I recently read a copy of Noah Feldman's Orthodox Paradox article in the New York Times's Magazine section. For those of you unfamiliar with it, you can read it at this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/magazine/22yeshiva-t.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1185229056-Y2YozeEGE7olejbHwQXrnQ
In Orthodox Paradox, Feldman mentions how the author found himself and his girlfriend edited out of a class reunion picture because his girlfriend was Korean. He had attended Maimonides School, an Orthodox Jewish school in the Boston area, and the interfaith relationship violated one of the major aspects of Jewish tradition. He then goes on to mention how one of Maimonides's guiding principles has been to teach students to be outstanding members of both the Jewish and secular communities with a firm grounding in tradition, culture, and morality.
Clearly, both Feldman and Maimonides have valid arguments for their actions. I am not opening up that can of worms. Most of my comments will relate to the fact that I
understand where he is coming from. Why is that?
I am also an alumnus of Maimonides. Most of my comments will involve my own experiences at the school.
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I graduated two years after Feldman, in the same class as Simon Feldman (Noah Feldman's brother)
and Sarah Bronson (the authorof the chayyeisarah.blogspot.com blog). I arrived at Maimonides in ninth grade, after spending eight years at Solomon Schechter.
My family attended an Orthodox synagogue in Newton, where I would go with my father every Saturday. This, combined with my years at Schechter, exposed me to both Orthodox and Conservative traditions during the formative years of my life. It should not come as a surprise to you that I consider myself Conservadox today, somewhere on the border between Orthodox and Conservative.
When I first visited Maimonides, I found the strict Orthodox customs relatively intimidating. Many of the customs practiced by the students and teachers were unfamiliar. Had Boston's New Jewish High School (now called the Gann Academy, I believe) existed in those days, it is a virtual certainty that I would have gone there. However, Maimonides was the only option for a Jewish high school at the time.
It came down to a choice between the strict atmosphere at Maimonides and finding myself bullied at public school as a nerd. Although my ideologies were more of a match for Newton South High School than Maimonides, my parents and I were convinced that I would have been eaten alive at public school. I didn't like the idea all that much, but I figured I had no choice. It had to be Maimonides. One would have expected religious people to be more ethical and caring than secular people.
Two other people came to Maimonides with me from Schechter. One of them was a bright girl from a traditional Maimonides family who eventually would attend Harvard. The other was my closest childhood friend, a truly saintly young man who had recently found religion and eventually became a devout Orthodox rabbi.
You can already in this sampling of two people Maimonides's ability to produce bright people capable of leading both the secular and religious communities.
Life at Maimonides was often difficult, especially for those without a strong religious background. The day began at 8:00 with morning prayers and did not end
until roughly 6:00 PM. Yes, that is a long day, but good double-curriculum education means lots of time in the classroom. There was a strict dress code (modest skirts for the girls and a prohibition against jeans and T-shirts for the boys). Judaica classes in the high school were generally led by fully-ordained Orthodox rabbis who clearly knew the religious texts. Mixed dancing was prohibited (as is often the case in religious communities), turning the experience into
something close to a real-life version of Footloose.
As far as secular education was concerned, we had history courses, science, foreign languages in addition to Hebrew, social studies, computer programming, and several other courses which prepared us for living in a secular world. Maimonides was also known for its excellent math team,
a team which consistently won the New England Small School Championships despite an overall enrollment of maybe half of their competitors. My class alone had two of the four students in New England to score 40 out of 40 on a major New England competition. One of them eventually became a chemistry professor at Yale.
I can't remember what happened to the other one, but I vaguely remember that he has a blog.
Study of the Talmud -- in effect, the minutes of the debates of the classical Jewish theological senate (the Sanhedrin) was one of the hallmarks of Maimonides. And for good reason.
The ability to think through a particular rabbi's argument for or against a certain custom taught the students deductive reasoning while simultaneously teaching them Jewish tradition.
The Talmud teacher also made it a point to give pop quizzes, a strategy which we hated as students but which, in retrospect, made him an excellent teacher because it forced us to study the material more thoroughly in preparation for a possible quiz the next day. You'd be surprised how often the teachers you hate turn out to be the best teachers in the end.
As my parents had hoped, the students proved to be caring, bright, and friendly. There was no bullying whatsoever, as far as I could tell. However, I had to keep my guard up against violating some of the Orthodox customs. A few weeks after I arrived, I gave a girl a hug, an act commonplace at Schechter but considered inappropriate in some Orthodox communities (not that I knew at the time). The girl told her mother and I was eventually called on it. Not knowing who was religious and who was not, I began to assume that everyone was religious
and began putting on a relatively religious facade as to not offend them (and to avoid possible problems with the teachers).
As I'm writing this, I'm concerned that some of my classmates might see this and think ill of me. However, as I was writing the previous sentence, I figured that it's unlikely given the sense of ethics that school
must have instilled in people. Besides, who knows if there were other less observant people in my class and hid it the same way I did?
Although the students were nice for the most part, the administration did not seem to be
particularly supportive of relatively unorthodox (or Conservative) views of religion. To their credit, a tradition must work to restrain unbridled creativity if it is to maintain itself through years.
Having been seeded with a significant amount of Conservative background through my Schechter experience, I often resented the administration's tendencies to assume that there was only one right way to do things. Yet
I am not a particularly avid risk taker and as a result did not try to express my own views at
the school.
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Unfortunately, strong adherence to tradition and attempts to block out new ideas took its toll as well. There were several instances where the closed-mindedness of the authorities manifested itself, some of which could have very well been on the level of erasing Feldman's image from the class picture.
I was in a Judaic studies class once when a certain rabbi (whom I will call X for the time being) claimed that the 1987 earthquake in California was God's punishment for the gays in San Francisco. He said this in a matter-of-fact voice and no one commented on it. However, I was deeply troubled by this and talked to my parents. My mother was livid, and she relayed the incident to a friend of the family who was the rabbi of a prominent
Conservative synagogue. A year or so later, I was praying at the Conservative rabbi's synagogue when the rabbi actually preached against X from the pulpit! Although in general I dislike it -- GREATLY -- when one of the branch of Judaism argues with another (everyone worships the same God), I figured that X deserved it. Even though homosexuality is theoretically prohibited, what
other people do (especially non-Jews) is none of our business.
An equally troubling incident involved the comperative religion lecture. Supposedly there was to be a two hour class on Christianity. The lecturer (whom I will call Y) spent two minutes describing Christianity and 118 minutes saying why it was all hogwash. I was absolutely incensed. Saying Judaism is valid is one thing. Saying Christianity is *invalid* is something entirely different. Technically, from the halachic (Jewish law) standpoint, the rabbi would have been correct. But what he should have done, in my opinion, is spend one hour on introducing Christianity and one hour on how it differed from Judaism. Sometimes, candid factual discussion can be just too blunt.
I can go on further, but I don't want this blog entry to focus on the negative. Suffice it to say that despite a reputation for rigidity and closed-mindedness, the school has produced a disproportionate number of bright, successful, moral, and well-rounded people who are devoted to Judaism in its religious and/or cultural forms. And you can take that to the bank.
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Which brings me back to Noah Feldman. As far as I'm concerned, organized religion serves several purposes. It gives worshipers something to believe in when times are tough, a sense of community, and a sense of morality. When practiced properly, it can make a person someone to look up to as a paragon of virtue and leadership. Granted, not everybody in the religious community may agree with Feldman's assessment. But I have several very close friends who have experienced a lifestyle similar to that at Maimonides and I am convinced that they would agree with it.
I may have more to say later.
NOTE: Tonight is the Ninth of Av, a day in the Jewish calendar traditionally associated with mourning and
remembrance of catastrophes which have befallen the Jewish people. These catastrophes include the destruction of the Temple and subsequent exile of the Jewish people from Israel, events which many writers and prophets have attributed to the sins of the ancient Jewish community. I hope that this blog entry does not produce a flame war, where the denominations of Judaism start arguing with and antagonizing each other even though God loves them all. Remember the warnings of the writers and the prophets. You don't want to
lose Israel if it's going to take 1800 years for a new Jewish state to re-emerge.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Should a fan blow in or out?
It's very hot today, and I have a fan. This fan has the ability for both exhaust (blowing air out the back of the fan) or intake (blowing air into the room).
The question: what is best for cooling a room, blowing the hot air out or blowing the cool air in?
The answer may depend on the circumstances. If you want to cool a certain POINT in the room, then blowing the cool air at the point is best -- air is funneled to the point at high speed which produces both an influx of cold air and a wind chill.
But what happens if you want to cool off an entire room? Or you want to keep a room cool while you are not there? An air conditioner will work, but it's expensive to operate and it may be bad for the environment.
Consider the following example. You get home from work and it's 75 degrees outside after a hot day of 90. The air in your room is still at 90, but the air outside is still at 75. If there has been little circulation in the room over the course of the day, you may assume that floor is cooler than the ceiling -- after all, heat rises. You may also assume that the room is relatively airtight and there are several other rooms of roughly the same temperature -- 90 degrees -- adjacent to the room with the fan.
If we leave the fan on intake for the whole day, we may be blowing 90 degree air into the apartment during the course of the day at a faster rate than it would have entered during the course of the day if the fan weren't on to begin with. Wind chill would have no effect on the air itself -- that's a human physiological reaction. The only place which would be cool would be one area of the room where you are not (since you are at work).
If we leave the fan on exhaust for the whole day, on the other hand, it will be difficult for the
hotter air outside to make it into the room. It will help clear the entire room and ensure that air doesn't stay in the room long enough to get really hot. However, how much good would that do? If most of the air is blown out at window level (maybe a couple of feet above the ground), that air would have to be replaced by something -- and that something would likely just be the hotter air closer to the ceiling.
If there is no fan at ALL (and the fan is out of the window), it's easier for air to leave or enter the room than it would be if the fan were in the window (and off). After all, the fan is blocking the exit.
So think about it. There are lots of cases.
The question: what is best for cooling a room, blowing the hot air out or blowing the cool air in?
The answer may depend on the circumstances. If you want to cool a certain POINT in the room, then blowing the cool air at the point is best -- air is funneled to the point at high speed which produces both an influx of cold air and a wind chill.
But what happens if you want to cool off an entire room? Or you want to keep a room cool while you are not there? An air conditioner will work, but it's expensive to operate and it may be bad for the environment.
Consider the following example. You get home from work and it's 75 degrees outside after a hot day of 90. The air in your room is still at 90, but the air outside is still at 75. If there has been little circulation in the room over the course of the day, you may assume that floor is cooler than the ceiling -- after all, heat rises. You may also assume that the room is relatively airtight and there are several other rooms of roughly the same temperature -- 90 degrees -- adjacent to the room with the fan.
If we leave the fan on intake for the whole day, we may be blowing 90 degree air into the apartment during the course of the day at a faster rate than it would have entered during the course of the day if the fan weren't on to begin with. Wind chill would have no effect on the air itself -- that's a human physiological reaction. The only place which would be cool would be one area of the room where you are not (since you are at work).
If we leave the fan on exhaust for the whole day, on the other hand, it will be difficult for the
hotter air outside to make it into the room. It will help clear the entire room and ensure that air doesn't stay in the room long enough to get really hot. However, how much good would that do? If most of the air is blown out at window level (maybe a couple of feet above the ground), that air would have to be replaced by something -- and that something would likely just be the hotter air closer to the ceiling.
If there is no fan at ALL (and the fan is out of the window), it's easier for air to leave or enter the room than it would be if the fan were in the window (and off). After all, the fan is blocking the exit.
So think about it. There are lots of cases.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Community values in a tight-knit fishing community
Many places in America have lost all sense of community, places where profit has become more important than people. Communities are being dissolved as people find themselves bereft of quality time with their peers due to unusually long work weeks. Individual cultures and traditions tend to lose their integrity as the Internet and other aspects of global culture tend to make society more homogeneous. However, there seem to be a few places where community and
compassion still survive.
I recently spent a weekend in Vinalhaven, Maine. Vinalhaven is an island fifteen (or so) miles away from Rockland, reachable only by ferry. It has about 1200 permanent residents, with the population swelling to about 4000 or so during the summer. Although this is a marked increase, it is nothing compared to tourist traps like Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard where hundreds of thousands of tourists visit over the
course of a summer.
There are several reasons tourists tend to ignore Vinalhaven. First, it is up in Maine, well past the outlet stores in Freeport. Even tourists who continue past Freeport into Acadia National Park generally bypass Rockland (most of them take I-95 up to Bangor or Augusta and then drive south to Bar Harbor; Rockland is on US-1). Second, Vinalhaven has virtually *no* touristy stores or chains. From what I saw, there were maybe *two* small tourist stores in the entire downtown area. Contrast that with at least three or four small seasonal mom and pop restaurants, a hardware store, and at most three or four inns. The only chain I saw was the post office: the United Postal Service.
Vinalhaven is first and foremost a working fishing town. Most of the people there are lobstermen (in case you are wondering what I ate, they had salmon and haddock as well). There are stores called the Fisherman's Friend and the Vinalhaven Fisherman's Co-op. Many years ago, Gloucester MA may have been this way. However, Gloucester is on the mainland and is much easier for tourists to reach -- it's only 30 miles or so from Boston and is on the Boston commuter rail). It is this isolation that has allowed the people in Vinalhaven to maintain their fishing traditions and communities in this age of globalization. The main newspaper there is Wind, published on someone's home computer. There is no cellphone reception and only one gas station (whose $3.63 price tag includes the cost of getting the gas from the mainland to the island). I don't recall seeing a single traffic light. Cars must secure their positions on the ferry month in advance as the ferry holds maybe 10 cars.
Closely knit communities like this are good for maintaining morality and culture. Allow me to describe several incidents which took place on this trip. Can you imagine them happening in Boston? Or New York? Or even Gloucester?
Upon arriving on the island, the GPS took me and my SO to a house in an unusual location. The people maintaining the hotel database for the GPS system had forgotten to put our B&B's house number in the system, so it presumably sent us to house number 0. We hung out outside the house for a while. Inside the house, people were looking out their window at us.
If you live in a big city, what would you expect would happen next? "Get off our property!", right?
The people come out of the house with the inevitable "Can I help you"? We explain our predicament and were surprised with their response. They actually let us INTO their house, among several kids, to look up the B&B in the phone book. How many of you would have the guts (or community upbringing) to do that? The SO calls only to get a fax machine, at which
point a local in the house suggests a route we should take.
We thank them and start walking down the road. Eventually, the people (who were driving
our way anyway) pull up beside us and ask us if we needed a lift. Who picks up hitchhikers
in the cities? I didn't think so. We declined and kept on going.
The B&B turned out to be run by (from what we could tell) a very religious Christian family
(there were crosses all over the place, old Bibles, and such). When the husband turned the
TV on at some point, I expected him to be watching the Red Sox. It turned out he was
watching some religious programming about Lilith (the legendary first wife of Adam) and
Asenath (the Egyptian wife of Joseph, with the narrator considering the question why a biblical hero would be marrying an Egyptian). This sounds like morality you would expect from religious people. What is even more surprising is that they left the door unlocked all the time. They didn't even give us keys. If someone did that in the cities someone would get robbed very quickly.
The biggest surprise of them all came when my SO lost her wallet somewhere between downtown and a seal-viewing lagoon called the Basin (a three-mile walk each way). I explained the situation to a restaurant owner -- and was astonished when she threw us her car keys and let us borrow her car! I drove the SO down all the way back down (which is highly unusual in that I generally do not drive on Saturday -- this was a bit of an emergency -- hence the six-mile walk earlier in the day) to take another look: it was close to sunset and we were concerned that it would be dark by the time we got there if we had gone back on foot. She didn't find it. The B&B owner the let the SO use the B&B owner's own computer -- on the OWNER'S ACCOUNT -- to figure out how to cancel all the credit cards and get her state ID replaced. All in all, a rather panicky situation.
The reason she hadn't found the wallet became clear a day later. Shortly before embarking on the six-mile walk, her wallet had fallen out near a bookstore downtown. One of the store's employees found it, looked up her last name in the phone book, found it (her grandfather has a summer house there -- the only reason she and I knew about Vinalhaven), and left his number with the grandfather. The message is eventually relayed to the SO en route back to Boston (once cell phone service is restored). She thanks him and insists that she take the money (which was still in the wallet -- neither the bookseller nor another tourist had taken it!). The bookseller refuses.
Incredible. Who says there aren't decent people in this country anymore.
compassion still survive.
I recently spent a weekend in Vinalhaven, Maine. Vinalhaven is an island fifteen (or so) miles away from Rockland, reachable only by ferry. It has about 1200 permanent residents, with the population swelling to about 4000 or so during the summer. Although this is a marked increase, it is nothing compared to tourist traps like Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard where hundreds of thousands of tourists visit over the
course of a summer.
There are several reasons tourists tend to ignore Vinalhaven. First, it is up in Maine, well past the outlet stores in Freeport. Even tourists who continue past Freeport into Acadia National Park generally bypass Rockland (most of them take I-95 up to Bangor or Augusta and then drive south to Bar Harbor; Rockland is on US-1). Second, Vinalhaven has virtually *no* touristy stores or chains. From what I saw, there were maybe *two* small tourist stores in the entire downtown area. Contrast that with at least three or four small seasonal mom and pop restaurants, a hardware store, and at most three or four inns. The only chain I saw was the post office: the United Postal Service.
Vinalhaven is first and foremost a working fishing town. Most of the people there are lobstermen (in case you are wondering what I ate, they had salmon and haddock as well). There are stores called the Fisherman's Friend and the Vinalhaven Fisherman's Co-op. Many years ago, Gloucester MA may have been this way. However, Gloucester is on the mainland and is much easier for tourists to reach -- it's only 30 miles or so from Boston and is on the Boston commuter rail). It is this isolation that has allowed the people in Vinalhaven to maintain their fishing traditions and communities in this age of globalization. The main newspaper there is Wind, published on someone's home computer. There is no cellphone reception and only one gas station (whose $3.63 price tag includes the cost of getting the gas from the mainland to the island). I don't recall seeing a single traffic light. Cars must secure their positions on the ferry month in advance as the ferry holds maybe 10 cars.
Closely knit communities like this are good for maintaining morality and culture. Allow me to describe several incidents which took place on this trip. Can you imagine them happening in Boston? Or New York? Or even Gloucester?
Upon arriving on the island, the GPS took me and my SO to a house in an unusual location. The people maintaining the hotel database for the GPS system had forgotten to put our B&B's house number in the system, so it presumably sent us to house number 0. We hung out outside the house for a while. Inside the house, people were looking out their window at us.
If you live in a big city, what would you expect would happen next? "Get off our property!", right?
The people come out of the house with the inevitable "Can I help you"? We explain our predicament and were surprised with their response. They actually let us INTO their house, among several kids, to look up the B&B in the phone book. How many of you would have the guts (or community upbringing) to do that? The SO calls only to get a fax machine, at which
point a local in the house suggests a route we should take.
We thank them and start walking down the road. Eventually, the people (who were driving
our way anyway) pull up beside us and ask us if we needed a lift. Who picks up hitchhikers
in the cities? I didn't think so. We declined and kept on going.
The B&B turned out to be run by (from what we could tell) a very religious Christian family
(there were crosses all over the place, old Bibles, and such). When the husband turned the
TV on at some point, I expected him to be watching the Red Sox. It turned out he was
watching some religious programming about Lilith (the legendary first wife of Adam) and
Asenath (the Egyptian wife of Joseph, with the narrator considering the question why a biblical hero would be marrying an Egyptian). This sounds like morality you would expect from religious people. What is even more surprising is that they left the door unlocked all the time. They didn't even give us keys. If someone did that in the cities someone would get robbed very quickly.
The biggest surprise of them all came when my SO lost her wallet somewhere between downtown and a seal-viewing lagoon called the Basin (a three-mile walk each way). I explained the situation to a restaurant owner -- and was astonished when she threw us her car keys and let us borrow her car! I drove the SO down all the way back down (which is highly unusual in that I generally do not drive on Saturday -- this was a bit of an emergency -- hence the six-mile walk earlier in the day) to take another look: it was close to sunset and we were concerned that it would be dark by the time we got there if we had gone back on foot. She didn't find it. The B&B owner the let the SO use the B&B owner's own computer -- on the OWNER'S ACCOUNT -- to figure out how to cancel all the credit cards and get her state ID replaced. All in all, a rather panicky situation.
The reason she hadn't found the wallet became clear a day later. Shortly before embarking on the six-mile walk, her wallet had fallen out near a bookstore downtown. One of the store's employees found it, looked up her last name in the phone book, found it (her grandfather has a summer house there -- the only reason she and I knew about Vinalhaven), and left his number with the grandfather. The message is eventually relayed to the SO en route back to Boston (once cell phone service is restored). She thanks him and insists that she take the money (which was still in the wallet -- neither the bookseller nor another tourist had taken it!). The bookseller refuses.
Incredible. Who says there aren't decent people in this country anymore.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Evolution of religion
I've started to wonder whether Darwin's theory of evolution can apply to religious practice as well. Is the way that religions evolve over time similar to the way organisms evolve over time?
An important thing to consider is to whether or not this evolution is Darwinian (where evolution is basically random and has no long-term goal) or Lamarckian (where there is in fact a long-term goal).
We can start with the three Abrahamic religions. Starting with a primitive proto-Judaism somewhere in the Fertile Crescent which is now extinct, biblical Judaism emerged. It evolves over time to handle cultural and environmental changes (conquest of the Jewish "organisms" by competitors such as Assyria, destruction of the temple, and so forth) and in doing so creates several daughter religion "species". Many of these die out (the Essenes, for instance). Some spread (Christianity, for instance).
At what point does a religion become a completely different "species" from its parent? We can use the same criterion evolution uses: it is no longer possible for members of the two religions to "breed" and produce viable offspring. Now consider the fact that interfaith marriages very often produce children who are not religious -- effectively infertile in terms of religion. What's more, religious communities often have prohibitions against intermarriage, which will also encourage speciation.
With this in mind, Christianity quickly reached the point where it is no longer the same species as Judaism. Once intermarriage between the two faiths petered out, they started evolving completely independently. Catholicism as we know it now is nothing like Judaism.
Let's look at several things which cause evolutionary change according to Darwin and see if they apply to religion.
1. Survival of the fittest. Those are healthiest survive. The religious equivalent for this are the orthodox minorities who maintain their traditions as is and pass them on to the next generation. A tradition which lets other cultures interfere with this process could be considered
unfit in this regard as its rituals and customs may be diluted.
2. Changes in the environment cause changes in a species, most of which are negative but some of which are positive. This also makes sense. When the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the Jews could no longer sacrifice animals at the
central altar there. They had to devise other means to communicate with God. Those who did -- using prayer for instance -- prospered. Those who did not may have assimilated and therefore served as a dead end for that species. Similarly, changes in the intellectual environment around the time of the Renaissance may have been instrumental in getting Luther's movement off the ground.
3. The more offspring, the better. So some get eaten by animals, diseases, and so forth. As
long as enough survive, the religion makes it to the next generation. It's an interesting coincidence that many religions frown on birth control.
4. Ensuring that your offspring make it to breeding age is crucial. In a religious context, that means training them in the tradition at a very young age. However, more importantly, a culture has to make sure that competitors/predators don't destroy it. This can be done in several ways taken right out of nature: camouflage (think of the Marranos), aggression (proselytizing), making yourself seem nonthreatening (adopt some but not all of the cultures that surround you so you will be
accepted and will not stand out), being very protective of your offspring (in this case, don't expose them to new cultures too early), and so forth.
5. Mutation -- random changes affecting an organism. Someone thinks of a new idea and tries to spread it. In some cases (in fact most cases)
the mutant organism does not survive: his faith peters out and his worshipers desert him). In others, the mutation finds a niche and prospers. Remember that all changes, successes and failures, begin with one man: Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Akhenaton...
6. Crossover. For those unfamiliar with crossover, crossover occurs when the offspring of two
parents gets a combination of genes of which both parent had just one half. If both halves are required in order to create a successful change in the lifeform, this change has been acquired via crossover. The most common examples of crossover would be the children of coreligionists from different cultural backgrounds (an Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jew, a Protestant and a Catholic) which are close enough to produce "viable offspring" yet far enough to have a distinct difference between the two. If the child is able to create a new theology or belief system based on the sum of the parents, that's good. In theory, intermarriage would be a VERY good form of crossover. However, odds are that even if the child grew up with a well-defined religious culture, his or her culture may not be recognized by the parents. This would force him to either in effect start his own religious species or get very lucky.
7. All viable descendants of a religious belief are equally valid. After all, in the animal kingdom, who cares if
two fish from the same species have different colors? You don't see blue fish fighting with red
fish from the same species that much. The same can be argued for human skin tone.
8. Punctuated evolution. In some cases, problems and changes can appear out of nowhere which can render the dominant organism extinct/obsolete and allow lesser organisms to take over. Dinosaurs were useful until an asteroid hit the Yucatan. Right now, Christianity is the dominant religion with Islam a close second. Monotheists seem to dominate. However, it is interesting to note that many of the Native American religions -- and some of the Eastern religions -- focus on self-introspection and harmony with nature. The harmony with nature is the key here. Right now, Western society has a bit of a problem in that it does not live in harmony with nature. We are now going through a period of greenhouse warming. Could it be that there will be an sudden extinction of the non-harmonious religions in a few hundred years and the harmonious religions will take over? I am reminded a lot of
the dinosaurs fighting among each other and leaving the small mammals alone until the extinction took place. How much of the world's conflict is between Jews, Muslims, and Christians? The point is -- events can come out of nowhere (such as the greenhouse issues) which can totally change things.
An important thing to consider is to whether or not this evolution is Darwinian (where evolution is basically random and has no long-term goal) or Lamarckian (where there is in fact a long-term goal).
We can start with the three Abrahamic religions. Starting with a primitive proto-Judaism somewhere in the Fertile Crescent which is now extinct, biblical Judaism emerged. It evolves over time to handle cultural and environmental changes (conquest of the Jewish "organisms" by competitors such as Assyria, destruction of the temple, and so forth) and in doing so creates several daughter religion "species". Many of these die out (the Essenes, for instance). Some spread (Christianity, for instance).
At what point does a religion become a completely different "species" from its parent? We can use the same criterion evolution uses: it is no longer possible for members of the two religions to "breed" and produce viable offspring. Now consider the fact that interfaith marriages very often produce children who are not religious -- effectively infertile in terms of religion. What's more, religious communities often have prohibitions against intermarriage, which will also encourage speciation.
With this in mind, Christianity quickly reached the point where it is no longer the same species as Judaism. Once intermarriage between the two faiths petered out, they started evolving completely independently. Catholicism as we know it now is nothing like Judaism.
Let's look at several things which cause evolutionary change according to Darwin and see if they apply to religion.
1. Survival of the fittest. Those are healthiest survive. The religious equivalent for this are the orthodox minorities who maintain their traditions as is and pass them on to the next generation. A tradition which lets other cultures interfere with this process could be considered
unfit in this regard as its rituals and customs may be diluted.
2. Changes in the environment cause changes in a species, most of which are negative but some of which are positive. This also makes sense. When the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the Jews could no longer sacrifice animals at the
central altar there. They had to devise other means to communicate with God. Those who did -- using prayer for instance -- prospered. Those who did not may have assimilated and therefore served as a dead end for that species. Similarly, changes in the intellectual environment around the time of the Renaissance may have been instrumental in getting Luther's movement off the ground.
3. The more offspring, the better. So some get eaten by animals, diseases, and so forth. As
long as enough survive, the religion makes it to the next generation. It's an interesting coincidence that many religions frown on birth control.
4. Ensuring that your offspring make it to breeding age is crucial. In a religious context, that means training them in the tradition at a very young age. However, more importantly, a culture has to make sure that competitors/predators don't destroy it. This can be done in several ways taken right out of nature: camouflage (think of the Marranos), aggression (proselytizing), making yourself seem nonthreatening (adopt some but not all of the cultures that surround you so you will be
accepted and will not stand out), being very protective of your offspring (in this case, don't expose them to new cultures too early), and so forth.
5. Mutation -- random changes affecting an organism. Someone thinks of a new idea and tries to spread it. In some cases (in fact most cases)
the mutant organism does not survive: his faith peters out and his worshipers desert him). In others, the mutation finds a niche and prospers. Remember that all changes, successes and failures, begin with one man: Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Akhenaton...
6. Crossover. For those unfamiliar with crossover, crossover occurs when the offspring of two
parents gets a combination of genes of which both parent had just one half. If both halves are required in order to create a successful change in the lifeform, this change has been acquired via crossover. The most common examples of crossover would be the children of coreligionists from different cultural backgrounds (an Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jew, a Protestant and a Catholic) which are close enough to produce "viable offspring" yet far enough to have a distinct difference between the two. If the child is able to create a new theology or belief system based on the sum of the parents, that's good. In theory, intermarriage would be a VERY good form of crossover. However, odds are that even if the child grew up with a well-defined religious culture, his or her culture may not be recognized by the parents. This would force him to either in effect start his own religious species or get very lucky.
7. All viable descendants of a religious belief are equally valid. After all, in the animal kingdom, who cares if
two fish from the same species have different colors? You don't see blue fish fighting with red
fish from the same species that much. The same can be argued for human skin tone.
8. Punctuated evolution. In some cases, problems and changes can appear out of nowhere which can render the dominant organism extinct/obsolete and allow lesser organisms to take over. Dinosaurs were useful until an asteroid hit the Yucatan. Right now, Christianity is the dominant religion with Islam a close second. Monotheists seem to dominate. However, it is interesting to note that many of the Native American religions -- and some of the Eastern religions -- focus on self-introspection and harmony with nature. The harmony with nature is the key here. Right now, Western society has a bit of a problem in that it does not live in harmony with nature. We are now going through a period of greenhouse warming. Could it be that there will be an sudden extinction of the non-harmonious religions in a few hundred years and the harmonious religions will take over? I am reminded a lot of
the dinosaurs fighting among each other and leaving the small mammals alone until the extinction took place. How much of the world's conflict is between Jews, Muslims, and Christians? The point is -- events can come out of nowhere (such as the greenhouse issues) which can totally change things.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Adding ostracism to American democracy
Having now transitioned from Greek philosophy to the fundamentals of Western civilization, I've begun thinking about the ancient Athenian concept of ostracism and whether or not that should be applied to American politics and the Constitution.
The Athenian democracy (open to all adult male citizens) had an unusual feature which never made it into the American constitution (nor that of
any other European country): ostracism, an institution which made sure that no one person got powerful enough to threaten the democratic institutions themselves.
Every so often, the Athenians could call for a vote. People were allowed to nominate people whom they (the voters) believed were acquiring too much power. If
enough votes were cast, the person who received the most votes was sentenced to either death
(which is what did in Socrates) or exile from Athens for 10 years. Regardless of what happens, the powerful figure would be neutralized, at least temporarily.
Could ostracism benefit America and democracies in general? Clearly, the Founding Fathers -- with their great knowledge of the classics -- must have known about it. Why did they not adopt it?
Suppose ostracism existed today. Clearly, Bush would be a prime candidate for ostracism. With a popularity index in the twenties, he could easily be kicked out -- think of it as impeachment by the populace instead of the Senate. Fortunately for American democracy, we have a vice president. This would put Cheney in as president. Whether or not he deserves ostracism is a separate issue. According to the current constitution, Bush is entitled to his office until 2009.
The constitution only permits impeachment of presidents who have committed crimes or other violations of the constitution. Being an ineffective leader, however, does not qualify. Granted, Bush is probably doing everything he can. However, everything is so global nowadays that no political leader can maintain control over his domain without external interference.
If the US adopted ostracism, how would it take effect? What would it look like?
Here is how I imagine it working. A special election is held once a year. Assuming a quorum (certain percentage of the voters) cast their ballots -- something which would be useful to encourage in any case as voter turnout is quite low in the US -- ostracism proceedings would begin.
Here, however, is where American ostracism would probably differ from its Athenian counterpart. There are so many people in the US that the number of candidates for ostracism would be extremely high (most of whom would likely not be deserving of it). This could result in the "winning" candidate having only 10% of the vote or something like that. 10% is certainly not enough to warrant ostracism, especially if the No. 2 man has 8%!
What I envision happening is this. The top three candidates for ostracism (watch out for two-party system parity here!) head to a second election a year later, where they would try to justify their actions to the people and use their authority to try to clean up their act. In effect, these three candidates have been put on probation.
In the runoff election, voters may vote for one of the three people or none. This is the actual ostracism vote, and the voters must be aware that they should not vote for anyone unless they really mean it. Random votes cast will give every candidate 25%.
If a quorum is reached in the runoff and any candidate reaches 50%, the candidate is ostracized. He is given a month to pack up and is kicked out of office. He loses his citizenship and passport and is banished from the country for 10 years. He may apply for citizenship after 10 years, but he may no longer hold public office. If he reaches 33%, he is automatically enrolled in the runoff for the next year.
Although this is an interesting idea, consider what would happen with Bush. Bush is clearly unpopular, so he would make it to the runoff (along with maybe Cheney and some other people). That's fairly straightforward. The question becomes: does he merit ostracism? What would his replacement do? Is it wise to change your army's commander in chief during a war? Bush, as it turns out, would know he's got Cheney to rely on -- but wouldn't people kick HIM the year afterwards?
Granted, I know nothing about politics. But it's an interesting idea...
The Athenian democracy (open to all adult male citizens) had an unusual feature which never made it into the American constitution (nor that of
any other European country): ostracism, an institution which made sure that no one person got powerful enough to threaten the democratic institutions themselves.
Every so often, the Athenians could call for a vote. People were allowed to nominate people whom they (the voters) believed were acquiring too much power. If
enough votes were cast, the person who received the most votes was sentenced to either death
(which is what did in Socrates) or exile from Athens for 10 years. Regardless of what happens, the powerful figure would be neutralized, at least temporarily.
Could ostracism benefit America and democracies in general? Clearly, the Founding Fathers -- with their great knowledge of the classics -- must have known about it. Why did they not adopt it?
Suppose ostracism existed today. Clearly, Bush would be a prime candidate for ostracism. With a popularity index in the twenties, he could easily be kicked out -- think of it as impeachment by the populace instead of the Senate. Fortunately for American democracy, we have a vice president. This would put Cheney in as president. Whether or not he deserves ostracism is a separate issue. According to the current constitution, Bush is entitled to his office until 2009.
The constitution only permits impeachment of presidents who have committed crimes or other violations of the constitution. Being an ineffective leader, however, does not qualify. Granted, Bush is probably doing everything he can. However, everything is so global nowadays that no political leader can maintain control over his domain without external interference.
If the US adopted ostracism, how would it take effect? What would it look like?
Here is how I imagine it working. A special election is held once a year. Assuming a quorum (certain percentage of the voters) cast their ballots -- something which would be useful to encourage in any case as voter turnout is quite low in the US -- ostracism proceedings would begin.
Here, however, is where American ostracism would probably differ from its Athenian counterpart. There are so many people in the US that the number of candidates for ostracism would be extremely high (most of whom would likely not be deserving of it). This could result in the "winning" candidate having only 10% of the vote or something like that. 10% is certainly not enough to warrant ostracism, especially if the No. 2 man has 8%!
What I envision happening is this. The top three candidates for ostracism (watch out for two-party system parity here!) head to a second election a year later, where they would try to justify their actions to the people and use their authority to try to clean up their act. In effect, these three candidates have been put on probation.
In the runoff election, voters may vote for one of the three people or none. This is the actual ostracism vote, and the voters must be aware that they should not vote for anyone unless they really mean it. Random votes cast will give every candidate 25%.
If a quorum is reached in the runoff and any candidate reaches 50%, the candidate is ostracized. He is given a month to pack up and is kicked out of office. He loses his citizenship and passport and is banished from the country for 10 years. He may apply for citizenship after 10 years, but he may no longer hold public office. If he reaches 33%, he is automatically enrolled in the runoff for the next year.
Although this is an interesting idea, consider what would happen with Bush. Bush is clearly unpopular, so he would make it to the runoff (along with maybe Cheney and some other people). That's fairly straightforward. The question becomes: does he merit ostracism? What would his replacement do? Is it wise to change your army's commander in chief during a war? Bush, as it turns out, would know he's got Cheney to rely on -- but wouldn't people kick HIM the year afterwards?
Granted, I know nothing about politics. But it's an interesting idea...
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
An ant's view of the world
Now that spring has sprung in the northern hemisphere (and appears to have arrived for good even in New England), you may have spent time lying in the grass, smelling the flowers, and doing various other outdoor nature-related things.
I tried lying in the grass today when I saw several ants crawling over and around the blades of grass. They were all red, so I figured I'd better leave post-haste. But it made me start thinking.
What would the world look like to an ant? For the time being, we will assume that the animal is a little over half a centimeter in length.
1. The first thing you would notice is that the lawn has suddenly ballooned into a thick forest of green, spiky trees. A typical blade of grass is maybe three inches long. That's about 75 mm, about 15 times the size of the ant. This is the equivalent of humans being surrounded by trees 90 feet tall. That in itself is not surprising -- after all, we're familiar with 90-foot trees. What would be surprising, however, would be the fact that the trees are actually spaced 5-6 feet apart from your vantage point. This would make for a VERY dense forest. You may often wonder how often you'd get lost in such a forest.
2. The ground is very uneven. A small pebble would be a significant fraction of the size of your body. You know how hard is it walk around uneven ground. You should be thankful that you have six legs for traction.
3. You would be naturally adapted to climb trees. If there are "trees" all over the place and you've got the legs to do it, it would be wise to scamper up a tree to get a wider view of the world.
4. You have cities of your own, in some cases very large ones, which aren't that much different from fortified human cities -- one entrance, dense population, and so forth. So the humans don't see them as they are primarily underground. But does that make them any less sophisticated than us?
Suppose an anthill is (say) 1 cubic foot in size with tunnels and "roads" crisscrossing the area. When this is scaled up to human size, -- 5 mm becoming something like 1600 mm -- what do you have? You've basically gotten yourself a city block which looks like it's been taken right out of downtown Manhattan. 800 feet on a side, 80 stories high. It even has a mayor (or more likely a general in case of army ants), the queen.
5. The little 1-inch diameter dandelion which we tend to throw out or pick has just become a very source of shade. What it effectively will serve as is the equivalent of a 90-foot tall tree with a canopy providing 640,000 square inches of shade. 640,000 square inches is almost 5,000 square feet. That's the size of mansion. Who wants the shady apartment under the flower?
Just think about it...
I tried lying in the grass today when I saw several ants crawling over and around the blades of grass. They were all red, so I figured I'd better leave post-haste. But it made me start thinking.
What would the world look like to an ant? For the time being, we will assume that the animal is a little over half a centimeter in length.
1. The first thing you would notice is that the lawn has suddenly ballooned into a thick forest of green, spiky trees. A typical blade of grass is maybe three inches long. That's about 75 mm, about 15 times the size of the ant. This is the equivalent of humans being surrounded by trees 90 feet tall. That in itself is not surprising -- after all, we're familiar with 90-foot trees. What would be surprising, however, would be the fact that the trees are actually spaced 5-6 feet apart from your vantage point. This would make for a VERY dense forest. You may often wonder how often you'd get lost in such a forest.
2. The ground is very uneven. A small pebble would be a significant fraction of the size of your body. You know how hard is it walk around uneven ground. You should be thankful that you have six legs for traction.
3. You would be naturally adapted to climb trees. If there are "trees" all over the place and you've got the legs to do it, it would be wise to scamper up a tree to get a wider view of the world.
4. You have cities of your own, in some cases very large ones, which aren't that much different from fortified human cities -- one entrance, dense population, and so forth. So the humans don't see them as they are primarily underground. But does that make them any less sophisticated than us?
Suppose an anthill is (say) 1 cubic foot in size with tunnels and "roads" crisscrossing the area. When this is scaled up to human size, -- 5 mm becoming something like 1600 mm -- what do you have? You've basically gotten yourself a city block which looks like it's been taken right out of downtown Manhattan. 800 feet on a side, 80 stories high. It even has a mayor (or more likely a general in case of army ants), the queen.
5. The little 1-inch diameter dandelion which we tend to throw out or pick has just become a very source of shade. What it effectively will serve as is the equivalent of a 90-foot tall tree with a canopy providing 640,000 square inches of shade. 640,000 square inches is almost 5,000 square feet. That's the size of mansion. Who wants the shady apartment under the flower?
Just think about it...
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Goldish's Three Rules
The great philosopher Goldish has just discovered three fundamental truths of the universe which are far more relevant to most people than the three laws of thermodynamics.
1. Babies make you popular.
Example: You are arriving at a party and people are milling around not doing much. You walk in with your five-month old son in your arms. Suddenly, you will find yourself besieged by guests,
serenaded by comments like "He's SO CUTE!" and "Goo goo goo goo"! Babies are a sure way to enhance your popularity.
2. Pets make you popular.
Example: On the show Beauty and the Geek, Mr. Pocket Protector has absolutely no luck tryin to pick up girls.
He has no reason to worry -- the host is about to provide him with Cassandra, a cat who has been spayed or neutered at the request of Bob Barker. Imagine the chaos when about 8 gorgeous women start clustering around him simply because he's carrying a cat. Who's going to be petted more? Who's going to be purring more?
3. Food makes you popular.
Example: At a college party, people are sitting around waiting for the pizza to arrive. The door opens, and a guy comes in carrying pizza boxes. Pay close attention, and you will notice that the people start clustering around the guy BEFORE he puts the pizza boxes down. Goldish's Third Rule is also responsible for the prevalence of restaurants and other food service establishments. It is also responsible for the traditional synagogue practice where the worshiper comes in at the very end of the service to sample the snacks at the Kiddush, the ceremonial snack/meal after the service. God? Naaahh. Food? Yeah!
And of course the corollary:
To become extremely popular, carry around puppy food. This will draw juvenile dogs according to Goldish's Third Rule. Once the juvenile dogs arrive, you will have both a baby AND a pet in your arms at the same time!
1. Babies make you popular.
Example: You are arriving at a party and people are milling around not doing much. You walk in with your five-month old son in your arms. Suddenly, you will find yourself besieged by guests,
serenaded by comments like "He's SO CUTE!" and "Goo goo goo goo"! Babies are a sure way to enhance your popularity.
2. Pets make you popular.
Example: On the show Beauty and the Geek, Mr. Pocket Protector has absolutely no luck tryin to pick up girls.
He has no reason to worry -- the host is about to provide him with Cassandra, a cat who has been spayed or neutered at the request of Bob Barker. Imagine the chaos when about 8 gorgeous women start clustering around him simply because he's carrying a cat. Who's going to be petted more? Who's going to be purring more?
3. Food makes you popular.
Example: At a college party, people are sitting around waiting for the pizza to arrive. The door opens, and a guy comes in carrying pizza boxes. Pay close attention, and you will notice that the people start clustering around the guy BEFORE he puts the pizza boxes down. Goldish's Third Rule is also responsible for the prevalence of restaurants and other food service establishments. It is also responsible for the traditional synagogue practice where the worshiper comes in at the very end of the service to sample the snacks at the Kiddush, the ceremonial snack/meal after the service. God? Naaahh. Food? Yeah!
And of course the corollary:
To become extremely popular, carry around puppy food. This will draw juvenile dogs according to Goldish's Third Rule. Once the juvenile dogs arrive, you will have both a baby AND a pet in your arms at the same time!
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Chanukah and the Maccabees: The Real Story
My Alexander the Great Course has continued, and today the tapes discussed the Maccabeean revolt in 164 BC. I was astonished to learn that the Chanukah traditions and the Book of Maccabees only covered part of the story!
First, the basics. According to Jewish tradition and the Book of Maccabees, the evil Greek ruler Antiochus IV passed a decree preventing the Jews from practicing their traditions. Needless to say, the local religious community was not particular thrilled
about this. A family of religious brothers (the Maccabees) from the
from the small town of Modin organized a rebellion, killed Antiochus's general Nicanor, and
routed the Greek armies. They rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem (the Greeks had been
sacrificing pigs, worshiping Zeus, and doing other things which were contrary to Jewish
practice), and commemorated the event in the holiday of Chanukah. Everyone lived happily ever after. The tradition of giving gifts on Chanukah is derived from Christmas, and both holidays are likely derived from Saturnalia, a Roman winter solstice festival.
Here is what really happened, according to the Greek scholar on the tape.
Antiochus III, Antiochus IV's father, was actually a great friend of the Jews. He respected
the Jews' customs and reminded the Greeks not to desecrate the Temple. Antiochus was in
charge of the Seleucid Kingdom, one of the myriad kingdoms carved out of Alexander the
Great's conquests after Alexander's death. He considered Judea to be an autonomous,
relatively independent part of his kingdom.
That's when the Romans got involved.
The Romans started expanding into the eastern Mediterranean late in Antiochus III's
reign and defeated the Seleucids in battle. Antiochus III was forced to give up a large
chunk of his kingdom. Even worse, the Seleucid government was concerned that the
Romans would make an alliance with Ptolemaic Egypt, another Hellenistic kingdom.
Judea suddenly became a valuable buffer state between Egypt and Seleucia.
After Antiochus IV came to power, he took advantage of a minor ruling Egypt and tried to conquer the country. However, the Romans had become the power brokers of the region
by this point. A Roman soldier stepped in to protect Rome's possible ally and, quite simply,
bluffed Antiochus into stopping the invasion.
This left Antiochus in tough position. He had Rome on one side of his kingdom and Egypt on another. His eastern borders were also not particularly friendly. All Egypt needed to do to completely encircle Seleucia with a coalition of enemies was to take over Judea. Antiochus could not risk this, and as a result he determined to assume direct control over Judea. This would naturally
worsen Judeo-Seleucid relations, but Antiochus couldn't help it. He had no choice.
Antiochus realized that he would have to Hellenize Judea in order to maintain control over
the territory. This would help the Judean population assimilate into Seleucia and allow
the Greeks to establish a strong Greek government in the province. So, he started a major
Hellenization campaign, outlawing Jewish ritual and sacrificing pigs in the Temple.
The Hellenization campaign met with mixed reactions. Some people (including the
high priests of the Temple) took up Hellenistic culture enthusiastically. Other, more
traditional people, refused to go along with Antiochus's campaign.
As often the case with rural life, the people living in the Judean countryside were more traditional than those in the big cities. Most of the Greeks concentrated on the cities, and
as a result city dwellers were exposed to Hellenistic culture more often than country folk.
One day, a Greek came to the countryside town of Modin and urged Matthias, a prominent figure in the town, to adopt Greek customs. Matthias and his sons -- the future Maccabees -- refused. The issue should have ended there (the Greeks probably expected resistance).
However, at that point a townsman raced up to the Greeks' newly-erected altar to sacrifice
to the Greek gods. Matthias lost it and ran the townsman through (there is actually a
precedent for this in the Old Testament, where the zealot Phineas kills a community leader consorting with a non-Jewish woman in plain view of the community). Everything went
downhill from there and the revolt was on.
I won't go into the details of the revolt. Suffice it to say that guerrilla warfare is difficult
for any occupying power, and it was no different here. Eventually, the Maccabees win independence for Judea and rededicate the Temple. Obviously, the righteous have
triumphed and the Jewish tradition has survived the threat of Hellenization intact.
That's where the Chanukah story ends. History continues, however, and future events
reveal a startling different conclusion.
Realizing that he couldn't stop the Jewish rebels, Antiochus installed Jonathan, one of the
Maccabee brothers, as the Jewish high priest (was he even of the priestly caste?) to try to placate the Maccabees. This effectively put the Maccabees in charge of the kingdom, in a position of power.
Power corrupts.
Jonathan elected his son as his successor to the high priesthood. This was not unusual
in biblical times. However, when you're dealing with a man in charge of both church and
state here, it takes on another meaning: dynasty. The Hasmonean (Maccabee) dynasty
would go on for many, many, years.
Eventually, one of the Maccabee high priests became enamored of Hellenism and he
starts Hellenizing the community. He took on all the trappings of a Hellenistic ruler and
started abandoning orthodox Jewish traditions.
So there you have it. The Chanukah story talks about the Maccabees preserving Jewish
traditions and keeping Hellenistic forces from impacting Judea. What it doesn't say is that
the Maccabees eventually did their best to finish the job for Antiochus.
First, the basics. According to Jewish tradition and the Book of Maccabees, the evil Greek ruler Antiochus IV passed a decree preventing the Jews from practicing their traditions. Needless to say, the local religious community was not particular thrilled
about this. A family of religious brothers (the Maccabees) from the
from the small town of Modin organized a rebellion, killed Antiochus's general Nicanor, and
routed the Greek armies. They rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem (the Greeks had been
sacrificing pigs, worshiping Zeus, and doing other things which were contrary to Jewish
practice), and commemorated the event in the holiday of Chanukah. Everyone lived happily ever after. The tradition of giving gifts on Chanukah is derived from Christmas, and both holidays are likely derived from Saturnalia, a Roman winter solstice festival.
Here is what really happened, according to the Greek scholar on the tape.
Antiochus III, Antiochus IV's father, was actually a great friend of the Jews. He respected
the Jews' customs and reminded the Greeks not to desecrate the Temple. Antiochus was in
charge of the Seleucid Kingdom, one of the myriad kingdoms carved out of Alexander the
Great's conquests after Alexander's death. He considered Judea to be an autonomous,
relatively independent part of his kingdom.
That's when the Romans got involved.
The Romans started expanding into the eastern Mediterranean late in Antiochus III's
reign and defeated the Seleucids in battle. Antiochus III was forced to give up a large
chunk of his kingdom. Even worse, the Seleucid government was concerned that the
Romans would make an alliance with Ptolemaic Egypt, another Hellenistic kingdom.
Judea suddenly became a valuable buffer state between Egypt and Seleucia.
After Antiochus IV came to power, he took advantage of a minor ruling Egypt and tried to conquer the country. However, the Romans had become the power brokers of the region
by this point. A Roman soldier stepped in to protect Rome's possible ally and, quite simply,
bluffed Antiochus into stopping the invasion.
This left Antiochus in tough position. He had Rome on one side of his kingdom and Egypt on another. His eastern borders were also not particularly friendly. All Egypt needed to do to completely encircle Seleucia with a coalition of enemies was to take over Judea. Antiochus could not risk this, and as a result he determined to assume direct control over Judea. This would naturally
worsen Judeo-Seleucid relations, but Antiochus couldn't help it. He had no choice.
Antiochus realized that he would have to Hellenize Judea in order to maintain control over
the territory. This would help the Judean population assimilate into Seleucia and allow
the Greeks to establish a strong Greek government in the province. So, he started a major
Hellenization campaign, outlawing Jewish ritual and sacrificing pigs in the Temple.
The Hellenization campaign met with mixed reactions. Some people (including the
high priests of the Temple) took up Hellenistic culture enthusiastically. Other, more
traditional people, refused to go along with Antiochus's campaign.
As often the case with rural life, the people living in the Judean countryside were more traditional than those in the big cities. Most of the Greeks concentrated on the cities, and
as a result city dwellers were exposed to Hellenistic culture more often than country folk.
One day, a Greek came to the countryside town of Modin and urged Matthias, a prominent figure in the town, to adopt Greek customs. Matthias and his sons -- the future Maccabees -- refused. The issue should have ended there (the Greeks probably expected resistance).
However, at that point a townsman raced up to the Greeks' newly-erected altar to sacrifice
to the Greek gods. Matthias lost it and ran the townsman through (there is actually a
precedent for this in the Old Testament, where the zealot Phineas kills a community leader consorting with a non-Jewish woman in plain view of the community). Everything went
downhill from there and the revolt was on.
I won't go into the details of the revolt. Suffice it to say that guerrilla warfare is difficult
for any occupying power, and it was no different here. Eventually, the Maccabees win independence for Judea and rededicate the Temple. Obviously, the righteous have
triumphed and the Jewish tradition has survived the threat of Hellenization intact.
That's where the Chanukah story ends. History continues, however, and future events
reveal a startling different conclusion.
Realizing that he couldn't stop the Jewish rebels, Antiochus installed Jonathan, one of the
Maccabee brothers, as the Jewish high priest (was he even of the priestly caste?) to try to placate the Maccabees. This effectively put the Maccabees in charge of the kingdom, in a position of power.
Power corrupts.
Jonathan elected his son as his successor to the high priesthood. This was not unusual
in biblical times. However, when you're dealing with a man in charge of both church and
state here, it takes on another meaning: dynasty. The Hasmonean (Maccabee) dynasty
would go on for many, many, years.
Eventually, one of the Maccabee high priests became enamored of Hellenism and he
starts Hellenizing the community. He took on all the trappings of a Hellenistic ruler and
started abandoning orthodox Jewish traditions.
So there you have it. The Chanukah story talks about the Maccabees preserving Jewish
traditions and keeping Hellenistic forces from impacting Judea. What it doesn't say is that
the Maccabees eventually did their best to finish the job for Antiochus.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Inflation of pinball machine scores
People have complained about inflation for a long time. However, I'm going to be talking about a new form of inflation which not many people have realized exist: pinball machine scores.
Pinball machines in the 60's and 70's were entirely mechanical and had physical numeric reels to display the score. Most of the scores on such machines were five digit numbers, between 0 and 99,990. Back in those days, the "bonus" at the end of a given ball was actually a significant portion of the player's score -- likely an attempt to make the player feel he or she was doing better.
Pinball machine scores are just like personal finance in that it's just one person against the system trying to maximize a score. As a result, people are going to do whatever they can to get higher and higher scores. For finance, it's to feel more comfortable. For pinball, it is to make the people feel like their game has been a success.
With the advent of digital displays, it became easier to put more digits on the backboard of pinball machines. And this started the inflation craze. The first digital pinball machine I ever played was one called Xenon, a science-fiction themed machine named after an noble gas. I remember being astonished when I got 100,000 for the first time. I thought it was a major accomplishment. This machine had room for six digits in the display.
When I arrived at MIT, in 1990, I found a pinball machine in my dormitory. One of the major attractions of this machine was a 10,000,000 point shot. It was extremely difficult to hit. However, in those days 10,000,000 was a fantastic score. Nothing came close. Even jackpots rarely made it past a million.
Fast forward to the mid 1990's. One of my favorite games at this time was the Addams Family machine. This machine had "skill shots" -- shots the player could only hit once, when he or she shoot the ball into the playfield for the first time -- worth 3,000,000 points or more. Jackpots routinely ran into the 30,000,000 point range or more. Things were getting out of control.
A couple of years ago (it is now 2007) I bought a simple CD which allowed the user to play several different pinball machine tables on the computer. Typical scores now range in the 100,000,000 to 200,000,000 range. I recently got a billion on one of them.
What on earth do those extra zeroes do? Getting a billion points doesn't mean much anymore if all of the other machines give you a billion points. Just like in the financial world, multiplying your income (and costs of living) by 10 doesn't make you any richer than your neighbors or better off.
Unlike in the financial world, people can survive and still have a good challenge on a new machine with most of the zeroes lopped off the score. True, your score will rarely exceed 50,000, but when replays are at 30,000 and 80,000 you don't need to worry about getting an astronomical score.
It kind of makes want to play one of those old clunkers again, does it not? Especially since the old clunkers benefit from the second form of inflation: hardware rigged for two plays per quarter instead of two quarters per play.
Pinball machines in the 60's and 70's were entirely mechanical and had physical numeric reels to display the score. Most of the scores on such machines were five digit numbers, between 0 and 99,990. Back in those days, the "bonus" at the end of a given ball was actually a significant portion of the player's score -- likely an attempt to make the player feel he or she was doing better.
Pinball machine scores are just like personal finance in that it's just one person against the system trying to maximize a score. As a result, people are going to do whatever they can to get higher and higher scores. For finance, it's to feel more comfortable. For pinball, it is to make the people feel like their game has been a success.
With the advent of digital displays, it became easier to put more digits on the backboard of pinball machines. And this started the inflation craze. The first digital pinball machine I ever played was one called Xenon, a science-fiction themed machine named after an noble gas. I remember being astonished when I got 100,000 for the first time. I thought it was a major accomplishment. This machine had room for six digits in the display.
When I arrived at MIT, in 1990, I found a pinball machine in my dormitory. One of the major attractions of this machine was a 10,000,000 point shot. It was extremely difficult to hit. However, in those days 10,000,000 was a fantastic score. Nothing came close. Even jackpots rarely made it past a million.
Fast forward to the mid 1990's. One of my favorite games at this time was the Addams Family machine. This machine had "skill shots" -- shots the player could only hit once, when he or she shoot the ball into the playfield for the first time -- worth 3,000,000 points or more. Jackpots routinely ran into the 30,000,000 point range or more. Things were getting out of control.
A couple of years ago (it is now 2007) I bought a simple CD which allowed the user to play several different pinball machine tables on the computer. Typical scores now range in the 100,000,000 to 200,000,000 range. I recently got a billion on one of them.
What on earth do those extra zeroes do? Getting a billion points doesn't mean much anymore if all of the other machines give you a billion points. Just like in the financial world, multiplying your income (and costs of living) by 10 doesn't make you any richer than your neighbors or better off.
Unlike in the financial world, people can survive and still have a good challenge on a new machine with most of the zeroes lopped off the score. True, your score will rarely exceed 50,000, but when replays are at 30,000 and 80,000 you don't need to worry about getting an astronomical score.
It kind of makes want to play one of those old clunkers again, does it not? Especially since the old clunkers benefit from the second form of inflation: hardware rigged for two plays per quarter instead of two quarters per play.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
I often listen to courses on tape in the car to and from work. The course I am currently working on involves Alexander the Great and Hellenistic Greece. The current lecture discusses famous Greek philosophers.
The three best-known Greek philosophers are Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. A good way to tell that a philosopher is famous is that Bill and Ted spend their precious time sending their time-traveling phone booth back to ancient Greece to pick him up.
However, consider Epicurus. Epicurus is best known for hedonistic philosophy, where pleasure is good and adherents should spend all their time pursuing it. Needless to say, many traditional institutions frown upon this policy. To this day, Judaism uses the word "apikoros" -- a transliteration of Epicurus's name -- to refer to an apostate: someone who has abandoned his or her ancestral traditions.
Epicurus probably would have had a great deal of trouble dealing with his detractors. However, he managed to avoid it very easily. Why?
The answer is simple. He never advocated hedonism. The hedonism is actually a corruption of his teachings. Perhaps competing
philosophies and religions wanted to put a bad spin on his teachings.
Epicurus actually believed that overindulging in pleasure was actually a bad idea -- pleasure was desirable, but in MODERATION. He recognized that pleasure was addictive, and indulging could cause oneself to start yearning for it more and more. Too much pleasure could therefore make someone never feel content about anything.
The thing that is interesting about this is that this seems very similar to Buddhist philosophy, which indicates that desire is the major cause of suffering.
Could Epicurus have known of Buddhism?
Epicurus lived around 300 BC. Buddha lived in India in 620 BC or so -- and Alexander managed to make it to India. Could Buddhist philosophy have been transmitted,
to some extent to Greece via Alexander's armies?
Part of the hedonism misconception could have been from the fact that he also believed that there was no life after death and therefore death should not be feared. If there's no life after death, then you don't have to worry about Zeus coming after you for your misdeeds in the next world. So, live it up. He believed that the body simply decomposed into the smallest indivisible possible pieces of matter -- the original concept of atoms (which is itself a Greek word derived from this philosophy).
And that was it.
So if you are Jewish and someone tells you that you are an apikoros, don't think of it entirely as
negative -- particularly if you have the discipline to enjoy your happiness in moderation.
The three best-known Greek philosophers are Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. A good way to tell that a philosopher is famous is that Bill and Ted spend their precious time sending their time-traveling phone booth back to ancient Greece to pick him up.
However, consider Epicurus. Epicurus is best known for hedonistic philosophy, where pleasure is good and adherents should spend all their time pursuing it. Needless to say, many traditional institutions frown upon this policy. To this day, Judaism uses the word "apikoros" -- a transliteration of Epicurus's name -- to refer to an apostate: someone who has abandoned his or her ancestral traditions.
Epicurus probably would have had a great deal of trouble dealing with his detractors. However, he managed to avoid it very easily. Why?
The answer is simple. He never advocated hedonism. The hedonism is actually a corruption of his teachings. Perhaps competing
philosophies and religions wanted to put a bad spin on his teachings.
Epicurus actually believed that overindulging in pleasure was actually a bad idea -- pleasure was desirable, but in MODERATION. He recognized that pleasure was addictive, and indulging could cause oneself to start yearning for it more and more. Too much pleasure could therefore make someone never feel content about anything.
The thing that is interesting about this is that this seems very similar to Buddhist philosophy, which indicates that desire is the major cause of suffering.
Could Epicurus have known of Buddhism?
Epicurus lived around 300 BC. Buddha lived in India in 620 BC or so -- and Alexander managed to make it to India. Could Buddhist philosophy have been transmitted,
to some extent to Greece via Alexander's armies?
Part of the hedonism misconception could have been from the fact that he also believed that there was no life after death and therefore death should not be feared. If there's no life after death, then you don't have to worry about Zeus coming after you for your misdeeds in the next world. So, live it up. He believed that the body simply decomposed into the smallest indivisible possible pieces of matter -- the original concept of atoms (which is itself a Greek word derived from this philosophy).
And that was it.
So if you are Jewish and someone tells you that you are an apikoros, don't think of it entirely as
negative -- particularly if you have the discipline to enjoy your happiness in moderation.
Monday, April 23, 2007
People without class
Why do the various economic classes not mingle with each other if their members' dreams and interests overlap a great deal?
I was raised in an upper-middle class family in one of the safest neighborhoods in America. My parents lived in the same house for 30 years and are about to have their 40th
anniversary. Most of the friends of the family were doctors, lawyers, and professors. Everyone I knew went to very good colleges and often came back with advanced degrees.
Yet for some reason, I knew virtually NO members of the "working class". For people who purport to be intelligent, this is a wee bit odd. Growing up, "working class" meant "having to live in HALF of a house instead of a whole house and not having a huge backyard". The only member of the "working class" I knew was a cleaning lady who came every week to clean the house. This illustrates the problem with class issues: very often the interaction between the two classes is a "master/servant" type of relationship, not one you'd expect between peers.
If you were raised in a similar environment, consider this question. How many machinists do YOU know well? Security guards? Gas station attendants? Construction workers? Cashiers? Do you ever interact with people like these as equals, in situations where you do not expect them to serve you?
All people want to pursue their interests and follow their dreams. Believe it or not, people in classes "inferior" to yours might have the same interests as you. They may even look up to you, hoping they can be like you. Ever thought of trying to forge some connections with people whom you've tried to ignore for most of your life?
I am interested in astronomy and was debating getting a Master's in astronomy or planetary science. I eventually run into someone who is getting a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard. A doctorate from Harvard? This girl must have connections. Let me guess -- family of lawyers, doctors, professors?
Nope. She grew up in a working-class household, in a culture which I had no idea about. Her relatives included machinists and security guards. Her home town was part of the Terra Incognita between Boston and Cape Cod where my people had no reason to stop in (except in traffic jams in front of the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges). She will be the first person in her entire family tree to get a Ph.D, and she can trace the aforementioned tree back to the Mayflower. Her interest in astronomy is -- quite possibly -- the ONLY way these two communities could have interacted on a peer-to-peer level.
So the next time you see someone in the street, try to make friends with him. You may be surprised what you find.
What is more noble, being born into the upper middle class or actually entering it on your
own merit, encouraged to use the American work ethic?
I was raised in an upper-middle class family in one of the safest neighborhoods in America. My parents lived in the same house for 30 years and are about to have their 40th
anniversary. Most of the friends of the family were doctors, lawyers, and professors. Everyone I knew went to very good colleges and often came back with advanced degrees.
Yet for some reason, I knew virtually NO members of the "working class". For people who purport to be intelligent, this is a wee bit odd. Growing up, "working class" meant "having to live in HALF of a house instead of a whole house and not having a huge backyard". The only member of the "working class" I knew was a cleaning lady who came every week to clean the house. This illustrates the problem with class issues: very often the interaction between the two classes is a "master/servant" type of relationship, not one you'd expect between peers.
If you were raised in a similar environment, consider this question. How many machinists do YOU know well? Security guards? Gas station attendants? Construction workers? Cashiers? Do you ever interact with people like these as equals, in situations where you do not expect them to serve you?
All people want to pursue their interests and follow their dreams. Believe it or not, people in classes "inferior" to yours might have the same interests as you. They may even look up to you, hoping they can be like you. Ever thought of trying to forge some connections with people whom you've tried to ignore for most of your life?
I am interested in astronomy and was debating getting a Master's in astronomy or planetary science. I eventually run into someone who is getting a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard. A doctorate from Harvard? This girl must have connections. Let me guess -- family of lawyers, doctors, professors?
Nope. She grew up in a working-class household, in a culture which I had no idea about. Her relatives included machinists and security guards. Her home town was part of the Terra Incognita between Boston and Cape Cod where my people had no reason to stop in (except in traffic jams in front of the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges). She will be the first person in her entire family tree to get a Ph.D, and she can trace the aforementioned tree back to the Mayflower. Her interest in astronomy is -- quite possibly -- the ONLY way these two communities could have interacted on a peer-to-peer level.
So the next time you see someone in the street, try to make friends with him. You may be surprised what you find.
What is more noble, being born into the upper middle class or actually entering it on your
own merit, encouraged to use the American work ethic?
Friday, April 20, 2007
A Modest Proposal to Encourage Recycling
I've read that a lot of recyclable stuff is discarded instead of recycled. So what about this idea?
Require that each town have recycling bins and regular trash bags for each apartment and house. Each bag has the house's number on it. I know that several towns in Massachusetts already have recycle bins, so that's a good start.
Now here's the kicker. When the trash is emptied into the landfills, have the trash companies sort through the two bags. If anything recyclable shows up in the regular trash, the house which provided the trash gets fined (and similarly for non-recyclable goods placed in the recyclable bag). This should increase the rate of recycling and
give the garbage workers more to do.
This could be enforced by spot checks from time to time, similar to speeding. However, if spot checks are used, the penalties should be quite stiff. If you only get caught 1% of the time, you'd better be forced to pay $500 or $1000 or something like that to make sure that it's worth your while to keep on doing it.
I'd also recommend that the government place some kind of tax on any product which cannot be recycled. It can be a relatively small tax. However, there is so much waste nowadays that even a small tax can have an impact on consumers.
Require that each town have recycling bins and regular trash bags for each apartment and house. Each bag has the house's number on it. I know that several towns in Massachusetts already have recycle bins, so that's a good start.
Now here's the kicker. When the trash is emptied into the landfills, have the trash companies sort through the two bags. If anything recyclable shows up in the regular trash, the house which provided the trash gets fined (and similarly for non-recyclable goods placed in the recyclable bag). This should increase the rate of recycling and
give the garbage workers more to do.
This could be enforced by spot checks from time to time, similar to speeding. However, if spot checks are used, the penalties should be quite stiff. If you only get caught 1% of the time, you'd better be forced to pay $500 or $1000 or something like that to make sure that it's worth your while to keep on doing it.
I'd also recommend that the government place some kind of tax on any product which cannot be recycled. It can be a relatively small tax. However, there is so much waste nowadays that even a small tax can have an impact on consumers.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Marathon report
Here's a major surprise.
The men's winner was Kenyan.
The second place winner was Kenyan.
The third place winner was Kenyan.
And don't forget, the two "rabbits" at the beginning of the race -- both supposedly from Georgia -- were originally born in Kenya.
Do you see a trend here?
The Kenyans have won a whole slew of marathons in a row. It often makes you wonder what on earth they do in order to win so consistently.
I don't know that much about it, but here are the rumors I've heard.
1. Boston has the premier marathon in the world, and from what I've heard the Kenyans put a tremendous amount of effort to try to win it. From what I've heard, their win rate in other marathons is much lower than their win rate in Boston.
2. Kenya sends a large number of elite runners to Boston. Although any individual athlete has a low chance of winning, having a lot of competitors representing your country gives you a higher possibility of winning. (I'm ignoring all of the local hoi polloi with bib numbers in the 10,000's -- they have absolutely no chance of actually winning).
3. Several of the Kenyan runners may belong to tribes and peoples with genetic traits which may make them good long-distance runners. It's well-known that certain ethnic groups have unique genetic markers (Tay-Sachs disease is unusually common among Jews, for instance).
4. Westerners very likely have sacrificed much of their physical potential to technology. How many people walk 5 miles to work each day in the United States? How many people work on farms in the US? No wonder Americans tend to be out of shape when compared to people in other cultures. Having an American diet certainly doesn't help.
5. Kenya must have an established running club or prize related to the Marathon. If it were just an ethnic/cultural issue, many of the former British colonies near Kenya (Uganda, Tanzania, and so forth) would also be able to field strong teams.
I highly doubt that this is an issue of training. An athlete's will and self-determination clearly transcends national identity and culture. You can't become an elite runner
without lots of training. I'm curious if the Americans can learn something from the Kenyans.
The men's winner was Kenyan.
The second place winner was Kenyan.
The third place winner was Kenyan.
And don't forget, the two "rabbits" at the beginning of the race -- both supposedly from Georgia -- were originally born in Kenya.
Do you see a trend here?
The Kenyans have won a whole slew of marathons in a row. It often makes you wonder what on earth they do in order to win so consistently.
I don't know that much about it, but here are the rumors I've heard.
1. Boston has the premier marathon in the world, and from what I've heard the Kenyans put a tremendous amount of effort to try to win it. From what I've heard, their win rate in other marathons is much lower than their win rate in Boston.
2. Kenya sends a large number of elite runners to Boston. Although any individual athlete has a low chance of winning, having a lot of competitors representing your country gives you a higher possibility of winning. (I'm ignoring all of the local hoi polloi with bib numbers in the 10,000's -- they have absolutely no chance of actually winning).
3. Several of the Kenyan runners may belong to tribes and peoples with genetic traits which may make them good long-distance runners. It's well-known that certain ethnic groups have unique genetic markers (Tay-Sachs disease is unusually common among Jews, for instance).
4. Westerners very likely have sacrificed much of their physical potential to technology. How many people walk 5 miles to work each day in the United States? How many people work on farms in the US? No wonder Americans tend to be out of shape when compared to people in other cultures. Having an American diet certainly doesn't help.
5. Kenya must have an established running club or prize related to the Marathon. If it were just an ethnic/cultural issue, many of the former British colonies near Kenya (Uganda, Tanzania, and so forth) would also be able to field strong teams.
I highly doubt that this is an issue of training. An athlete's will and self-determination clearly transcends national identity and culture. You can't become an elite runner
without lots of training. I'm curious if the Americans can learn something from the Kenyans.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
First entry
Well, here it is by popular demand. A blog.
I'm not sure what exactly you're expecting. Song parodies? Interesting discoveries and puns (for instance, you must be aware that the reason Matzah tastes bad and constipates people during Passover is because MATZAH anagrams to HAZMAT?). Meditative words of wisdom?
Well, I can start with an idea for science/fiction/nonfiction novel all in one. It's quite simple. Take a certain date and time: for instance 4/23/07 at 6:00 PM.
Have one chapter describe what was going on in the immediate vicinity 1 second earlier. This could be done by having a friend describe what he or she was doing at 6:00. Should be pretty straightforward. For instance, John Smith can say "I had just gone past mile marker 0.7 on the Leverett Connector, heading towards Boston".
Now multiply the time interval by 10. Have the second chapter describe what the person had been doing 10 seconds earlier. They need not be the same people, but they should be linked in some way. Mary Smith, in the car with John, could say: "John and I had just passed mile marker 0.6."
For each succeeding chapter, keep on multiplying the interval by 10. And this is where things get interesting.
3: 100 seconds. John and Mary Smith are approaching the beginning of the Leverett Connector.
4: 1000 seconds = 15 minutes. John and Mary Smith are leaving work.
5: 150 minutes. The sun is still quite high in the sky. Mary Smith is at a meeting. John Smith is working out at the gym.
6: 1500 minutes = 1 day. It's Sunday and John and Mary Smith are talking with friends.
7: 10 days. John and Mary Smith are making plans for 9 days later to talk with friends.
8: 100 days. John and Mary Smith watch Deval Patrick get inaugurated in Massachusetts.
9: 1000 days = 3 years. John and Mary Smith get married.
10: 30 years. John Smith is born.
11: 300 years -- at this point things start to become fictional if necessary. It's 1707. Charity Smith is accused of witchcraft in Reading, Massachusetts. You can have a few pages describing what happened to her. Salem was not the only town in the area to have witch trials.
12: 3000 years -- King David [ca 1000 BC] plans a party for his wife Bathsheba. The chapter would talk about what he did and so forth.
13: 30,000 years -- The last Neanderthal laments the last of his species as the Neanderthals are exterminated in Europe by Homo sapiens.
14: 300,000 years -- Depending on what correct time period for the event is, humans decide to start exploring
northern Africa. Chieftain G'ob is concerned about the future of his tribe. Either that, or he invents a new tool or the wheel or something like that.
15: 3 million years - A lemur realizes that he can survive without his tail just fine.
16: 30 million years - One mammal eats another or something like that.
17: 300 million years - I'd have to check the fossil record: maybe we can have some fish getting forced out of water and realizing that it strange mutation allows it to breathe air for short periods of time.
18: 3 billion years - An amoeba finds itself in pain and tries to figure out why. Eventually, it can't resist the pain and divides in two. Life has arisen for the first time in the area.
And the kicker:
19: 30 billion years - The novel adopts the philosophy of the cyclical universe, where it is possible for universes to be created in Big Bangs, collapse into Big Crunches, and have the crunched universe explode in a new Big Bang. In this prior universe, a race of virtually omnipotent, astronomically long-lived beings (known as the Creators) discover that their universe will collapse upon itself in 16.7 +/- 1.3 years [though their description of time would be different]. They are the only intelligent species in their universe and don't want their knowledge to be lost in the ensuing Crunch. To this end, they use their sophisticated technology to manipulate their universe's spacetime continuum to guarantee that at least one form of intelligent life will be reconstructed out of the wreckage of their universe. After voting to carry on with this idea, they execute the change to the universe and then retire to their homes to anticipate the end.
I'm not sure what exactly you're expecting. Song parodies? Interesting discoveries and puns (for instance, you must be aware that the reason Matzah tastes bad and constipates people during Passover is because MATZAH anagrams to HAZMAT?). Meditative words of wisdom?
Well, I can start with an idea for science/fiction/nonfiction novel all in one. It's quite simple. Take a certain date and time: for instance 4/23/07 at 6:00 PM.
Have one chapter describe what was going on in the immediate vicinity 1 second earlier. This could be done by having a friend describe what he or she was doing at 6:00. Should be pretty straightforward. For instance, John Smith can say "I had just gone past mile marker 0.7 on the Leverett Connector, heading towards Boston".
Now multiply the time interval by 10. Have the second chapter describe what the person had been doing 10 seconds earlier. They need not be the same people, but they should be linked in some way. Mary Smith, in the car with John, could say: "John and I had just passed mile marker 0.6."
For each succeeding chapter, keep on multiplying the interval by 10. And this is where things get interesting.
3: 100 seconds. John and Mary Smith are approaching the beginning of the Leverett Connector.
4: 1000 seconds = 15 minutes. John and Mary Smith are leaving work.
5: 150 minutes. The sun is still quite high in the sky. Mary Smith is at a meeting. John Smith is working out at the gym.
6: 1500 minutes = 1 day. It's Sunday and John and Mary Smith are talking with friends.
7: 10 days. John and Mary Smith are making plans for 9 days later to talk with friends.
8: 100 days. John and Mary Smith watch Deval Patrick get inaugurated in Massachusetts.
9: 1000 days = 3 years. John and Mary Smith get married.
10: 30 years. John Smith is born.
11: 300 years -- at this point things start to become fictional if necessary. It's 1707. Charity Smith is accused of witchcraft in Reading, Massachusetts. You can have a few pages describing what happened to her. Salem was not the only town in the area to have witch trials.
12: 3000 years -- King David [ca 1000 BC] plans a party for his wife Bathsheba. The chapter would talk about what he did and so forth.
13: 30,000 years -- The last Neanderthal laments the last of his species as the Neanderthals are exterminated in Europe by Homo sapiens.
14: 300,000 years -- Depending on what correct time period for the event is, humans decide to start exploring
northern Africa. Chieftain G'ob is concerned about the future of his tribe. Either that, or he invents a new tool or the wheel or something like that.
15: 3 million years - A lemur realizes that he can survive without his tail just fine.
16: 30 million years - One mammal eats another or something like that.
17: 300 million years - I'd have to check the fossil record: maybe we can have some fish getting forced out of water and realizing that it strange mutation allows it to breathe air for short periods of time.
18: 3 billion years - An amoeba finds itself in pain and tries to figure out why. Eventually, it can't resist the pain and divides in two. Life has arisen for the first time in the area.
And the kicker:
19: 30 billion years - The novel adopts the philosophy of the cyclical universe, where it is possible for universes to be created in Big Bangs, collapse into Big Crunches, and have the crunched universe explode in a new Big Bang. In this prior universe, a race of virtually omnipotent, astronomically long-lived beings (known as the Creators) discover that their universe will collapse upon itself in 16.7 +/- 1.3 years [though their description of time would be different]. They are the only intelligent species in their universe and don't want their knowledge to be lost in the ensuing Crunch. To this end, they use their sophisticated technology to manipulate their universe's spacetime continuum to guarantee that at least one form of intelligent life will be reconstructed out of the wreckage of their universe. After voting to carry on with this idea, they execute the change to the universe and then retire to their homes to anticipate the end.
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