St. Andrew and Language

A long day at work means that I am very late in posting, so this will be both short and extemporaneous (except for a GKC quote).

Today is November 30, the feast of St. Andrew, who is the patron of Scotland, and whose cross appears on the "Union Jack". In an amazing essay from 1905, in which GKC talks about teaching the magic of the alphabet and other things, he gives a hint or two at the language of heraldry:

The alphabet is one set of arbitrary symbols. The figures of heraldry are another set of arbitrary symbols. In the fourteenth century every gentleman knew one: in the twentieth century every gentleman knows the other. The first gentleman was just precisely as ignorant for not knowing that c-a-t spells "cat," as the second gentleman is for not knowing that a St. Andrew's Cross is called a cross saltire, or that vert on gules is bad heraldry.
[GKC, ILN Dec 2, 1905 CW27:70-71]

The "cross saltire" is readily seen in the capital letter "X". Yes, technically there are two separate crosses in the Union Jack: that of St. Andrew, white on blue, and that of St. Patrick, red on white; the details which explain their use on the flag I omit for brevity's sake. But regardless of color, the cross saltire is usually called "St. Andrew's Cross" because (as tradition tells us) St. Andrew was crucified on such a device.

Now, the cross saltire is an interesting thing in heraldry, because in a certain sense it is not a fundamental shape. It is composed of two simpler heraldic shapes: a diagonal stripe going from upper left to lower right, which in heraldry is called a "bend", together with another diagonal stripe going from upper right to lower left, which in heraldry is called a "bend sinister". (No, Underdog, there is NO SUCH THING as a "bar sinister", hee hee). But when the bend and the bend sinister are of the same color, they unite and form a single object called the cross saltire. (As you might infer, things like swords placed in the shape of an "X" are thus called "in saltire".)

I call your attention to this odd little bit of heraldic algebra because the "bend sinister" comes up rather often nowadays in our own modern heraldry, though it usually is seen inside a circle, and we read it as "No" - hence, the "no smoking" or "No U-turn" or other such signs. I'd talk more about what "sinister" means, but I have left it for you to discern, and besides you ought to know at least that much Latin - right?

Oh, yes: if you are wondering what "vert on gules" it means putting something green on top of something red. It's good Christmas decor, but (as GKC says) bad heraldry. Tune in another day for more on that!

A Chesterton Pumpkin

I'm a little late to notice, but over at ChesterTeens, they made what is probably the world's first Gilbert pumpkin. Maybe they were inspired by the Chestertonian Easter Egg?

The Chinese want to play golf

GKChesterton weighs in and says it's an expensive way to play at marbles. Apparently, it's more expensive in China.

Special Christmas Special Offer for Member Bloggers (and Friends)

The American Chesterton Society is having an unadvertised special, where
members can buy gift memberships for only $25.

If ordering on-line, just make a note on the memo-line "Gift membership from a member" and the charge will be $25 instead of $35.

Or call 952-831-3096. Tell your friends!

Prayers for Two Situations

The screen play for The Man Who Was Thursday has been sent to two Hollywood-types, please pray for a welcome reception.

A baby Chestertonian must have surgery in January, so let's pray for the doctors and nurses to take good care of the little tyke. He's 20 months old.

Pope Benedict the Brave

I think he could use some prayers.

Chesterton University

Vote:

1. Chesterton University is the University which resides in Chesterton, Indiana.
2. Chesterton University is still organizing and will exist somewhere in the United States, providing students with an in depth study of all things Chesterton, at all levels of the academic scale (from BA to PhD--Doctorate in Chestertonian Studies)
3. Chesterton University is a real University which has no physical place to call home, where students devote time and energy to studying the works of Chesterton. No degrees are actually conferred, but the knowledge gained is invaluable.
4. Chesterton University is a figment of someone's overactive imagination.

Chesterton University

Some of you may have noticed that the Official Chesterton Website has some interesting articles, including a Chesterton University Handbook, T-shirts and Sweatshirts for the University, and a decal for your vehicle.


What is Chesterton University? Or more appropriately, where is Chesterton University?

(And the even more interesting question, who are these two t-shirt modelers? Could they be the younger Princess of Garfagnana and the younger King of Fontarabia? Or are they two completely different historical figures?)



So, just what is Chesterton University? I'm sorry, I'm terribly busy at the moment. I'll answer that on Monday. Meanwhile, think about it. Ponder life's most important questions. Read Chesterton. See you Monday.

Out of South Africa

Quotin' Chesterton on the other side of the world:
“There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy — the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things commonly work. When things will not work, you must have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at all.”

Infinite Symbols

I must apologise, first, for delaying my Thursday post to Friday, and stepping in front of our blogg-mistress as I lumber along the paths of the e-cosmos. Second, I apologise to any percussionists who got envious thinking that this posting was going to be about really loud cymbals. It's partly in response to a question from the comment-box, regarding the representations of "infinity" on computers. Third, I apologise because this posting will be long, but Nancy has given me the ritual for making a "read more". And though it is long, you will be glad because most of it is by Chesterton, and not by me.

But in order to get to Chesterton, you will have to endure a little more from me first. So, let us consider that phrase about representations of "infinity". At this splendid truth, all Chestertonians will sit back and sigh gratefully, murmuring "solvitur ambulando". (That is the witty and complete reply to the old line that "motion is impossible because it requires an infinite number of steps, each crossing half of the distance to be covered". The Latin reply means "Let it be solved (by, or while) walking.")

But I am not going to show you the meanings of such interesting infinite things as ¥ or À₀ or tan(p/2) or A* or

while(1);

or

lim x^-1
x®0

or even (to resort to an archaism):

10 GOTO 10

which are all ways of representing infinity.

Rather, I will let our Uncle Gilbert address the far more complex problem of the representation of abstractions which are not mathematical, and which are infinite if anything is. Moreover, unlike limits, or challenges to the Halting Problem, or such mathematical oddities, the infinite topic is one which is much more relevant to our daily life as poor weak human beings, who "wait with joyful hope for the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ".

(And now, a double pun for any oboe or bassoon players out there.)

BREAK REED MORE HERE

Good - you took the risk, and the reed indeed broke. Ahem. Now, here's GKC:

Every religion and every philosophy must, of course, be based on the assumption of the authority or the accuracy of something. But it may well be questioned whether it is not saner and more satisfactory to ground our faith on the infallibility of the Pope, or the infallibility of the Book of Mormon, than on this astounding modern dogma of the infallibility of human speech. Every time one man says to another, "Tell us plainly what you mean?" he is assuming the infallibility of language: that is to say, he is assuming that there is a perfect scheme of verbal expression for all the internal moods and meanings of men. Whenever a man says to another, "Prove your case; defend your faith," he is assuming the infallibility of language: that is to say, he is assuming that a man has a word for every reality in earth, or heaven, or hell. He knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless than the colours of an autumn forest; he knows that there are abroad in the world and doing strange and terrible service in it crimes that have never been condemned and virtues that have never been christened. Yet he seriously believes that these things can every one of them, in all their tones and semi-tones, in all their blends and unions, be accurately represented by an arbitrary system of grunts and squeals. He believes that an ordinary civilized stockbroker can really produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire. Whenever, on the other hand, a man rebels faintly or vaguely against this way of speaking, whenever a man says that he cannot explain what he means, and that he hates argument, that his enemy is misrepresenting him, but he cannot explain how; that man is a true sage, and has seen into the heart of the real nature of language. Whenever a man refuses to be caught by some dilemma about reason and passion, or about reason and faith, or about fate and free-will, he has seen the truth. Whenever a man declines to be cornered as an egotist, or an altruist, or any such modern monster, he has seen the truth. For the truth is that language is not a scientific thing at all, but wholly an artistic thing, a thing invented by hunters, and killers, and such artists long before science was dreamed of. The truth is simply that - that the tongue is not a reliable instrument, like a theodolite or a camera. The tongue is most truly an unruly member, as the wise saint has called it, a thing poetic and dangerous, like music or fire.

Now we can easily imagine an alternative state of things, roughly similar to that produced in Watts' allegories, a system, that is to say, whereby the moods or facts of the human spirit were conveyed by something other than speech, by shapes or colours or some such things. As a matter of fact, of course, there are a great many other languages besides the verbal. Descriptions of spiritual states and mental purposes are conveyed by a variety of things, by hats, by bells, by guns, by fires on a headland, or by jerks of the head. In fact there does exist an example which is singularly analogous to decorative and symbolic painting. This is a scheme of Esthetic signs or emblems, simple indeed and consisting only of a few elemental colours, which is actually employed to convey great lessons in human safety and great necessities of the commonwealth. It need hardly be said that I allude to the railway signals. They are as much a language, and surely as solemn a language, as the colour sequence of ecclesiastical vestments, which sets us red for martyrdom, and white for resurrection. For the green and red of the night-signals depict the two most fundamental things of all, which lie at the back of all language. Yes and no, good and bad, safe and unsafe, life and death. It is perfectly conceivable that a degree of flexibility or subtlety might be introduced into these colours so as to suggest other and more complex meanings. We might (under the influence of some large poetic station-masters) reach a state of things in which a certain rich tinge of purple in the crimson light would mean "Travel for a few seconds at a slightly more lingering pace, that a romantic old lady in a first-class carriage may admire the scenery of the forest." A tendency towards peacock blue in the green might mean "An old gentleman with a black necktie has just drunk a glass of sherry at the station restaurant." But however much we modified or varied this colour sequence or colour language, there would remain one thing which it would be quite ridiculous and untrue to say about it. It would be quite ridiculous and untrue to say that this colour sequence was simply a symbol representing language. It would be another language: it would convey its meaning to aliens who had another word for forest, and another word for sherry, and another word for old lady. It would not be a symbol of language, a symbol of a symbol; it would be one symbol of the reality, and language would be another. That is precisely the true position touching allegorical art in general, and, above all, the allegorical art of Watts.

So long as we conceive that it is, fundamentally, the symbolizing of literature in paint, we shall certainly misunderstand it and the rare and peculiar merits, both technical and philosophical, which really characterize it. If the ordinary spectator at the art galleries finds himself, let us say, opposite a picture of a dancing flower-crowned figure in a rose-coloured robe, he feels a definite curiosity to know the title, looks it up in the catalogue, and finds that it is called, let us say, "Hope." He is immediately satisfied, as he would have been if the title had run "Portrait of Lady Warwick," a "View of Kilchurn Castle." It represents a certain definite thing, the word "hope." But what does the word "hope" represent? It represents only a broken instantaneous glimpse of something that is immeasurably older and wilder than language, that is immeasurably older and wilder than man; a mystery to saints and a reality to wolves. To suppose that such a thing is dealt with by the word "hope," any more than America is represented by a distant view of Cape Horn, would indeed be ridiculous. It is not merely true that the word itself is, like any other word, arbitrary; that it might as well be "pig" or "parasol"; but it is true that the philosophical meaning of the word, in the conscious mind of man, is merely a part of something immensely larger in the unconscious mind, that the gusty light of language only falls for a moment on a fragment, and that obviously a semi-detached, unfinished fragment of a certain definite pattern on the dark tapestries of reality. It is vain and worse than vain to declaim against the allegoric, for the very word "hope" is an allegory, and the very word "allegory" is an allegory.

Now let us suppose that instead of coming before that hypothetical picture of Hope in conventional flowers and conventional pink robes, the spectator came before another picture. ...

[See here for the ARC entry; it is truly amazing.]

... Suppose that he found himself in the presence of a dim canvas with a bowed and stricken and secretive figure cowering over a broken lyre in the twilight. What would he think? His first thought, of course, would be that the picture was called Despair; his second (when he discovered his error in the catalogue), that it has been entered under the wrong number; his third, that the painter was mad. But if we imagine that he overcame these preliminary feelings and that as he stared at that queer twilight picture a dim and powerful sense of meaning began to grow upon him - what would he see? He would see something for which there is neither speech nor language, which has been too vast for any eye to see and too secret for any religion to utter, even as an esoteric doctrine. Standing before that picture, he finds himself in the presence of a great truth. He perceives that there is something in man which is always apparently on the eve of disappearing, but never disappears, an assurance which is always apparently saying farewell and yet illimitably lingers, a string which Is always stretched to snapping and yet never snaps. He perceives that the queerest and most delicate thing in us, the most fragile, the most fantastic, is in truth the backbone and indestructible. He knows a great moral fact: that there never was an age of assurance, that there never was an age of faith. Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all its conquerors. The desperate modern talk about dark days and reeling altars, and the end of Gods and angels, is the oldest talk in the world: lamentations over the growth of agnosticism can be found in the monkish sermons of the dark ages; horror at youthful impiety can be found in the Iliad. This is the thing that never deserts men and yet always, with daring diplomacy, threatens to desert them. It has indeed dwelt among and controlled all the kings and crowds, but only with the air of a pilgrim passing by. It has indeed warmed and lit men from the beginning of Eden with an unending glow, but it was the glow of an eternal sunset.

Here, in this dim picture, its trick is almost betrayed. No one can name this picture properly, but Watts, who painted it, has named it Hope. But the point is that this title is not (as those think who call it "literary") the reality behind the symbol, but another symbol for the same thing, or, to speak yet more strictly, another symbol describing another part or aspect of the same complex reality. Two men felt a swift, violent, invisible thing in the world: one said the word "hope," the other painted a picture in blue and green paint. The picture is inadequate; the word "hope" is inadequate; but between them, like two angles in the calculation of a distance, they almost locate a mystery, a mystery that for hundreds of ages has been hunted by men and evaded them. And the title is therefore not so much the substance of one of Watts' pictures, it is rather an epigram upon it. It is merely an approximate attempt to convey, by snatching up the tool of another craftsman, the direction attempted in the painter's own craft. He calls it Hope, and that is perhaps the best title. It reminds us among other things of a fact which is too little remembered, that faith, hope, and charity, the three mystical virtues of Christianity, are also the gayest of the virtues. Paganism, as I have suggested, is not gay, but rather nobly sad; the spirit of Watts, which is as a rule nobly sad also, here comes nearer perhaps than anywhere else to mysticism in the strict sense, the mysticism which is full of secret passion and belief, like that of Fra Angelico or Blake. But though Watts calls his tremendous reality Hope, we may call it many other things. Call it faith, call it vitality, call it the will to live, call it the religion of to-morrow morning, call it the immortality of man, call it self-love and vanity; it is the thing that explains why man survives all things and why there is no such thing as a pessimist. It cannot be found in any dictionary or rewarded in any commonwealth: there is only one way in which it can even be noticed and recognized. If there be anywhere a man who has really lost it, his face out of a whole crowd of men will strike us like a blow. He may hang himself or become Prime Minister; it matters nothing. The man is dead.

[GKC, G. F. Watts]

So. If this does not express something quite a bit greater than the various infinities I mentioned above, then I will turn in my wand and go back to building pipe organs. But I hope you will read it carefully, then go and bang on some cymbals...

A postscript. Just in case someone feels compelled to quote that line in Orthodoxy that "Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite." [CW1:220] you might consider this first:

It's true we know the infinite
Because we put our bounds on it:
The end of endless lines we're finding
Reduced by logic's truthful binding
And see the All within one glance:
A start point; a means to advance.
[by me, Dr. Thursday]

You see, GKC can use the term "infinite" and remain reasonable because it is not crossing the infinite sea; but he does understand that it is uncrossable. That's what all those symbols are sounding! Yes, exactly. It's very Chestertonian, too. In mathematics, infinity is just a form of limit. Hee hee.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm off to my sister's for a full house of family and turkey and lots to give thanks for.
I hope your Thanksgiving is full of thanks, too.

Printer Delays

We discovered why the world has not yet been graced with the presence of the Oct/Nov Gilbert magazine. It is because of a printer delay. However, we have been informed that the problem is now fixed, and the issues should be arriving within a week. Or so. Thank you for your patience.

The Thrill of the Chaste

The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On

Dawn Eden's new book, The Thrill of the Chaste, is reviewed here. She's a recent convert to Catholicism (last Easter), and an avid Chestertonian (which contributed to her conversion) and we'll get to meet her in June because she's speaking at ChesterCon07. Cool.

Chesterton Society Idea

I was recently reading the notes from a past Chesterton society meeting, and they were saying how they would get the tapes from the conferences, play them at the meetings, and then discuss them.

I thought this was an excellent idea not only for the local societies, but for other groups, as well: Homeschool groups, Bible-study groups, Couple's discussion groups, Union groups, any kind of small group meetings--even families who want to discuss Chestertonian ideas.

I know that the tapes/CDs from ChesterCon06 are still available here, and judging by my ability to find older tapes, I think if you are interested, you ought to order these tapes now. That's a hint. Five years from now when you really want one of them, they may be gone.

The First Ever Chesterton Catalog

I was looking for Gilbert in my mail today, and was pleased to at least receive something Chestertonian: a surprise. The First Ever Chesterton Catalog arrived today, just in time for Christmas shopping, which I've starting early this year.

Titles that caught the 15-year-old's eyes: On Lying in Bed and Other Essays (she's been laying low with a cold all week), What's Wrong with the World and Manalive.

If you didn't get a catalog, and would like one, contact us and we'll get one sent out ASAP.

A Chesterton Tree

I was thinking about the post above, and I thought, what if Chestertonians got involved at their libraries, offered to make a Chesterton Tree, filled the tree with Chesterton book "ornaments" and really filled their libraries with Chestertonian selections?

I think this would make a great gift to any library. I don't know if you have time to do it this year, but if you do, please let me know. And if you don't, I'll try to remember to post this idea a bit earlier for next year.

And if you want me to pull together a list of suggested essential Chesterton titles that any library should have, I'd be happy to do that, too. :-)

Mathematical Thanks

Having used up nearly my whole day fighting a rather intractable problem for work, I now cannot find my notes on what I wished to write about. I can tell you that it was going to be something about Logic, and I hope to deal with it sometime in the future. Logic, after all, is required for philosophy, and also computing - and is as basic to both as addition - or reading.

But since there is just one more week to go before the day we Americans spend in Giving Thanks To God, it seems good (and logical!) to contemplate the mathematics of thanksgiving.

Let us, then, turn to our collection of GKC and read this short little technical prayer called:

Eternities

I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head,
Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in His own strange book.

I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees.

In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.
[GKC Collected Poems CW10:209]

Naming leaves on trees - wow, I almost forgot to call your attention to this line! We actually do this in computing, and things like the IP addresses of the INTERNET and even the telephone numbers use the technique - we always start with a "root" name, then at every branch, add on the name of the branch as a suffix to the name we've already gotten - sooner or later we get to the leaf , and we have its name!

Even stranger is the idea of counting, not stars or sand, but hairs of one's head: See Matthew 10:30 - "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered." If God tracks such trivial details as this, how much more, then, will God care for us in the things that matter - especially when we say, as the priest does in each Holy Mass: "Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro" = "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God." Let us all respond "Dignum et justum est" = "It is right and just" - today and every day.

Got Gilbert?

I had heard they were on their way. I've been accosting the mailman for days. Anyone's arrive yet?

The Trouble with the American Chesterton Society

Yes, there is trouble, serious trouble. Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for Chesterton.

Chesterton is the trouble. He's so amazing, he's so thoughtful, he's such a complete thinker, that we can't but help and think that more people ought to read him. And that's the trouble. We have so many great ideas about how to make Chesterton more well known that we can't keep up with ourselves. We need more money. Why? We'd like to publish things. Books about Chesterton. Talks about Chesterton. Poetry of Chesterton's. Essays about Chesterton. Chesterton's work and how it relates to us and our society today. Video games about Chesterton. Etc.

We are not lacking in ideas. We are working on AMBER, to get all of Chesterton's work in electronic format, searchable, so that anyone who is writing, talking or working on Chestertonian stuff could easily search for what Chesterton had to say about sex, love, rock 'n roll, truth, Christianity or Neitzsche.

We are working on other stuff too. Stuff that requires time and money. Neither of which anyone ever has. What we do have, though, is love. A love for the big guy, Uncle Chesterton.

So if you'd like to help us out of trouble, consider the many ways in which you can help support the Chesterton society. You can buy books through our website. You can become a member, a deal that includes a subscription to our magazine Gilbert. You can simply donate. Or, if you have time, contact us and let us know what you might be able to do to help the world to know Chesterton.

Thanks. That's all I'll trouble you about today.

Question for the listening audience

Over the weekend, we had a question leading us to search through past conference programs.

Does anyone else besides me think it would be a good idea for the past conference talks to be listed somewhere on line?

For one, I think it would be great just to see what the talks have been, and for two, who the speakers have been, and three, if anyone is working on a PhD or book or something on one of the topics, they would have a resource.

What do you think?

Please keep praying for Teddy

He's home from the hospital, but his blood count is dropping again...so he isn't out of the woods.

UPDATE: Teddy was re-admitted to the hospital today, Monday. They can't find a vein and they are going to try a new medication. Let's pray that it works. St. Anthony, find a vein, please!

On Reading Chesterton Aloud to a Three-Year-Old

A beatuiful story told by Kyro:

Anyway, I had to stay in her bedroom to keep her from escaping, and I was using the time to make some progress in Ballad of the White Horse,...My daughter was looking at one of her animal books, and turned to me and asked, "Can you read me your book, Daddy?" I laid down next to her and started reading out loud. It stuck me then just how ingenious Chesterton was in the arrangement of this work. Much like Beowulf, and earlier epics, there is something gained by the oral recitation of the poetry. There is a wonderful rhythm and cadence to White Horse which captivated my little girl. I was completely awestruck by the situation because my daughter, to this point, has absolutely refused anything to do with a book that does not have pictures. I know she didnt catch much of the meaning of the words, but there are some powerful stanzas to be found in Ballad of the White Horse:

"Misshapen ships stood on the deep
Full of strange gold and fire,
And hairy men, as huge as sin,
With horned heads, came wading in
Through the long, low sea-mire.
Our towns were shaken of tall kings
With scarlet beards like blood;
The world tuned empty where they trod,
They took the kindly cross of God
And cut it up for wood." (85-95)

I just noticed that The Ballad can also be purchased in audio format, perfect for driving in the car, or for when your voice gives out waiting for a three-year-old to fall asleep.

An Unknown is Confirmed

It is confirmed: Gilbert's confirmation name was Francis.
Frances's confirmation name is unknown.

Unless anyone out there knows it. I've asked Mr. Ahlquist, and he's asked people over there across the pond. And no one that Dale knows to ask knows. So we don't know it.

I'm preparing a talk on Frances, and I was just curious.

Found! (a practical demonstration)

Well, as most of us who play out here in the e-cosmos know, there is very little one can find, whether one knows about transitivity, or the KMP algorithm, or "surfing" or "goggles" or whatever.

And even though I have written searches which find out where things aren't (!) there are many things for which I must use my own eyes and hands - if I care to actually find something.

And finally I have found that certain quote I was hunting. It is in answer to a home-school friend's mention of the term "dogma":

People talk nowadays of getting rid of dogmas and all agreeing like brethren. But upon what can they all agree except upon a common dogma? If you agree, you must agree on some statement, if it is only that a cat has four legs. If the dogmas in front of you are false, get rid of them; but do not say that you are getting rid of dogmas. Say that you are getting rid of lies. If the dogmas are true, what can you do but try to get men to agree with them? Nevertheless there is something deeper behind the rather vague attack on dogma which is widespread in our world. I think what the honest anti-dogmatists really mean about dogma is something like this: it is quite true that when one is talking to simple people such as children or the very poor, one does not repeat theoretic dogmas in their very theoretic form. One does not use frigid and philosophical language. One does not, in short, define the dogma. But let no one suppose that one is any the less dogmatic. For the simple truth is that, instead of defining the dogma, we simply assume the dogma. A mother does not say to her child, "There is a personal God, the moral and intelligent Governor of the universe". She says, "God will be pleased if you are good". She is quite as dogmatic as a college of theologians. Nay, she is more dogmatic, for it is more dogmatic to assume that a dogma is true than to declare that a dogma is true. But she is certainly simpler and better adapted to looking after babies than a college of theologians would be. And from this fact flows a singular consequence. It does often happen that the more good or innocent a man is, the more he imagines that he is undogmatic. The truth is that, so far from being undogmatic, he believes his dogmas so implicitly that he thinks that they are truisms.
[GKC Daily News Feb 13 1906 quoted in Maycock, The Man Who Was Orthodox]

Transitivity: doctrinal, dogmatic - and dull?

For a change today, I decided to talk about something nice and abstract: the mathematical property called transitivity. Of course, GKC does not actually state the definition:

The relation "RELATES-TO" is called transitive in a given set when, for any a, b, c in that set,
a RELATES-TO b
and also
b RELATES-TO c
means that we must have
a RELATES-TO c

But, as usual he hints about it: "Respect should be a transitive verb, not an intransitive; there should be an accusative after it; you cannot have respect without respectability. Reverence should be an act of homage, not a state of mind." [ILN Jun 15 1912 CW29:308]

And before you complain that these things are not the same, or that all this math is dull and useless and boring (is it?) let me go deeper into the matter.

For far more interesting is his comment on the philosophy of transitivity - and we must remember that transitivity is a dogmatic and a doctrinal distinction made about certain abstractions in mathematics:

the dogmas are not dull. Even what are called the fine doctrinal distinctions are not dull. They are like the finest operations of surgery; separating nerve from nerve, but giving life. It is easy enough to flatten out everything for miles round with dynamite, if our only object is to give death. But just as the physiologist is dealing with living tissues, so the theologian is dealing with living ideas; and if he draws a line between them it is naturally a very fine line.
[GKC The Thing CW3:303]

It is thrilling to read this juxtaposition of ideas, because (as I have very good reason to know) there is a powerful connection between transitivity and living things.

When you do a SEARCH on a computer, you may take advantage of something called the "Knuth-Morris-Pratt pattern-matching algorithm" which attempts to locate a search-string within a destination-string. It is a very good, and quite clever technique. Yet the algorithm works because it is based on the idea that the search string equals some part of the destination-string - AND for our usual character set (alphabet, digits, punctuation), the relation called "equality" is transitive!

Alas. Not all relations are transitive. In DNA sequence analysis, the relation called "matching" on the "wild card alphabet" is not transitive. Some computer scientists were appalled when they saw, amidst the hundreds and thousands of A, C, G, and T characters, other letters like S, W, M, K, R, Y, or B, D, H, V, or N. They asked if the biologists could omit these, or perhaps do their work more precisely. Well, needless to say, that is not possible. These wild card letters are real, and our work must take them into account. Just to illumine you further, here is the Hasse diagram for this curious alphabet:

[Above image is taken from my doctoral thesis]

In this DNA wildcard alphabet, A matches M, and M matches C, but A does NOT match C. Hence "matches" is not transitive.

And lacking transitivity, any searches with such wildcards must take this into account. (But don't try to do such searches with standard search tools!)

So, attention to such "fine doctrinal distinctions" as transitivity - as complex as it may seem to the outsider - is not only far from dull, is critically important and powerful when we are "dealing with living tissues" or the code which underlies them.

A Review of Fr. Shall's new book

"...the book is about the pursuit of knowledge through the course of a lifetime: it deals with the idea of the life long learner. There are chapters on: The lightness in Existence, The Liberals Arts, On the Consolations of Illiteracy, On Knowing Nothing of Intellectual Delights, and The Metaphysics of Walking to name a few. He argues that a bad education lacking in good books and great books can actually be an advantage, for now we have not learned the good/great books badly and have the opportunity of discovering for oneself what makes those books great (Like Chesterton's man who sails from England only to discover England upon returning).

This makes me think I should be grateful for my bad education.
Thanks, Paul.

The Apostle of Common Sense Video Game

Coming Soon! The ALL NEW Apostle of Common Sense Video Game, made specifically for the Nintendo DS!

You play as Gilbert. You have to go through London, arguing right and left with Shaw, Wells, and all of the rest. You move through mazes of hazy thinking, tunnels of troubled reasoning, towers of illogical logic. You pick up stars of common sense, which give you power-ups to fight the battles of wits. At the very end, you have two paths, one light, the other dark, and you have to choose.

***

We were watching the third season of the Apostle of Common Sense the other day, and my eleven year old was asked if she would like to watch with us. She said she'd rather play her DS, and so we thought if the ACS would just make a DS version, we could capture a much younger audience with the Chestertonian ideals. Any game writers out there want to start tackling this project?

(Note: I completely made this idea up. But I think it's a good idea.)

Prayer Request for a Young Chestertonian

Our Gilbert magazine graphic expert, Ted, has a little boy, Teddy, who has Evan's Syndrome. Yesterday, we got this message:

"Teddy is going to Geisinger Hospital. His hemoglobin continues to
drop."

Please pray for Teddy right now, and whenever you think of him. Thanks.

Chesterton Books Previously Loved on Sale for Good Cause

All proceeds benefit the Chesterton Society. Christmas is coming soon....

The Apostle of Common Sense

Since we were talking about money and technology, I thought this paragraph from The Apostle of Common Sense was appropriate.

It is worth repeating, since we so seldom hear it, that it is possible to be happy without being rich. Happiness can indeed be a hard taskmaster. It tells us not to get entangled with many things. And one of the things with which we have most entangled ourselves is technology. Chesterton says that machines are neither good nor bad, but he does say that beocming dependent on machines can be bad. The point about machines is that we have to be as free not to use them as to use them. Depending on them for our happiness means giving machines the power to make us miserable, which of course they do, as anyone who owns a computer knows." Dale Ahlquist

Ebay Auctions

I know for sure that this blog has never discussed Ebay auctions, and since we are supposed to talk about everything, I feel obligated to bring up this topic of conversation.

The most amazing thing our family has recently discovered, is the auctioning of virtual items.

Yes.

I know. This is difficult to swallow. However, there are on-line games where one assumes an identity, and then plays along with things. For example, there is one called Virtual Magic Kingdom, done by the Disney people. In this game, the players, mostly children, travel around a virtual Magic Kingdom, playing games, acquiring points to which they can "purchase" costume items and various pieces of furniture with which to decorate their virtual rooms, like chairs, tables, lamps, etc.

These items, it must be emphasized, are ALL VIRTUAL. It is a GAME.

The other day, we discovered that people were actually auctioning virtual items from this game. Why? Because certain items become rare when the game no longer offers them. For example, there was a movie called Lilo and Stitch (not worth the time to view, in my opinion) and there is a hat for the virtual characters that looks like Mickey Mouse ears, but it is blue and looks like the Stitch character. This Stitch Hat is no longer available in the game.

Now here comes the part that's hard to believe.

Someone paid $195 dollars for the Stitch Hat. The VIRTUAL Stitch Hat. A bunch of pixels.

I think I could think about this for a long time, and never figure it out. All I can think is that someone with a lot of money and no real life going on, is so keen to get this rare item in the game, that they either bought the hat, or got their parents to buy the hat.

"Daddy, I want a Stitch Hat." (Spoiled Child to Father)

"OK, dear, I'll get you one." (Wealthy Father of Spoiled Child)
***
Some other scenarios came to mind today at breakfast.

"Daddy, I want a Stitch Hat." (Spoiled Child to Software Hacker Father)

"OK, dear, I'll get one of my people to hack into Disney and get one for you." (Hacker Dad)
***
"Daddy, I want a Stitch Hat." (Daughter of Bill Gates)

"OK, dear, I'll buy Disney." (Mr. Gates)

Timeout for Thanksgiving

Yes, in three weeks the United States of America celebrates Thanksgiving, a day on which we remember the gifts God has given us, and continues to give us.

But I was just struck by how amazing it is that I can remember things from one day to the next.

So I thought it fitting to say thanks to God for this wonderful ability.

No help computers, no help are books
When searching through the cosmic nooks
The wise are rendered very weak
If one forgets what one does seek!

Through files coloured AMBER, through thousands of pages,
Or scrolls, parchments, CDs - the lore of the ages!
But surely one can face no harder task
Than seeking a fact one's forgot how to ask!

So pausing from books or from memory banks,
Let us think of our gifts and express our true thanks
Let librarians wonder, no it's not at all odd
To remember this gift - yes, thanks be to God!

Death in Pictures

As today is both All Soul's day and Thursday, I thought I would write about a different branch of mathematics called music. And joining these two topics calls to my mind the very famous "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Moussorgsky.

Moussorgsky wrote "Pictures" as a tribute to his friend Hartmann, an artist, expressing 10 of his paintings in music. Binding them together is the "Promenade" theme, which begins and is repeated throughout "Pictures", representing the nearly Chesterton-size Moussorgsky waddling around looking at Hartmann's works.

One of these pictures is the extremely poignant "Catacombae" and "Con Mortuis in Lingua Mortua" which Moussorgsky translated as "with the dead in a dead tongue". Buried in the chords are the notes of the Promenade theme, slow and in a minor key.

As I ponder this fragment of musical death in its setting within the complete work, I recall that it was written for pianoforte - though it may be far better known in its orchestral version arranged by Maurice Ravel. There is another version which has its own striking character - the performance by the incomparable Keith Chapman on the wonderful Wanamaker organ in Philadelphia, using some 33,000 pipes, some as big as 32 feet in length, and the tower chimes with the 12-foot 600 pound "C".

And whether you listen to the organ version, or the Ravel orchestration, or the original performance on piano, you will find (if you listen carefully) that the promenade makes one last appearance.

In the final "picture", called "The Great Gate of Kiev" the musical character changes dramatically at a certain point. The grand triumphant march is hushed, and something of the feeling of the "Catacombae" is recalled as the chords surge back and forth in a restless incompleteness. But then - and how can words really express the music? - but then amid the surging chords comes shining the triumphant promenade theme again, shining like the sun as it did outside Jerusalem on a Sunday just after the full moon of spring so many years ago...

The members of some Eastern sect or secret society or other seemed to have made a scene somewhere; nobody could imagine why. The incident occurred once or twice again and began to arouse irritation out of proportion to its insignificance. It was not exactly what these provincials said; though of course it sounded queer enough. They seemed to be saying that God was dead and that they themselves had seen him die. This might be one of the many manias produced by the despair of the age; only they did not seem particularly despairing. They seem quite unnaturally joyful about it, and gave the reason that the death of God had allowed them to eat him and drink his blood. According to other accounts God was not exactly dead after all; there trailed through the bewildered imagination some sort of fantastic procession of the funeral of God, at which the sun turned black, but which ended with the dead omnipotence breaking out of the tomb and rising again like the sun.
[GKC The Everlasting Man CW2:295-6]

Yes, I usually play "Pictures" on Holy Saturday, because it's fun to look forward to that musical sunrise.

So I think I will play it today too. Our God, you see, knows the way out of the grave. [see CW2:382]

Secret Anonymous Sources Who Wish Their Identities to be Kept, well, ah....Secret

...inform me that the Oct/Nov issue of Gilbert is at the shop and should be in your mailbox in about a week (or so, as we know, some people tend to get them sooner than others).