The Remarkable Resolution Rendered by Roberta Riven

I think there is just a tiny bit of alliteration going on with that title. ;-)

James G. "Gerry" Bruen Jr. is a relatively new writer to Gilbert, but each article is a new and interesting fable. The latest, which I'll dub "TRRRRR" for short is an interesting tale of land, possession of land, dispossession of land, reallocation of land, and paradoxical sayings on par with GKC himself. Meetings in local pubs, secretive monks in hot air balloons, beer, ale: what more do you want in a story?

Did you notice?

In the new issue of Gilbert, there is a curiosity.
It's on page 21.

The last line written in the translation says "Encyclopaedia" but Chesterton's own hand reveals a different, and I think important, word: "Cyclopaedia."

What do you think? Could this be a reference to Gertrude's, Frances's sister's death?

Dr. Thursday's Post

Praise of Simple Addition

When I walked along the pier at Ostend; and I heard some sailors uttering a measured shout as they laboured, and I remembered that sailors still sing in chorus while they work, and even sing different songs according to what part of their work they are doing. And a little while afterwards, when my sea journey was over, the sight of men working in the English fields reminded me again that there are still songs for harvest and for many agricultural routines. And I suddenly wondered why if this were so it should be quite unknown, for any modern trade to have a ritual poetry. How did people come to chant rude poems while pulling certain ropes or gathering certain fruit, and why did nobody do anything of the kind while producing any of the modern things? Why is a modern newspaper never printed by people singing in chorus? Why do shopmen seldom, if ever, sing?

If reapers sing while reaping, why should not auditors sing while auditing and bankers while banking? If there are songs for all the separate things that have to be done in a boat, why are there not songs for all the separate things that have to be done in a bank? As the train from Dover flew through the Kentish gardens, I tried to write a few songs suitable for commercial gentlemen. Thus, the work of bank clerk when casting up columns might begin with a thundering chorus in praise of Simple Addition.

"Up my lads and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er.
Hear the Stars of Morning shouting: 'Two and Two are four.'
Though the creeds and realms are reeling, though the sophists roar,
Though we weep and pawn our watches, Two and Two are Four."

[GKC, "The Little Birds Who Won't Sing" in Tremendous Trifles]

Addition. Sums. Adding. To be precise, a closed, associative, operation with an identity and an inverse, defined over sets both finite and infinite... While most mathematics is thought "hard" (if you are a doll) or "difficult" (if you are not Newton or Cauchy or Euler or Gauss) it is nearly a truism of language to speak of things being "as easy as addition" or "as simple as two plus two equals four" - even for such a non-math guy as our Uncle Gilbert:

Mr. Blatchford, with colossal simplicity, explained to millions of clerks and workingmen that the mother is like a bottle of blue beads and the father is like a bottle of yellow beads; and so the child is like a bottle of mixed blue beads and yellow. He might just as well have said that if the father has two legs and the mother has two legs, the child will have four legs. Obviously it is not a question of simple addition or simple division of a number of hard detached "qualities," like beads. It is an organic crisis and transformation of the most mysterious sort; so that even if the result is unavoidable, it will still be unexpected. It is not like blue beads mixed with yellow beads; it is like blue mixed with yellow; the result of which is green, a totally novel and unique experience, a new emotion.
[GKC, What's Wrong With the World, CW4:155]

Here already we find something transcendent about addition - I do not mean the underlying argument GKC is making - I mean the curious fact that there are some kinds of "addition" which do not work like the numbers. In the world of paint pigments, blue plus yellow equals green. But let us look a little at numbers and find out what is going on, and perhaps we shall also have a "novel and unique experience": the "new emotion" which provokes praise of addition.
Read more.

In order to talk about addition we have to talk about numbers. One of the first problems one encounters in talking about numbers is the same as in other fields: distinguishing between the thing-in-itself and its representation in print. Perhaps the simplest way of clearing up this puzzle is to show you some different forms of a "simple" addition problem. We'll use the same one GKC quoted.

Written English:
Two plus two equals four.

Algebraic notation:
2 + 2 = 4

Latin:
II et II est IV.

Typical personal computer (x86-based):
Given that EAX contains 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010
and EBX contains 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0010
after performing ADD EAX,EBX
EAX contains 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0100.

Real addition:
**
(stuck together with)
**
(is the same as)
****

The last one is about as close as I can come (here in the e-cosmos) to the "thing-in-itself"; the others forms are "representations". They are ways of indicating - even suggesting - the true details contained only in the last display. You see, there is a real thing, addition, which has a real meaning in the real world. Get out some coins (I don't care what value they are) - or some paper clips - or a few somethings. Put two of them in front of you, on your left side, and two of them on your right side. You see there are two here, and also two there. (Of course you do. It's simple!) Now slide them together into a little heap. Now there are four, even though you might be able to tell which two were on the left and which two were on the right - but that doesn't matter - there are four together, which are somehow the same as two and another two: though they were apart, now they are joined.

It is simple because there are just a few, and we can handle (that is USE OUR HANDS) to manipulate them (yes, I know that's just using a Latin term for the same thing...)

What if there were more than we would care to shove around? Or we were "adding" things that are not "shove-able"?

Ah. That's where "addition" (the symbols, or the representations) come in.

Taxonomists throw their hands up in the air over human beings - the species homo sapiens (Man-the-wise). Someone, searching for a way of expressing the unique catholicity of our species, and thereby demonstrating the perfection of the species sapiens, is always making a suggestion of another gerund to go here. Some have said faber (the maker, because we make tools - things for making - ah, a recursive thought!); others ludens (the player, because we play games); still others ridens (the laugher, for obvious reasons, hee hee). Tolkien, with his deep penetration, and his true love of words, named his reasoning beings the Quenta - the Speakers - and if he played the taxonomy game, he might have proposed homo loquens - man, the speaker.

Yes, in the process of wisdom, we first reduce reality to the spoken word (So we say "two plus two equals four.") Then we move to writing:

(that is, "two added-to two amounts-to four")
and all the other variations which have been encoded over the millennia.

I should, however, point out that the form using a computer is even more of a cheat than the others. And it will come as a real surprise to some, because it is not technical, but philosophical. Language, be it symbolic representations of sounds (Remember that "to" represents the same sound as "two"!) or symbolic representations of words ("2" represents "two" but also duo or zwei<>deux or dos!) possesses a strange characteristic, deriving directly from something supernatural. Language, the spoken word (and therefore the written word too) has an infinite or eternal dimension - one-sided, yes, but infinite in the sense that it is "unbounded".

My gosh, haven't you felt that these "Dr. Thursday" posts are going to run on and on? Hee hee.

We know full well that we'll get tired, have to go home from work or school, go to bed, or whatever. But at a given moment, we "feel" that the words might go on and on, as long as is needed. And so, we can think of numbers that perhaps we might never really say - numbers that no computer, no collection of computers, could ever store - numbers that might not even mean anything in the "real" world - but really big numbers... googol-plex, and such - and we can, by that power residing in the part of us which is NOT physical, immediately think of adding one to it.

An aside: If you need more on this, I direct you to The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, in which the Mathemagician presents a good commentary on infinity. His brother, King Azaz, makes the same comment, though in somewhat more veiled language. As you may know, our hero Milo receives infinite gifts from each of them, but then I must not reveal too much. Go and read it yourself.

In other words, our grasp of the abstraction implicit in numbers and addition is somehow derived from the supernatural trait called the imperishability of the soul: since WE can imagine talking on-and-on, long enough to finish the addition, we can grasp the general notion of addition. Now for the shock.

Computers cannot do this.

The addition which is "native" to computers is NOT that kind of addition. It looks like regular addition, and will work as long as one keeps things "small enough" - but.

First, this addition is a representation, just as much as "2" is a representation for "two" (and so on) - it has to be, because the "numbers" in the computer are themselves representations! We tech guys write zeros and ones (well actually most of the time we use the regular numbers, and the machinery fixes them during compilation), but actually the "numbers" are just a higher voltage and a lower voltage on separate wires, or tiny thin strands of metal on a wafer of quartz, or regions of magnetized iron particles on a spinning plate.

Second, this addition is what math guys call "modular addition" - or the grade school teachers might call clock math. There is a wrapping-around that happens, sooner or later, and if you count high enough, you have to start over again at zero. Ever notice how if you call a friend at 11 AM and say you'll meet for lunch in two hours, you add 11+2 and get one? Yes, that's right... on a typical computer (either x86 or 68000), if you add two to 4294967295 you will also get one. It's true, and for the same reason. On clocks, the wrapping happens at zero, which is also called twelve. On most computers, the wrapping happens at the number called 2³² or 4294967296, which is also called zero, because 4294967296 requires thirty-three bits to write, and these computers can only add 32 bits at once. (Sure, if you are a tech, you can think of tricks - I know several, but we are not going into that today.) Now, most of the time we don't need to actually count up to 4 billion, so we don't have a problem with this wrap-around. But we have to know that it's there. Why is it there? Why will something like that always be there? Simply because one has to build the machinery to hold the data. Either a "register" (the thing that holds the 32 bits, and wraps around) or memory, or hard drives, or whatever it may be - all such things are finite.

But the human mind is not.

Thus, there arises, even here, in the dull simplicity of a very technical (and perhaps very boring) little matter - the matter of addition - we are faced with ETERNITY - with one of the greatest thoughts possible. And that brings us squarely face to face with God and religion. Which is as it should be:

...very uneducated rich men who loudly demanded education. And among the marks of their ignorance and stupidity was the particular mark that they regarded letters and figures as dead things, quite separate from each other and from a general view of life. They thought of a boy learning his letters as something quite cut off, for instance, from what is meant by a man of letters. They thought a calculating boy could be made like a calculating machine. When somebody said to them, therefore, "These things must be taught in a spiritual atmosphere", they thought it was nonsense; they had a vague idea that it meant that a child could only do a simple addition sum when surrounded with the smell of incense. But they thought simple addition much more simple than it is. When the Catholic controversialist said to them, "Even the alphabet can be learnt in a Catholic way", they thought he was a raving bigot, they thought he meant that nobody must ever read anything but a Latin missal.
But he meant what he said, and what he said is thoroughly sound psychology. There is a Catholic view of learning the alphabet; for instance, it prevents you from thinking that the only thing that matters is learning the alphabet; or from despising better people than yourself, if they do not happen to have learnt the alphabet.
[GKC, The Common Man 166-7]

Birthday Bonus Week

Anyone wanting to try to WIN a Father Brown Reader should go here and enter Cay's contest.

Anyone wanting to obtain The Father Brown Reader at a Birthday Bonus discount on Friday only and only at Flying Stars, should order one tomorrow, Friday.

A Chesterton Relative has died

One of Charles's great-grandsons was the writer GK Chesterton, who worked for the firm [the Chesterton family real estate business] very briefly before deciding it was not for him.

I was not aware that Gilbert had actually worked in his father's business. Have I missed something?

I also thought it was interesting that they note Sir Oliver had a gift for putting everyone at ease. Perhaps this was a family trait?

Great Scot! Gilbert's on Time!

Perhaps the world will stop spinning. Perhaps it is un-Chestertonian. But we have great news! And a cover to unveil.

If this isn't the most gorgeous cover you've ever seen on a Gilbert magazine, I'll eat my blog. ;-)

For the first time in my [Sean Dailey's] four+ years as editor, we made deadline. The December issue was sent to press yesterday, meaning the issue will be mailed to subscribers before the end of November. Readers will get their December issue in December, rather than in Lent, ;-).
This issue contains some Harry Potter discussions. There is also a very special treat: a 13-page spread consisting of an illustrated version of Chesterton's poem "The Wise Men." (Illustrated by Beatrice Wilczynski, [scroll down]who died in 1984).
A second very special treat is a color cover by Ben Hatke. Finally, there is a write-up of the Rochester Chesterton Conference, on Chesterton and Conversion.--from Sean Dailey, Editor-in-Chief, Gilbert

More ideas about Open Minds

Thanks to Dr. Thursday, here is another good "open minded" quote:

if I have never experienced such a thing as green I cannot even say that my nose is not green. It may be as green as possible for all I know, if I have really no experience of greenness. So we shouted at each other and shook the room; because metaphysics is the only thoroughly emotional thing. And the difference between us was very deep, because it was a difference as to the object of the whole thing called broad-mindedness or the opening of the intellect. For my friend said that he opened his intellect as the sun opens the fans of a palm tree, opening for opening's sake, opening infinitely for ever. But I said that I opened my intellect as I opened my mouth, in order to shut it again on something solid. I was doing it at the moment. And as I truly pointed out, it would look uncommonly silly if I went on opening my mouth infinitely, for ever and ever.
[from "The Extraordinary Cabman" in Tremendous Trifles]

And Dr. T also supplies the citation for yesterday's citationless quote:

"A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice. "

that is from ILN January 6, 1906 CW27:98 also printed as "The Methuselahite" in All Things Considered

Thank you Dr. T!

The Object of Opening the Mind...

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." (Autobiography. Collected Works Vol. 16, p. 212)

and again,

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

Just keeping an open mind, as this article shows, tends to lead you toward a "new philosophy" which tends to praise some "old vice" and then you call yourself a "catholic Catholic"? I don't think so.

UPDATE: More of the same lack of thinking.

The amazon.com Father Brown Reader page

Check it out. Read my plog. Watch the rankings go up and down.

If you own the book, write a review. If you don't own it, well, get cracking. Don't you need a St. Nicholas (December 6th) idea for your children or grandchildren?

If you'd like an autographed copy (unfortunately, not autographed by Chesterton, but by the adapter), come see me here.

10th Anniversary Issue Arrived

Yeah, yeah, you probably got yours a week ago. But my mailman reads mine for a week, and then delivers it to me, so I'm always last.

I'm still reading mine. Was there anything in the anniversary issue you particularly wanted to discuss here? I had the most fun, so far, just reading the letters to the editor.

Tony Snow on the Media

H/T: The Anchoress.
I believe GKC would have liked this speech.

We also hear the the First Ammendment is under siege. I think that's true. I don't believe anyone here would disagree with the proposition that the quality of public discourse isn't what it once was or that it presently achieves levels of excellence and depth that it desperately needs to reach.

Yet—while it may be tempting to blame the usual suspects—the government, interest groups, angry factionalists—those forces frequently have always tried to restrict the free flow of ideas, and they always have failed.

They're not the culprits here. Instead, there's a new an unexpected menace on the block: The media.

Although Mr. Snow could use some grammar lessons. "frequently have always"?

Clock Day

Clock Day
by
Dr. Thursday

Clock Day is coming and the Congressman is fat
Time is unimportant when the Senate goes to bat!
If you think our clocks should stay in sync with noon by the sun's view
Then write* a letter to your rep
And God bless you!

[* In the modern age, you can amend this line to:
Then send an e-mail to your rep...]

God bless you, citizen, God bless you!
So write a letter to your rep and God bless you!

Clock Day is coming and the people give a howl:
Congress gives an order, so now what was fair is foul.
Such power has corrupted them, in all they say and do!
So send an e-mail to your rep
And God bless you!

God bless you, citizen, God bless you!
So send an e-mail to your rep and God bless you!

and, from GKC:

Anomalies do matter very much, and do a great deal of harm; abstract illogicalities do matter a great deal, and do a great deal of harm. And this for a reason that anyone at all acquainted with human nature can see for himself. All injustice begins in the mind. And anomalies accustom the mind to the idea of unreason and untruth. Suppose I had by some pre-historic law the power of forcing every man in Battersea to nod his head three times before he got out of bed. The practical politicians might say that this power was a harmless anomaly; that it was not a grievance. It could do my subjects no harm; it could do me no good. The people of Battersea, they would say, might safely submit to it. But the people of Battersea could not safely submit to it, for all that. If I had nodded their heads for them for fifty years I could cut off their heads for them at the end of it with immeasurably greater ease. For there would have permanently sunk into every man's mind the notion that it was a natural thing for me to have a fantastic and irrational power. They would have grown accustomed to insanity. GKC ILN March 10 1906 CW 27:139

Capitalism and the Family--Part 2 from the Bosque Boys

Dr. Thursday's Post

Upwards, all hearts!

It is a real case against conventional hagiography that it sometimes tends to make all saints seem to be the same. Whereas in fact no men are more different than saints; not even murderers.
[GKC, St. Thomas Aquinas CW2:478]

Today, November 1, is the feast of All Saints - that is, all those who have died and gotten to heaven, and who don't have their own special feast day. Of course it's really the feast of everyone in heaven, even those who do have special days, or maybe two (like St. John the Baptist) or a bunch, like the Blessed Virgin Mary. For now, until the paperwork gets done, this is when we really may celebrate Frances and Gilbert Chesterton - and Pierre Duhem, Galvani and Agnesi (see here for more about the witchcraft of this brilliant Catholic!) and Biringuccio and Buridan and Pasteur and Galileo... Oh, have I been emphasizing scientists? (Gee I wonder how that happened.) How about Francis Thompson and J. R. R. Tolkien and Belloc and Baring? How about Dante and Guido of Arezzo (who gave us ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la) and Olivier Messien (a great organ-composer of the 20th century)? How about Alcuin and Charlemagne?

I have mentioned Alcuin - dragged in his name, in fact - because I think it worth concentrating on some of the things he did - or may have done. It is secret work such as his, alas, now hidden in the secret records of the Recording Angel, which we may fruitfully contemplate today. In a funny way, the Feast of All Saints is most Chestertonian - because it is so deeply Catholic - but also because it is so deeply human.

It may be surprising to learn that even philosophers far distant from the Catholic way of life and thought have come up with such things. The short-lived French Republican calendar, in hate of European - that is, of both pagan and Catholic tradition, named their months from Nature, like "Heat", "Snow", "Vintage" and "Harvest" - OK, they had "Fog" and "Rain" but the animals and the weather do not harvest, do not make wine. (Leave it to the French to not forget the wine!) Then there are those negative people called "positivists":

A Positivist, as he figures in the life and correspondence of the Huxley and Arnold period, meant something much more definite than a rationalist who rested all his views on positive knowledge. A Positivist meant a Comtist, and a Comtist meant a good deal. Comte had a complete new religion, or rather, a new Church; for it was modelled throughout on the Catholic Church. It had a liturgy. It had a calendar. I believe it had vestments. I am sure it had saints' days dedicated to Darwin or Newton. I do not know in what the ceremonial consisted, or what were the vestments worn. Perhaps they all wore tails on Darwin Day. Perhaps they celebrated Sir Isaac Newton by dancing round an apple-tree and pelting each other with apples.
[GKC ILN Jan 27 1923 CW33:30-31]

So does this mean I think (or Chesterton thought) we ought to celebrate Darwin Day too? Well, you'll find out. You see, like Aquinas, GKC could see the brilliance even in the error of another, sift it, and take advantage of it. And he then revealed it, even if the heretic had hidden it.
To reveal more, press here.


If I might attempt a shorthand explanation, GKC seems to say that erroneous philosophers like Comte find truth because they still work as humans, in a human manner - and insofar as they maintain this true humanity, they succeed, despite their error or silliness. But here is what he says about Comte:

In an age of dusty modernity, when beauty was thought of as something barbaric and ugliness as something sensible, he alone saw that men must always have the sacredness of mummery. He saw that while the brutes have all the useful things, the things that are truly human are the useless ones. He saw the falsehood of that almost universal notion of to-day, the notion that rites and forms are something artificial, additional, and corrupt. Ritual is really much older than thought; it is much simpler and much wilder than thought. A feeling touching the nature of things does not only make men feel that there are certain proper things to say; it makes them feel that there are certain proper things to do. The more agreeable of these consist of dancing, building temples, and shouting very loud; the less agreeable, of wearing green carnations and burning other philosophers alive. But everywhere the religious dance came before the religious hymn, and man was a ritualist before he could speak. If Comtism had spread the world would have been converted, not by the Comtist philosophy, but by the Comtist calendar. ... A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool. It is absurd to say that a man is ready to toil and die for his convictions when he is not even ready to wear a wreath round his head for them. I myself, to take a corpus vile, am very certain that I would not read the works of Comte through for any consideration whatever. But I can easily imagine myself with the greatest enthusiasm lighting a bonfire on Darwin Day.
[GKC, Heretics CW1:87]

Why? And why do I mention a bunch of names from the past, both important and barely remembered?

Because we are heirs to great things - and this feast day gives us an opportunity to be grateful to those who have given them to us. (Yes, you can do this on your Darwin Day, if you insist. I ought to note that most American universities, even secular ones, even CATHOLIC ones, already cancel classes on Newton Day, which is December 25 - though perhaps they give another reason.)

Oh. Am I being too technical again? I will try, without so many allusions. Let's see...

Who built the first boat? Who invented cheese? Who invented paper? And ink? And writing?

Who decided to start putting spaces between words, insteadofrunningthemtogetherastheRomansandGreeksdid? (It might have been Alcuin - The 26 Letters by Oscar Ogg says he invented the separation into sentences and paragraphs.)

Or how about this: Who fed _____ (fill in any great name) when he was little? Who gave him his first real job, or took him under his tutelage? Who taught him to read and write?

Ah... but why go so far back into the unknowns?

Who taught YOU (or your parents, or their parents) to read and write? Who fed YOU when you were little? Gave you employment? rendered you service? helped you in your needs?

It seems most fitting that this month is the month in which America celebrates her national day of thanks - and if we had fallen into the sane silliness of the French Republic, we might very appropriately call this month "THANKS". (Of course if it's in French, we must use the correct ending, whatever it may be!)

As you may have expected, Chesterton has anticipated all this:

But the world has to thank [the ancient world] for many things which it considers common and necessary; and the creators of those common things ought really to have a place among the heroes of humanity. If we were at rest in a real paganism, instead of being restless in a rather irrational reaction from Christianity, we might pay some sort of pagan honour to these nameless makers of mankind. We might have veiled statues of the man who first found fire or the man who first made a boat or the man who first tamed a horse. And if we brought them garlands or sacrifices, there would be more sense in it than in disfiguring our cities with cockney statues of stale politicians and philanthropists.
[GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:200]

Indeed. Today, perhaps more than on any other day, we need to recall the real words that begin the Prayer of Thanks:

Priest: Sursum Corda! Upwards, [all] hearts!
People: Habemus ad Dominum! We have [moved them upwards], toward the Lord!
Priest: Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro. Let us give thanks to the Lord, to our God.
People: Dignum et justum est. It is worthy/suitable, and just/regular/proper/fitting/perfect/right.

(my own translation, done not for precision of liturgy but for emphasis and implication.)

Recall, too, that in that prayer we join the entire heavenly choir of triumphant humans - a song which hitherto was sung only by the angels. [See Isaias 6:3]

Do something human today. Offer thanks - you will never know, can never count, all those to whom you owe it, but they will know.

It is time for a picnic on the roof, or lunch on the floor.

"...thanks are the highest form of thought... gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

[GKC, A Short History of England CW20:463]

Upwards, all hearts!

--Dr. Thursday

PS: Since I have risked much by mentioning the formal words of the liturgy and writing about them, I must add just a bit to show this is not simple speculation on my part. According to Jungman's The Mass of the Roman Rite, the formula "Let us give thanks..." actually dates back to Jewish prayer-formulas. Moreover, the response is definitively a Roman and a public acclamation, equivalent to "Amen": "...the response to the invitation to prayer by a Dignum et iustum est was current there [in Jewish order of prayer]. And in ancient culture too, accalamtion of this kind played a grand role. It was considered the proper thing for the lawfully assembled people to endorse an important decision, an election, or the taking of office or leitourgia, by means of an acclamation." Jungman's is a thoroughly annotated work; notes state that Aequum est, iustum est was used at the election of the Emperor Gordian; Dignum et iustum est was used at the election of the bishop in Hippo. [see I:15 note 40, II:111 and notes 10&11 on that page] This work has a lot to say about the inner details which I have only hinted at here.

A Fun Conference

The Circe Institute sounds like an interesting organization. Especially when I heard about their conference, coming up in July of 2008.

“A Contemplation of Humor” is a gathering of school leaders, teachers, and home educators with a sense of humor (or who need one) who yearn to cultivate wisdom and virtue in their students and children - and in themselves.

Meet attendees from Florida and Michigan to Virginia and California for

∙Three Unforgettable days
∙ A bunch of ludicrous speakers
∙ Twenty-four playful workshops
∙ Twelve provocative colloquies
∙ Three refreshing evenings
∙ One elegant Paideia Prize banquet


All at one astonishing retreat!

Doesn't that sound like fun?

Springfieldians!

If you are in the area of Springfield, IL and have the chance tomorrow night (Tuesday, October 30th) at 7pm, come to Christ the King church and hear me talk about Harry Potter, Chesterton, Father Brown and more. I would love to meet you and hope to see you there!

Capitalism and the Family

I found a blog where the conversation is just beginning on Capitalism and the Family, and I thought some of you might like to head over there and join in the conversation.

October--Month of Mary and the Rosary

The Catholic Church is always celebrating something, either a saint's day, a feast day, a birthday, a martyrdom; and there are months dedicated to certain celebrations, as well. October has traditionally been one of "Mary's months" (the other being May, when May crownings occur) due in part to the events that occured in 1571 on October 7th at Lepanto.

So it is only fitting that a shop dedicated to Mary and the rosary should become interested in the American Chesterton Society's book entitled, Lepanto.

So, go check it out. Go to the Rosary Center and then to the click on "Books" and you'll see it there with a bright shiny yellow "New" notice.

A fellow Chestertonian sent this to me, and it is one of his many ways he quietly and anonymously helps the Chesterton society. Maybe you have a book store near you? Maybe you know the owner? Maybe you could see if they would like to carry the Chesterton society's books? Maybe you already do? Thank you. Every little bit helps.

Chesterton on Prime Time

Thomas Gibson's character on "Criminal Minds" this week ended the show with this quote:

"Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed."

Typically, as sometimes happens with Chesterton, the character actor didn't get the exact quote which is:

"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." ~G.K. Chesterton

H/T: Mark--who also noticed the misquote.

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

Practical White Magic: Climbing to Step One-and-a-Fraction

...in all the wild rites and the savage myths, there is at least that twilight which suggests to itself, and by itself, that it might be more enlightened than it is. There is something in the grossest idolatry or the craziest mythology that has a quality of groping and adumbration. There is more in life than we understand; some have told that if we ate a scorpion or worshipped a green monkey we might understand it better. But the evolutionary educator, having never since his birth been in anything but the dark, naturally believes that he is in the daylight. His very notion of daylight is something which is so blank as to be merely blind. There are no depths in it, either of light or darkness. There are no dimensions in it; not only no fourth, but no third, no second, and hardly a first; certainly no dimensions in which the mind can move. Therefore the mind remains fixed, in a posture that is called progressive. It never looks back, even for remembrance; it never looks the other way, even for experiment; it never looks at the other side, even for an adventure; it never winks the other eye. It simply knows all there is; and there does not seem to be much to know. [GKC ILN Aug 6 1932; thanks to Frank Petta and my mother]

The first time I went to the Twin Cities to visit Dale Ahlquist, we went to that large shopping town near him - for some reason they call it a "mall". There seemed to be an amusement park inside the mall - which was already so gigantic it was hard to believe we were "inside" - one might have thought we were in a space station halfway between... er, sorry I can't go into that here.

Anyway, we stopped on our way to our noonday meal, and looked at the dozens of poor frightened young children being strapped into some gigantic mechanical thing. Then it started to move, in four or six directions at once, accompanied by screams of terror. I said to Dale how they used to train astronauts in those things, now kids pay money to scream their heads off...

Dale, being a polite Chestertonian, did NOT comment: "Yes, and their parents scream their heads off at how much it costs - once to buy lunch, and once to lose it." But then so much happened that day, perhaps I forgot. (No I did NOT take a ride.)

Now that we've set the appropriate degree of horror:

Please have your ticket ready, fasten your seat belts, tighten your rider-protection equipment. You are going to be displaced into a fractional dimension, courtesy of the American Chesterton Society. Warning: you should have abstained from food and drink for at least the last .03 minutes; in any case, your entrance fee is NOT refundable, and the management assumes no risks to your health or property. You may, however, retain the results of your journey as they will be useful for decorative purposes as we near Winter Tide.

Ahem. (Yes, I do get carried away, it's just such fun to play with these pleasant English word-things after fussing with the brackets, braces, asterisks and semicolons I have to write for work.)

So, here we are, finally ready to follow a very strange path: through the Tollbooth, down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass, by the Straight Road to the Furthest West, over the Mountains of the Dawn, via Platform Nine and Three Quarters... well, actually, on the nearest staircase of your home or office, to that strange step which is just past the first, but not quite the second.

I am going to tell you just a little bit about a strange little branch of mathematics, in which we take the recursion we examined last week and apply it to good old geometry. I can only tell you a little bit about it - as a computer scientist I spend (have spent!) a lot of time wandering along the various halls of the University, and have heard a smidgen here, a drop there... Often these crumbs get wedged into the computer in interesting ways, and they can be fun, and even useful. (I used this one to help a friend design planets... oops, I'm not supposed to talk about that either.) But this one is easy, and it turns out to make a very nice design, providing one remembers the "terminating condition" we talked about last week. Remember, the smallest doll that has no seam? (And what if it didn't?)

This is very much of an audience participation project, and it will be lots of fun to try. You may get tired after a little, and that's OK, because you can always print out our pictures - and if they aren't very nice on your printer, we will look into ways of getting good copies for you, if you ask. But even if all you have is a scrap of paper, a ruler, a pencil, and an eraser - that will be enough. (To do the whole thing, you ought to have a compass, the circle-drawing kind, but that's optional).

OK, ready? Hey, Joe, power up der machine! *CLICK* hummmm...

And when you're ready for the drop, CLICK HERE... (hee hee)

First, I will teach you the "rule". Then we will apply it. This is just a scrap-paper trial, so please play along. It won't hurt at all, and will take just a minute or so. You need a piece of paper, a ruler, a pencil, and an eraser.

The Rule. To do the Rule we are given a line segment.
(Draw a nice handy line maybe about three inches long, from left to right.)



Rule Step 1. Divide the given line segment into thirds.
(Take your pencil and lightly mark the point one third of the distance, and two thirds of the distance. Use a ruler, or just approximate.)



Rule Step 2. Draw an equilateral triangle on the center portion of the line segment.
(Again use your ruler and pencil. Make each side the same length. The picture will now look like a witch's hat - but that's NOT where the magic comes in, hee hee. That's later.)


Rule Step 3. Erase the central portion of the line segment, which is the base of the triangle.
(That's why you need the eraser. It's an important lesson in mystical reality - not every erasing is a mistake! You will now have a kind of V shape with long arms.)



Excellent. That's all the Rule is. (Whew.)

How about a short break for a little Chesterton?

...a hard black outline on a blank sheet of paper, an arbitrary line drawing such as I could make myself with a pen and ink on the paper in front of me - that this thing should come to life was and is a shock to the eye and brain having all the effect of a miracle. That something like a geometrical diagram should take on a personality, should shoot over the page by its own inky vitality, should run races and turn somersaults in its own flat country of two dimensions - this does still startle or stun me like a shot going past my head.
[GKC ILN Mar 19 1927 CW34:274]

He was talking about cartoons, yes indeed. But this is just a curious little pattern.

Now let us add the powerful magic of recursion!

Stage TWO. Take your result, and apply the Rule to each of the four NEW line segments you have.

After step 1, applied to all segments:


After step 2, applied to all segments:


After step 3, applied to all segments:


Very nice. You see - now, each of the four new pieces in your first result now looks like that result - just smaller? We've opened our first doll, and found another one inside, just the same.

OH, WOW. you are saying. Now, we do it again...

That is, STAGE THREE, STAGE FOUR, and so on.

Exactly.

But let us be a bit more artistic (if the word be permitted of such bland black-and-white efforts). Let us take a slightly more interesting shape, and apply the Rule in successive stages. Let us, in the name of the Triune God, or the three dimensions if you like, take an equilateral triangle as our start.

You can do this on a nice big sheet of paper if you want, and work carefully, as you will be delighted by the final product - but it will take some work. Just be patient, go all the way around at one level before getting smaller, and stop when things get too small to draw.

Stage One. Here's our starting triangle:

Stage Two. Now apply our Rule to each of the three sides:


Stage Three. And again...


Stage Four. And again...


Stage Five. And again...


Stage Six. And again...
At this point, the changes are too small for the computer to display, so I will quit here.

Now, this is the real-world kind of recursion. We have gone down to the smallest doll, to the pixel-level of the graphics, to the atomic level (Atom in the Greek sense - you cannot cut it any finer!)

But, as we hinted last week - what if there was no terminating condition?

Here again we must pause for a brief comment from a mathematician. We are going to talk (very informally) about a limit. That is, something that is a "final result" of a series of stages, the number of which may increase without bounds. Note that (contrary to the Eagles) we are not "taking it to the limit" by counting to infinity. I really do not have the time or space to explain "limit" now - except that Zeno was wrong. Simply because you can move, you can walk through an infinite number of halfway points from here to there. And the reason is because (as we mnath guys say) the limit of the infinite series is finite. You can add 1/2 and 1/4 and 1/8 and 1/16 and 1/32 and 1/64... and all the infinite fractions which are the reciprocals of the powers of two - and you will get ONE. No more, no less. (the Word, as GKC and St. John say, is One.)

Now, what happens when we apply our Rule along the infinite series of line segments?

Only about 40 years ago, a mathematician named Benoît Mandelbrot was studying the coastline of Britain. Noticing how there seemed to be a similarity of shapes depending on the degree of resolution, he developed the mathematics of such things as we have just considered and found that the result is finite in one sense, though infinite in another... After careful study, he found that somehow the final result is something MORE than a line (which has ONE dimension) but definitely LESS than a planar curve (which has TWO dimensions). He called these things of FRACTionAL dimension fractals.

Remembering that real things do NOT recede to infinity - they stop at some terminating condition, be it pixels, cells, or atoms - it is clear that some things have fractal-like character: tree branches, lightning bolts...

Snowflakes.

Hence, as I said in my title, White Magic. Well, actually it was Father Brown:

When the priest went forth again and set his face homeward, the cold had grown more intense and yet was somehow intoxicating. The trees stood up like silver candelabra of some incredibly cold Candlemas of purification. It was a piercing cold, like that silver sword of pure pain that once pierced the very heart of purity. But it was not a killing cold, save in the sense of seeming to kill all the mortal obstructions to our immortal and immeasurable vitality. The pale green sky of twilight, with one star like the star of Bethlehem, seemed by some strange contradiction to be a cavern of clarity. It was as if there could be a green furnace of cold which wakened all things to lifelike warmth, and that the deeper they went into those cold crystalline colours the more were they light like winged creatures and clear like coloured glass. It tingled with truth and it divided truth from error with a blade like ice; but all that was left had never felt so much alive. It was as if all joy were a jewel in the heart of an iceberg. The priest hardly understood his own mood as he advanced deeper and deeper into the green gloaming, drinking deeper and deeper draughts of that virginal vivacity of the air. Some forgotten muddle and morbidity seemed to be left behind, or wiped out as the snow had painted out the footprints of the man of blood. As he shuffled homewards through the snow, he muttered to himself: "And yet he is right enough about there being a white magic, if he only knows where to look for it."
[GKC "The Dagger With Wings" in The Incredulity of Father Brown]

There are lots of other tricks one can play - it is lots easier to do on computers, which don't mind the boring parts and are usually quite neat at inking and erasing and all that. In any case, this concludes our little ride - I hope you aren't queasy - if you have any questions please submit them in writing.

A final note: as disorienting as they may have been, your experiences today CANNOT be used in order to get a ride on the Space Shuttle. You'll have to go to that place in Minnesota for that kind of training - why not do it next June when you come for the Conference?

--Dr. Thursday