Journal Archives of Steven H. Cullinane:
Entries to be Added to Log24.com Archive

Saturday, October 11, 2008  4:23 PM

Volk Tale:

Phaeton

"Haider was pronounced dead
 in a hospital shortly after his
 Volkswagen Phaeton veered
 off the road...."

"In the version of the myth told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, Phaeton bragged to his friends that his father was the sun-god. One of his friends, who was rumored to be a son of Zeus, refused to believe him and said his mother was lying. So Phaeton went to his father Helios, who swore by the river Styx to give Phaeton anything he should ask for in order to prove his divine paternity. Phaeton wanted to drive his chariot (the sun) for a day. Though Helios tried to talk him out of it, Phaeton was adamant. When the day came, Phaeton panicked and lost control of the mean horses that drew the chariot. First it veered too high, so that the earth grew chill. Then it dipped too close, and the vegetation dried and burned. He accidentally turned most of Africa into desert, burning the skin of the Ethiopians black. Eventually, Zeus was forced to intervene by striking the runaway chariot with a lightning bolt to stop it, and Phaeton plunged into the river Eridanos. His sisters the Heliades grieved so much that they were turned into poplar trees that weep golden amber.

This story has given rise to two latter-day meanings of 'phaeton': one who drives a chariot or coach, especially at a reckless or dangerous speed, and one that would or may set the world on fire." --Wikipedia

Friday, October 10, 2008  6:14 AM

Oxford Revisited:

The Fury
Comes Later

Maureen Dowd's New York Times column, "Sound, but No Fury," on the September 26 debate at Oxford, Mississippi--
"Who would have dreamed that when socialism finally came to the U.S.A. it would be brought not by Bolsheviks in blue jeans but Wall Street bankers....?"
Perhaps Ernest Lehman, author of screenplays for "The Prize" and "From the Terrace." (See recent Log24 entries.)

Paul Krugman's column in today's online Times, "Moment of Truth"--

"The consequences of Lehman's fall were apparent within days, yet key policy players have largely wasted the past four weeks. Now they've reached a moment of truth: They'd better do something soon-- in fact, they'd better announce a coordinated rescue plan this weekend-- or the world economy may well experience its worst slump since the Great Depression.

Let's talk about where we are right now."

Related material:

The Sound and the Fury
(Log24, June 8, 2003)
and Lehman's
"Sweet Smell of Success."

Song of Songs 8:8--
We have a little sister,
and she hath no breasts:
what shall we do for our sister
in the day when she shall
be spoken for?

Burt Lancaster in 'Sweet Smell of Success'

"In Lehman's fall
We sinned all."

Thursday, October 9, 2008  3:26 AM

Special to Waugh's Daily Beast:

First Draft
of History

(Click to enlarge)
 
NY Times online 2:18 AM Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008

 Deep Background:

From the Terrace...
of the Hotel Bella Vista
in Cuernavaca...

 From the Terrace (of the Hotel Bella Vista, Cuernavaca)

Related Material:

Midsummer Night
in the Garden
of Good and Evil

"Right through hell
there is a path..."
(Voice-over by
Richard Burton,
"Volcano," 1976)

The Peacock Throne

Wednesday, October 8, 2008  12:00 PM

Annals of Philosophy:

Serious Numbers

A Yom Kippur
Meditation

"When times are mysterious
Serious numbers
Will always be heard."
-- Paul Simon,
"When Numbers Get Serious"

"There is a pleasantly discursive treatment of Pontius Pilate's unanswered question 'What is truth?'"

-- H. S. M. Coxeter, introduction to Richard J. Trudeau's remarks on the "story theory" of truth as opposed to the "diamond theory" of truth in The Non-Euclidean Revolution

Trudeau's 1987 book uses the phrase "diamond theory" to denote the philosophical theory, common since Plato and Euclid, that there exist truths (which Trudeau calls "diamonds") that are certain and eternal-- for instance, the truth in Euclidean geometry that the sum of a triangle's angles is 180 degrees. As the excerpt below shows, Trudeau prefers what he calls the "story theory" of truth--
"There are no diamonds. People make up stories about what they experience. Stories that catch on are called 'true.'"
(By the way, the phrase "diamond theory" was used earlier, in 1976, as the title of a monograph on geometry of which Coxeter was aware.)

Richard J. Trudeau on the 'Story Theory' of truth

Excerpt from
The Non-Euclidean Revolution

What does this have to do with numbers?

Pilate's skeptical tone suggests he may have shared a certain confusion about geometric truth with thinkers like Trudeau and the slave boy in Plato's Meno. Truth in a different part of mathematics-- elementary arithmetic-- is perhaps more easily understood, although even there, the existence of what might be called "non-Euclidean number theory"-- i.e., arithmetic over finite fields, in which 1+1 can equal zero-- might prove baffling to thinkers like Trudeau.

Trudeau's book exhibits, though it does not discuss, a less confusing use of numbers-- to mark the location of pages. For some philosophical background on this version of numerical truth that may be of interest to devotees of the Semitic religions on this evening's High Holiday, see Zen and Language Games.

For uses of numbers that are more confusing, see-- for instance-- the new website The Daily Beast and the old website Story Theory and the Number of the Beast.