zenpundit.com » economics

Archive for the ‘economics’ Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

Serpent logic and related

Saturday, September 14th, 2013

[ by Charles Cameron — where paradox begets form in phrasing, redux ]
.

Here for your entertainment and entrainment are some further instances where the tweet doubles back on itself, bites its tail, or otherwise embodies some form of “form” that’s noteworthy in its own right, and possibly indicative of the heart of a problem — think of these tweets as eddies in the flow of things, knots in the wood…

Two arms crossed as in that MC Escher hand-draws-hand piece:

And a net version of the same, aka “tit for tat”:

Speaking of economics, here’s a bit of spiral logic — the economics of spiralling out of control?

And here’s an example of “endless” recursion, as featured in two tweets about “end” times from Barth’s Notes:

and its 2013 equivalent:

**

Okay, here are some simple sample opposites. First, the weather forecast for Syria:

— spelled our explicitly by Andrew Stroehlein, who tweeted “Sunny with a chance of cluster bombs…” in response.

That one seems fairly fair, but click on the links yourself to see the nuances in King‘s actual statements.

**

Now for some regular serpents’ tails, from the reasonably light-hearted to the heavier end of the scales:

Okay, here are two from Mikko Hypponen, the first of which is frankly outdated, but still fun:

— Angela Watercutter caught the tide at just the right moment with her Wired piece, Skynet Becomes Self-Aware: How to Welcome Our AI Overlords:

The time has come. According to the Terminator clock, at 8:11 p.m. Tuesday, Skynet will become self-aware. And humanity will be screwed. Going by canon set out in the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series, Judgment Day should hit Thursday.

Never mind Mikko, this one’s funny too — if and only if one’s also familiar with Wikipedia, which seems plausible in all cases for those who follow twitter — it wins double-honors in fact, hitting it out of the self-reference ball-park and into parallelism as satire:

**

Namarupa, or “name and form”, has to do with parallelisms between a name and its referent — or what zen might call the “finger pointing” and the moon — always fun:

The next one depends on your knowing that the Greek mythological creature known as a Naiad refers to “any of the nymphs in classical mythology living in and giving life to lakes, rivers, springs, and fountains”:

— aptly named indeed.

**

We’re almost done — here’s one with a built in time-factor:

It it still there? Aha!

**

Finally, this isn’t a serpent eating its tail by itself:

— but it becomes one, I’d suggest, when Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US from 2008 to 2011, retweets it!

**

Until next time…

Posted in Apocalyptic, Charles Cameron, complexity, economics, egypt, form, hard problem in consciousness, Lebanon, logic, pakistan, paradox, philosophy, quant & qualit, Religion, sports, statistics, syria, twitter, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Of serpent-bites in logic

Saturday, August 31st, 2013

[ by Charles Cameron — continuing my series on the “serpent bites tail” reflexive form (1, 2, 3, 4) in which analytic gems and other insights may often be easily discovered or succinctly expressed — read this post fast for fun, or reflectively (!!) for the ripples ]
.

I’m going to lead off with this tweet, which seems very timely considering the news this last week or so about Syria…

I thought this was another quite beautiful example of “serpent bites its own tail” phrasing — timely too — uttered by JM Berger in summarizing his Loopcast with Daveed Gartenstein-Ross on the current status of Al-Qaeda, highly recommended, BTW:

And if you want to know about Hezbollah and its global reach, this one refers to the book you need…

**

Okay, having given pride of place to those three, I’d like to catch those of you who are interested up on an entire series of self-referencing tweets I’ve run across since I last posted. I’m really collecting these things because I’d like, one of these days, to do a thorough analysis of what they teach us about our modes of thought, and how we can apply that to pattern-recognition in our own readings, and creative insight in our writings and analytic output… In the meantime, don’t feel obliged to read every last one, just dip in as you feel inclined — think of this as a reference section, okay? Take what you need and leave the rest.

Here’s one that uses the Escher‘s hand draws hand format:

And here’s a pair that needs to stay together:

Continuing… I might as well give you a cluster from Teju Cole, since he’s a master…

Okay, here’s another one with timely reference, this time to the whole NSA business:

Really, this is just such a rich vein of humor and insight:

Let’s go to another wordsmith — they’re often good at this stuff:

Two from philosopher Allen Stairs:

One from quasi-Einstein, via the very bright (non-quasi) Seb Paquet:

**

I’ll close with an example from the “all is nothing” category, this one from Peter J Munson:

Posted in al qaida, Charles Cameron, Creepy-state, daveed gartenstein-ross, economics, guantanamo, hezbollah, IC, intelligence, JM Berger, philosophy, syria, twitter, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Zeitgeist?

Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

[ by Charles Cameron — the weather of the world? — three otherwise unrelated tweets and a December 2013 prediction ]
.

Sources:

  • JM Berger
  • El Cid
  • Teju Cole

    • **

    Meanwhile, some people are going whole hog:

    Source:

  • Sovereign Society

    • Posted in Charles Cameron, economics, prediction, question, twitter, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

    Form is insight: the vesica piscis

    Sunday, June 2nd, 2013

    [ by Charles Cameron — here’s another post in my importance of form in intelligence series ]
    .

    Form is pattern, and pattern recognition is insight.

    A while back, I started a series of posts [1, 2, 3, 4 and 5] in which I suggested that form is, from an intelligence point of view (and however you may parse “intelligence”) as important to humans as content. I’ll be saying more about this today, but wanted to complete this old and never quite completed post in that series right away, in response to a comment Grurray made today regarding Venn diagrams and the vesica piscis.
    .


    .

    **

    If you’ve seen a Venn diagram, you’ve seen overlap. And the simplest form of overlap — between two classes, ideas, or whatever — is the one that’s Venn diagrammed (below, left) as the overlapping of two equal circles — known to artists as the vesica piscis or eye of the fish.

    MasterCard uses it for its logo (right) —

    — as do Gucci and Chanel:


    .

    **

    But let’s go back to that first pair of images:


    .

    Long before commerce took note of it, the vesica was a sacred image — back in the days when geometry, like nature herself, was sacred.

    Like the illuminist of the Codex Bruchsal (ca 1220) with his Christ Pantocrator (above, left), Jan Valentine Saether makes sacred use of the vesica in his book The Viloshin Letters, which I hope to see published shortly — the exquisite suite of prints that accompany the text have already been exhibited to acclaim.

    In his text accompanying this particular plate, he writes:

    I was not sure. But a new wonder has been moving towards us. That which is… has a new presence. Entering here from elsewhere, the holy spirit manifested again in the vernacular last Wednesday, September 16th.

    We were standing around, being together in our own fashion, when suddenly through our common imagination, right there on the floor in the old barn, the donna and the madonna, the loose one and the holy one, merged and became visible.

    **

    It seems to me there is more to the glory of God than there is to the glory of handbags and perfumes — but your mileage may vary, credit cards are handy little items, and then again, it’s all part of the glory in my opinion.

    A neat koan, that.

    Posted in art, Charles Cameron, christianity, economics, form, IC, intelligence, koan, symbolism, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

    Update on America 3.0 Book Events – Bennett and Lotus

    Friday, May 31st, 2013

    America 3.0 

    From Chicago Boyz:

    America 3.0: Mike Lotus on The Bob Dutko Show

    Mike Lotus will be on the Bob Dutko radio show tomorrow, May 31, 2013 at 12:40 p.m. EST. Bob hosts Detroit’s #1 Christian Talk Radio Show on WMUZS 103.5 FM.

    Please listen in if you can!

    Many thanks to the Bob Dutko Show for having me on.

    This weekend we will post an updated list of upcoming appearances by Jim Bennett, Mike Lotus, and occasionally both of us together, talking about America 3.0.

    Thanks to The Takeaway, the The Armstrong & Getty Show, and The Janet Mefferd show for interviewing Jim Bennett — all yesterday. It was a Bennett Threefer! 

    And Author Appearances:

    Upcoming appearances for Jim Bennett and Mike Lotus discussing America 3.0

    Tuesday, May 28, 2013
    Lou Dobbs Tonight (James and Michael)
    We will be on about 7:45 p.m. EST.

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013
    Armstrong & Getty (James)
    11:15 am EST

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013 
    Janet Mefferd Show (James)
    3:30 pm EST

    Friday, May 31, 2013 
    Bob Dutko Show (Michael)
    1:40 pm EST

    Tuesday, June 4, 2013
    Talk to Adam Smith Society, Booth School of Business (Michael)
    Noon

    Thursday, June 6, 2013
    Mornings with Nick Reed (Michael)

    Saturday, June 7, 2013
    Marc Bernier Show (James & Michael)
    4:25 pm EST

    Monday, June 17, 2013
    Western Conservative Summit, “Envisioning America 3.0” (James)

    And their maiden TV appearance with Lou Dobbs:

    Posted in 15th century, 16th century, 17th century, 18th century, 19th century, 20th century, 21st century, America, America 3.0, analytic, anthropology, authors, blog-friends, book, chicago boyz, conservativism, cultural intelligence, culture, democracy, economics, futurism, government, historiography, history, lexington green, national debt, Patterns, politics, reading, reform, social science, society, synthesis, youtube | 1 Comment »

    « Previous Entries
    Next Entries »

    Switch to our mobile site