Decoding the Antikythera Mechanism

 

Over at the Scientific American website, I found these two videos about the decoding of the Antikythera Mechanism.

This amazing piece of technology was discovered at the turn of the last century in a shipwreck in the Greek isles.

An astronomical calendar, Olympic calendar, eclipse calculator and on and on.

As the videos discuss, there is some indication that this device may be a result of the workshop tradition in Syracuse extending from the time of Archimedes.

Videos from Nature:

Clouds of Information

Under the theory that word selection by itself provides information about a communication, a variety of tools have been developed for the statistical analysis of texts.

It can be as simple as counting words. For example, Andrew Sullivan in his The Daily Dish blog over at The Atlantic has a recent post entitled Fact-Checking George Will. In it, he takes Will to task for characterizing the Obamas as being narcissistic during a recent overseas trip. My take on his discussion of Will: "Don't bother me with the facts! I've got a point to make."

A more complex version of word-counting is showing up all over the blogosphere in the word clouds that summarize whole sites in a graphical way. One of the more interesting (and fun) versions of such an analysis tool was developed by an IBM research scientest and can be found at the Wordle site. I found it via the James Fallows post A nice tool for envisioning rhetoric. He points to the inaugural speech analysis that the developer, Jonathon Feinberg, did to show off the tool.

While spending a bunch of time driving to soccer fields to referee kids, I came up with the idea of using Wordle to portray some of the more important socio-cultural roots of our society. To visually portray the importance of concepts over time. To see if I learned anything new. To see if I could inject an element of the aesthetic into the mix. To see if a more modern technique of concrete poetry is useful in the search for knowledge.

The result is The Gist of the Matter.

As a very long-time atheist who would have to characterize himself as culturally Judeo-Christian, the choice of the documents reflects that background. There are probably many of us who would fall into the same category. I've found it encouraging to clearly recognize the shift from god-speak to secularism over time.

So, the points of discussion I see are:

* Is this kind of visual analysis useful to those of us who focus on words?

* And, if so, can it be used to help combat the drivel we encounter out on the intellectual playing fields of society?

The Gist Of The Matter

One man's [re]viewing of the socio-political roots of a culture

Click on the thumbnails for larger versions. All images come from the Wordle tool and are licensed by http://www.wordle.net/.Sources:
Genesis 1-2, Ten Commandments, Psalm 23
Ecclesiastes, Plato's Republic, Sermon On The Mount
Golden Rule, Magna Carta, Luther's 95 Theses
Mayflower Compact, Galileo Dialogues, Thomas Paine's Common Sense
Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, US Constitution Preamble
US Constitution Article 1, Article 2, Article 3
US Constitution Article 4, Article 5, Article 6
US Constitution Article 7, Bill of Rights, Amendments 11-27
French Constitution 1791, Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Emancipation Proclamation
Gettysburg Address, League of Nations Charter, United Nations Charter
UN Declaration of Human Rights, John F. Kennedy speech, Martin Luther King speech

A-Theist Does Not Mean A-Moral

Greta Christina is a blogger who writes about atheism (among many other things, not always suitable for work or family) over at the cleverly eponymously monickered Greta Christina's Blog. She has begun a new project -- The Facebook Atheist Meme of the Day. See here, here, and here.

I'm doing a project on my Facebook page: The Atheist Meme of the Day. Every weekday, I'm going post a short, pithy, Facebook-ready atheist meme... in the hopes that people will spread them, and that eventually, the ideas will get through.

Her project, and many of the reactions to the Facebook posts, started me thinking about one of the anti-atheist memes that still is very widespread. This is the theory that the lack of belief in a god leaves one without any moral grounding. In other words, without gods (or God), anything is permissible. Or maybe even ("Horrors!"), encouraged. This particular meme is #2 in Greta's Eleven Myths and Truths About Atheists --

2: Atheists are immoral: without religion, there's no basis for morality.

Now, for must of us who take life seriously, thinking about morality is an important part of what we do. There's the old "An unexamined life is not worth living" (Socrates, I think.) There are the problems of dealing with other people and institutions. There are the issues of raising children to be prepared to go out into the world by themselves. Atheists are no different from anybody else in these concerns.

Greta will probably come up with some nicely worded pithiness that summarizes her position if a sentence or two. Her post from March of 2008, The Not So Logical Conclusion: On the Morality of Atheists and Believers, probably lays out the direction she will go.

So, I set myself the task to come up with an atheist meme about morality. I'm sure it won't be as good as what Greta produces -- she's a much better writer -- but the exercise has been be useful.

I think most people who believe the myth are still very much in thrall of Strict-Big-Daddy-In-The-Sky-Ism.  Without a strong father figure, we're all going to hell in a handbasket. Even this statement reveals the sexism, dominance and fear-mongering that is crucial for this particular brand of Control-Ism to succeed. But this view isn't at all necessary for a coherent and effective morality.

First, we need to now what morality is. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy starts its definition of morality with this:

The term “morality” can be used either

1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or, some other group, such as a religion, or accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons

In either case, morality is a code of conduct. In other words, it's about behavior, not thoughts. The old saying that you can't legislate morality is wrong. In fact, most of our legislation is about morality -- the ways people behave towards other people. You can't legislate what people think or feel, however, which is what the saying is trying to communicate.

As an atheist coming from at least a cultural Judeo-Christian background (see here), starting with the acknowledged sources of some of our moral sense is useful. The Bible contains two major concepts of exemplary morality -- the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and the Golden Rule (ethic of reciprocity) of the New Testament. Although the Ten Commandments are a hodge-podge of prescriptive and proscriptive injunctions, they are mostly a descriptive code of conduct. Just as the Bible itself becomes mostly gentler and kinder as it moves from the chronicles of an Iron Age society to the inspirational message of a more modern world, the basis of morality becomes more universal by the time of the New Testament. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is an ethical normative meme that spans countries, civilizations, and time. The commandments that deal with human interactions can be seen (with some slight rewording) as examples of the Golden Rule.

Similarly, Western culture has absorbed the prescriptive meme of karma -- "What goes around, comes around" and "Instant karma's gonna get you" -- and has begun to unravel the ramifications of the normative meme of Pay-It-Forward-Ism.

In game theory as applied to social interactions, the tit for tat and tit for tat with forgiveness tactics in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma seem to be the best deterministic strategies. Cooperate until betrayed and then respond in kind (maybe with a little "I forgive you for defecting that last time" thrown in.)

So, where have I gotten? So far, the best I can come up with is:

Atheists know that morality is the human response to issues of social interaction, not delivered from on high. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is not just a rule – it’s a Good Idea.

The Power of Visualization

One of the things that the development of computers has made possible is incredibly powerful visual images. It's almost impossible to find a movie made in the last 10-20 years that doesn't make some use of CGI (computer generated imagery.) Stick around through the credits of any recent realistic movie and you will see that somebody is being credited with computer imagery or enhancement. And we're not talking Beowulf or the latest Pixar flic but all normal, "realistic" movies.

But that's not the only kind of visualization that computers have made possible. A very powerful tool is data visualization. This involves taking data and devising a visual presentation of it. There need not be anything new about the data -- just the presentation.

The folks over at GapMinder.org have developed just such a tool. The video below shows some of the kinds of things you can notice and learn just by visualizing data that used to be presented in pages of numbers with the occasional chart or three.

If you find this intriguing, head on over to GapMinder World where you can play with a large number of different datasets from the convenience of your own browser. Maybe you'll come up with some insights that others haven't seen yet.

Political Rhetoric Explained by Steven Pinker

A bit from a talk by Steven Pinker, one of the more interesting writers on psychology, mind, and language. I particularly liked his quotation of Michael Kinsley's definition of a gaffe:

... a gaffe is when a politician says something that is true.

His discussion of how words can become colored like swear words is intriguing. Liberal in America connotes something much different than in does in Canada.

This clip is just an excerpt from the full video. See info in the clip to get the whole thing.

Our Diverse History Is Even More Varied & Interesting Than We Have Been Taught

My long-time friend Kathleen Thompson is one of the founders of the site OneHistory.org.

Kathleen's background includes being a bookseller, an author, a playwright, an editor, an educator, and — throughout it all — a feminist (she co-authored the classic Against Rape). Her diverse interests have reached a new stage with OneHistory.

Let's face it, American history is not what most of us have always thought it was. It is not a neat story written in a book or even a hundred books. Not only is it far from finished -- we're living it right now -- but it is far from being recovered, reclaimed, and recorded. So many voices have been silenced for so long that our historical chorus has often sounded like a brass band with only one trumpet and a beat up tuba.

So, what is OneHistory trying to do about it?

OneHistory was founded ... for students, teachers, and the general public. Our aim is to have high-quality, accessible content for all levels of learners and for a variety of interests. ...

Because of both personal experience and professional exposure, we are acutely aware of the educational difficulties faced by many children. That is why we have a number of features designed specifically for Hi-Lo readers. In addition, after witnessing the power that images from our book The Face of Our Past had on a huge variety of audiences, we began to explore the power of imagery as a teaching tool.

We at OneHistory are passionate about historic images and this site has a number of features designed to help people understand their power. Like a diary or other text document, an image is a primary document. And like a text document, a historic image must be read with care. In others words people must become visually literate. Toward that end, we have included an entire section of the site devoted to visual history.

As an example, I was pleasantly surprised to find an early plea for religious freedom — freedom of and freedom from — by an early (Native) American.

Red Jacket (c. 1750-1830) was a Seneca leader and spokesman for the Six Nations. He gave this speech in 1805 in response to appeals by missionaries that his people convert to Christianity.

An excerpt:

Brother, continue to listen. You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to His mind; and, if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are right and we are lost. How do we know this to be true? We understand that your religion is written in a Book. If it was intended for us, as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given to us, and not only to us, but why did He not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that Book, with the means of understanding it rightly. We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white people?

Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why do not all agree, as you can all read the Book?

If you get some time, go browse around OneHistory.org. I'm sure you'll find something new or interesting. If you can, recommend it to other students, teachers, or parents who might find it useful.

Let's keep more of our heritage from disappearing into the dustbins of history.  

Where Were You When You Heard?

The passing today of Sen. Edward Kennedy brings to end a period of my life in America.  The Camelot dynasty has finally concluded. With his death and the recent death of his sister Eunice, it seems like all the links to the past have finally fallen away and we are on our own.  I'm sure I won't remember finding out this morning on my 5am work break.  But I remember where I was when I heard some of the other news ...

Mr. G's eighth grade science class, rightmost row, next to the back chair-desk, about 10 feet from the classroom door, late morning in Oregon: November 22, 1963. President John F. Kennedy shot and killed in Dallas, Texas.

High school senior, working after school at my dad's woodworking shop, stopping at the ice cream shop on the way home for dinner, listening to the radio as Dad went into the shop: April 4, 1968.  Martin Luther King assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

High school graduation, early evening, checking our gowns and hats and shoes, milling about in the hallways while our parents and siblings worked their way into the auditorium, then sitting through the ceremony to get to the much more fun overnight lock-in of movies and such (The Guns of Navaronne was on the big screeen.): June 4-5, 1968.  Robert Kennedy assassinated in Los Angeles, California.  Somehow we found out about the initial shooting but then had no information until we got home the next day.  He died about 26 hours after the shooting.

I've heard of many deaths since then but I don't remember any of the details surrounding getting the news.  I suppose every generation has their own version of this.  The recent death of Michael Jackson will probably be remembered by some the same way I remember the deaths of JFK, MLK, and RFK.