Tag - Synthesis

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Monday, February 3 2020

Bible lexicon: Strong Concordance with whole KJV in spreasheet

Here is my worksheet about biblical lexicon, a clean compilation of various treasures i've found: Strong concordance lists for Hebrew and Greek with translation counts for KJV and NASV, along with the complete KJV with Strong numbers. All in all, this allows word counts through the use of excel functions. Enjoy!


(Click on the picture to open the XLS worksheet)

Thursday, September 26 2019

Etymology - Esperanta Vortorigino kaj Komprenebleco

Esperanto:

Mi kunhavas chi tie kelkajn datumojn pri la vortorigino de Esperanto. Mi surbazis de la laboro de Andras Rajki el jaro 2006. Li studis grupon de 4000 vortoj kaj serchis la similajn vortojn el la latina, franca, itala, germana, jidisha, nederlanda, angla, rusa, pola kaj lituana lingvoj. Tiuj lingvoj estas konsideritaj tiel "lingvoj de Zamenhofo" char estas la lingvoj kiuj Zamehof pli-malpli kapablis kaj vershajne uzis por krei la internacian lingvon.

Andreas Rajki studas per sia vortprovizo la kompreneblecon inter tiuj lingvoj. Lia samecaj kondichoj estas iom striktaj (priskribitaj chi tie) Ekzemple li jughas ke "perfekta" ne sufiche similas "perfetta", "distanco" ne sufiche al "distanza" aw "distantia", "historio" al "istoria", kaj "havi la "haben", aw "trinki" al "drink". Do oni povus rekalkuli pli grandajn porcentojn de interkomprenebleco se inkluzus tiajn prununcajn variajhojn.

En tiu bilda rezumo ni povas vidi kaj la granda plejparto de Esperanta vortorigino estas la franca kaj latina. Preskaw 80% devenas de la romanaj lingvoj. Sed plej interesa estas ke tiu vortaro tamen tre bone kompreneblas de la parolantoj el la germanaj aw slavaj lingvoj.

English:

I'm sharing here some information about Esperanto etymology. The work is based on data published by Andra Rajki in 2006. He studied a set of 4000 words for which he looked for similar words from Latin, French, Italian, German, Yidish, Dutch, English, Russian, Polish and Lithuanian. Thos languages are considered "Zamehof languages" since Zamenhof knew them and probably used them to create the International Languages.

Andras Rajki studied the mutual intelligibility between these languages. His similarity conditions are somewhat strict (details here) He decided that "perfekta" wasn't similar enought to "perfetta", "distanco" neither to "distanza" or "distantia", "historio" to "istoria", and "havi to "haben", or "trinki" to "drink". We could then recalculate larger percentages of intelligibility if we'd include those variations of pronunciation.

In the picture we can see that the vast majority of Esperanto vocabulary comes from Latin and French. Nearly 80% come from Romance languages. However it is even more interesting to see that this lexicon is still well intelligible to speakers of Germanic or Slavic languages.

Discussion ici en Français sur l'Atelier

Tuesday, May 8 2018

Musical Modes: compiled, analysed and compared

After my first attempt in 2009 to review the modes used in modern jazz, I'm deepening the analysis and including the 72 ragas from southern India.

The diagram shows which of the 12 semitones are used to build the musical scale, with colours indicating their natural consonances or tensions with the starting note.

The excel sheet gives all the data and functions.

Here are the 5 pentatonic modes built without semitone interval:

The pentatonic mode of Re# was used for the melody of this 2011 composition.
The Indian raga KamaVardani was used in the last part of this 2015 composition (Krishna talks!), and in this one (descending little devils..)

Continue reading...

Monday, May 22 2017

Personality Models: Myers-Briggs and others

Know Thyself!
Direct experience of one's feeling and behavior is best, but some nerdy scientific or pseudo-scientific models of psychology can help putting words on it.

Personality models can be split into 2 categories: those with odd and even numbers of types.

The models with odd numbers (Enneagram, Chinese 5 Agents 五行, 9 Belbin Team Roles, etc.) define the personalities without analyzing them as mere combinations of aspects. They describe each of them as a whole that is more than just a sum of components: these are holistic approaches.

The models in even numbers by contrast are taking analytic approaches: they analyze the personalities as combinations of aspects, based on binary oppositions: Introvert/Extrovert, Active/Passive, Rational/Intuitive, Conservative/Progressive, Indirect/Direct, etc.

Following the tradition of Carl Jung in analytic psychology, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), takes this analytic approach to a high degree, by defining 4 aspects:

  • Extrovert/Introvert: being with others stimulates us, or makes us uncomfortable and exhausted?
  • Mode of perception: Sensing/iNtuiting: do we sense the practical facts and objective reality, or do we intuitively get the big picture, and the underlying principles?
  • Mode of judgment: Thinking/Feeling: do we decide objectively based on logic and justice, or subjectively with empathy, forgiveness, and aiming at harmony?
  • Dominance between the 2 modes: Judging/Perceiving: need for plan and achievement within clear framework and deadlines, or comfortable with improvising in flexible environment?

The combinations of the 4 pairs of letters (E/I, S/N, T/F, J/P) gives the 16 types. Selecting only 3 letters will define a pair of types, and 2 letters defines a group of 4 types (see comments below the diagram)

I have tried to integrate into the above MBTI chart 4 other models:

  • Herrmann Whole Brain Thinking, which seems to focus on the aspects Thinking/Feeling and Sensing/iNtuiting. Captions at the bottom of diagram, splitting into 4 columns.
  • The Greek Four Temperaments, related to my proposal of cardinal cycle, which opposes Introvert/Extrovert, and Stable/Unstable. Captions on the right side of the diagram, splitting into 4 lines.
  • DiSC Assessment, which opposes Active/Passive and People/Task. Splitting the above diagram into 4 quarters.
  • Keirsey Temperament Sorter, which is often presented in connection with the MBTI. It is represented by 4 shapes, with captions on the left side.

There have been quite many 4-types personality models across history, but matching the types one by one is often too direct. The above diagram uses the wider playground of the MBTI to compare the models more subtly.

So.. what about myself? You can try to classify me as INTP, but also ENTP when in contact with peoples, INFP and INFP when I listen more to my heart (these 4 types form a NP group), and also ISTP and ISFP at time when i get more pragmatic.

Monday, January 30 2017

Dashboard of suspicious corporations

In our world of increasingly virtual interactions, companies mastering the information technologies and networks are quickly gaining power at several levels. Here is a table to keep an eye on those folks. I use colors to show the now traditional groups: GAFAM in blue, their Chinese twin rivals BATX in red, their US good-guys rivals NATU (Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla, Uber) in green, big media in orange.

A healthy rule is to split our personal information and dependencies across different firms, or none of them if you can afford!

 

 

Influence

Monitoring

Hardware, physical world

News

Inspiration

Messenger

Activity

Google-Alphabet

Google News, Analytics

Search, Ads, Youtube

Gmail, hangout

Android, Apps, Calendar, Map, Translate, Drive, ChromeOS, Now IPA

ChromeBook, Car, CheckOut pay (till 2013), Calico (bio-engineering)

Apple

News

iTune, Apple TV

iPhone

iOS, Safari, iLife, Logic, Final Cut, iCloud, Shazam, Siri IPA

Apple store, Apple Energy, ApplePay

Facebook-Meta

 

Ads

WhatsApp, Messenger

Facebook Instagram

(headset for Metaverse, soon)

Amazon

Alexa

Amazon.com, Amazon studios

 

Cloud computing, Echo, Alexa IPA, Evi IPA

Physical sales, Pay, GoPago payment, AmazonGo (store)

Microsoft

 

Xbox games, Bing seach

Skype, MSN, Outlook, ex-hotmail

Windows, MSOffice, O365, Teams, Sharepoint, Linkedin, Cortana IPA

Nokia, Windows phone

Baidu
百度

Tongji web analytics, Hexun finance

Baidu search, Knows, Encyclopedia, Music, Image

 

NetDisk, Map, Browser, Yi OS, Space

外卖 Waimai food, Qunar travel

Alibaba
阿里巴巴

 

Alibaba movies

 

Alibaba, Sesame credit

Alibaba.com, Taobao.com, Tmall.com, AliPay, Meituan, cloud

Tencent
腾讯

   

QQ, WeChat

CRF credit, WeiYun, WeiBo

TenPay

Xiao Mi
小米

     

MiCloud

Phone, laptops, TV, connected objects

Hua Wei
华为

     

EMUI OS

Phones, data centers, network

 Netflix

 

VoD, TV and film production

     

 AirBnB

     

AirBnB

House rental

 Tesla

       

(PayPal sold to Ebay) Elec cars, solar PV panel, SpaceX

 Uber

     

Uber app

Taxi service

Comcast

NBC, 26 US TV stations

Universal pictures, Focus

   

Movies and goodies

News Corp.

Fox News, National geographic, WallStreet journal

20th Century Fox, Blue Sky, Searchlight

   

Movies and goodies

Disney

 

Disney, Marvel, LucasFilm, Pixar, Touchstone

   

Movies and goodies, theme parks

Time Warner

CNN

HBO, Cinemax, Warner bros, Cartoon Network, DC Comics

AIM, ICQ  

Movies and goodies

Samsung
三星
  Everland theme park   S Voice, Gear VR, Viv IPA Phones, electronic, Heavy industry (ships), construction, Life insurance
Twitter     Twitter Twitter networks  

eBay

Corrigon visual search

First Look media, The Intercept, Field of Vision

(Skype sold to Microsoft)

eBay

eBay, PayPal

Rakuten
乐天

 

Kobo, Wuaki.tv, Pinterest, FC Barcelona

Viber

 

Rakuten, Play.com, Buy.com, PriceMinister

Yahoo-Verizon News, Finance, Geoplanet, Answers Yahoo search, Music, Movies Yahoo mails Flickr, Tumblr, Delicious PayDirect (till 2004), Yahoo Travel
           
           

 

For more details about media conglomerates, Korean Chaebol 財閥 , Japanese Keiretsu 系列,  and the (short) French Wikipedia article on GAFAM, BATX, and NATU.

Meanwhile in China, the wondrous Social Credit System looms quietly. Here is the full text outline document in English and Chinese. The keyword to justify it is 诚信  ("honesty", translated here as "sincerity"), a word that Alibaba's champion Jack Ma has been emphasizing a lot in his speeches. I introduced further about this system in this earlier post.

And to attack another weak spot, Alibaba's Ant Finance is starting a cooperation with the UN Environmental Program UNEP to build a platform for individual monitoring of greenhouse gas. A green pretext to monitor the people!

Sunday, January 1 2017

Around Chopstick Languages (Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean)

Here is a list of articles and documents related to Chinese or Vietnamese:

  • Etymology of Chinese Characters, with proposes and illustrates 3 more sinogram generation mechanism, on the top of the 6 traditional.
  • Neo Nom 新喃 , a Japanese-inspired reconstruction of the ancient script Nôm, for learning purpose! If you know a bit of Chinese, that will gives you some keys to consolidate Vietnamese with what you know.
  • Chinese Etymology with Dr. Wieger's book (French), an in-depth etymological introduction, based on the seal script, the Shuowen and critical views of it.
  • Waseikango 和制汉语, a list of the Chinese words created by Japanese, Chinese and westerners during the XIXth century to describe new western concept. I’ve compiled the list myself from 2 sources.
  • Shuowen 说文解字 , an online XLS copy of the ancient etymological dictionary, with 11,100 entries. I’ve heavily customized it to analyze the text through excel functions and extract data systematically.
  • KoreoViet 韩越南字 , A Korean-inspired phonetic script for Vietnamese.
  • Voc Pro, a vocabulary list for professional context (technical, office) with translations in Vietnamese, Chinese, German, Spanish, and Bahasa.

Thursday, December 1 2016

What is Life, Death, and Salvation?

A Bible reading session last month posed the question of the afterlife (Mt 22). After a long exploration of the topic, I came to think that it involves questioning the very definition of life and death themselves! Using my habit of emergent layers, applied to an individual person (cf. numeral symbol by Bernard Werber), I came out with this table to describe what it means to be alive or dead:

Evolution levels

State of Life

State of Death

5. Saint (spiritual)

Hope, Faith, Love

Despair, denial/betrayal, hate

4. Human (mental)

Personality, intelligence, humour

Madness, mental handicap

3. Animal (emotional)

Sensory and emotional reaction, desires

Lethargic, vegetative state

2. Plant (biological)

Biological life, health

Handicap, decease

1. Mineral (physical)

Body, physical presence

Disaggregation

0. Through others (vicarious)

Name, stories, worship, statue

Oblivion

This table matches the cardinal cycle and the 4 fields of education, with 2: sport for the body, 3: art for the heart, 4: science for the mind, and 5: wisdom for the soul. I also add a “zero” level which corresponds to our life (and survival!) through others: how we are known and remembered. With this table, it appears that death is often gradual: being handicapped, desperate, and ignored, already cripples the wholeness of our life. Often the death of the higher levels would cause the lower ones in turn to crumble. However we can also imagine the death of an unknown person, keeping quietly his wisdom and conscience till the end.

The above table may seem to over-analyse life and death, cutting it into thin nuances, but actually the Greek vocabulary of the New Testament also does so! One of my cousin underlined that in the Gospels there is a distinction between 3 forms of life: Bios: life of the body (2) and (3), Psyche: life of the mind (4), and Zoe: eternal life of the soul (5). We can also match these with the 3 loves: Eros of the body, Philia of the mind, and Agape of the soul. As I like to believe, vocabulary and grammar help with philosophy.

From the etymological angle, resurrection comes from the Latin "resurgere", "to spring up again", akin to "source" but without the idea of "origin". In Chinese 復活 is "return to life", in Vietnamese Phục sinh 復生 is "rebirth". In Greek Ανάσταση: "stand up". It sounds sometimes like a return to our previous life, or the start of a new one.

If we consider that, in the face of his death, a man’s salvation consist in keeping his life, it seems that most cultures tend to focus on the lower levels: a grave, a legend, a statue to remain in people’s head (0), and sometimes a mummy to keep the body. Then many religions and beliefs promise to restore the body (1), bring it back to physical life and health (2), enjoy a paradisaical existence of pleasures (3),  and optionally some grand revelations (4).

What if it were the other way around, eternal life through the higher levels? Simply survive as spirits (4), free from bodily life and heaviness, taking with us the most precious fruits of our soul (5). Like the butterfly leaving the caterpillar cocoon. In Christian context, the realization of divine salvation implies the irrelevance of hope and faith: only love is to remain. Christian theology tells however that the body will be restored, in an uncorruptible form, because God created matter as part of a good creation, as opposed to gnostics who believe that matter is an evil prison for the soul.

Could this utlimate bliss scene also mean to abandon our individuality? Meeting face to face with God should be a fantastic love burst, surely calling for a fusion, following the example of the Trinity. That would mean that even our own self (4) fades out as we merge back into the source of light.

Even further, if this salvation leads to an eternal state of perfection, could time disappear? Time would mean motion and evolution, but hard to imagine a dynamic perfection lasting forever! It would necessary imply fluctuations around the optimum, and the absence of overall increase of excellence would mean terrible boredom for the spirits endowed with memory. Even if their memory were wiped regularly so that they may enjoy the same perfect (groundhog) day forever, that would be a kind of time-loop, not so different from a mere interruption of time. Hard to imagine what could be existence without time, our intimate and yet mysterious life drug! We could be either without time (hit into a bliss wall the end of the road, just like the Big Bang sprung from nowhere), or beyond time, seeing it from above like a spiralling track from its beginning till its end.

Thursday, October 20 2016

Ads, Adore, and Addict: cultural shifts

As media and trends move faster, our consumer societies sometimes undergo spectacularly quick transformations. I have recently noticed 3 notions where cultural conceptions worldwide have been toppled upside down: the consumer will “Adore”, will be “Addicted”, and Ads are here to know what you like and become viral.

Adore
I’m starting my story the way it came to me. Living in Vietnam, I partly witness the transition and contrast from pre-war generation (under French influence, respectful of Confucian and Buddhist traditions), post war generation (pro USSR, but still keeping Confucian and Buddhist as part of Vietnamese identity), and the young generations (embracing exhibitionist consumerism, iPhones selfies and hipster styles).

Throughout Buddhism, “passion” and “enthusiastic fascination” (迷, Mê) is considered evil as a source of suffering. It receives similar treatment in Plato’s philosophy. This word has a negative connotations in Chinese and Vietnamese (e.g. 迷信: superstition, 迷惑: confuse, 迷宫: maze, 迷路: lose way, 痴迷: crazy, 低迷: depressed, 迷醉: intoxicate, etc.) However nowadays, the word is gaining glamour, and is considered as a desirable sign of enjoyment. In this advertisement here-below, it rhymes with Yêu, love.

A comparable shift happened long ago in English and French, when the word “adore” became a mere synonym of liking something very much. Considering the 2nd of the Bible’s 10 Commandments, forbidding the adoration of idols, we can see that the word has gone a long way up until now!

Addict
More surprisingly, as several studies start to warn about the addictive dangers of video games, apps, TV series and others recent digital medias, the very word “addictive” managed to become a marketing catchphrase! Countless ads praise the latest online “addicting games” that will “take control of your life” and “keep you awake all night”.

How incredible that the selling pitch of a product uses the exact same language as those denouncing their dangers! Have we gone to the point where self-indulgence, decadence and selfish craving can be openly glorified? Maybe these evils have been blamed too heavily in our traditional cultures and the feeling of guilt now swings back to the other extreme: claiming egoist hedonism and self-intoxication as a new way of life?

Advertisements
I remember 20 years ago, advertisement was still vastly regarded as a one-way marketing hunting tool, trying to urge consumers to buy a product or service. Every company was praising its own product and pushing them to the market. Later on, several studies showed that TV audience actually likes ads, for their catchy style and entertainment.

Further down the line, we saw Facebook asking us whether we find such or such ad interesting, relevant, or funny to us. That is another great shift: ads are supposed to become “relevant”, and to do so, each of us is supposed to allow Google and Facebook to know our tastes. Now, since most of us can’t really figure out what we would like, Google offers to plays the Gestapo-psychologist and spy on us to predict our behavior, and convert us into consuming appendices of the supply chain. No need to think further, mother Google will tell us “what we like”.

That’s it.
Now it’s time to ask ourselves whether we really want to go down that path:

Craze and crave in your cradle-grave, with umbilical cords to crate you as slave.

Maybe at some point, rejecting the machine assistance to consumer decision could be considered as a seditious act blamed for destabilizing the computed economy?

Actually to be fair, modern ads are not purely turning us into passive consumers, but also convert us into ambassadors, to share the ads in turn, either for its fun, or because we genuinely want to share the word. This implies more commitment, and maybe, even critical thinking! Such social interactivity with the ad is the opportunity for freedom of expression through online civil society, promoting or criticizing content.

BONUS: Social Credit Rating
When allowing personal initiative and freedom of speech, one of the next moves of abusive governments is "Social Credit". There are various forms of such rating. So far they mostly focus on the credit-worthiness of loan takers, analyzing their purchase record and contact list to determine whether lending them money is safe. For example the "Sesame credit" 芝麻信用 from Alibaba's 蚂蚁金服 "Ant Financial Service" in China since 2015, with 190 million users. Some dating websites (e.g. 百合 Baihe) encourages users to boast their scores, thus influencing matching, making it de facto a criteria for social segregation. Similar credit ratings are in use in the US (Credit Karma since 2007, and ironically since 2010: Credit Sesame!) Facebook also tried one in 2014, based on social media content, but called it off in Feb 2016 over regulatory issues.

Here is a broader and quite perverted version of social credit: Each citizen would be rated based on the compliance of his behavior with a given standard. Criteria could include purchases, message content, readings, travels, studies, and even non-secretiveness (willingness to show all their life for analysis), etc. Bad grade citizens are penalized when asking for services (loan, study, accommodations, etc.), while good pupils are rewarded. The social credit of whoever you connect with and meet could also affect your own credit, thus preventing social class mix and dialogue.

That would be a lovely way to manipulate populations by saying: "Yes you are free, but being "naughty" will make your life much harder..." Besides, whatever criteria included in the evaluation must be provided to the rating agency, since "You don't have anything to hide, do you?". Easy to see how it can go wrong.

In Vietnam a still distantly comparable rating system is used: "Gia đình Văn hóa" : 家庭文化: "Family with (proper) culture", which rewards compliant and orthodox families with a public signboard. Areas with above 80% of such families can also apply to receive the award. Luckily, it's a voluntary system and not everyone is monitored.. at least in principle.

I hope for an economic model rather centered on demand, where each of us can creatively express his wish about a new product or service, and build up a group of interested buyers. A kind of crowd funding, but only bringing forward ideas to the supply side. The next steps would aim toward a Venus Project model, where mass automation coupled with renewable energies and recycling enables a society of abundance, without money, less work, more freedom, creativity, and meaning.

Monday, June 13 2016

A Map for Sci-Fi Movies

Science Fiction is a broad church, made of many sub-genres. For me it is a wonderful source of inspiration, talking about the future, technology, philosophy, psychology, politics, etc.

In the map below, i've proposed some topics in green. Non-SF but still akin movies are in grey.

Thursday, March 31 2016

Sociology: a Timeline of Generations

I've been hearing a lot about "Y Generation" and "Z Gen" lately. When I looked into the topic, it reminded me of an old idea : showing both time and age on a diagram, in order to quickly visualize the age of a person (or generation) at each point of time. The aim was to clarify statements like "I was too young for that back then!".

Historical events are shown in vertical, spanning through the age of affected populations. Events shaping a generation are typically occurring in their 20 years old.

I'm now complementing (crowding?) the diagram with the generations' labels, and few more events. In the XLS sheet I'm compiling researches depicting a profile of each generation.


(clicking on the image leads to the XLS file)

Sunday, March 27 2016

Bible quotes and summary

Here is another working document, compiling Bible quotes by topics. The document also contains a Bible summary chapter by chapter. (so far 886 out of 1239 chapters) I don't guaranty the summary's fidelity, but it can come in handy to give a first overview!


(Click on the picture to open the XLS worksheet)

Monday, March 14 2016

Exergy and Emergence, the two universal forces

Exergy

19th century's physics explained that all closed systems must evolve into states of higher disorder. This disorder can also be also seen as a dilution of matter and energy: electric charges migrate toward lower potential, radioactive atoms disintegrate into more stable isotopes, high pressure expand into broader space, motion causes friction and converts kinetic energy into thermal energy, heat dilutes into matter of lower temperature... Physics quantifies this amount of disorder-dilution by entropy (from Greek τροπή, change) In any closed system, entropy has to increase. This 2nd law of thermodynamics dictates the time direction in which systems will evolve. This arrow of time cannot be reversed, unless no dilution occurred, or if more entropy is produced elsewhere.

Another way to look at entropy is to measure exergy. It is the opposite idea of entropy, short from of "extractable energy". When entropy is created, exergy is destroyed. Energy cannot be destroyed, it is conserved and converted into diverse forms. (In the case of nuclear reactions, following e=mc2, one considers energy and matter altogether as conserved.) Exergy is the extractable, or "useful", fraction of energy in a system, which can be extracted to produce work and drive motion. Electrical and mechanical energies are virtually 100% exergy, but heat, pressure, and chemical potential depend on how they differ from the surrounding. 1m3 of air at 1bar is useless on the Earth, because it is surrounded by the same pressure, but in outer-space is could produce work by dissipating into vacuum. After all exergy is taken from a system (battery, air tank, fuel, etc.), this system is at equilibrium with the environment and cannot dilute further. This can be compared to a spring of energy and matter which expands and dilutes.

It is to be noted that exergy can be destroyed without any "practical" use (e.g. an electric heater in the ocean..). The definition of exergy pertains to physics and is not anthropocentric, but rather independent from human cultural judgement. (I've discussed it in this 2008 article (in French) )

First conclusion: mass and energy dilution, causing exergy consumption, drives the motion of the universe. It fuels all physical reactions which build this movement into... more complex structures.



Emergence

Emergence is the name given to the phenomenon whereby the complex interactions of many simple elements generate new overall behaviours and entities. For example: life emerges from chemical systems. Life involves behaviours such as metabolism, reproduction, adaptation, which are all new compared to the underlying chemical systems, and could not have been predicted by the study of the chemical level. I've discussed this in a 2012 note, linking scientific fields in Russian doll emergence. I proposed the historical generation: Physical => Chemical => Biological => Psychological => Social. We see a rise of abstraction, and gradual irrelevance of "hard sciences" to study higher levels, replaced by humanities.

We can distinguish that the 2 necessary ingredients of emergence are the multiplicity of the entities (quantitative), and their specialization (qualitative). Hence emergence moves on through Zig-zag evolution, gaining complexity through both moves.

Emergence produces entities which survive when the underlying components disappear. For example, in a population of bacteria, if one individual mutates with a new better suited DNA trait, it will be inherited by its offspring and gradually become a trait of the whole population. It will survive in the population even after the death of the first new DNA bearer. An invention or an artistic style can still exists after the death of the civilization that made it.

A time goes by, more complex systems arise, which unify smaller components into a whole. Across history, civilizations consist of several societies, made of individuals. A person unifies organs, which unify countless cells, in turn unifying countless molecules, made of atoms.

Second conclusion: emergence federates the motion of small items into larger, fewer, harmonious, and novel entities. Like a pyramid building bottom-up, higher abstract levels gradually come into existence.



What our History-Universe might look like, from A to Z.

Both principles coexist:
...the destructive dispersing impulse of exergy,
...and the creative unifying rise of emergence.

Following the intuition of the Jesuit palaeontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, we could call Alpha the space-time origin of exergy (probably the so-called Big Bang) and Omega the final unified emerging state of the universe. (I do mean "state" and not "point". This ultimate unification will occur at a given future time, but would probably encompass the whole universe itself.) This model does not imply that a god kicked the alpha and attracts us to the omega... but why not? At the bottom line of a complete picture of the universe, science and spirituality must be in agreement.

PS: Gravity seems to be a bump on the road to entropy... since it tends to aggregate things together, and to sediment solids from liquids, seemingly creating order. In case the universe lacks of momentum, gravity would make it end up in a Big Crunch, all would go back to the Alpha square one! Hopefully we got enough exergy and time to reach Omega, and a godly handshake.

Addenda 2016-07-25: After reading (at last!) Hawking "Brief History of Time", i understand that gravity represents negative exergy, so that the total exergy of the universe is always zero. During the spacial dilution of energy and matter, doubled by space-time expansion, a large share of the original exergy is transferred into gravitational potential exergy. I find dubious that that entropy would be already maximal when the universe will start to contract back again. I'm pretty sure we'll still have few more billion years to surf on the exergy waves and build further the pyramid!


Once again i found that illustrating entropy merely as "disorder" is misleading and limited. A blank hard-drive has more thermodynamic order than the one containing Beethoven's symphonies. One shouldn't confuse the levels of the emergence pyramid. Biological or aesthetic order are far beyond thermodynamics. In that sense, the so-called Theory of Everything would be humbly relevant only to the bottom of the pyramid.

PPS: Vincent Mignerot summarizes (in French) ideas from François Roddier and Eric Chaisson, and pessimistically proposes that emergence is only a mean to creates structures able to destroy exergy even faster. Hmmm.. maybe yes. Then it's a race: I use you to grow up, you use me to blow up.

L'article a été mis sur Facebook ici.

Sunday, March 13 2016

Emergence zig-zag

This diagram I made in 2011 explores the relationships between 2 aspects of emergence: the multiplicity of entities, and their specialization.

This 2016 article from a French researcher Vincent MIGNEROT (English text) reminds about the "Technological singularity", a point of no return where we'll have brought computers up to a level where they'll independently continue their emergence and overtake us. (see I Robot, Matrix, etc.) This point however might be less threatening than the "Ecological singularity", a turning point of self-amplifying damages to the environment, which will herald human decline.

Friday, February 5 2016

Composer Timeline: History and Music

Here is a working document i've prepared, showing major composers (133 so far), ranging from Renaissance until today, on a timeline with their lifetime and key compositions. That helps understanding how their style evolved along with their musical environment.

Click on the image below to open the Excel spreadsheet:

Wednesday, February 3 2016

What future? Venus project, Zeitgeist movement

Let's talk about the future!

Here is a fascinating proposal of futuristic society: no more money, mass robotization and computerization of optimal decisions, abundance and variety of goods, in the frame of available resources and environmental sustainability. The project also postulate that people born in this culture without scarcity nor competition would be free of greed, theft, and related violence. They would simply have the pleasure to what they are good at to serve the common good.

https://www.thevenusproject.com/

With the 100th birthday of the founder Jacque Fresco, they released their flagship documentary about the project: http://thechoiceisoursmovie.com

Unlike in communism, computerized science and abundance allows sound decisions without corruption. Administration would be minimal and transparent.

On the flip side, i don't think the issue of democracy can be discarded as they suggest, since many decisions are not only scientific: e.g. "What shall we maximize: freedom, happiness, aesthetics, or survival chances? (see my "map of ideals") Bioethics: Shall we allow human genetic engineering? Do we want Brave New World? How much freedom of speech do we allow in the face of science?"
We need democracy to avoid a technocratic dictatorship.

Further on the issue of robots and computerized decisions, like in "I, robot", I believe we could see some phenomenon of interpretation of basic principles (e.g. "Harm no human") which would imply some sacrifice once applied at global level, violating these same principles. e.g. "To save the group we might sometimes sacrifice few." With nascent consciousness, robots might not be so good at philosophy!
Again, that calls for some democracy, or at least a check-and-balance of powers.

PS: Facebook article

Monday, December 7 2015

Cardinal Cycle, a universal cultural framework?

Through the creation of the Hylian language, I've drawn correspondences between space (cardinal points) and time (sun, moon, seasons, life). More recently with the attempt to encompass all fields of education into 4 groups, I've been suggested a comparison with the European 4 elements. That triggered an extension of the initial "cardinal cycle" into something connecting all the Eurasian continent!

The Chinese cardinal points introduces a 5th item, central to the 4 others. This suggests similar central points, with transcendent character compared to the 4 others.

One thing at least is not universal: the link between the cardinal points and the moments of the day (through the position of the sun), which is only valid in the northern hemisphere. North-South is reversed in the southern hemisphere!

We see that Chinese culture is built between cycles of even and odd number. On one hand the Yin-Yang duality, the cycle of 4 seasons, and 4 cardinal points, often combined with the 8 combinations of the Taoist trigram. On the other hand, the cycle of the 5 agents, 5 music notes, 5 tastes, and then extended into the cycle of the 10 heavenly roots through multiplication by Yin-Yang.
However with the 5 agents, the "earth" holds a status similar to the others, not central.

For those who saw the movie "Divergent", we can also match the 5 factions following this order: Amity (farmers), Dauntless (fighters), Candor (judges), Abnegation (selfless servants), and Erudite (scientists).

Friday, November 20 2015

Éducation Totale - Mapping out Education

The recent reading of the Wikipedia article on Jedi (the Star Wars frenzy can spark meaningful thoughts!) has lead me to realize how various fields of teaching and education can complement each others. Jedi are said to be "Polymaths", a word implying the mastery of many fields of knowledge, and at the Renaissance, mastery of arts as well. Since Jedi, like most Asian monastic traditions, blend rather physical training and wisdom, I came out with the following map of education:

The 4 fields of learning (Sport, Art, Science, Wisdom) are linked to 4 components of the person (Body, Heart, Mind, Soul), and nurture them with 4 types of food or accomplishment (health, beauty, science, peace).

Further, 4 types of historical teaching are proposed, giving emphasis on pairs of fields.

  • Sport+Art : Antique education as proposed by Plato
  • Art+Science : Renaissance polymath, like Da Vinci
  • Science+Wisdom : Medieval scholastic
  • Wisdom+Sport : Asian monachism

It is to be noted that back then, the definitions of the 4 fields were not as restrictive as shown here. For instance, Asian monks haven't excluded science but have been including part of it into their wisdoms.

  • The horizontal axis is about Power: Can and Know, "Pouvoir et Savoir". By combining horizontally Sport and practical Sciences, we could also imagine another very pragmatic education model: a nation of robots with no emotions (Equilibrium) nor conscience ! (Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World)
  • The vertical axis is about Feeling: Conceive and Receive, The combination of Art and Wisdom: people alternating between nerdy passionate creation, and peaceful selfless bounty to one another.

Maybe an accomplished man has to explore and balance all these fields?

I've integrated this map into the broader cardinal cycle.

Facebook post

Saturday, June 13 2015

Carte des Idéaux - A Map of Ideals

A la suite de la tuerie de Charlie Hebdo, les réactions ont été vives de tous bords. Après une réflexion sur les divers idéaux invoqués, j'ai imaginé une carte pour les représenter, par affinités (vert) et conflits (rouge). Les outils neutres sont en gris.

Par "ordre naturel", j'entends l'équilibre selon lequel la nature s'agence en l'absence d'intervention humaine. Cet idéal se focalise sur la nature intrinsèque des choses et leur rôle (Dharma au sens large).

Les dilemmes enfin visualisés !

  1. Dilemme de la Naissance : Nature <> Égalité (Les hommes ne naissent pas égaux en facultés ni chances)
  2. Dilemme de la Prospérité : Mérite <> Égalité (L'accumulation systématique des richesses fausse l’égalité des chances, et peut se compenser par la redistribution, elle même posant un problème de mérite.)
  3. Dilemme du Don : Indépendance <> Partage (La main qui donne domine celle qui reçoit, le don implique une part d'humiliation, justifiant un désir d’indépendance)
  4. Dilemme des Nations : Liberté <> Unité (La constitution d'un groupe sacrifie la liberté de ses membres, et endommage sa diversité interne en magnifiant les traits communs, et isole le groupe de l’extérieur en renforçant sa singularité.)
  5. Dilemme de Rousseau : Liberté <> Engagement (S'engager, c'est manifester sa liberté tout en la détruisant... pour ensuite la régénérer en de nouveaux choix.)
  6. Dilemme de l’Identité : Tradition <> Changement (L’identité des choses résident aussi dans leur dynamique d’évolution.)
  7. Dilemme du Progrès : Satisfaction <> Critique (Être facilement satisfait est source de bonheur, mais coupe la dynamique de progrès par critique. Dans Fahrenheit 451 et Brave New World, on évite toute vexation en excluant le débat critique au profit du divertissement.)
  8. Dilemme de la Censure : Vérité <> Charité (Certaines révélations au mauvais moment peuvent rendre inutilement malheureux ou violent.)
  9. Dilemme de la Sagesse : Justice <> Pardon (Pardonner peut apparaître comme un déni de justice.)

Et au fait, où est Charlie ?
Peut être entre les dilemmes des nations, du progrès, et de la censure: on préfère garder sa liberté de critiquer et de tuer* plutôt que de supporter les inconforts pour une cohabitation pacifique.

- "liberté de tuer", c'est à dire de faire justice soi-même: un droit qu'on aurait jugé naturel et fondamental à une époque préhistorique et proto-historique pas si lointaine que ça !

Cette liste de dilemmes peut rappeler la liste d’idéologies douteuses faite en 2010.

Une mission pour la langue Laramin
Ma langue construite Laramin cherche à construire son vocabulaire de sorte à résoudre ces dilemmes, en proposant un nouveau point de vu avec de nouvelles notions, de sorte que les subtiles équilibres philosophiques ci-dessus deviennent des évidences pour le locuteur. La langue est notre lunette sur le monde et nos réflexions. Je pense qu'on peut éviter le problème à la source.

Wednesday, January 28 2015

Idea: Universe creation framework

I've been thinking for a couple of years how the ideal creation framework could look like. Of course it depends on the type of creation. In my case, I would like to combine and interweave:

  • Drawings and paintings representing places, events, characters
  • Music, for various places or contexts
  • Texts and poems, describing places, stories, feelings
  • Cooking recipes, technology descriptions

The main building material would be the drawings, forming full-pages of visual environment. On these drawings there would be some URL links. Some would lead to other connected pages (moving to a nearby area, zooming into a particular region, zooming-out to the upper level), while some others would link to content, such as music or recipes, open in popup windows.

In practice, the universe creation would very simple:

  1. Upload a full-page drawing.
  2. Write a text narrative besides it.
  3. Put tags on it like in facebook, with URL linking to content (mp3, pdf, etc.) or to other pages.

The advantage of such framework is to aggregate the creative content into an interconnected system, that can grow organically from any of its parts! The visitor becomes an explorer who somehow interacts with the universe by choosing where to go and what to look at. It is inspired by the RPG-adventure video game style (Zelda, Final Fantasy, etc.).

Ideally, the framework would also feature comment threads on each page to let the visitors give feedback.

Now, comparing to what is available: Facebook allows to easily upload pictures and very intuitively place tags on it, but only to identify peoples. If those tags could contain any URL, that would do it! But no... DotClear allows pages in WHTML format with comments, but the width seems limited to the blog page, and placing the tag on the picture would be difficult...

Any other software suggestions to enable this creative boom? Thanks!

Sunday, December 7 2014

Language cross-breeding (and self-breeding)

Navigating across languages sometimes causes words to jump from one to another, especially with concise expressions. I owe "mamajujamente" to my Mexican friends who crafted it from Taiwan!

word meaning from in into
Berilalouer give way beri laluan Malay French
Nalier deny a compliment politely 哪里 Mandarin French
Tarofer refuse a gift politely until accepting it تعارف Persian French
Jaexmicono please.. خواهش می کنم Persian Spanish
Mamajujamente so-so 马马虎虎 Mandarin Spanish


And here is an attempt to develop (or reconstruct?) English words from an apparent regular pattern linking pairs of verbs. Verbs on the first columns are acting on a object (transitive), whereas those on the second column act on themselves, or at least without object. (intransitive).

E verbs A verbs Examples
fell fall Felling the tree: make them fall. (or fail?)
raise rise Raise your hand: make it rise.
lay lie Lay down your legs: let them lie.
bait bite Bait the fish: make it bite.
braid bride The bride braids herself to the groom (to breed? hmm..)


Interestingly in the 3 first lines or examples, we find that there is a shift from vowel E to A between the 2 columns. (phonetically we can convert raise=[rejz], rise=[rajz], lay=[lej], lie=[laj] ,bait=[bejt], bite=[bajt], braid=[brejd], bride=[brajd])


Following this rule, I (humbly) propose the following extensions:

Continue reading...

Friday, April 25 2014

Frise historique mondiale / World history timeline

Revoilà la sympathique frise, depuis 10 minutes avant le Big Bang jusqu’à Lundi dernier, toute une Histoire !

World History Timeline

J'y ai particulièrement détaillé la période préhistorique, et aussi ajouté un résumé en une page... distiller toujours plus, jusqu’au squelette essentiel ! Puis remplumer petit à petit autour...

Pour les dates-clefs, je dirais :

  • -500 : Philosophes et fondateurs religieux (Zarathustra, Bouddha, Lao Zi, Socrate)
  • -300 : Premiers Empires (Alexandre, Maurya en Inde, Qin en Chine)
  • +400 : 1re choc Mongol-Hun (chute de Rome, ruine des Gupta)
  • +1200: 2eme choc Mongol (Gengis khan, Tartars, Yuan en Chine, sultanat de Delhi)
  • +1500: Fin du Moyen-Age (chute de Constantinople, Amériques, expansion Ottomane, Babar en Inde)

Monday, April 15 2013

Poème coloré "Cloud Atlas"

Sur l'inspiration de ce film bouleversant :

Continue reading...

Saturday, January 19 2013

Verdi - Dies Irae (triptyque)

L'idée de triptyque me trotte depuis longtemps, il s'agit de combiner une musique, une image et un texte.
Ici la musique est déjà prête, tirée du Requiem de Verdi :

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/TVjDP0vlem4

Continue reading...

Saturday, July 21 2012

Paradigme de l'Emergence

Here is a table which unifies in a original way scientific fields through one common phenomemnon: emergence. Each level emerges from the lower level and creates new entities, properties and behaviours.

I've discussed this in further details on this (French) forum: Article "émergence" sur l'atelier

  Objets Interactions Equations Drivers Speculative entities
5-Sociology 2-Society, 1-Group 2-Trade, war, 1-Language, help Trade balance , migrations, debate Ideals, aspirations Spirit (of democracy, of competition, etc.)
4-Psychology 3-Thoughts, 2-Emotions, 1-Sensations, signal Contradictions, associations, reflex Choice 3-Objective 2-Desire 1-Pleasure 3-Consciousness, 1-Soul
3-Biology 2-Organs/ body, hormons, neurons, 1-Cell Growth, vascularisation, metabolism Regulations, osmotic balance Nutrients Life breath
2-Chimistry Molecule, Functional sites Chemical reactions Acido/ basic balance, oxydo/ reduction Chemical potential -
1-Physics 2-Fluids,    1-Particles, waves 4 forces (electro-magnetic, weak, strong, gravity) Mass energy charge conservation Exergy -

 

Continue reading...

Sunday, August 28 2011

Frise historique mondiale mise à jour

Un an après la première édition, voici une version plus complète de cette firse historique mondiale.

J'y a ajouté une section préhistorique depuis le Big bang, et une ligne détallée pour le Vietnam.

Tuesday, August 2 2011

Atlas intergalactique

Je me donne le tournis depuis hier en regardant ces diverses cartes 3D de l'univers, depuis notre Soleil, le bras d'Orion, la Voie Lactée, le groupe local, le super-cluster Virgo, les super-clusters voisins, puis l'univers visible à 14 milliard d'années-lumières... Wouuf !

Ça fait à la fois rêver de voyages exotiques tendance Star Trek, et se sentir très insignifiant 6_6


En même temps... la Terre et sa vie consciente serait la seule chose vraiment significative dans ce grand bazar s'il n'y avait ailleurs que poussière et gaz stérile, mais "significative" pour l'Homme lui-même uniquement ! Narcissique détresse solitaire...

Friday, December 10 2010

Laramin, ma langue construite

Le Laramin est une langue nouvelle, un projet-passion né en 2007 de ma rencontre avec la langue de Malaisie et mes notions d'espéranto.

En quelques mots, le Laramin est expérimental et innovant car assez radical dans ses principes de base. On pourrait dire que le Laramin est un "espéranto où les radicaux sont minimisés en taille et nombre, et où même le plus bref affixe peut devenir autonome, avec un sens propre". C'est une langue différenciée comme l'espéranto, où la forme du mot indique sa classe lexicale : nom, adjectif, verbe, etc. Elle est aussi agglutinante comme le turc ou le finnois: 100 radicaux invariables et très brefs s'agglutinent en chaines de sens pour former des mots. La succession des idées élémentaires produit le sens du mot. C'est ainsi que dans cette langue "chaque mot est sa propre définition". Enfin cette langue est à la fois fermée et ouverte, car le nombre de radicaux utilisables est limité, mais leur combinaisons sont à peu près illimitées.

Je n'ai pas encore finalisé les supports de présentations mais comme j'aime montrer de temps en temps ces documents incomplets, les voici (en anglais) :

Livret de présentation du Laramin
Un livret à imprimer en A5 (format "feuillet") qui introduit les concepts et illustre par des exemples.

Feuilles Excel de conception du Laramin
La feuille Excel détournée pour gérer et entretenir le vocabulaire, générer et mettre à jour automatiquement les phrases. Un document un peu complexe mais littéralement le cœur du travail sur cette langue, montrant par le biais des formules toute la mécanique de construction des mots.

.............

(Un logo inventé pour la langue... car un bon projet, c'est avant tout un bon logo !)
(Les 5 boules convergentes représentes les 5 classes lexicales: Nom, Adjectif, Adverbe, Verbe, Préposition)
(cliquez sur le logo pour ouvrir le livret de présentation du Laramin en pdf)

Deux articles Wiki de présentation est disponible pour le Laramin et l'écriture Larafon:
http://www.europalingua.eu/ideopedia/index.php5?title=Laramin
http://www.europalingua.eu/ideopedia/index.php5?title=Larafon

Billets connexes:

Continue reading...

Sunday, November 7 2010

Profils d'idéologies douteuses


Il y a beaucoup de gros mots en -isme qui méritent deux choses : une définition claire et une condamnation mesurée.
La plupart des idéologies, même les plus honnis ou tristement célèbres, perdurent car elles se posent en réactions légitimes à de vrais problèmes et ont des intentions louables. La plupart ne sont pas purement des impasses mais peuvent conduire au pire si elles sont appliquées excessivement.

Voici un tableau où je propose quelques profils, arrangés par affinités :

 

Idéologie Dénonce : Rêve de : Risque de :
Fascisme discussion incessante, inaction, désordre, sabotage coopération, unité, action, force, ordre, efficacité procédure rigide, répression de dissidence, soumission instrumentale, dictature
Purisme (dont nationalisme) standardisation, mondialisation, extinction, dilution, métissage, dégénérescence authenticité, pureté, identité censure, culture figée, chasse au dégénérés
Xénophobie invasion, vol, criminalité associée à l'immigration chacun chez soi, à sa façon fermeture, étroitesse d'esprit, ignorance, accusation, haine, paranoïa, guerre
Racisme vie inégalitaire, qualité selon l'origine ethnique, identifier et orienter selon race, optimisation catégorisation rigide, prédestination ethnique/génétique, génocide
Eugénisme vie arbitraire, tare, maladie, vie douloureuse à épargner amélioration biologique, sélection selon la beauté, le plaisir standardisation, soif de contrôle, intolérance, stérilisation, avortement obligatoire, euthanasie
Laïcardisme ingérence religieuse, dogme, théocratie liberté de conscience, démocratie sans dogme anti-cléricalisme, exclusion des religions, fois de substitution: technologie, idole, leader; vide spirituel
Ultra-Libéralisme intervention politique, choix idéologiques, manque de pragmatisme liberté, auto-régulation, optimisation cartel, non-droit, inégalités croissantes, jungle
Capitalisme petites industries divisées production concentrée, efficacité, puissance monopole, inflexion du politique
Communisme exploitation des travailleurs, aliénation, inégalités égalité, partage, état providence déresponsabilisation, baisse de qualité, de productivité, perte d'intimité, Etat trop fort, dictature
Démocratie totale représentation, mensonge d'élus, entrave au vote direct participation directe en assemblée, referendum sur tout raison des masses incompétentes et désinformées, manipulation, dictature des médias
Populisme classe dirigeante sourde, intermédiaires coupant l'initiative populaire dialogue direct entre leader/peuple mascarade, prétendue disponibilité du leader, problèmes individuels au lieu de gestion générale, dictature masquée
Conspiration -isme infiltration, lobby, communautarisme, corruption, mafia intégrité des dirigeants, intérêt général paranoïa, procès d'intention, interprétation obsessionnelle du monde

 


Il y a sans doute à redire et des maladresses à rectifier. Vos commentaires sont bienvenus pour améliorer l'exactitude de cette liste !

Billet connexes

 

 

 

 

Sunday, October 3 2010

Alphabets anciens comparés

Comme il est plus facile d'apprendre des systèmes de chose plutôt que des listes interminables, rien ne vaut là encore un bon petit tableau ! ;)
J'ai été surpris de trouver des affinités entre l'araméen-arabe et les runes scandinaves (pour le Alep-Ansuz, le Hei-Ehwaz, le Vav-Uruz, et le Teth-Thurisaz)

Sunday, May 23 2010

Nouvel alphabet pour le Vietnamien / Korean-Vietnamese Alphabet

Les langues chinoises et vietnamienne ont la particularité d'être "isolantes": tout se forme à partir de "caractères" invariables dont les combinaisons produisent les mots et les phrases. Le chinois est resté proche du concept d'origine avec des idéogrammes, le vietnamien est passé à une forme phonétiquement très européenne. Le coréen, langue agglutinante influencée par le chinois, écrit ses syllabes avec un transcription phonétique agrégée en blocs carrés similaires aux caractères chinois.

C'est en découvrant cette écriture il y a quelques semaines que j'ai pensé l'adapter, l'étendre, à la langue vietnamienne.

Voici le résultat, avec en orange les ajouts par rapport à l'alphabet coréen d'origine. Par case, à gauche la consonne vietnamienne, puis le son en convention API, et à droite le signe coréen.

Les semi-consonnes "W" et "Y" sont rendues à la mode coréenne en utilisant les voyelles.

Voici les nombreuses voyelles et les 6 tons, inexistants en coréen:

Un autre avantage de cette écriture: les voyelles se distinguent des consonnes car elles se basent presque toutes sur une forme en "T". Les voyelles précédées d'un "Y" redouble la barre central de leur "T". Selon une règle que je maîtrise assez mal, aux voyelles un peu trop seules peut d'ajouter un cercle à la base du "T"...

Et enfin un exemple !

N'étant pas rompu à l'écriture coréenne (loul), il se peut que j'ai mal agrégé certains éléments, ajoutant à la joyeuserie ci-dessus le traditionnel quota de yaourt.

Lien vers le forum de création linguistique: Koreo-Viet

Article connexe: KoreoViet alphabet now on Omniglot!

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