tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-109445602024-03-16T09:47:43.892-04:00Real PhysicsA Realistic Exploration into Nature
<p><small>“What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.”</small></p>Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.comBlogger365125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-26211038815689086412024-02-01T17:13:00.000-05:002024-02-01T17:13:11.892-05:00Pagan Temptations A long time ago when I was an undergraduate, I read Thomas Molnar's The Pagan Temptation. One of the take-aways that remains with me to this day is that the pagan temptation is Gnosticism, or neo-gnosticism. That's undoubtedly an over-simplification, but it's what sticks with me decades after having lost touch with my copy of the book. My apologies to Dr. Molnar, may he rest in peace.
Molnar wasLawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-58550986041898481072023-12-25T15:43:00.001-05:002023-12-25T15:43:40.045-05:00Bridging the Infinite StrangenessThomas Nagel once wrote a famous paper "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?", about how we really can't know what the internal, subjective experience of another radically different being is like, for example, an animal with a strange suite of senses, such as a bat. But have you ever wondered how utterly alien it must be to be the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator and Sustainer of all being? Saying "his Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-68097571832680734122023-10-03T13:16:00.002-04:002023-10-03T13:16:28.170-04:00Michael F. Flynn, RIPAlas, science fiction novelist Michael F. Flynn passed to his eternal reward on September 30. His daughter announced it
through his blog on Sunday.
Ed Feser has a fitting, heartfelt tribute on his blog. For my part I can only say a couple words. I appreciated Michael's comments on this, my irregular blog. As you can see from his comments on my last post, he was an insightful commentator with a Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-54201371052858492902023-08-01T22:47:00.000-04:002023-08-01T22:47:20.188-04:00A Mechanical SuperstitionJust a hot take regarding this short video: A Bet Against Quantum Gravity (6.75 mins).
I don't have the credentials in the field to evaluate the merits of Jonathan Oppenheim's research program. But I have a natural philosopher's gut instinct. I like very much the fact that Oppenheim's theory allows information to be destroyed. As he says of the black hole information paradox, "It's only a Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-22625897568365398432023-05-07T12:02:00.004-04:002023-05-07T12:08:56.504-04:00The Fright of Infinite Spaces
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
—Pascal, Pensées, 206
It's well known that the Milky Way in the Star Trek universe is surrounded by a barrier, as shown in the original series episodes "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "By Any Other Name". But I recently learned that there is also a barrier around the far-away Star Wars galaxy too. But why? Why a galactic Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-11879578779632813922023-04-23T11:08:00.002-04:002023-05-07T12:03:29.974-04:00The Greater Does Not Come from the LessI've been reading Garrigou-Lagrange's Providence. Perhaps its most foundational principle, highlighted in the first paragraph:
The greater does not come from the less, the more perfect does not come from the less perfect, since the latter is incapable of producing the effect. [emphasis in original]
Now, Providence is a great book that I highly recommend. But if would be anyway it could now Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-88413940966790390922023-01-08T16:54:00.001-05:002023-01-08T16:56:10.117-05:00Intelligence in Non-human AnimalsRecently re-read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I was quite fond of it when I originally read it as an adolescent. I wasn't a fan of the 1982 movie The Secret of NIMH. It was missing the wistful quality of the ending because it dispensed with the plot thread about the rats' forced departure. There's something about being temporarily let in on a vanishing secret bigger than oneself.
Reading itLawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-85678406229770991762022-09-16T15:29:00.000-04:002022-09-16T15:29:33.255-04:00The Surprise of Human AdulthoodIn recent years I've from time to time heard the lament that the adults aren't in charge anymore, as they were for example in the middle of last century. Along the same lines it's been said of a good person in an otherwise irresponsible organization that he or she is "the adult in the room." Certainly there does seem to be of late a dearth of people willing to put aside their own peculiar Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-11025234361569566852022-08-21T16:38:00.002-04:002022-09-16T15:30:17.754-04:00The Cartesian-Baconian Influence on Liturgy A friend highlighted this Evening Prayer intercession for the Liturgy of the Hours (Thursday of Week IV):
Lord, it is your will that men use their minds to unlock nature’s secrets and master the world,
– may the arts and sciences advance your glory and the happiness of all peoples.
Give us light, peace and security, Lord.1, 2
"That men use their minds to unlock nature’s secrets and Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-27241686153354376152022-05-15T07:50:00.003-04:002022-05-15T07:50:39.028-04:00Strawberry worldSpring has sprung and strawberries are everywhere. Real strawberries are sometimes sweet, but usually mostly sour. It's strange the way the flavor I tend to associate with "strawberries" is more characteristic of confections like candy or ice cream. It's a bit like life and love.
So strawberries don't become "strawberries" except by adding loads of sugar. Many indications these days say that Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-81597332295893762922022-04-15T16:55:00.001-04:002022-04-15T16:55:19.668-04:00What PriceIf you could experience a period of elevated creativity and fruitfulness along with unparalleled emptiness and suffering, would you do it? What if both aspects of that period were necessary for the continuation of the world, or its redemption from descent into chaos?
There's a saying that's been going around in a meme:
Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-63305358038325470462022-03-13T12:48:00.004-04:002022-03-13T14:02:43.014-04:00Abraham and AristotleI've been listening to the
History of Philosophy podcast. One thing that has struck me with some force is the great similarity of the three Abramhamic religions in taking up Plato and Aristotle, especially Aristotle. The Jews have Maimonides, the Muslims Avicenna, and the Christians Aquinas as the most prominent philosophers of their respective faiths, and these men might fairly be called Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-88884924346279589472021-12-12T15:32:00.000-05:002021-12-12T15:32:45.094-05:00Twinning and ensoulmentA friend told me about the great Jimmy Akin's blog post on identical twinning and ensoulment. The Catholic doctrine is that for a normal, non-twin embryo, God creates the rational soul at the moment of conception. (Please note that this issue of ensoulment is only tangentially related to the issue of the humanity of the embryo from the moment of conception. Ensoulment is a matter of faith and Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-66941699062130137412021-06-29T21:45:00.006-04:002021-06-29T22:01:58.285-04:00Ultimate and Penultimate CurrenciesNote: I started writing this in January 2010, and apparently put it away for some time. The basic theorem is an idea that has stayed with me and that I think on not infrequently. I actually thought I had published it here already. Oops.
In reading Cardinal Ratzinger's Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life on the evolution through salvation history of the notion of our reward from our Creator, a Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-14563647523403203722021-06-19T18:38:00.002-04:002021-06-19T18:38:37.699-04:00Justice and gratitudeA friend recently reposted on Facebook a tweet that made the very worthy point that people who build accomodations for the handicapped in churches shouldn't expect effusive thanks from the people they've helped, since the act was a simply the duty of justice. It's a great point! But it made me reflect more deeply on the tension between justice and gratitude.
Justice of course is mandated by GodLawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-54963118913846473362021-06-12T18:06:00.005-04:002021-06-12T18:07:44.805-04:00Heavenly families?The epistle from St. Paul for yesterday's solemnity contains the following clauses that I've often heard:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named... (Eph 3:14-15)
But something struck me for the very first time yesterday. Apparently there are two different domains for families, heaven and earth. Earthly families we're all Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-2227024806894184292021-05-16T14:30:00.000-04:002021-05-16T14:30:25.913-04:00Sean Carroll and EmergentismWith excitement a Catholic physicist friend pointed me to a recent paper by Sean Carroll Reality as a Vector in Hilbert Space. Carroll, as you may know, is a prominent atheist. My friend says Carroll's paper shows he is turning toward a more realistic metaphysics, and singles out this paragraph:
Nothing in this perspective implies that we should think of spacetime or quantum fields as Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-235611248931767022021-04-26T20:08:00.002-04:002021-04-26T20:08:49.409-04:00Foundations of MathematicsI watched this interesting 2017 PBS video "Crisis in the Foundation of Mathematics" today. I was struck by how in the Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory of the foundations of mathematics, the existence of infinite series has to be defined as an axiom: it's not automatic that they exist.
Another thing that came to mind is the weird way that mathematicians try to formulate a foundation for their Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-6310468558162309332021-04-02T15:00:00.003-04:002021-04-02T15:00:00.797-04:00Death to Self and Discernment
That outward circumstances play a part in the formation of a spiritual judgment may be seen by merely looking at the kind of circumstances that interior souls at one time or another have to face. It is easy enough to estimate the effect of these things upon their characters. Loss of material goods conduces to a man's discernment. With detachment from outward standards comes a greater reliance Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-85796929593147240782021-03-26T12:25:00.006-04:002021-03-26T12:28:07.191-04:00Nature and SupernatureFrom David Schindler, I learned that "matter" and "form" are both relative terms. Now from Peter Kreeft, I learn that "natural" and "supernatural" are also relative terms:
The life of a human being, body and soul, material and spiritual, visible and invisible, is natural life, life that is natural to us. The word for natural life in Greek is bios. Zōē, in contrast, means supernatural life, Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-31437923739378233042020-12-25T23:05:00.000-05:002020-12-25T23:05:13.787-05:00The coming of the Light
In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us. (Lk 1:78)
Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-66487689183675143272020-12-18T20:46:00.001-05:002020-12-19T07:36:47.307-05:00Your time is knownOver the course of many years, I've been pondering the classic Doctor Who episode "Full Circle" (first aired in late 1980). You may recall it as the episode that inroduces the Doctor's companion Adric. I'll summarize the essential plot points, but will have to reveal a spoiler or two in the following paragraphs. So the fourth Doctor and his companion Romana end up in a parallel universe and land Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-81764012169481009442020-12-10T11:35:00.000-05:002020-12-10T11:35:24.696-05:00A talent for fooling ourselvesNot too long ago I came across a demo video (about 2 mins.) created in real-time by a physics/ray-tracing engine for a gaming system. It's pretty amazing how realistic everything in this virtual world looks, and how convincing the movement is—aside from the superhuman abilities required of the avatar (pretty usual in gaming). In the name of entertaining each other, we've developed a singular Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-39101870946688333552020-12-03T21:29:00.007-05:002020-12-04T08:23:42.156-05:00The Ultimate Power of TruthI ran across a powerful quotation from Romano Guardini that's appropriate to this time of year when we're thinking about the Last Things, and the coming of Jesus:
In this world, the truth is weak. A trifle suffices to hide it. The stupidest persons can attack it. But someday the time will come when things will change. God will bring it about that truth will be as powerful as it is true; and Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-51247472590695133762020-11-26T13:06:00.001-05:002020-12-03T21:34:33.833-05:00GratitudeIt's been a tough year, but there are still many reasons to be grateful. Actually there are reasons to be grateful no matter how bad things get.
Gratitude is the most important virtue, and our most important duty, both to God and to other people, as you can read in more depth thanks to "Reading Cicero on Thanksgiving
" by Jim Tonkowich.
Here's a short (under 7 minutes) video on the beauty of Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.com0