cladking

One of the things that has disturbed me the most over the last few years is that there were hundreds and hundreds of quarrymen. This was the most numerous job at the site if my theory is correct yet I had never seen so much as a trace of them anywhere. This was probably a relatively low status job and primarily required a strong back. These workers got good medical care and a solid diet just like all the others and it appears they even used dust suppression in the quarry since some water was apparently channeled there. But before now there was no trace of the workers themselves. Now this very last piece of the jigsaw is in place and they've been found. Quarrymen appear to have thought of these stones as "horuses". Horus the elder was the phenomenon of the land where the pyramids were built and horus the younger was the stone quarried from this land of horus; he was born of horus the elder. 503a. which allows each Horus to glide through, in which N. will glide through, in this flame under that which the gods create. But the problem is that there's no evidence anywhere for the quarry workers except the handiwork left in the 6 1/2 million ton pyrramid and in the quarries. There should be many hundreds of quarrymen including some at Giza. "Chief of Sculptors" is it!!! 1128a. To say: It is certainly not N. who asks to see thee 1128b. in the form which has become thine; 1128c. Osiris asks to see thee in the form which has become thine; 1129a. it is thy son who asks to see thee in the form which has become thine; 1129b. it is Horus who asks to see thee in the form which has become thine. 1130a. When thou sayest, "statues", in respect to these stones, 1130b. which are like fledglings of swallows under the river-bank; The men weren't quarrying stone, they were sculpting horuses. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/11/01/html/ft_20011101.5.fulltext.html Near the bottom of this page you can see the overseers name is "Nefu ef nesu".

...And I expected to be accused of hyperbole again. The exact percentage of everything known that is known would seem to be irrelevant when we can round it off to about 0%. It might seem strange when we have so much technology to say it's a rounding error but this is consistent with our lack of ability to make predictions and to explain events. We can predict what will happen when we turn the key in the ignition or put strontium to a spectrograph but predicting things outside of our direct control is far more iffy. Even explaining events outside our control tends to produce a lot of divergence of opinion.

Because for every answer there are a million questions. We don't see the questions so much as we see what we already know.

Of course scientists understand such things. Non-scientists understand some aspects of nature. Even Elmer Fudd knows where to go look for the most rabbits in areas he's already traveled extensively. I'm simply saying that a hunter doesn't need to differentiate one rabbit in order to make pot pie any more than a scientist needs to in order to predict daisy populations. We have a perspective that sees "rabbits" despite the fact no such thing exists. We see our entire world from this perspective. It's not only rabbits that don't really exist but everything from cars to people. Even our constructs including theory are real only within theire definitions and metaphysics. This doesn't mean scientists are dumber than Elmer Fudd merely that we share a perspective and our perspective allows us all to misapply knowledge. We don't even think of the misapplication of knowledge as a misapplication but rather as a special case. This perspective not only affects chaotic forces but harmonic ones as well. Even though almost all natural processes involve both harmonic and chaotic forces we are nearly blind to the latter. They tend to be a sort of "rounding error" in many cases outside the lab. It's not the math errors that are the problem; it's the perspective. Of course scientists know it's a complicated world. We know it much better than most. Of course scientists know that things outside the lab can only only be approximated. But what isn't being seen is the nature of science and its metaphysics. "Metaphysical implications" should be included in the experiment conclusions. This doesn't change the nature of science or theory; it merely changes the perspective of science and theory. I disagree. Just like having some 80 time zones and no defined midnight is a fundamental flaw so too is having no standard means of depicting overhanging cliffs. What's so difficult about recognizing and correcting simple problems? Why not just draw overhanging cliffs in red or in dotted lines? It is our perspective preventing such things. We pay the UN billions of dollars yet they haven't done the simple things that would help bring the world together. I fail to see how grouping dissimilar things is advantageous except in communication. It's much easier to say take the Mississippi to the Ohio than to describe the "river" and its tributaries. It's probably even easier to speak of "mammals with the exception of the platypus and the echidna bear live young" than it is to list every animal with the other attributes of mammals but this doesn't mean that a platypus falls into any natural grouping called "mammals" or even that platypuses actually exist. It's not the nomenclature nor the taxinomies that are problematical, it's the perspective that leads us to believe we know about nature because we've defined "mammal". The problem is each individual sees what he knows and can't see what he doesn't know. The problem is that we see the trees and miss the forest. And yet we don't see that each tree is an individual rather than an oak or a maple.

I hardly know where to start here. As usual people just aren't following my arguments. Please bear with me as I try to address everything. If the two cliffs are a perfect plane and the topographic depiction is enlarged until only the cliff faces themselves are shown then the overhanging cliff depiction and the steep cliff are identical. Indeed, without a scale for height and distance you can't even determine the steepness of the cliff face.

They get their government for almost nothing. Very few senators and Congressmen are worth more than about 3,000,000 but this represents less than $10 per citizen. If every person in the 99% contributed just $10 per month (a tiny fraction of their tax dollars) we could retilt the playing field away from the 1%. Call it the "Citizens Lobby". We get rich government employees and we should get cheap office space as we take over Washington DC. Indeed, we can even let them raise their pay to astronomical levels so the rich people have to contribute to the 99%. Everyone wins since the destruction of wealth will stop.

One dollar one vote wouldn't be as bad except the poor man has no political power at all any longer. Both parties pander to him but the poor man's dollar has no value at all. Even though the 99% still have more money than the 1% our dollars have no value for tipping the playing field so it continues to be tipped in only one direction; toward the 1%. What we need is a tax payers union. We could easily outbid the paltry sums being paid by the 1%. I'm in general agreement with all your points except I believe government needs to be kicked out of research except for limitedly as it applies to military research. Research should be funded by corporations, individuals, universities, and trusts. CEO's pay should be capped at around 10 million through onerous taxation or whatever is required except where the founder of a company runs it. This will likely require SEC reform to get individuals back into corporation ownership. Taxes on stock sales will be a big step toward this goal. Any system where participants skim off the creme by having nanosecond headstarts is corrupt and broken. It needs to be stopped. The changes in the FED should begin immediately. I'd suggest very extensive changes and very draconian changes in education starting immediately. The system should be run by the teachers for the benefit of the teachers and based on the attainments of the students. I'd cut the budgets 50% and fire the school boards. Let the teachers hire them back as they are needed. It will take 40 years after education is fixed to get this country back on track. This needs to start now. Schools need to teach metaphyics from a very early age and continue through the doctorate programs. Indeed, there need to be new specialties such as generalists and metaphysicians.

Yes. Certainly definitions are the primary problem in most practical applications. You can compute the number of rabbits you need to make enough pot pie to feed a certain number of people and usually nothing will go wrong. You can always add side dishes like apple sauce if too many are coming back for seconds. My point isn't that math and science don't work but rather that math and science are a perspective rather than the reality itself. Theory explains only small spectra of reality of unknown extents. Scientists percieve the world in terms of math and science despite the fact that most things remain unknown. This doesn't impede the ability to perform experiment but it does restrict their ability to form hypothesis, and often severely. Most importantly this perspective of reality formed by theory leads to a severe misestimation of human knowledge and our proclivity to applying our knowledge illegitimately. We simply forget and are blind to what we don't know.

Imagine two cliffs. Both have faces that form a plane. One is 80 degrees and the other is 100 degrees. Now imagine the topographic maps that depict these planes. Blow up both maps until only the cliff face itself is on the map. Even though the maps appear to be identical a man on the first cliff represented can climb but on the second cliff would fall. Cliffs exist because of the nature of all things. All of nature's forces and "laws" are brought to bear on everything that exists. Nothing can exist outside of nature. These forces and processes that formed these cliffs wouldn't have existed if reality didn't support both the cliffs and the math we use to describe them. Similar arguments can be made about counting apples and rabbits. We use theory to describe the world and we see reality through theory but this is woefully inadequate to explain even a few of the forces and processes that affect a few of the things that exist. It can blind us because we simply don't see that all of nature affects all aspects of nature. We imagine an infinity that doesn't exist and don't see improbability that might be many orders of magnitude "greater" than infinity. We count butterflies in China and pay them little more mind. .

I was actually thinking of mathematicians when I said this. Pure math can have value to a mathematician simply because it brings him joy. Few things in life want to order themselves and follow rules of logic. I would think most mathematicians think there might someday be a practical benefit to their work even if the only practical benefit is understanding or the feeling it gemnerates or the anticipation of that feeling.

I'm not certain of the question here. Even if there were no people dying in (or of) poverty today there would still be people for whom poverty was a factor in their demise. If you have $1000 in your pocket you won't get hit by a bus when you go to borrow $10 from your cousin to eat at McDounall's. Essentially yes, this is what I'm saying except I would add the problem is far more extensive, pervasive, and ubiquitous than this. It affects everything incliuding our understanding of theory.

The USGS maps the US. But this is beside the point since even if there were a universally accepted means of depicting overhanging cliffs and it was strictly adhered to the fact would remain resolution of the map could easily cause misinterpretation. Rather thsan using red lines or some unambiguos means of depiction it's very easy to misread a map even if it's right. The same thing was a problem in the medical professsion for many years. Rather than printing xRays so they could fit only one way in a reader they were printed so they could be inserted upside down. Thousands of people have been maimed or killed by surgeons amputating the wrong limb or removing the wrong organ. This happens and is unseen because of the humans think. We misapply knowledge, science, and math and rarely if ever notice. Our economy hums along at about 5% efficiency because we throw away far more natural and human resources than we use. We throw away our future because it's easier than the alternative and because everyone with two brain cells to rub together has been trained as one damn specialist or another. We can't see there are other ways. We can't see what we don't know.

And all taxinomies are constructs. Even a river has no clearly defined beginning and end until you define the tributaries and end points which are forever changing. If the US Midwest became much drier would the Mississippi River begin in Pittburgh? Surely a river can't just move but what if the Ohio carried much more water than the Mississippi north of Cairo? We simply come to mistake these taxinomies as reality instead of models. DNA evidence is showing plants and animals always thought to be very different or very similar often aren't. Similarities are apparent and not real. Even two "rabbits" have different DNA.

Humans are a part of nature. Nope - we have been doing portage for centuries if not millennia Scientific predictions are often accurate because equations can be applied properly and enough of the nature of something understood to apply those equations and quantify the variables. But it doesn't change the fact that there's no such thing as rabbits and cliffs. It doesn't change the fact that modern science only works because reality acts as a check on experiment. Science works because reality works and humans are an aspect of reality. An argument can be made that it has nothing to do with math and science because reality is excluded from them but the fact is math nor science has any value at all except to the degree they can be applied to the real world. We understand the world in terms of math and science (theory) and this is a misapplication unless we remember that no application is fully legitimate. Accidents and disasters are the result of these misapplications. Misapplications are misunderstandings. The best math in the world is meaningless if not applied properly. It's of no value if variables can't be quantified or if various relevant forces and processes are not understood. This really seems so obvious that there must be a problem with communication. Surely all of us has computed a physics problem incorrerectly at some point. Some things are more easily grouped than others. I've never seen documentation. It is hearsay.

And this is exactly the problem; it's impossible to count apples. More precisely, it's impossible to know whether you've counted apples correctly or not. If a tree produced two apples last year and two apples this year then how many apples do you have? Obviously you can't have four apples because apples don't last so long. The problem with counting and measuring go far beyond chronological and definitional issues since there may be no two identical things to count. Two newtons plus two newtons (same vector) equals four newtons but this introduces more things that don't exist in the real world like calculations and the ability to measure variables. We look at an old Mathew Brady photograph and can probably coiunt the number of individuals in it. But what of a battle scene where there are large numbers of grainy and only partially photographed individuals? What of the dead and maimed? What of the simple fact that every individual in the photo has been dead for many decades? What if one soldier is a shaved monkey that was used as a unit's mascot? We imagine we can count and measure because this is what we are taught and it is the means by which we are taught. It is the means by which we understand models and paradigms. But most importantly it's how we view reality and it defines our perspective of realiity. Reality doesn't really exist as being axiomatic to modern science except inasmuch as it affects experiment so we see reality indirectly through our beliefs in science (experiment) or other beliefs (often religion). So to most of us the concept that you can't step into the same river twice seems absurd. If the Missisippii is ever changing then it's impossible to measure the distance between St Louis and New Orleans. If the planet is forever changing then no measurements have real meaning outside all of the definitions and all of the variables. This is nature. This is the real world; ALL of the definitions and forces which we barely understand at all. Perhaps it would be more true to say that "the cliff can exist for the same reasons that math can exist.". Nature has an internal logic reflected by the cliff and by humans' math. Without this logic neither can exist. If somehow "consciousness" existed anyway 2 + 2 wouldn't equal 2 x 2. Nothing can exist without cliffs and 2 + 2 equaling 4. But math still doesn't apply to the real world so much as the real world applies to math.

Of course they are correct because we define these diverse fields such that quantified natural logic can be applied to it. If you have two apples and get two more apples then how many apples do you have? What if you've just eaten one of of the apples you had? This apple is now fundamentally different than the others and is quickly being changed into something nearly unrecognizable as an apple. The others are changing as well. One might already be rotten. Perhaps the apples are need to feed someone with no teeth or you're sitting above an industrial juicer with greasy hands. What does "have" even mean? Are these the same types of apples and is some relevant consumer alergic? Are they peeled or cored? Is a cored apple even an apple to Johnny Appleseed? Perhaps "get" has a different meaning than is apparent. Perhaps you're being hooted off stage by someone chucking rotten apples. If you need 12 apples then 4 might be of no value at all. If you need three apples you might toss the fourth. (or maybe the second if it has a bad spot). In the real world these things always apply. There is no "apple" nor does "two" exist in the real world because all apples are different. This is just the reality that science chooses to ignore because it can be quantified or understood. But mostly it's irrelevant except when designing experiment or inventing machines. But the point remains that math is a construct based on definitions and axioms. Numbers and lines and asymtotes don't exist in nature. The logic for such things exists just not these things themselves. Math is misapplied. This misapplication wouldn't matter so much if people could see it and they don't plan on feeding gasoline to their boat porters. Most individuals who need to know the difference between a setting sun and spinning earth know the difference. But 20 or 30 men were reported to have died near Normandy because they couldn't scale a 100 degree cliff. They came equipped toi scale an 80 degree cliff because cartographers have no defined means of depicting overhanging cliffs. They were picked off by the enemy before they could be rescued. Such errors in definitions, standards, and applying math to the real world are quite common but don't normally result in disaster.

I didn't say we don't apply math to the real world, I said math is never applicable to the real world. In order to invent technology and theory we must use math but this is akin to pounding a square peg in a round hole. Math employs nature's logic to work but it is still a construct and nature still operates on forces and processes we don't understand. You can measure a river with some accuracy after you define it. You might measure the flood plain or each meander. You might measure to the continental divide or only to where the water actually starts flowing. But no matter how you define it it is constantly changing such that you can't step into the same river twice. A glance at a map might be sufficient for such things as estimating the amount of fuel you'll need to get a boat upriver but no matter how closely you estimate you won't get the boat beyond a waterfall. We force our equations onto nature all the time and rarely notice that when they don't fit or have no meaning because they are misapplied. Even the simplest concepts are often nonsense. If you're supposed to meet someone at midnight on Tuesday do you go Monday night or Tuesday night. About 75% of people believe it's Tuesday night but in reality it's neither because midnight falls on no day. The NOAA publishes sunrise and sunset tables but as we all know the sun never rises or sets. Men die because of such nonsense yet nobody ever seems to notice that we misapply or misdefine math in the real world. Math often seems to work because equations are often applied and solved properly. They only work in given situations and the results are never exactly what we think they are but the point of math is provide knowledge and insight into nature. Math is most assuredly not a representation of nature itself but merely quantified natural logic. No matter how much the odds are with it even the fastest and smartest rabbit in the woods can get caught by a fox. No matter how beautiful an equation nature will not kowtow to it unless you strip all the variables and do it in the lab. And it might still take a few tries.

Obvioously Apple is the exception in the field of computers which is itself largely the exception. Some might argue that the government hounding Microsoft at a critical juncture led to Apple's success but I doubt that really played a major role. Microsoft has had a major problem since its inception and that is that computer users are considered a nuisance for programmers. Apple didn't suffer this handicap and has succeeded where Microsoft can't. There are relatively few players in the entire field and start-up costs are most assuredly part of the reason. Start-up costs are quite nominal in this area but they are still huge compared to the amount of money that one man might raise. Even small ventures require a lot of capital in most cases. Many people who would otherwiuse strike out on their own will simply hire on to work for an established company. You can't do this in oil, steel, coal tar products, concrete, or automotive. You pretty much can't do it anywhere other than the restaurant business. In any given situation a new law will help one company at the expense of another. Laws simply don't affect existing companies equally. Monopolisdtic business practices are allowed to prevent new competition while government effectively selects among existing business.

I don't know much "higher math" than a little calculus so have no opinion here. However I must suspect you are looking at some of the nonsense in cosmology and calling it "math". As I said math is NEVER applicable to the real world so that means any equation you dream up is never applicable to the real world. Cosmology isn't "math" but rather physics and some of it is obviously bad physics. The math can be right but the physics wrong. Until experiment bears out an equation it is nothing but math and it doesn't "work" in the real world even after it's proven. We interpolate reality from experiment and extrapolate to generate new hypothesis.

I have a unique view of economics as simply being the sum total of all all supply of demand which is derived from human nature. As such my understanding of markets and market forces might not apply in any given situation and specoialists are far more able to make predictions in such specific situations where I'm better able to predict longer terms trends and understand overall forces. I'm not competent to have an opinion on some of your suggestions. But this point is one I've long called for. Basing money on precious metals is madness due to the fact their percieved values oscillate causing massive disruptions in economies. By the same token "full faith and credit" is very much a matter of faith and subject to sudden revision in the estimation of the value. For this reason I've long advocated basing money on the productive capacity as weighted by actual economic activity such that the value of the currency is stable. It should pay a dividend as well and increase in the size of government spending controlled to avoid more than marginal inflation. There is nothing in nature stable enough to underlie currency so we should use something made by man. With such a system it would be easy to control currency speculation and the sytem itself would tend to check speculation on many commodities. Another benefit would be to equalize the value of every "dollar". A rich man's dollar woudn't be worth more than a poor man's and a Chinese "dollar" wouldn't be worth more than an American's. There would be no need to even maintain currency markets since new currencies could be added to such a system. How a company fared used to be determined principally by its market segment and its abilty to compete with other companies in that segment. Now it is largely determined by government regulation and law. As such investors and owners have not only shifted to faceless investment funds but their demands are expressed by those who operate these funds, retirement plans, etc. "Stockholders" no longer have a say in things like management compensation. Dividends generated by companies that strove to make a better mousetrap and potential to capture more market used to the primary determinant of stock price. Now income generated by ruining products and destroying future potential is treated equally with profits and stock price is determined by projected government actions. Profits are funneled as wages and bonuses to the few and PE's are sky high because any company might succeed in these situations.

I'm not sure "flawed" is the right word. "Misapplied" is probably the best word. Flawed suggests that the math is wrong and misapplied suggests it's the physics that is wrong. If a male and female giraffe produce twins then 1 + 1 = 4. Of course this math is wrong but it's the real world manifestation of addition. The logic of math is right but it doesn't apply to the real world. F = mA is right but it must be applied properly to have validity. A ton of gold as part of a system that's a hot air balloon can have no weight at all but it's still very valuable.

Math is quantified natural logic. It is not a product of mans mind but rather a discovery by his genius. It works because the terms are defined. 2 + 2 will always equal 2 X 2. If the logic is sound in a math equation it will always correspond to any other form of the expression. Math is never applicable to the real world. A ton of gold at new moon weighs more than a ton of aluminum at full moon. Converting to mass changes nothing except to put the onus of accurate measurement on the weigher instead of mathematicians. I would agree that "infinity" has no real world referent and is merely a place holder used to maintain logic in math. Real world numbers can become incredibly huge to the degree they effectively are greater than "infinity", but any number that exists in the real world would be estimatable with sufficient information. While math is accurate by and within its definitions it is often misapplied. Equations believed to apply to the real world have no meaning until they are shown by experiment to apply to the real world.

I prefer to stay away from speculation in this area but I believe it needs to be investigated. Some crimes seem rather apparent but the regulators are ignoring them until there's a public outcry such as with MF Global. In most cases it's difficult to identify the individuals being harmed or it's difficult to show intent. Packaging up toxic waste and selling it as securities might not break any laws but it is surely amoral and screams for legislation. Paying .1% on money and loaning it at 25% used to get you tossed in prison. Now days things just seem to be different. Even the LME defaulted on nickel but everyone just shrugged it off. Collusion, manipulation, monopolistic practices all seem the rage. But the most serious problem is that now days it's possible to get very wealthy by destroying wealth. The only way to create wealth is through mutually beneficial agreements and before governmenmt interference it was very difficult to generate cash through destruction of wealth. Even when you were successful there was a good chance that some laws were bent but, more importantly, the ill gotten gains were taxed at 91% which served to reign in a lot of avarice. But now the little guy pays the taxes and it's easy to get rich going bankrupt. You just destroy a company someone else built and pocket everything that isn't nailed down.

I guess. Sometimes I wonder if draconian action might be required for some things. The banking industry is the most serious case. A "bank hoiliday" so new operators can be found before allowing the return of most and the imprisonment for some might be safest.

The stock market is a much more complicated problem. Fixing it will be harder because the notional value of derivatives greatly exceeds the productive capacity of the entire planet. The financial industry has gamed the system and rigged the means by which it is operated.