities are subjective.
Now, I think that this split between primary and secondary is not as important or accurate as they seem to think. I propose that all those properties are part of the object and our interaction with that object. Let’s take color. It is the one most picked on by philosophers and scientists as being the most subjective – not a ‘truly real’ property of any object. Color is created by light hitting an object and then coming at our eye at a certain wavelength which is registered in our mind as being of a certain color. The light hitting an apple we end up seeing as reddish or greenish, depending on the apple we are looking at. Now, if Eve holds out an apple to Adam, they can both come to an agreement on what color to call that apple. Thus there is persistence and consistency between multiple observers and the object being observed. That is what all the characteristics of that apple have – its shape, texture and even its color are an agreed term for what we experience when we examine objects. The apple has something that gives rise to that agreement of description. Thus the apple ‘has’ those properties, whether they are shape, texture, and even color. Neither the shape, texture nor the color fluctuates from moment to moment. It is agreeably stable and both Eve and Adam together can contest to those descriptive terms as being reliably useful as a means to describe that apple that they are sharing together. Our bodies interact with that object and by the means of the interaction, we come to describe and know that action. All that interaction is ‘objective’ in that it is derived from our interaction with the object. Color is as real as taste and any other property. It is a shared property of objects and observers like any other. Any artist knows that. She works hard to mix just the right pigments to get exactly the color she desires. As William James would remark color has a pragmatic and literal cash value in our world. Color is real and it is the stuff of important legal and business decisions. The whole of the entertainment and advertising industries depend on objects having the proper and consistent colors needed for their businesses. People are paid cash to get those colors right and lawyers can sue if printers or manufacturers fail to get those colors to match to the legal trademarked Pantone color that the corporations require! So all those businesses understand that color is real and part of things that have to be manipulated just right in the world to meet their needs and requirements. They understand that color is a real thing, a real attribute of objects. Pantone LLC is a limited liability company headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey. The company is best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, notably graphic design, fashion design, product design, printing and manufacturing and supporting the management of color from design to production, in physical and digital formats, among coated and uncoated materials, cotton, polyester, nylon and plastics. Pantone began in New Jersey in the 1950s as the commercial printing company of brothers Mervin and Jesse Levine, M & J Levine Advertising. In 1956, its founders, both advertising executives, hired recent Hofstra University graduate Lawrence Herbert as a part-time employee. Herbert used his chemistry knowledge to systematize and simplify the company's stock of pigments and production of colored inks; by 1962, Herbert was running the ink and printing division at a profit, while the commercial-display division was US$50,000 in debt; he subsequently purchased the company's technological assets from the Levine Brothers for US$50,000 (equivalent to $430,000 in 2020) and renamed them "Pantone". The idea behind the PMS is to allow designers to "color match" specific colors when a design enters the production stage, regardless of the equipment used to produce the color. This system has been widely adopted by graphic designers and reproduction and printing houses. Pantone recommends that PMS Color Guides be purchased annually, as their inks become yellowish over time.[7] Color variance also occurs within editions based on the paper stock used (coated, matte or uncoated), while interedition color variance occurs when there are changes to the specific paper stock used.[8] Pantone colors are described by their allocated number (typically referred to as, for example, "PMS 130"). PMS colors are almost always used in branding and have even found their way into government legislation and military standards (to describe the colors of flags and seals).[13] In January 2003, the Scottish Parliament debated a petition (reference PE512) to refer to the blue in the Scottish flag as "Pantone 300". Countries such as Canada and South Korea and organizations such as the FIA have also chosen to refer to specific Pantone colors to use when producing flags. US states including Texas have set legislated PMS colors of their flags.[14] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantone ) Now it is true that an artist can adjust the amount of light or even use filters over the light source or different light bulbs all in order to alter how one observes the object in those altered lights. But note that the artist can deliberately and in a controlled manner take these actions to yield a result that the artist chooses. Now, altering the illumination on an object doesn’t change the object's shape or weight, hence why the classification schemes of primary and secondary were made up. We cannot alter an object's shape, weight, and those other so-called primary characteristics. So there is something different about the shape of an object and its color. However, there are still some attributes that are inherent in the make-up of an object that the illumination that impinges on it and is the means for the observe to see the object can be manipulated in a controlled and repeatable manner yield similar end results. Thus, the object has to have a fixed property that can so be perceived consistently on repeated specific illuminations. Thus, the object has to have those properties as part of its make. It is not merely in our minds. If color was not a property that could be controlled and made according to chosen specifications then so many industries would have ceased to exist. Therefore it is foolish to claim that color is a purely subjective property. All sorts of objects are made to have a certain color and thus it should be recognized that color is as real an attribute of some object as its shape. Objects have properties that give rise to consistent and agreeable descriptions between observers that is the very definition of an object's attributes or properties. A quick search of the ‘the history of the scientific method’ yielded this article in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method#Emergence_of_inductive_experimental_method “There is was stated that the first uses of that method in Western civilization were done by the Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) who used experimentation to obtain the results in his Book of Optics (1021).” “The Persian scientist Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī introduced early scientific methods for several different fields of inquiry during the 1020s and 1030s. For example, in his treatise on mineralogy, Kitab al-Jawahir (Book of Precious Stones), al-Biruni is "the most exact of experimental scientists", while in the introduction to his study of India, he declares that "to execute our project, it has not been possible to follow the geometric method" and thus became one of the pioneers of comparative sociology in insisting on field experience and information He also developed an early experimental method for mechanics. Al-Biruni's methods resembled the modern scientific method, particularly in his emphasis on repeated experimentation. Biruni was concerned with how to conceptualize and prevent both systematic errors and observational biases, such as "errors caused by the use of small instruments and errors made by human observers." He argued that if instruments produce errors because of their imperfections or idiosyncratic qualities, then multiple observations must be taken, analyzed qualitatively, and on this basis, arrive at a "common-sense single value for the constant sought", whether an arithmetic mean or a "reliable estimate." In his scientific method, "universals came out of practical, experimental work" and "theories are formulated after discoveries", as with inductivism.” “In the On Demonstration section of The Book of Healing (1027), the Persian philosopher and scientist Avicenna (Ibn Sina) discussed philosophy of science and described an early scientific method of inquiry. He discussed Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and significantly diverged from it on several points. Avicenna discussed the issue of a proper procedure for scientific inquiry and the question of "How does one acquire the first principles of a science?" He asked how a scientist might find "the initial axioms or hypotheses of a deductive science without inferring them from some more basic premises?" He explained that the ideal situation is when one grasps that a "relation holds between the terms, which would allow for absolute, universal certainty." Avicenna added two further methods for finding a first principle: the ancient Aristotelian method of induction (istiqra), and the more recent method of examination and experimentation (tajriba). Avicenna criticized Aristotelian induction, arguing that "it does not lead to the absolute, universal, and certain premises that it purports to provide." In its place, he advocated "a method of experimentation as a means for scientific inquiry." Earlier, in The Canon of Medicine (1025), Avicenna was also the first to describe what is essentially methods of agreement, difference and concomitant variation which are critical to inductive logic and the scientific method. However, unlike his contemporary al-Biruni's scientific method, in which "universals came out of practical, experimental work" and "theories are formulated after discoveries", Avicenna developed a scientific procedure in which "general and universal questions came first and led to experimental work." Due to the differences between their methods, al-Biruni referred to himself as a mathematical scientist and to Avicenna as a philosopher, during a debate between the two scholars. Robert Grosseteste During the European Renaissance of the 12th century, ideas on scientific methodology, including Aristotle's empiricism and the experimental approaches of Alhazen and Avicenna, were introduced to medieval Europe via Latin translations of Arabic and Greek texts and commentaries. Robert Grosseteste's commentary on the Posterior Analytics places Grosseteste among the first scholastic thinkers in Europe to understand Aristotle's vision of the dual nature of scientific reasoning. Concluding from particular observations into a universal law, and then back again, from universal laws to prediction of particulars. Grosseteste called this "resolution and composition". Further, Grosseteste said that both paths should be verified through experimentation to verify the principles. Roger Bacon Roger Bacon was inspired by the writings of Grosseteste. In his account of a method, Bacon described a repeating cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and the need for independent verification.[citation needed] He recorded the way he had conducted his experiments in precise detail, perhaps with the idea that others could reproduce and independently test his results. About 1256 he joined the Franciscan Order and became subject to the Franciscan statute forbidding Friars from publishing books or pamphlets without specific approval. After the accession of Pope Clement IV in 1265, the Pope granted Bacon a special commission to write to him on scientific matters. In eighteen months he completed three large treatises, the Opus Majus, Opus Minus, and Opus Tertium which he sent to the Pope. William Whewell has called Opus Majus at once the Encyclopaedia and Organon of the 13th century. Part I (pp. 1–22) treats of the four causes of error: authority, custom, the opinion of the unskilled many, and the concealment of real ignorance by a pretense of knowledge. Part VI (pp. 445–477) treats of experimental science, domina omnium scientiarum. There are two methods of knowledge: the one by argument, the other by experience. Mere argument is never sufficient; it may decide a question, but gives no satisfaction or certainty to the mind, which can only be convinced by immediate inspection or intuition, which is what experience gives. Experimental science, which in the Opus Tertium (p. 46) is distinguished from the speculative sciences and the operative arts, is said to have three great prerogatives over all sciences: It verifies their conclusions by direct experiment; It discovers truths which they could never reach; It investigates the secrets of nature, and opens to us a knowledge of past and future. Roger Bacon illustrated his method by an investigation into the nature and cause of the rainbow, as a specimen of inductive research.” Therefore it seems that the scholar's Ibn al-Haytham (1021), Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (1020-1020), and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (1025, 1027) were the first to create the concept of this methodology and did it before Francis Bacon (1256) laid out that methodology. My old textbooks referred to Francis Bacon as the ‘first to establish the scientific methodology. So we can now say that the scientific method is around one thousand years old, at least as far as the records for Western civilization. Nowadays almost all of us own and use such devices as radios, televisions, computers, and smartphones. Most of us own or have ridden in an automobile or a bus, or a train, and perhaps even an airplane. These modern-day marvels are treated as ordinary objects and are taken for granted without a moment’s hesitation. They are just accepted as part of the common stuff of the world we live in as ordinary as plants, trees, clouds, the sun in the sky, cats, and dogs. Yet there are many people who use those technological devices without questioning them – TV, radios, cars, smartphones, and computers. Yet there are many people who don’t accept the idea of global warming. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/ From that essay: “Overall, about half of Americans (49%) say human activity contributes a great deal to climate change, and another 30% say human actions have some role in climate change. Two-in-ten (20%) believe human activity plays not too much or no role at all in climate change.” So what are we to make of this? What do we say to people who doubt the reality, the truth of climate change? We can say that they are fools. That they are ignorant of how things work. The reason we have cars, trains, TVs, radios, computers, and smartphones is that they came about through the use of the one thousand-year-old scientific method. Hundreds, if not thousands of scientists and technicians used that method to establish how to make those devices. All of them are not dropped from the heaven by fairies or elves or angels or God. All of those things were made by people who learned how to do that by making use of that thousand-year-old scientific method. If those doubters use a car or a computer they can only do so because of the work of scientists using the scientific method. These doubters are ignorant fools, by definition of that term. They are someone who is ignorant of how human technology came to be made. And they are fools when they accept the one – the technology that gave us smartphones but deny the other, global warming – when the same methods were used by scientists to build and prove them both. Only an ignorant fool would use a computer that only came into existence because of the scientific method being applied and then doubts it when that same community of scientists uses the same methods to demonstrate the reality of global warming. A person is an ignorant fool who doesn’t understand how things came to be and denies the results of scientific studies that show how we humans are changing for the worse our climate. The very thing that gives them the lies that they read or listen to on their computer or smartphone by so-called ‘reporters’, ‘experts’ or talk show and blog posters who offer up ‘evidence’ against global warming. Those people who are offering up so-called evidence against global warming are doing it on those machines that only came about by the same methods that the scientists are using to prove global warming. If global warming wasn’t real – then there would not exist cars, trains, TV, radios, smartphones, and computers. Since those technological devices do exist that proves that the scientific method works and therefore proves that there is global warming. The same methods that gave us those technological devices give us the experimental results that prove global warming. Peter Gunn 1958 - 1961 TV series.
It was a stylish 'film noir'-ish half hour detective series created and directed by Blake Edwards. It turned black & white filming into a high art form of slick sophistication unmatched then and certainly still unmatched for timeless visual beauty of cool sophistication. A simple idea of the rich man-about-town private eye played straight and effortlessly by Craig Stevens. It harkens back to another stylish and sophisticated tv series, Have Gun-Will Travel. This detective doesn't have the witty patter of Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlow, nor the world-weary tough guy persona of Dashiell Hammet's Sam Spade. Peter Gunn is just a suave guy in expensive tailored suits with crisp white cuff linked shirts, ebony polished shoes, who stand out by not wearing a fedora, yet manages to fit in with everyone, from Hobos, to Beats, to Jazz musicians, to his wealthy clientele. He never seems out of place in his expensive suits wherever he goes, and all feel comfortable with him as his open dead pan mirror-like persona puts everyone at ease since they see themselves reflected in his engaging pleasant, good looks. Steven’s Peter Gunn is the perfect urbane trench coated WASP PI who finds the perfect foil in the Jewish world-weary Lt. Jacoby police officer of the 13th precinct played by the fedora and trench coat wearing Herschel Bernardi. The stories were all tight and straight forward, packed with as much intrigue and surprises as can be fitted into a mere 25 minutes and still give time to indulge in a cool Jazz pieces often song by the lush sultry sounds of the actress Lola Albright, playing Edie Hart, his Jazz club singing lady love. The show was both hip and cool, and just barely managed to skirt the razor's edge precipice to avoid falling into parody. Then there is the hypnotic addictive music - cool hip original Jazz produced by Henry Mancini. The opening theme is relentlessly transportive and unforgettable. It was played over abstract painted art sequence of the opening credits that lets you know that this is going to be a dark journey into a classic period piece of stylish art. It remains must see entertainment, too good to be believed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD1fsV0817g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lztZMFzl9fo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIKSQT-oXfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbvy2R0LLrc 67omertawrote: Recorded on August 26, 1977 at the Olympic Stadium, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, album released in 1979. Similar to most live albums, In Concert featured fan favorites of previously released material. However, "Peter Gunn", ELP's take on the classic TV themed song, was never published on any of their other albums (a slightly edited version of this live recording was included in the compilation The Best of Emerson, Lake & Palmer of 1980 and published in certain countries). ELP often opened with this song during the Works Volume 2 tour. The group hired an orchestra of 70 musicians for some concerts on this tour, but ultimately had to fire the orchestra due to budget constraints that almost bankrupted the group. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051301/ Kinescope Kabuki 25 April 2004 | by rrichr But in terms of pure style, no TV series of that time, of any genre, could match the half-hour crime drama Peter Gunn, a production so stylized and stylistically detailed, and so measured, that it almost resembled Japanese Kabuki. Every aspect of this Blake Edwards-produced series was meticulously detailed and managed, from the near-blank style of its acting to even the visuals that preceded and terminated breaks for commercials. In fact, it was the pre-commercial segue that became my favorite. In the sequence, a musical G-clef unwound itself and morphed into a Giacommeti-like human figure, all against a slowly-arpeggiated, extremely cool jazz guitar chord. This very slick sequence got past me the first time around, when the show was in its network run and I was too young to really appreciate it. But years later, when the series was in local syndication and airing at midnight, I stayed up just to watch and listen to it. It was that cool. Most Peter Gunn episodes were cut from a similar template: the caper to be addressed transpired in a pre-credit sequence (Peter Gunn was one of the first shows to jump directly to story before rolling opening creds.) Then Craig Steven's almost impossibly urbane private eye, Peter Gunn, would step onto the case, always bending the law just enough to keep Herschel Bernardi's way dour NYPD detective, Lt. Jacobi, unsure of whom to arrest first: Gunn or the perps in question. The often-repeated sight of Jacobi arriving on the scene, snub .38 drawn, ready to arrest the suspect, only to find Gunn already there and in control, never failed to amuse. When Gunn was not effortlessly staying two steps ahead of Jacobi, he was lizarding at Mother's, a waterfront jazz club, and getting his flirt on with its sultry headlining singer, blonde neutron bombshell Edie Hart, played by Lola Albright, a type of lady that might be defined as Marilyn Monroe's far more experienced sister. The show's sense of cool was almost too much, but not quite, a fact that made it eminently watchable then, and has allowed it to live on even now in syndication. Underpinning and significantly defining the series was Henry Mancini's superb music. Mancini passed away in the mid 90's and is just now getting his due, including a postage stamp in his memory. His Peter Gunn theme is still being covered today but it was his incidental music for the series that I loved best, especially the stuff that played as the pre-credit story opened. Mancini took the then-popular West Coast, cool jazz sound and further iced it down, doing things like blending flute and tremoloed vibraphones to sustain a menacing, ever-darkening cloud behind the plot. Mancini was a master of all moods, which he crafted with lush harmonies and gliding melodies (The ageless Days of Wine and Roses and Moon River are his; lyrics by Johnny Mercer.) Mancini was very prolific and did many great things that sort of slid by while no one was really looking, probably because he never tried to acquire the spotlight himself, as himself. He mainly let his work do the walking and talking. His soundtrack to the movie Hatari (an intermittently very entertaining action flick with John Wayne as an African big game capture expert) remains worthy and remarkable to this day. As a freshman at the University of Idaho, I watched Mancini guest-conduct the university orchestra; the Maestro forbearing graciously as his `Baby Elephant Walk', an incidental piece from the Hatari soundtrack that became an international hit, was butchered by the inept flute section. It was heart-rending. Mancini also did the music for another similar but unsuccessful TV series, Mr. Lucky, based on the Cary Grant movie character from the mid-forties. Mr. Lucky died fairly quickly, but its theme music, featuring the squishiest, most liquid Hammond organ voice ever recorded, lives on, in my memory at least. For more go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gunn IN DEFENSE OF MORAL LIBERALISM John Ryder Széchenyi István University jryder6682@gmail.com
ABSTRACT: Though it is much maligned, liberalism remains a vital component of any viable political and social condition. This claim can be defended, though, only once the confusions concerning the meanings of liberalism are resolved. This can be done by considering the primary contemporary challenges to liberalism, of which there are five: populist nationalism, authoritarianism, elitism, traditionalism, and moral absolutism. Each of these, though in differing ways and some more than others, are sources of illiberalism. To appreciate the meaning and import of what is here called moral liberalism, it is valuable to clarify the nature of the challenges to it and the reasons we have to prefer moral liberalism over any of its illiberal alternatives. In the end, moral liberalism may serve as a viable grounding for contemporary societies and states only in so far as it rests, not on commonly held ideas or consensus, but on the recognition of the many interests that members of groups and societies hold in common. Keywords: liberalism, illiberalism, elitism, traditionalism, authoritarianism, populism, It is with this end of unifying the sciences of the mind with social life that the pragmatists began their attempts to define ‘belief’. Adopting a developmental perspective, Bain observed that mammals are born in action: sucking, swallowing, rooting, and so on. But belief does not guide these initial actions until some interruption or obstacle prevents instinctive behavior from serving an animal’s need for nourishment, security, and affection. Because of inevitable environmental irregularities, an animal must draw on sensorimotor memories and expectations to gain control over its initial attempts to move and feed. As these memories and expectations are representations of its past and future actions and observations, they do ‘reference’ a time beyond that at which they occur. Memories and expectations are therefore an animal’s most basic beliefs. Human minds are indeed variations on this theme.
[Referencing Alexander Bain, Mental and Moral Science, Part 1: Psychology and History of Philosophy. Longmans & Green, 1872 and his Mind and Body, 2nd ed. Henry S. King and Co., 1872.] From : Belief: A Pragmatic Picture: A Precis by Aaron Zimmerman, William James Studies, v. 16, no. 1, Fall 2020, pg. 37 |
Gary Jaron's musings.
In my High School Art Department someone had made an ornate sign on hung it on the wall that read: 'Ignore this sign completely.' A paradox couched in sarcasm and irony. This blog is for random musings on anything and everything that comes into my head. Archives
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