New Temple

A prominent young (from my perspective) Jewish physicist is producing a series of articles in The Tablet on the Hebrew Bible in relation to contemporary science, especially focusing on the attitudes of secular Jewish scientists. His target audience appears to be secular Jews. 

Jeremy England knows his scripture and his science; his efforts appear to be largely effective. He does seem to produce some questionable interpretations on the margins, however. In his second article he writes, 

As Bishop Robert Barron once explained to Ben Shapiro in an unintentionally ironic Daily Wire segment, when they discussed what the (anti-assimilationist, Temple-rebuilding) festival of Hanukkah means to Christians: “Jesus is the new Temple.”

I wonder if England knows where the bishop derives that meaning.  

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. (John 2:13-21)

I haven't viewed the Daily Wire video England refers to, but I wonder about the larger context; there is far more than irony present in the bishop's assertion. Catholic belief does not disparage the importance of the temple to Jewish worship and identity. [Some Orthodox Jews hope for its reconstruction. Some Messianic Jews and Christians anticipate the restoration of the temple as part of the Parousia, the Second Coming of the Christ -- which is not, incidentally, Catholic teaching.]   

The "temple" as a metaphor for the body of Christ transitioned to "body" as metaphor, even virtual sacrament, for the church itself. In Catholic liturgy, bread and wine are mystically transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, which, when consumed feed the Body, the Church; these are not metaphors, are completely empty of irony, for they comprise the Blessed Sacrament.  

Earlier in his second article, England writes,

The universalism of the New Testament and its open rejection of Judaic particularism had been a wellspring of the Western psyche for more than a thousand years by the time Jefferson put quill to parchment, and this aspect of Christian thought still remains the background against which his enlightened declarations retain moral force and meaning. “All men are created equal” conceives of each individual as a separate and independent recipient of rights from God in a way that leaves little room for the special national covenant of the Hebrews as an indivisible group. 

The New Testament does not reject Judaic particularism.  St. Paul writes:

I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not become wise [in] your own estimation: a hardening has come upon Israel in part, until the full number of the Gentiles comes in, and thus all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The deliverer will come out of Zion,

he will turn away godlessness from Jacob;

and this is my covenant with them 

when I take away their sins.” 

In respect to the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but in respect to election, they are beloved because of the patriarchs. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:25-26)

John Paul II described Jews as "our elder brothers in the faith of Abraham." 

Insofar as the Declaration of Independence of 1776 is concerned, "created equal" is a political assertion manifest in the hope that the colonial rebels had for their contingent new nation, The so-called Bill of Rights, amendments to the Constitution of 1789, are expressive of the Declaration. Of course, it took a Civil War to overcome the most obvious contradiction to the Declaration and Bill, and a century more to eliminate practices which denied equality before the law (in the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965). "Created equal" is still aspirational. The resurgence of explicit antisemitism in just the last year presents the country with a new challenge to the Declaration's realization for all of its citizens. One might be reminded that George Washington, an Anglican, was especially welcoming to the Jewish communities of Philadelphia and Rhode Island. 

From the perspective of non-Jews, it is not at all clear that the Declaration of Independence or Bill of Rights contradict the practice of the Jewish faith. There are some religious sects which claim they possess an exclusive guarantee of salvation, that their members are part of an elect. The idea of election is part of traditional Calvinist teaching. Assertion of such uniqueness on the part of such groups of citizens is exclusive of their role in the larger polity. As long as the exercise of the religious belief does not encroach upon that of the fellow citizens, their practice is not legally objectionable. Should such groups seek to achieve an established position in the polity, they would be contradicting constitutional rights.

I look forward to reading more of Jeremy England's insights, and hope he shows more discretion when pushing the margins.

    

 

Entropy as Irony

When I encounter popular scientific articles that incorporate statements such as this...

The Second Law defines the ultimate purpose of life, mind, and human striving: to deploy energy and information to fight back the tide of entropy and carve out refuges of beneficial order. An underappreciation of the inherent tendency toward disorder, and a failure to appreciate the precious niches of order we carve out, are a major source of human folly.

... I see irony, not entropy. Here's why: to "carve out refuges of beneficial order" introduces, by the very process of "carving," a potential increase in entropy in the region outside of the refuges, whether that region is physical-chemical, informational, or aesthetic. Entropy, from the very beginning of its recognition and definition, is but part of a mathematical equation measuring an environment, a space, a domain in which energy is dispersed evenly throughout; if the energy is evenly dispersed, a measured quantity, for example, temperature, in any part of the surrounding region, is the same everywhere in that region.
If I enter into a virtual discourse, however cultivated and enlightened (such as this post), the visual signals I receive and read from my flat screen  take some degree of concentration to recognize individual letters, words, concepts; at every intervening point and moment require energy, part of which is converted to heat -- energy which is no longer be available to do the work of computing, displaying, and reading.
The presence of that heat is readily recognized by the sound of the fan (in the desktop or laptop) or warm spots of the underside of the laptop. Ah! one might exclaim, couldn't that heat inside the house help warm it when its cold outside? Yes, reducing in time, however minusculely, the prompting of the thermostat to turn on the furnace, but there will still be escape of some of that heat from the inside to the outside of the building.  
Another place to recognize heat produced as a byproduct by another device, is the heated air blowing from the back of the refrigerator into the larger kitchen. (Where does that heat come from? It is "removed" from the steaks, chicken breasts, cheese, milk ... whatever is inside of the appliance.) More importantly, heat energy is actually the vibration of molecules, which increases the temperature as the vibrations become faster and more powerful.

Some physicists and physical chemists define entropy as an increase in disorder. More than any other concept, the idea of disorder seems to have propagated into the non-scientific discourse, based, for example. on an imagined dormitory room; upon move-in, there is some manifestation of order -- books on the shelves, clothes in the drawers (arranged by the freshman's mother), shirts, pants, jeans hanging in the closet, towels on the racks on the back of the closet door... Three months, two months... whatever, that arrangement is gone. Therefore, entropy has increased. 

The problem with the dorm room analogy is the presumption of primary order. The freshman's mother defines order according to her standards; perhaps the student son even agrees that things are orderly as she defines it. To maintain that order, however, requires effort -- energy -- perhaps even more than just allowing things to fall where they may. Conversely, the loss of that original arrangement might require additional effort to locate desired objects (where did I put that polo?) in the future. In either case, more energy is required, both physical (folding and organizing or plowing through the pile) and mental; and part of that energy is lost to the environment. The presumption that spending time organizing and re-organizing (after each laundry load emerges from the clothes dryer) involves less effort than plowing through a disorganized pile each morning may be correct -- over time, perhaps less net energy is required if an arrangement is maintained -- or it may not (organizing may require a lot of time and thought: arrange by object kind, size, color...? Hang matching shirt and pants together or all shirts separately from all pants?) Of course, wearing the same outfit day after day should result in less net energy loss than all that effort to organize after each dryer load (especially if each dryer load occurs less often). So much for the dorm room... 

To characterize entropy in terms of (relative) disorder requires an accepted standard for order: the freshman's mother's standards, foundational scientific laws, logical premises...  

Billy Jo/Joe

The episode of Burke's Law was "Who killed Billy Jo"? The actor who played the unfortunate Billy Jo was Kelly Gordon; according to IMDB Gordon has three acting credits plus one uncredited role. His last apparent role was the murder victim.
So what else did this man do after BL? He was young, only 30 or 31 then.
A search for him leads to a Kelly Gordon in music, both composer and producer. His best-known piece is "That's Life," cowritten with Dean Kay and readily identified with Frank Sinatra's 1966 version.
As a music producer, he is credited with Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billy Joe. Coincidence? Two "Kelly Gordons"; two "Billy Jo(e)'s"? No - one Kelly Gordon: same dates of birth and death are indicated on imdb and revolvy websites. And, he sang his own song as Billy Jo in Burke's Law.
Gordon died young, so the question about dual Billy Jo/es could only be answered in this life by Bobbie Gentry.

Nights (and days) around the Round Table

Roaming Rita's latest post is delightful. And not just because it is about our family. When family gets together to break bread, whether at home or away, it's great that everyone has a great time. Whether we like one another or not, a party in which the hosts do all they can to make everyone feel welcome is a foreshadowing of a promised party at the end-of-time. It's a party to which all are invited.
BBQ, birthday party, Christmas Eve, Easter Sunday, St. Patrick's Day, anniversary, Thanksgiving, lunch, dinner, Saturday morning pancakes... "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" And shared meals, from breakfast to banquets are fractals.

Mystification

The Bulwark mystifies me. Even after communicating with one of its principals who emphasizes in return, "The Bulwark is not the Weekly Standard," the presence of a significant number of clearly non-conservative writers is a puzzle. Does "never-Trump" mean "anyone but Trump"?
The initial logo for the site, includes the subtitle, "Conservatism Conserved."

As of Today (?) or earlier this week, I think, the subtitle has changed:

"Slightly Dangerous" -- that clarifies things.

In defense of Jonah...

I have been admirer of Jonah Goldberg for two decades. I read his columns and have all of his books.
His most recent book, Suicide of the West has been getting hammered by reviewers from the orthodox Catholic side, I think unfairly.
Such reviewers jump on the, yes, surprising and discomfiting assertion Goldberg offers up front - "There is no God in this book." Maybe because of my longtime familiarity with his writing, I knew immediately that this would prove to be false. And, I think that even his post-publication explanations, that he is trying to reaching the potentially persuadable non-believers is tongue-in-cheek, at least in part.
Of course God is in the book; he can be found on every page. And, like his OT namesake, this current prophet knows it; he's just playing, you see. The engine of modernism, free enterprise, is driven by mutually recognized dignity - of the entrepreneur, employee, and customer, and, oh, the competitor, too.
Tag! reviewers - you're it. He gotcha. 
And, if any self-described liberals/progressives do actually pick-up the book because of the "bad" reviews from the red side, maybe they, too, will be ensnared.

In the appendix of the paper I reference below is a summary derivation of the relationship  between entropy and fractals (power laws). The appendix is also posted in another blog, Plate Frames. The introduction to the post reads...

In a paper published a couple of years ago (Pilger, 2012), I describe the application of a simple principle, transformed into a distinctive abstract object, to an optimization problem (within the plate tectonics paradigm): simultaneous reconstruction of lithospheric plates for a range of ages from marine geophysical data . It is rare that the relation of the principle, maximum entropy, with a particular transformation, power-series fractals, is recognized, since Pastor-Satorras and Wagensberg derived it. I'm unaware of any other application of fractal forms to optimization problems analogous to the paper. The following derivation is taken from the 2012 paper, with slight modification, in hopes that it might prove useful in other fields, not merely the earth sciences, but beyond. I'm investigating  applications in a variety of other areas, from plate tectonics, to petroleum geology, and, oddly enough, the arts.

Pilger, R. H., Jr. (2012) Fractal Plate Reconstructions with Spreading Asymmetry, Marine Geophysical  Research, Volume 33, 149-168. dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11001-012-9152-6. (rexpilger (at) gmail (dot) com.)

Fractal plate reconstructions

Fractal plate reconstructions: at Marine Geophysical Research, now online.