Not by the cover

Choosing Love: Puritanism In The New Russia

The eXile article

Last time, I mentioned how Russia's highly touted stability will come in the form of religious level Puritanism. Well, it's here, and damn, it came faster than I thought.

This year has officially been named the Year of the Family. Last year, as some of you may recall, was Year of the Child. I guess the feds figured that since we've all had babies now, it's time to get married and make it decent. Some cynics might say that this is a reaction to the consequences of incentivizing Russia's birthrate increase. The government has been offering a fairly significant amount of cash for every Russian child. One theory is that people might give birth strictly for the government payout, and then abandon their lucrative children. When you get out into the regions, the payout counts for a lot of dough, more than some people make in a year. Abandoned children on the other hand means more expenditure and stress on the federal system. Sure this all sounds awful, but some of the things that go on in Russia's provinces is pretty freakin' hairy.

Promotions for Russia's family focus are already out there in full force. One of the more visible campaigns on the streets is a series of billboards announcing that 2008 is the Year of the Family. The adverts show a fuzzy, gleeful family, with the slogan "We Choose Love." Some of the ads show a smaller family, others have a larger unit with grandparents, parents, kids and the weird uncle that always creeps you out.

In support of all this is a series of placed content on Russia's major television channels. ORT, the main federal TV channel, has been advertising something called the Wedding Awards 2007 Ceremony. As best as I could tell from the trailers, this is an Oscar-style glamorous event, giving out awards to the best weddings of 2007, whatever that can mean. Obviously nothing more than a staged performance to make getting married seem sexier, the TV bumpers showed a room filled with young wedding gown clad chicks and their goofy looking grooms, throwing bouquets, toasting with champagne and clapping along to the likes of Ivanushki International, Russia's version of Menudo.

Not to be outdone, Channel 3 had been promoting something called Stork Day. Apparently, the channel has invented an entire holiday around this family thing, and have come up with some sort of a variety hour to celebrate. Happy Stork Day, everyone.

The other main outdoor campaign happening right now is one in support of a direct mail program. As mentioned, the feds have introduced some pretty significant bonuses and rewards to incentivize Russian couples to propagate, and they've spelled these incentives out through a series of direct mail informational brochures. In order to ensure that these brochures are read, billboard announcements now dot the city giving folks a heads-up to have a look in their mailboxes for further information.

Folks, this isn't just passive propaganda. This family thing is becoming compulsory. In a place like Russia, there really aren't any rights and freedoms; instead there are permissions and, in this case, obligations. The feds have already set up a commission of psychologists who plan to oblige those units not falling into their model of a family to attend compulsory psychological rehabilitation sessions (http://www.vz.ru/society/2008/1/27/139813.html ).

In the eyes of the Puritans, this program must (and will) go beyond simply a system of rewards and incentives. Instead this is really just a system of punishment for those who don't get on board.

Not too long ago, some friends of mine were out at a park, enjoying a weekend afternoon. There were a total of nine people in the group - singles, couples, and my friends with their newborn. The group was having a few snacks, and some of them were sipping beer. A picnic, of sorts. They were approached by a militia officer patrolling the area. The first thing he wanted to know was which couple were the newborn's parents. After my friends owned up, the officer went on to fine everyone in the group with drinking in public EXCEPT my friends. In the officer's opinion, making babies afforded them greater rights, even at the behest of laws, above those without children.

Another recent development along this line: something's gone missing from Moscow's cash counters. Well, not really missing, but re-directed. Up until the end of last year, many produce shops, fast food joints and supermarkets had donation boxes, collecting money for Russia's orphanages. I'm not sure when this changed, but last week I began to notice that many of these collection boxes have disappeared. In their place are containers collecting money for Russian families who need help supporting three or more children. It seems that the chinovniki don't plan to give up their new Audis to finance their cash-for-tots promises.

In Russia, where instilling a fear of consequences has traditionally been the chosen form of incentivizing people, it seems now that people are being terrorized into choosing love in order to fulfill the state's desire to create more families and more babies. Perhaps someday soon we'll have to carry a sort of document, sort of like a Russian auto technical inspection certificate, one which you have to renew annually and carry with you at all times. A Love License. And if you're with your significant other, and don't have your Love License on you, well, then there's someone who will be getting a bribe that day. Choose love.

Marguerite Harl: la genèse des chrétiens

La deuxième partie est intitulée Réflexions. Le passage de la Bible d’Orient en Occident. L’auteur examine d’abord la chaîne de transmission de la Bible (ch. IX). La Bible hébraïque est parvenue à la civilisation européenne dans la traduction des Septante, non dans son texte fondateur en hébreu. L’A. considère les différentes formes de publication de la Bible à travers les siècles.

Actuellement, la Septante est oubliée : peu de théologiens se sentent attirés par l’actualisation des idées dans le judaïsme hellénistique. Longtemps absente de l’enseignement ecclésiastique, elle commence tout juste à y pénétrer. Mais la Septante est effacée de la mémoire juive comme de la culture chrétienne pour des raisons historiques d’antijudaïsme.

L’auteur s’interroge alors sur le Nouveau Testament (ch. X). Les textes avec leurs citations des Écritures juives témoignent de la naissance du christianisme. Dans les textes grecs qui forment le Nouveau Testament, se découvre l’usage des textes grecs de la Septante. Cependant, les citations grecques du Nouveau Testament ne sont pas toutes conformes au texte de la Septante des éditions modernes. Plusieurs explications sont proposées. Nous savons que la Septante circulait sous plusieurs états et qu’elle a pu subir des variations. Mais, il est évident qu’elle a été la matrice d’une langue religieuse grecque, d’origine juive, qui est devenue celle des chrétiens. La Septante transmet aussi au Nouveau Testament des citations originales qui introduisent des idées absentes de l’hébreu. Enfin, les citations de la Septante montrent comment le Nouveau Testament fait un usage orienté de celles-ci pour démontrer que Jésus est le Messie annoncé par les prophètes. Mais le judaïsme ne peut admettre que les chrétiens se disent « le vrai Israël » par la lecture de l’Ancien Testament.

Au onzième chapitre, l’A. considère la Bible lue en grec par les Grecs. Une période exceptionnelle a lieu dans l’histoire de la Bible : elle est écrite et lue pendant plusieurs siècles dans une parfaite homogénéité linguistique. Auteurs et lecteurs pratiquent la même langue, le grec. La Septante prend l’importance d’un texte de référence chez les Pères grecs et acquiert son statut de texte de l’Ancien Testament reçu par l’Église primitive. La Septante devient chrétienne par la lecture qui en est faite, la clé de l’interprétation donnée par Paul - « Tout a été écrit pour les chrétiens » - n’est pas remise en question. L’A. évoque le travail exemplaire d’Origène, philologue et théologien, sur les textes bibliques.

Au IIe siècle, la tradition chrétienne de langue latine a de façon indirecte la Septante comme texte biblique (D’Orient en Occident, ch. XII). Les chrétiens d’Afrique du Nord se servent de ses premières versions latines, Vetus latina. La mise en valeur de ces textes s’est faite au cours des cinquante dernières années à l’Institut bénédictin de Beuron. Les spécialistes apprécient les conséquences de l’origine grecque des Bibles latines utilisées dans le christianisme occidental des premiers siècles. Les « vieilles latines » apportent l’étape textuelle de la Bible inaugurée en grec par la Septante : le texte hébreu est médité et traduit dans une langue de logique et de clarté. Cette traduction s’est poursuivie en latin. Après avoir lu les Hexaples d’Origène, Jérôme apprend l’hébreu et décide de traduire la Bible à partir de cette langue. La connaissance du grec au Moyen Âge latin explique une certaine continuité entre le christianisme d’Orient et celui de l’Occident latin. Les exégètes utilisent le grec pour la critique textuelle de la Bible dans les « Correctoires », dès le XIIIe siècle.

Toutefois, dans l’ensemble, les références au « grec » ne renvoient pas à la Septante mais à l’une des « vieilles latines ». En 1546, au concile de Trente, l’Église catholique accorde une autorité juridique à la seule Vulgate. Le grec de la Septante est pris comme l’une des sources bibliques par les érudits chrétiens des XVIe et XVIIe siècles dans leurs discussions sur le texte hébreu. La Septante appartient au monde scientifique. Sa présence à Qumrân dans des rouleaux de la bibliothèque de la secte essénienne a revivifié son étude.

Le treizième chapitre, Traductions et tradition, aborde les questions suivantes :

- Qu’est-ce qu’un texte « premier » ?
- Comment l’atteindre ?
- Peut-on traduire le texte en d’autres langues, pour d’autres destinataires ?

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/jsj/1987/00000018/00000002/art00011
http://www.catho-theo.net/La-Bible-en-Sorbonne-ou-la

I suppose one can't translate theatre in different languages ..
Plato's cave doesn"t for example p

Advent Children

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Azrael

How does one translate "Grim Reaper" in Greek or Latin?





futher reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_Death_in_religion

C6ntext

21:18. And in the morning, returning into the city, he was hungry.

21:19. And seeing a certain fig tree by the way side, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves only. And he saith to it: May no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And immediately the fig tree withered away.

21:20. And the disciples seeing it wondered, saying: How is it presently withered away?

21:21. And Jesus answering, said to them: Amen, I say to you, if you shall have faith and stagger not, not only this of the fig tree shall you do, but also if you shall say to this mountain, Take up and cast thyself into the sea, it shall be done.

21:22. And all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer believing, you shall receive.

21:23. And when he was come into the temple, there came to him, as he was teaching, the chief priests and ancients of the people, saying: By what authority dost thou these things? And who hath given thee this authority?

21:24. Jesus answering, said to them: I also will ask you one word, which if you shall tell me, I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.

21:25. The baptism of John, whence was it? From heaven or from men? But they thought within themselves, saying:

21:26. If we shall say, from heaven, he will say to us: Why then did you not believe him? But if we shall say, from men, we are afraid of the multitude: for all held John as a prophet.

21:27. And answering Jesus, they said: We know not. He also said to them: Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.


pr: http://www.askascholar.com/

Bleep Clusters: a new approach to social welfare & security costs

Or how to provide welfare & security insurance via wireless networking

It seems that the costs of providing services & support to elders is one of the main challenges for the coming decades. One only has to take a look at the tool Gapminder to grasp the global market. To tackle this dilemma one should take into account the various costs. The main ones are the diagnoses and treatments.

It is obvious that for a good number of caritas services, the diagnosis only requires basic surveillance, but still remains one of the major costs.

People loose focus or get demented but their bodies remain active sensors. If one could gather & relay specific data such as heart beat & temperatures alone ... most heart attacks, or more simple things such as agony would show up, even if the individual is unable to communicate his despair. Not everyone has the luxury of a private nurse.

I would suggest developing a device that has the combined abilities of a health watch & Bluetooth: the node. It registers the required information & relays info to a network gate: the hub. Current advances in wireless networks & chemo receptive electronics, can be result in an affordable lifeline.

When the monitor reaches threshold input, it sends out, or stops sending, a signal: the bleep, wich alerts other assigned nodes. The signal can be relayed by tuned servers. The node should also be able to activate an alarm if certain signals are received. It should allow costumers to sign up on watch list, or form watch groups themselves.

The monitor could be worn as a watch, necklace, earplug or bracelet. It simply requires skin contact.

Some possible market segments:

- Retired couples
- Hospital wards
- Soft security
- Families, as a way to keep a line open to the baby
- Policemen or citizens, in hazardous environments

The question is not the demand, it is is how to provide a simple & attractive platform that can be easily adopted by new users. To achieve this, some basic requirements would be:

- a node can teach another node to guard him
- affinity can be removed
- a node can attract attention
- build in alarm or activate an external device
- a node can easily be taken of
- the node could minimize power consumption & size by
- reducing intervals or signal strength & employing more hubs
- limiting the data stream to basic signal keys
- a node can be interfaced via wireless login in order to
- tune the threshold parameters
- tune transmission intervals
the software shell depends on application

People like to keep an eye out for their kindred. But our beloved ones are not always in sight. Network technology can provide partial solutions in this matter. The node can be designed user friendly and possibly be integrated with other P2P or PCB networks: mobiles & the internet (this would only be required for more advanced applications).

First market introduction should focus on elder couples & health institutions. If a device can be introduced that is simple enough for their needs, the unions might find the pill less hard to swallow. The tech is there, all it needs is some charm.

k

anno 16-1-08: patent application

Modern Art

Moderne kunst, dat is wat anders.






Of niet?

Java-Based Distributed Intelligent Agent Architecture

for Building Safety-Critical Tele-Inspection Systems on the Internet

Abstract

The inspection of SG (Steam-Generator) tubes in a NPP(Nuclear Power Plant) is a time-consuming, laborious, and safety-critical task because of several serious constraints including a highly radiated working environment, tight task schedule, and the need for many highly qualified human inspectors. In order to realize this kind of safety-critical and complex inspection using the Internet, intelligent agents based on Java distributed technologies were designed. The proposed agent architecture, which is a declarative commanding concept based on a layered architecture, was introduced to minimize the affect of Internet latency and maximize the reliability of an inspection system using tele-operation via the Internet.

Call for Participation:

The highly interdisciplinary area of Socially Intelligent Agents has attracted a number of active researchers who model, design and analyse agents (software or robotic) which behave socially. Much of this work is strongly inspired by forms of natural social intelligence characteristic of humans. This symposium will address recent technological, methodological and theoretical developments in the field of Socially Intelligent Agents (SIA's), as well as discuss social and cultural issues, and limitations and problems of Socially Intelligent Agents. A focus will be the issue of the 'human-in-the-loop'.
Both agents and humans can have different roles during agent-human interaction, e.g. as designers, users, observers, assistants, collaborators, competitors, customers, or friends. The symposium will concentrate primarily on socially intelligent agents that are either directly interacting with humans, showing aspects of human-style intelligence, supporting interaction among humans and/or modelling explicitly aspects of human social intelligence.
The symposium will focus on four Key Themes for which considerations of the 'human-in-the-loop' are crucial. Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly encouraged.
The symposium will comprise keynote talks, panel discussions and individual paper presentations, addressing one or several of the following Key Themes:

• 1) Connecting to SIA's: architectures and design spaces for SIA's; innovative user-interfaces, novel environments and new methodologies for software and robotic agents interacting and collaborating with humans and facilitating communication and collaboration between humans; hot approaches (emotional, empathic aspects) and cold approaches (intention and plan ascription, reasoning etc.); synchronisation in human-agent dialogue; the role of embodiment in human-agent interaction; exploiting anthropomorphism; believability and degrees of agent complexity
• 2) Learning and playing with SIA's: new applications of social agent technology in rehabilitation and education; SIA's as instructors, guides, teachers, assistants and friends; SIA's which support human creativity and imagination; SIA's in living environments (e.g. at school, at home, at work, on holiday, at meeting points)
• 3) Living with SIA's: social agent technology which influences attitudes/opinions/behaviour; issues of 'social relationships' between human and agent e.g. helping, competition and cooperation, autonomy and control, predictability, deception, manipulation, initiative, delegation, responsibility, conflicts
• 4) Growing up and evolving with SIA's: social agent technology which empowers humans, addressing the cognitive and emotional needs of humans; impact of SIA's on human society and culture; agents adapting to and supporting cultural diversity; ethical considerations

Submission Information

Potential participants are asked to submit a short paper (3 to 5 pages) describing their work in this area. Please send submissions via electronic mail to Kerstin Dautenhahn at K.Dautenhahn@herts.ac.uk. The text can either be submitted in plain Ascii format (preferred), or the submission can be made available on a Webpage and the URL is sent via email.

Important Dates:

• Deadline for submission of abstracts: 29th of March 2000
• Notification of acceptance/rejection: 25th of May 2000
• Camera-ready copies of papers: 10th August 2000

JHWH

Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea:

"Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God."

Is terrorism on the way out?

No

It is a new innovation afther nationalisation sinse mass war mobilisation has become an obsolete option in the art of war. the age of sealed Clausewitz nations, with seperate internal transportation & strict front lines, is a thing of the past. we all fancy the picture of alexander, napoleon or mao, but these features no longer seem practical.

The current art of war is one of transportation & the domination of such. In this a million bajonets are no longer usefull if you have to transport the boots that carry them.

As for terrorism, is only a recent tactic that employs the soldiers griefs as a battle asset. in this is attracts the desperate, as every rebellion has.

What is so curious about this guerillia is that the boots don't move. only the guns do. it seems this featere that has gained importance ever since planes started taking pictures.

Jihad is the new name. Except there are no worms in this tale, only news updates

Quote: They don't understand that... This is why they are doomed...

Forgiveness & Love

Quote:

11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known

Just watched ghost in the shell again & yep, this passage is littered around in the play. Didn't expect a jap to quote the Corinthians :)

But as always i have my doubts.

To speak in tongues as i know little else: i see this world where people walk around while listening to the weather report & rest of news like it's the oracle. See, the weather report was right. It's raining. It beats Stonehenge.

Then i see that people all live in cocoons, nothing new for that matter. Most stereotypes are acquired from something alike collective unconscious. Do not understand why they call it unconscious. People take note of it all the time. They talk about it when they don't know each other. Friends often have heated debates about it. It is the common ground where strangers meet. It is an instrument, played by musicians. It has grown deep under the skin the thousand years it has flourished from the cities, baptized at the first union of tribes. Rigid in stasis, fluent after catalyzing. It has gained momentum and achieved several new qualitative evolutions along the way. The book, paper and tube increased the heartbeat of society & reinvented the same structure ever again. Churches, Mosques and Schools alike. Dostoevsky's dialog with the inquisitor posed a question to the age old powers, that none of them seemed able to answer. Even so, as always, things mostly stayed the same if you don't mind the fractal distortion. His words were used and abused but the instrument remained familiar. People were trapped behind governmental & similar curtains.

Then some genius thought up the concept of an interactive network. More primitive forms have been around for ages but never did they bridge the divide that defines defines cocoon groups. A new world materialized while brands grew old.

Then to date: Neo, the 21cty superman is asked a question again. It seems Dostoevsky's ghost is revitalized when a Neo enters a white room, filled with screens & a man. The inquisitor asks his question again. The question is Zion. Neo is given a choice. Neo, the one who finds his death in the embrace of the infectious agent, a plague that frightens both the mechanical and human world.

How will this tale end? I do not know. But what do i see? The liquidation of national power. Lush profits for some accounts, fatalistic ones for others. As usual these are only the yield of seeds planted long before. In the high Art: movies, a clear shift to Barok themes is apparent. High contrasts, vivid demonifications & horrors. Victorian the new fad. A new beeldensturm started couple of years ago when Alex Jones & Papas gave the green light to a white revolution. Love, yes yes, but what is hidden beneath the curtain? Care to look or is it back to mindfulness.

Suppose it is true that forces work on the same scale they are applied to. This is the heart of the new civil wars. Who is loved. Who is forgiven.

Karel

Hearts & Minds

...

Ever since Plato, scholars have drawn a clear distinction between thinking and feeling. Cognitive psychology tended to reinforce this divide: emotions were seen as interfering with cognition; they were the antagonists of reason. Now, building on more than a decade of mounting work, researchers have discovered that it is impossible to understand how we think without understanding how we feel.

"Because we subscribed to this false ideal of rational, logical thought, we diminished the importance of everything else," said Marvin Minsky, a professor at MIT and pioneer of artificial intelligence. "Seeing our emotions as distinct from thinking was really quite disastrous."

...

Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist at USC, has played a pivotal role in challenging the old assumptions and establishing emotions as an important scientific subject. When Damasio first published his results in the early 1990s, most cognitive scientists assumed that emotions interfered with rational thought. A person without any emotions should be a better thinker, since their cortical computer could process information without any distractions.

But Damasio sought out patients who had suffered brain injuries that prevented them from perceiving their own feelings, and put this idea to the test. The lives of these patients quickly fell apart, he found, because they could not make effective decisions. Some made terrible investments and ended up bankrupt; most just spent hours deliberating over irrelevant details, such as where to eat lunch. These results suggest that proper thinking requires feeling. Pure reason is a disease.

...


The Boston Globe Article
April 29, 2007

Star Wars plot questioned

1.) Why were a handful of rebel fighters able to penetrate the defenses of a battle station that had the capability of destroying an entire planet and the defenses to ward off several fleets of battle ships?

2.) Why did Grand Moff Tarkin refuse to deploy the station’s large fleet of TIE Fighters until it was too late? Was he acting on orders from somebody to not shoot down the rebel attack force? If so, who, and why?

3.) Why was the rebel pilot who supposedly destroyed the Death Star reported to be on the Death Star days, maybe hours, prior to its destruction? Why was he allowed to escape, and why were several individuals dressed in Stormtrooper uniforms seen helping him?

4.) Why has there not been an investigation into allegations that Darth Vader, the second-ranking member of the Imperial Government, is in fact the father of the pilot who allegedly destroyed the Death Star?

5.) Why did Lord Vader decide to break all protocols and personally pilot a lightly armored TIE Fighter? Conveniently, this placed Lord Vader outside of the Death Star when it was destroyed, where he was also conveniently able to escape from a large-sized rebel fleet that had just routed the Imperial forces. Why would Lord Vader, one of the highest ranking members of the Imperial Government, suddenly decide to fly away from the Death Star in the middle of a battle? Did he know something that the rest of the Imperial Navy didn’t?

6.) How could any pilot shoot a missile into a 2 meter-wide exhaust port, let alone a pilot with no formal training, whose only claim to fame was his ability to “bullseye womprats” on Tatooine? This shot, according to one pilot, would be “impossible, even for a computer.” Yet, according to additional evidence, the pilot who allegedly fired the missile turned off his targeting computer when he was supposedly firing the shot that destroyed the Death Star. Why have these discrepancies never been investigated, let alone explained?

7.) Why has their been no investigation into evidence that the droids who provided the rebels with the Death Star plans were once owned by none other than Lord Vader himself, and were found, conveniently, by the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, and who is also believed to be Lord Vader’s son? Evidence also shows that the droids were brought to one Ben Kenobi, who, records indicate, was Darth Vader’s teacher many years earlier! Are all these personal connections between the conspirators and a key figure in the Imperial government supposed to be coincidences?

8.) How could a single missile destroy a battle station the size of a moon? No records, anywhere, show that any battle station or capital ship has ever been destroyed by a single missile. Furthermore, analysis of the tape of the last moments of the Death Star show numerous small explosions along its surface, prior to it exploding completely! Why does all evidence indicate that strategically placed explosives, not a single missile, is what destroyed the Death Star?

ty Seraph

10 False Flags that Changed the World

At it’s simplest, the term false flag means pretending to be the enemy.

The name comes from ships and armies that, in previous centuries, deceived their foes by displaying another country’s flag.

These days, false flag activities are much more sophisticated…and debauched. These aren’t your granddaddy’s covert operations.

Fake Terror, Deception, and Disgrace

The most commonly known false flag operations consist of an intelligence agency staging a terror attack such that an uninvolved entity gets blamed for the carnage.

Another type of false flag operation might consist of directing purposefully belligerent and trigger-happy clandestine demonstrators to mingle with peace activists in order to disrupt and discredit a passive protest event.

Yet another type of false flag activity consists of infiltrating the opposition, then making easily disproved claims which will embarrass and undermine the credibility of the organization.

An Ignorant Public Enables False Flags

When the Constitutional Convention closed in 1787, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy?”

Franklin replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

...

Joe Cru Baugh post

10) Nero, Christians, and the Great Fire of Rome
09) Remeber the Maine, to hell with Spain
08) The Manchurian Incident
07) Secrets of the Reichstag Fire
06) Fake invasion at Gleiwitz
05) The myth of Pearl Harbor
04) Israeli Terrorist Cell uncovered in Egypt
03) Operation Northwoods
02) Phantoms in the Gulf of Tonkin
01) What did you think?

A Model of a Trust-based Recommendation System on a Social Network

Frank E. Walter, Stefano Battiston, Frank Schweitzer

(Submitted on 28 Nov 2006)

In this paper, we present a model of a trust-based recommendation system on a social network. The idea of the model is that agents use their social network to reach information and their trust relationships to filter it. We investigate how the dynamics of trust among agents affect the performance of the system by comparing it to a frequency-based recommendation system. Furthermore, we identify the impact of network density, preference heterogeneity among agents, and knowledge sparseness to be crucial factors for the performance of the system. The system self-organises in a state with performance near to the optimum; the performance on the global level is an emergent property of the system, achieved without explicit coordination from the local interactions of agents.

download paper
arXiv post

Feigenbaum number

4.669201609102990671853203820466201617258185577475768632745651 343004134330211314737138689744023948013817165984855189815134 408627142027932522312442988890890859944935463236713411532481 714219947455644365823793202009561058330575458617652222070385 410646749494284981453391726200568755665952339875603825637225

Think they made a movie about it: Pi

Forgiveness

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was sitting at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." And Jesus answering said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." And he answered, "What is it, Teacher?" "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon answered, "The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more. And he said to him, "You have judged rightly." Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little."
LUKE 7:36-47.


The story we have read, like the parable of the Prodigal Son, is peculiar to the Gospel of Luke. In this story, as in the parable, someone who is considered to be a great sinner, by others as well as by herself, is contrasted with people who are considered to be genuinely righteous. In both cases Jesus is on the side of the sinner, and therefore He is criticized, indirectly in the parable by the righteous elder son, and directly in our story by the righteous Pharisee.

We should not diminish the significance of this attitude of Jesus by asserting that, after all, the sinners were not as sinful, nor the righteous as righteous as they were judged to be by themselves and by others. Nothing like this is indicated in the story or in the parable. The sinners, one a whore and the other the companion of whores, are not excused by ethical arguments which would remove the seriousness of the moral demand. They are not excused by sociological explanations which would remove their personal responsibility; nor by an analysis of their unconscious motives which would remove the significance of their conscious decisions; nor by man's universal predicament which would remove their personal guilt. They are called sinners, simply and without restriction. This does not mean that Jesus and the New Testament writers are unaware of the psychological and sociological factors which determine human existence. They are keenly aware of the universal and inescapable dominion of sin over this world, of the demonic splits in the souls of people, which produce insanity and bodily destruction; of the economic and spiritual misery of the masses. But their awareness of these factors, which have become so decisive for our description of man's predicament, does not prevent them from calling the sinners sinners. Understanding does not replace judging. We understand more and better than many generations before us. But our immensely increased insight into the conditions of human existence should not undercut our courage to call wrong wrong. In story and parable the sinners are seriously called sinners.

And in the same way the righteous ones are seriously called righteous. We would miss the spirit of our story if we tried to show that the righteous ones are not truly righteous. The elder son in the parable did what he was supposed to do. He does not feel that he has done anything wrong nor does his father tell him so. His righteousness is not questioned--nor is the righteousness of Simon, the Pharisee. His lack of love toward Jesus is not reproached as a lack of righteousness, but it is derived from the fact that little is forgiven to him.

Such righteousness is not easy to attain. Much self-control, hard discipline, and continuous self-observation are needed. Therefore, we should not despise the righteous ones. In the traditional Christian view, the Pharisees have become representatives of everything evil, but in their time they were the pious and morally zealous ones. Their conflict with Jesus was not simply a conflict between right and wrong; it was, above all, the conflict between an old and sacred tradition and a new reality which was breaking into it and depriving it of ultimate significance. It was not only a moral conflict--it was also a tragic one, foreshadowing the tragic conflict between Christianity and Judaism in all succeeding generations, including our own. The Pharisees--and this we should not forget--were the guardians of the law of God in their time.

The Pharisees can be compared with other groups of righteous ones. We can compare them, for example, with a group that has played a tremendous role in the history of this country--the Puritans. The name itself, like the name Pharisee, indicates separation from the impurities of the world. The Puritans would certainly have judged the attitude of Jesus to the whore as Simon the Pharisee did. And we should not condemn them for this judgment nor distort their picture in our loose talk about them. Like the Pharisees, they were the guardians of the law of God in their time.

And what about our time? It has been said, and not without justification, that the Protestant churches have become middle-class churches because of the way in which their members interpret Christianity, practically as well as theoretically. Such criticism points to their active adherence to their churches, to their well-established morality, to their charitable works. They are righteous--they would have been called so by Jesus. And certainly they would have joined Simon the Pharisee and the Puritans in criticizing the attitude of Jesus towards the woman in our story. And again I say, we should not condemn them for this. They take their religious and moral obligations seriously. They, like the Pharisees and the Puritans, are guardians of the law of God in our time.

The sinners are seriously called sinners and the righteous ones are seriously called righteous. Only if this is clearly seen can the depth and the revolutionary power of Jesus' attitude be understood. He takes the side of the sinner against the righteous although He does not doubt the validity of the law, the guardians of which the righteous are. Here we approach a mystery which is the mystery of the Christian message itself, in its paradoxical depth and in its shaking and liberating power. And we can hope only to catch a glimpse of it in attempting to interpret our story.

Simon the Pharisee is shocked by the attitude of Jesus to the whore. He receives the answer that the sinners have greater love than the righteous ones because more is forgiven them. It is not the love of the woman that brings her forgiveness, but it is the forgiveness she has received that creates her love. By her love she shows that much has been forgiven her, while the lack of love in the Pharisee shows that little has been forgiven him.

Jesus does not forgive the woman, but He declares that she is forgiven. Her state of mind, her ecstasy of love, show that something has happened to her. And nothing greater can happen to a human being than that he is forgiven. For forgiveness means reconciliation in spite of estrangement; it means reunion in spite of hostility; it means acceptance of those who are unacceptable, and it means reception of those who are rejected.

Forgiveness is unconditional or it is not forgiveness at all. Forgiveness has the character of "in spite of," but the righteous ones give it the character of "because." The sinners, however, cannot do this. They cannot transform the divine "in spite of" into a human "because." They cannot show facts, because of which they must be forgiven. God's forgiveness is unconditional. There is no condition whatsoever in man which would make him worthy of forgiveness. If forgiveness were conditional, conditioned by man, no one could be accepted and no one could accept himself. We know that this is our situation, but we loathe to face it. It is too great as a gift and too humiliating as a judgment. We want to contribute something, and if we have learned that we cannot contribute anything positive, then we try at least to contribute something negative: the pain of self-accusation and self-rejection. And then we read our story and the parable of the Prodigal Son as if they said: These sinners were forgiven because they humiliated themselves and confessed that they were unacceptable; because they suffered about their sinful predicament they were made worthy of forgiveness. But this reading of the story is a misreading, and a dangerous one. If that were the way to our reconciliation with God, we should have to produce within ourselves the feeling of unworthiness, the pain of self-rejection, the anxiety and despair of guilt. There are many Christians who try this in order to show God and themselves that they deserve acceptance. They perform an emotional work of self-punishment after they have realized that their other good works do not help them. But emotional works do not help either. God's forgiveness is independent of anything we do, even of self-accusation and self-humiliation. If this were not so, how could we ever be certain that our self-rejection is serious enough to deserve forgiveness? Forgiveness creates repentance--this is declared in our story and this is the experience of those who have been forgiven.

The woman in Simon's house comes to Jesus because she was forgiven. We do not know exactly what drove her to Jesus. And if we knew, we should certainly find that it was a mixture of motives--spiritual desire as well as natural attraction, the power of the prophet as well as the impression of the human personality. Our story does not psychoanalyze the woman, but neither does it deny human motives which could be psychoanalyzed. Human motives are always ambiguous. The divine forgiveness cuts into these ambiguities, but it does not demand that they become unambiguous before forgiveness can be given. If this were demanded, then forgiveness would never occur. The description of the woman's behavior shows clearly the ambiguities of her motives. Nevertheless, she is accepted.

There is no condition for forgiveness. But forgiveness could not come to us if we were not asking for it and receiving it. Forgiveness is an answer, the divine answer, to the question implied in our existence. An answer is answer only for him who has asked, who is aware of the question. This awareness cannot be fabricated. It may be in a hidden place in our souls, covered by many strata of righteousness. It may reach our consciousness in certain moments. Or, day by day, it may fill our conscious life as well as its unconscious depths and drive us to the question to which forgiveness is the answer.

In the minds of many people the word "forgiveness" has connotations which completely contradict the way Jesus deals with the woman in our story. Many of us think of solemn acts of pardon, of release from punishment, in other words, of another act of righteousness by the righteous ones. But genuine forgiveness is participation, reunion overcoming the powers of estrangement. And only because this is so, does forgiveness make love possible. We cannot love unless we have accepted forgiveness, and the deeper our experience of forgiveness is, the greater is our love. We cannot love where we feel rejected, even if the rejection is done in righteousness. We are hostile towards that to which we belong and by which we feel judged, even if the judgment is not expressed in words.

As long as we feel rejected by Him, we cannot love God. He appears to us as an oppressive power, as He who gives laws according to His pleasure, who judges according to His commandments, who condemns according to His wrath. But if we have received and accepted the message that He is reconciled, everything changes. Like a fiery stream His healing power enters into us; we can affirm Him and with Him our own being and the others from whom we were estranged, and life as a whole. Then we realize that His love is the law of our own being, and that it is the law of reuniting love. And we understand that what we have experienced as oppression and judgment and wrath is in reality the working of love, which tries to destroy within us everything which is against love. To love this love is to love God. Theologians have questioned whether man is able to have love towards God; they have replaced love by obedience. But they are refuted by our story. They teach a theology for the righteous ones but not a theology for the sinners. He who is forgiven knows what it means to love God.

And he who loves God is also able to accept life and to love it. This is not the same as to love God. For many pious people in all generations the love of God is the other side of the hatred for life. And there is much hostility towards life in all of us, even in those who have completely surrendered to life. Our hostility towards life is manifested in cynicism and disgust, in bitterness and continuous accusations against life. We feel rejected by life, not so much because of its objective darkness and threats and horrors, but because of our estrangement from its power and meaning. He who is reunited with God, the creative Ground of life, the power of life in everything that lives, is reunited with life. He feels accepted by it and he can love it. He understands that the greater love is, the greater the estrangement which is conquered by it. In metaphorical language I should like to say to those who feel deeply their hostility towards life: Life accepts you; life loves you as a separated part of itself; life wants to reunite you with itself, even when it seems to destroy you.

There is a section of life which is nearer to us than any other and often the most estranged from us: other human beings. We all know about the regions of the human soul in which things look quite different from the way they look on its benevolent surface. In these regions we can find hidden hostilities against those with whom we are in love. We can find envy and torturing doubt about whether we are really accepted by them. And this hostility and anxiety about being rejected by those who are nearest to us can hide itself under the various forms of love: friendship, sensual love, conjugal and family love. But if we have experienced ultimate acceptance this anxiety is conquered, though not removed. We can love without being sure of the answering love of the other one. For we know that he himself is longing for our acceptance as we are longing for his, and that in the light of ultimate acceptance we are united.

He who is accepted ultimately can also accept himself. Being forgiven and being able to accept oneself are one and the same thing. No one can accept himself who does not feel that he is accepted by the power of acceptance which is greater than he, greater than his friends and counselors and psychological helpers. They may point to the power of acceptance, and it is the function of the minister to do so. But he and the others also need the power of acceptance which is greater than they. The woman in our story could never have overcome her disgust at her own being without finding this power working through Jesus, who told her with authority, "You are forgiven." Thus, she experienced, at least in one ecstatic moment of her life, the power which reunited her with herself and gave her the possibility of loving even her own destiny.

This happened to her in one great moment. And in this she is no exception. Decisive spiritual experiences have the character of a break-through. In the midst of our futile attempts to make ourselves worthy, in our despair about the inescapable failure of these attempts, we are suddenly grasped by the certainty that we are forgiven, and the fire of love begins to burn. That is the greatest experience anyone can have. It may not happen often, but when it does happen, it decides and transforms everything.

And now let us look once more at those whom we have described as the righteous ones. They are really righteous, but since little is forgiven them, they love little. And this is their unrighteousness. It does not lie on the moral level, just as the unrighteousness of Job did not lie on the moral level where his friends sought for it in vain. It lies on the level of the encounter with ultimate reality, with the God who vindicates Job's righteousness against the attacks of his friends, with the God who defends Himself against the attacks of Job and his ultimate unrighteousness. The righteousness of the righteous ones is hard and self-assured. They, too, want forgiveness, but they believe that they do not need much of it. And so their righteous actions are warmed by very little love. They could not have helped the woman in our story, and they cannot help us, even if we admire them. Why do children turn from their righteous parents and husbands from their righteous wives, and vice versa? Why do Christians turn away from their righteous pastors? Why do people turn away from righteous neighborhoods? Why do many turn away from righteous Christianity and from the Jesus it paints and the God it proclaims? Why do they turn to those who are not considered to be the righteous ones? Often, certainly, it is because they want to escape judgment. But more often it is because they seek a love which is rooted in forgiveness, and this the righteous ones cannot give. Many of those to whom they turn cannot give it either. Jesus gave it to the woman who was utterly unacceptable. The Church would be more the Church of Christ than it is now if it did the same, if it joined Jesus and not Simon in its encounter with those who are rightly judged unacceptable. Each of us who strives for righteousness would be more Christian if more were forgiven him, if he loved more and if he could better resist the temptation to present himself as acceptable to God by his own righteousness.

~ Paul Tillich, The New Being, Chapter 1

Multi-Agent Approach to the Self-Organization of Networks

Is it possible to link a set of nodes without using preexisting positional information or any kind of long-range attraction of the nodes? Can the process of generating positional information, i.e. the detection of ``unknown'' nodes and the estabishment of chemical gradients, \emph{and} the process of network formation, i.e. the establishment of links between nodes, occur in parallel, on a comparable time scale, as a process of co-evolution?
The paper discusses a model where the generation of relevant information for establishing the links between nodes results from the interaction of many \emph{agents}, i.e. subunits of the system that are capable of performing some activities. Their collective interaction is based on (indirect) communication, which also includes memory effects and the dissemination of information in the system. The relevant ("pragmatic") information that leads to the establishment of the links then emerges from an evolutionary interplay of selection and reamplification.

Frank Schweitzer paper
arXiv post