Dublin and the Mayans

by Ray Wed Nov 27, 2002 17:47

And my conclusion is that some people will attribute significance to anything and everything, searching everywhere for grand conspiracies and hidden knowledge, looking for a magic key that will explain everything.

There is no philosophers' stone. If you want to understand how the world works read some science and history, and leave the fairy tales on the fiction shelves where they belong.

by mathematics -synchronicity- temporal theoretician. Wed Nov 27, 2002 18:20

this man is most interested in where myth and stories added to intercultural interaction at the opening of Western Trade.
Stories are held to be psychic material which exist from generation to generation within cultures. Transmitted by speech or latterly by print and most recently by cyber-communication, stories should never be left on the shelf.
All tyrannies have abused "our stories" and subverted the symbolic power of a world which is non-material and never can be subject to material analysis.
I believe that is why Marxist psychoanalysis became unpopular.
By the way Gonville and Caius college is pronounced Gonville and "keys".
and Ray don{t worry about the philosphers stone or alchemy, they{re safely forgotten about.
:-)

>Professor David Abulafia
>Professor of Mediterranean History
Gonville and Caius College
Cambridge
CB2 1TA
Tel: (+44) (0)1223 332473
>
>
>Research Interests
>
>Economic, social and political history of the Mediterranean lands
in the
>Middle Ages and Renaissance, especially southern Italy, the
Italian
>'despotisms', the Italian islands and the Crown of Aragon. The
interaction
>of the three religions in medieval Spain and Sicily, including
the problem
>of Jewish (and Muslim) 'servitude'. Current research projects
focus on the
>policies of Ferdinand the Catholic, king of Aragon, in both Spain
and
>Italy, and of his cousin Ferrante (Ferdinand), Aragonese king of
Naples.
>Another interest is the opening of the eastern and western
Atlantic in the
>fifteenth and early sixteenth century, with particular emphasis
on the
>encounter of Europeans with native peoples. Also the Levant
trade, links
>between Italy and the lands across the Adriatic, and 19th and
20th century
>historiography of medieval Europe.

by ? Wed Nov 27, 2002 19:18

why do anarchists use it so much?

by Ray Thu Nov 28, 2002 11:23

Anarchists don't 'use it so much'.

You're thinking of fans of the Illuminati trilogy. 23 skidoo, fnord, etc...

by seeker Thu Nov 28, 2002 14:39

:: 23 ::

: the number associated with the Greek god Ersis, benign personification of *creative* anarchy.

: the Earth is currently tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees

: the holy book of Islam, the Quar'an, is said to have been revealed to Mohammed during a period of 23 years.

: human biorhythm cycle is generally 23 days.

: 23 seconds for blood to circulate through the human body.

: human body has 46 chromosomes, which are paired, in somatic cells. Generative cells have half this number, 23, which is the number of chromosomes each parents gives to human DNA.

: 23 is the first prime number in which both digits are prime numbers and add up to another prime number.

: The pattern of DNA shows irregular connections at every 23rd section.

: Humans have 23 main vertebra.

: The 23rd hexagram of the I-Ching signifies chaos, disintegration.

: one of two master numbers in Chaldean numerology

and on and on and on...it will find you, especially if you are male.

by Ray Thu Nov 28, 2002 15:30

- the number associated with the Greek god Ersis, benign personification of *creative* anarchy

23 is big for Illuminatus fans.

Look hard enough for connections and you can find 'significance' in any number. Pyramid cranks are fond of arguing that the base of the great pyramid is proportional to X, and this other measurement is proportional to Y, and so on and so forth and ooh look at all the pretty lights. In response, a French anthropologist measured a standard phone booth on a street in France, and demonstrated that the height was proportional to X and the base proportional to Y, etc, etc, etc. Instead of copping themselves on, the wackos said this demonstrated the magical connectedness of all things. Some people are happy in their ignorance, and there's not a lot you can do about it except laugh at them.

The keyboard I'm writing this on can be defined by dozens of measurements - number of keys on the keyboard, number of function keys, width, height, etc, etc. The universe around me, and the average human body, can be defined by literally millions of measurements - average number of hairs, distance to the moon, mass of Jupiter, number of chromosomes, etc, etc, etc. With all of these possible measurements to choose from its impossible _not_ to find some that somehow relate to the measurements I've taken from my keyboard.

There is nothing magical about this, and it doesn't point to some deeper meaning about the universe. The only lesson to be learned is that if your standards for 'significance' are loose enough, and the set of numbers you choose from is sufficiently large, you will never have any trouble finding 'significant' numbers. Or in finding people to laugh at your gullibility, for that matter.

by ipsiphi Thu Nov 28, 2002 20:18 ipsiphi23 at email dot com

why is 23 liked by architects and spookies?

and who are the illuminati?
and that Marcus bloke who marched around with 23 commandants who´s he?

and what did JohnXXIII mean in his papal bull about the creative priniple of humanity being founded on a contact between 23 male and 23 female chromosomes?

and why did the US senate vote 23 against the Iraq war when there were more than 23 against?

and Ray does your hermenuetic mathematical anaylsis which I might be stretching to syllogistic with these "discordian = anarchist" ideas, account for Pi or PHi when you use any algorythmical "unit"?
=Just wondering coz I´ve given that a lot of thought, and so I believe did Pythagoras, Mr Robert Anton Wilson just sells pulpy books though.
this though is not the place for such "non-news" stuff.

by not not Thu Nov 28, 2002 22:24

discordians don't like labels.

by iosaf = o as if Thu Nov 28, 2002 23:00

discordians don´t like labels
nor do they like names that don´t work properly.
Ray a thought on "the keyboard"
if we for a moment reversed the ontological educational process at the outset thus learning logic before number set theory, i think we would all notice the anomolous quality of 23 more.
Now to do this quite easy, and certainly helps us also to understand the early western civilisation preocupation with Pi. (indeed also the Pythgorean problems with the square root of 2)
anyway, just a thought.
appearing from the algebraic set of numbers and letters and semiotics upon the buttons of my microsoft compatabile 120 key board.
I though like you can think in binary
so I´m not spooked.

by Mickey Thu Nov 28, 2002 23:52

Mice don't like being called mice -- you ask one. But mice they are all the same. 23 backwards is 32 which is one more than the longest months of the year. Spookey or what??

by Ray Fri Nov 29, 2002 10:27

- if we for a moment reversed the ontological educational process at the outset thus learning logic before number set theory, i think we would all notice the anomolous quality of 23 more.

There is nothing anomalous about 23.
How many ribs do you have? How many major bones in your body? How many digits? How many senses?
Whats the average duration of pregnancy in months? Weeks? Days? What is the average weight of the human brain in kilos? Pounds? Average lifespan? Number of major organs? Average length of menstrual cycle? Number of years since life appeared? Since humans evolved? How many distinct human languages are there? How many of those languages have a distinct word for 'red'? How many words do the Inuits have for snow?
How many hours does it take for the earth to rotate on its axis? What is the period of rotation around the sun in days? Hours? Weeks? What is the distance from here to the moon? To the sun? To Pluto? To Alpha Centauri? How many planets are there in the solar system? How many moons? What's the orbital period of Saturn? What's the speed of light? Planck's constant? What's the atomic weight of uranium? Argon? Carbon?
How often does Halley's comet appear? How many US presidents have there been? How many Irish presidents? Popes? How many years between the first sacking of Rome and the fall of Constantinople? How many verses in the Koran? How many hexagrams in the I Ching? How many gods in the Aztec pantheon? The Australian aborigine's pantheon?

There are literally billions of such questions I could ask. Its inevitable that the answer to some of those questions will be 23 (or 23 squared, or 23x10^something, or 23 -2 -3, or some other variation). Just as the answer to some of those questions will be 9, or a variation, or 36, or a variation. If you look for any number in enough places you'll eventually find it. That proves nothing about the number.

If you want to find out whether 23 is significant or not, then pick a 'significant' question to which you don't already know the answer, and then go look up the answer. If the answer is 23, you may be on to something. If the answer is not 23, you should learn from the experience.

by iosaf Fri Nov 29, 2002 10:56

Ray check out the Berne convention on mesurements.
This official international booklet defines
"what is a kilogram"
"what is a metre"
"what is a pound of salt..."
It was signed in 1923.
now I´m not saying 23 is the secret, far from it, I´m very interested in discordianism, and as a anti-cloning activist quite like the 23 significance there, and as a writer in a certain tradition I´ve noticed that 23 does have a peculiar tendancy to occur a lot. And if you follow the "letter set" puzzle you will find as did the ancient greeks, hebrews and arabs that 23 is odd simply because their letter sets ended at 22. An annoyance that led to the arabic mind improving mathematics. The greeks as well found that complex axioms could be dealt with with algebra alone but contemplation of the nature of prime numbers, Pi and Phi could not.
Now in the nineteenth century certain US states tried to rationalise Pi (a very silly idea to 3.4) it most certainly didn´t work.
Some numbers do have special qualities, that is just so, simply true.
Pi and Phi are fixed and weird.
as too are the primes. [have a chat with TCD math. dept. they discovered one of the biggest primes back in 1999 called it the "millenium prime"].
So yes lots of things are 23 related.
What I asked and got an answer was "why does 23 fascinate [certain] discordians and anarchists [as part of a subcultural stream(?)] and other as yet unanswered questions.
a. Who is this lad Marcus?
b. Who are the illuminati?
c. Why do architects and spookies like 23?
now I hope you can´t speak for the spookies but you never know.
and Copernicus and Gallileo were tried on the basis of "moving all the numbers around", yes we can adapt a mathematical system to place importance on any "nodal" quantity, be that assigned the value Pi. Phi or 23 or 3 or this forthcoming year: 1423 for muslims 2003 for us.
primes all over the place. means nothing but the Berne Convention 1923 as reproduced on your math tables from school has one mistake in it.
If you find it, I´ll give you a t-shirt with "recuperem els carrers" on it.

by Ray Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:10

And yet you keep failing to mention the relationship between '23' and 3.14.......etc
Why? Because there isn't one. Pi is just one of the millions and millions of 'significant' numbers in the universe that have absolutely nothing to do with 23.

by iosaf = o as if Fri Nov 29, 2002 22:56

are the three numbers I mentioned.
I did not illustrate the connections between them.
I merely said if you entertained one of the oldest logic puzzles in the mathematical philosophy bed time story book, you would notice that 23 is the first number without letter asignation in all "base" global human cultures.
I said that Pi and Phi are examples of why the number system is currently fixed where it is.
I also said that 23 is anomolous.
It is.
I refer you to a lecture by Princton professor of Mathematics in Trinty College Dublin 1998.
I can´t remember the guys name, but you troll as well as I do, 23 came up for discussion then, and in many other places.
I actually think the "Maya" thing is quite dangerous, it places a glass ceiling for many on "millenial paranoia", the belief that the current "end of the world" is not due to hyper-capitalist abuse but some other divinely inspired agency.
Now I´m not attempting by that to rubbish armageddon or endtime prophecies, rather to remind all that if the world is still with us in 2013 we will still have lots of work to do.
I do think 23 is anomolous, I think it occurs many times in odd places, but to fully explain why and how would need reams of material and time.
23 is about time Ray.
Now we are even the most sceptical of us beginning to handle the notion that neither space nor time can adacquately be described using only four dimensions.
And that is where the anomolies come in, that quantity referred to numerically (in decimal) as 23 is part of that.
which is perhaps why discordians like it.
which is perhaps why anarchists like it.
which is perhaps why freemasons and spookies like it.
which is also perhaps why architects like it.
Of all the natural measurements 23 is the one that occurs the most.
To answer "how many bones in a leg" is silly, I would expect better of you, the fact is 23 accounts for more of the natural number weightings from molecular level up than any other.
And if you want to go on about it, I too caught the yawn, mail me or mail network23.
I/We would love to hear from you.
then I might redirect you to lots of stuff I´ve written on 23 Pi and most recently PHi.
I by the way diskordians think PHi is the business.
did you notice there were 23 victims of the Kenyan attack?
you see people have always said what about 22 or 24? well those number as interesting as they are for mathematicians, crypticians, cabalists, philosophers, diskordians, are not as interesting as 23.
but if you think it´s only superstition ok.
so for that matter is Quantum physics.

by Ray Mon Dec 02, 2002 10:48

- but if you think it´s only superstition ok.
so for that matter is Quantum physics.

Quantum physics is brought up by every madcap with an irrational theory. Your ignorance of quantum physics doesn't make your pet theories any more convincing. The fact that quantum physics is counter-intuitive doesn't mean that every counter-intuitive theory is right. Just because some things that were thought to be impossible have been demonstrated to be possible, doesn't mean that all impossible things are now possible.

If you don't understand quantm physics, you don't get to use it as a support for your theories. Your theories must stand on their own evidence. Unfortunately for you, that evidence is in very short supply.