Drug life

[brokenhead]

17 - The 7th prime. Sum of first 4 primes. Maximum possible number of symmetry types in 2 dimensions. The number of syllables in a haiku. 7 (the number of spiritual perfection) + 10 (the number of ordinal perfection) = 17 (the number of the perfection of spiritual order) [see ROMANS 8:35-39].

Did you say "perfection"? I knew there was a reason I picked that one out of thin air.

19, then.

And you are missing the point as well, Mr. T. The Romans quote is out, the haiku is out. Man-made and arbitrary. I'll take your word for the symmetry thing because I am too lazy to look it up. Note, however, we live in a 3-dimensional world (there's that pesky 3, again) so the choice of 2 dimensions is again arbitrary. You could have picked any other number of dimensions as long as you are not restricting yourself to the spatial one in which we apparently find ourselves.

I am not claiming anything magickal about the numbers 3 and 7 whatsoever. That is the point. That they inarguably show up where they do is the far-flung echo of the triune godhead as it manifests itself in its creation. (I've stopped capitalizing certain words because I sense a need to make certain GF members' medicine a bit more palatable so they take it like the good boys and girl I know they are. It's not exactly a spoonful of sugar, but it's the best I can do at the moment.) No, the sacred numbers 3 and 7 are just the tiniest glimpse into the mind of the Old One. He does not expect us to comprehend his ways, as we would perish in the process. But it can't hurt to take that first tentative step toward acknowledging the awesome majesty of creation, even if it is thinking merely a little more deeply about a rainbow. There, now. That wasn't so bad, was it, children?

[Steven Coyle]

A few nights ago, as 3 moons (through refraction) opened a window:

Vista to Dune...

Through 90 degrees , (up/across) , and jettison... diagonally, with increasing 45 degree angular momentum.

Now the 3rd eye, or a bumblebee, etches out... a new shape.

[Dave Toast]

Hey, get back to your own thread!


I didn't miss the point broken, how could I when you'd already written "your lists are arbitrary and mine was not"?

The haiku thing was thrown in there because it's eastern-pseudo-mystic-sounding. The bible coz it's God'z wordz innit.

Thing is, there's plenty of arbitrary in your list. You mentioned the 7 notes of the Western major and minor diatonic scales. You failed to mention the pentatonic, hexatonic, octatonic, chromatic and all the other scales. Linnean taxonomy classification does indeed have 7 levels but then you have to forget about all the others that have been arbitrarily added to this since, if you want to arbitrarily see this arbirtary generalisation as not arbitrary. 7 days of the week? I guess that's not man made and arbitrary because the big fella did it all in a week, right? (jk :-)) You say there are "7 colours to a rainbow which is comprised of a continuum of wavelengths". This one goes so far as to point out that the 7 is merely an approximate quantization of a continuous sequence into an arbitrarily discrete sequence. You also mention the 7 levels of the OSI reference model for networking but you fail to mention that it's not the only reference model for networking, or even the best, and that it doesn't cover all of today's protocols.

That leaves you with the periodic table which, sure enough, has 7 rows.

There are also 3 (or 4) states, 5 blocks, 8 valences, 10 categories, 32 max electrons in a shell, 118 atomic numbers, etc. Why arbitrarily choose 7, the number of shells?

And that's to say nothing of the 8th row of the periodic table of course.

[David Quinn]

That's a far superior response to mine, Dave. The way you are able to combine detailed scientific knowledge with philosophic wisdom is very effective.

-

[Cory Duchesne]

the Law of Three? Of the teaching of the Ray of Creation? Are you familiar with these?

No, I've never heard of such things. Why don't you elaborate on what they are and how they might defend against what Sue and David are attacking?

You will have to read of these on your own, as the explanations are extensive, and I am not well versed. Basically, the Law of Three says there are three forces involved in any action, while the Ray of Creation describes how energy and influence is stepped down from the Absolute to the minute, and explains such things as how musical scales came into being, and why efforts in one direction often skew the opposite way or just plain run out of steam.

Although the most in depth descriptions are in books, here's a brief introductionto some of the ideas.

As to how they address my point to Sue and David, the question was, assuming this material is true and therefore part of the basic makeup of our reality, would they come up with this on their own, for example.

Well, it's true that an elaborate cosmogony, like any story, does need to be passed along in order to survive. But from what I read of him, Gurdjieff's propositions about the universe are totally at odds with the discoveries of astronomers and other scientists, and can only be compared to science fiction. Really, to the skeptical reader, Gurdijeff's picture of the universe appears to be a psychotic delusional system. Ludicrous neologisms abound, rendering his cosmology obscure, incoherent and divorced from any objective evidence.

Here's a passage from a chapter of a book I'm reading called "Feet of Clay - A study of Gurus" which focuses on Gurdjieff:

Gurdjieff's arrogance and disregard of established experts were extraordinary. When he visited the caves of Lascaux, he told J.G. Bennett that he did not agree with Henri Breuil's dating of the rock paintings at thirty thousand years ago because he had concluded that the paintings were the work of a brotherhood that existed after the loss of Atlantis some seven or eight thousand years ago.

[brokenhead]

double post

[brokenhead]

Thing is, there's plenty of arbitrary in your list. You mentioned the 7 notes of the Western major and minor diatonic scales. You failed to mention the pentatonic, hexatonic, octatonic, chromatic and all the other scales.

I hate to disagree (well, not really), but the pentatonic is an arbitrary subset of the diatonic, which as I said earlier was a consonant scale. Any subset of a consonant scale will itself be consonant. The chromatic, as you surely know, is a later approximate invention - a way to get 12 tones out of an octave that were equally spaced as the true octave itself is not. It is a way to break it down into all half steps so that key modulation is possible. You should know it is approximate or else every composition would have to remain in one key. (A piano is tuned, for example, so that every key is equivalent and that there is no one preferred key. But that means that no "diatonic" scale on a piano is truly diatonic in the mathemetical sense. The notes of the piano's scale are close approximations to the "true" values. A harpsichord, on the other hand, does have a preferred key and exact tuning in this key. You cannot use modulation on a harpsichord because other keys sound out of tune.) All the other "jazz" scales are in fact composed of 7 different notes. They are the diatonic scale just beginning and ending on a tone other than the tonic. I also did not mention the quartertone scale - but this is not consonant. There is a precise mathematical relationship between the notes of the octave. You cannot claim the octave is not a "special" scale. Look at a mathematical treatment of it and come back and tell me the Western diatonic octave is arbitrary.

Linnean taxonomy classification does indeed have 7 levels but then you have to forget about all the others that have been arbitrarily added to this since

The key is arbitrarily added to an original which is not arbitrary. Incidentally, the arcane concept of the law of 7 is that each of the 7 levels is further divided by nature into 7. And I did say the classic Linnaean system.

7 days of the week? I guess that's not man made and arbitrary because the big fella did it all in a week, right? (jk :-))

Hey, if you can throw in haiku... And that's Big Fella, if you please.

You say there are "7 colours to a rainbow which is comprised of a continuum of wavelengths". This one goes so far as to point out that the 7 is merely an approximate quantization of a continuous sequence into an arbitrarily discrete sequence.

I believe you are missing the point of my italicization. If it is a continuum, why do we perceive discrete chromatic bands at all? And why 7?

You also mention the 7 levels of the OSI reference model for networking but you fail to mention that it's not the only reference model for networking, or even the best, and that it doesn't cover all of today's protocols.

But it does cover all of today's protocols because it is merely a conceptual model. It may be overkill for many particular applications, but it was designed to take every situation into account. (BTW, this happens to be the field I work in.) My point was that when OSI got down to systematizing the complex nature of network communication, all the work that was already there - including the DoD 5-level reference model - naturally fell into 7 levels. The OSI model is still the most widely used reference model and the DoD model far less so. Even the work of man can naturally fall into 7 levels.

There are also 3 (or 4) states, 5 blocks, 8 valences, 10 categories, 32 max electrons in a shell, 118 atomic numbers, etc. Why arbitrarily choose 7, the number of shells?

Yet all these seemingly varies facts conspire to fall in to 7 rows, no more, no less.

And that's to say nothing of the 8th row of the periodic table of course.

What 8th row? Post a link to where you see that. The Lanthinides and Actinides are two subrows that both are universally considered to be part of the 7th row due to atomic number.

I should also add the 7 chakras, which are very real.

You are stretching to dismiss the interesting ubiquity of the the number 7 in nature, Dave. Don't let the other Dave's approbation distract you from being open to truer comprehension of Reality.

And you didn't do the number 19 for me to show me my observations are all arbitrary.

[Dave Toast]

And I won't be doing so either mate. But I can tell you that 17 is the most frequently chosen number when people are asked for a random from 1-20, followed by 19.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Period_8_element

[brokenhead]

And I won't be doing so either mate. But I can tell you that 17 is the most frequently chosen number when people are asked for a random from 1-20, followed by 19.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Period_8_element

From the link about the 8th row: "None of these elements has yet been created..."
I'll concede the point when one has been.

[brokenhead]

But I can tell you that 17 is the most frequently chosen number when people are asked for a random from 1-20, followed by 19.

That is interesting. I wonder why. I guess the other numbers don't seem "random" because of the very connotations you and I have been discussing.

"Random" is a slippery concept when it comes to number selection. Many computer programs utilize a "random number generator" as a subroutine. But as this is necessarily an algorithm, the numbers cannot be simply random, can they? When I was young and first saw a "Table of Random Numbers" in the back of a math book, I tought - "What's the big deal? It's like, hey, here's a list of any old numbers." I didn't know that it was a list which had passed all or most of the existing tests for "randomness," merely meaning they do not seem to be generated by any well-known algorithm.

Yet we each have sort of an intuitive feel for the concept of "random." The lottery I used to play most often was a selection of 7 random numbers from 1 to 80. I had been having my usual luck, which is none. Then I noticed that the owner of the little shop where I handed in my card had this cute little 4-year-old guy named Christopher who would hang out with her in the shop, often dressed as a little cowboy, compete with big hat, a sheriff's star, and two toy six-guns. I thought, "out of the mouths of babes..." So one day I said to him, "Christopher, I need you to give me seven numbers. They can be any seven numbers. Just pick them out. That's called 'random'." He pushed the hat back, got this real serious look on his face, and after concentrating for a few seconds said, "Seven." "That's good!" I said, filling in the corresponding box on the card. "Now give me another one." Again he pondered for a bit, and then said, "Six." I began to get a sinking feeling as I colored this one in. Sure enough, the next one he gave me was "Five." I ended up having the numbers 1 through 7 marked on my card. Little Christopher's idea of random was the numbers listed backwards, but yet he did grasp the concept of numbers out of order. The mother was laughing and said "You know you don't have to play those." I did, however, noting that it was as likely to come out as any other combination.

I didn't win.

[Dave Toast]

From the link about the 8th row: "None of these elements has yet been created..."
I'll concede the point when one has been.

Ooh, shall we have one of those clever scientist type wagers? Shall we say 25 years?

The point is mate that there is no denying the seeming significance of the number 7 and if we both did some research we'd be able to come up with all manner of conjectural proofs and disproofs. We'd also be able to do the same for any number between 1 and 10 just as easily, 11 to 20 would be harder but doable, zero and infinity would be a breeze though no? It's not the numbers that are arbitrary (nature has to work with something), it's the significance projected onto any particular one of them that's arbitrary.

[Isaac]

I'm surprised there has been no talk yet of 23

[Dave Toast]

The 17 and 19 thing has led to conjecture that these are the least random of all numbers. Who'd have thunk it eh.

That's numberwang! You won't get that btw but other Brits will.

[brokenhead]

It's not the numbers that are arbitrary (nature has to work with something), it's the significance projected onto any particular one of them that's arbitrary.

Well, then we'll have to agree to disagree. I see it as remarkably not arbitrary. That is, knowing what a cynic I, myself, am. I was trained in the sciences and believe in the scientific method as an ideal, but I feel I would be doing myself an enormous disservice if I were to voluntarily dismiss what I see as evidence of patterns in Nature and deem them arbitrary. But then again, all significance is "projected," is it not?

[brokenhead]

The 17 and 19 thing has led to conjecture that these are the least random of all numbers. Who'd have thunk it eh.

That's numberwang! You won't get that btw but other Brits will.

You want to let the rest of the class in on it?

[brokenhead]

The 17 and 19 thing has led to conjecture that these are the least random of all numbers. Who'd have thunk it eh.

That's numberwang! You won't get that btw but other Brits will.

You want to let the rest of the class in on it?

Nevermind, Dave. I googled it.

[Kevin Solway]

Well, I must say that one of the funniest things I've read for a while was the attributing of importance to the fact that there are

7 days to the week; 7 colors to the rainbow which is comprised of a continuum of wavelengths

But thinking about it, there can't possibly ever be more than 7 days, because if there were, there wouldn't be any names for the new days, since the names only go from Sunday through to Saturday.

"7 colors to the rainbow which is comprised of a continuum of wavelengths" is a beauty. I remember using a CGA monitor that only had 4 colors (including black), and then I upgraded to an expensive EGA monitor that displayed a whopping 16 colors. Unfortunately, the human brain is limited to only 7.

That's Numberwang!

[brokenhead]

But thinking about it, there can't possibly ever be more than 7 days, because if there were, there wouldn't be any names for the new days, since the names only go from Sunday through to Saturday.

By God, you're right! We wouldn't have a name for a day between Sunday and Monday!

[Carl G]

Well, it's true that an elaborate cosmogony, like any story, does need to be passed along in order to survive. But from what I read of him, Gurdjieff's propositions about the universe are totally at odds with the discoveries of astronomers and other scientists, and can only be compared to science fiction. Really, to the skeptical reader, Gurdijeff's picture of the universe appears to be a psychotic delusional system. Ludicrous neologisms abound, rendering his cosmology obscure, incoherent and divorced from any objective evidence.

Here's a passage from a chapter of a book I'm reading called "Feet of Clay - A study of Gurus" which focuses on Gurdjieff:

Gurdjieff's arrogance and disregard of established experts were extraordinary. When he visited the caves of Lascaux, he told J.G. Bennett that he did not agree with Henri Breuil's dating of the rock paintings at thirty thousand years ago because he had concluded that the paintings were the work of a brotherhood that existed after the loss of Atlantis some seven or eight thousand years ago.

Sounds like a rather poor source for investigating Gurdjieff. I mean, lumping him with David Koresh and Jim Jones, let alone Winston Churchill, is a giveaway right there.

From the Amazon.com site on "Feet of Clay":

From Publishers Weekly
...Storr's elegantly written account is tarnished by his own unacknowledged authoritarianism. He never entertains the notion that there may be states of consciousness, states of knowing, that exceed customary bounds, so that a strange cosmology like Gurdjieff's might be understood not as a paranoid delusion or mere belief, but as a challenge to habitual modes of perception and cogitation that is composed with a clockmaker's care.

[maestro]

I do not know how good Gurdjieff was, but he did manage to acquire knowledge that is very very useful and rare: that is I have not seen it elsewhere (including Buddhism, Hinduism). I think he got his knowledge from the Sufis and the Gnostics. But there are some problems.

Mixed with the knowledge is mythology, and it requires a skeptical reader to separate them.

There is an obsessive emphasis on joining a school, or a guru. For somebody who is really interested in setting his machine right, I would say that it is not required. I mean there are amateurs in any field with real interest who have mastered things on their own.


Further I think that this knowledge may not need to be acquired from somebody else. For example David Bohm seemed to have been moving towards developing this knowledge, on his own with the help of self observation. However it will perhaps save one decades if the knowledge is given to him, rather than having to deduce it through self observation.



I also think that if Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer had come upon this knowledge, they could have saved much of their energy that was lost in despair, and in turn would have led much happier, fulfilled and effective lives.

[Dave Toast]

broken: Well, then we'll have to agree to disagree. I see it as remarkably not arbitrary. That is, knowing what a cynic I, myself, am. I was trained in the sciences and believe in the scientific method as an ideal, but I feel I would be doing myself an enormous disservice if I were to voluntarily dismiss what I see as evidence of patterns in Nature and deem them arbitrary.

That's pretty much what we are, pattern recognisers, significance projectors.

But then again, all significance is "projected," is it not?

Exactly. All meaning is projected by consciousness. Nature, by definition, is without objective meaning. In searching for objective meaning in this nature which consciousness knows to be objectively meaningless, what is consciousness really searching for clues as to the existence of?

[Carl G]

broken: Well, then we'll have to agree to disagree. I see it as remarkably not arbitrary. That is, knowing what a cynic I, myself, am. I was trained in the sciences and believe in the scientific method as an ideal, but I feel I would be doing myself an enormous disservice if I were to voluntarily dismiss what I see as evidence of patterns in Nature and deem them arbitrary.

That's pretty much what we are, pattern recognisers, significance projectors.

We may also be pattern projectors and significance recognizers, no?

But then again, all significance is "projected," is it not?

Exactly. All meaning is projected by consciousness. Nature, by definition, is without objective meaning. In searching for objective meaning in this nature which consciousness knows to be objectively meaningless, what is consciousness really searching for clues as to the existence of?

Or, alternately, all meaning is projected by Consciousness. Nature is without objective meaning because it is the outpicturing of Conciousness, the physical, unconscious manifestation of Mind. In searching for objective meaning, then, one's mind must look for the intention of Mind (and first one's consciousness must search for clues as to the existence of Mind).

[brokenhead]

Nature, by definition, is without objective meaning. In searching for objective meaning in this nature which consciousness knows to be objectively meaningless, what is consciousness really searching for clues as to the existence of?

By definition? Which? Whose? Again, why is man suddenly not "part" of Nature that the meanings he discovers and/or projects not only don't count, but don't exist? The question in your quote above seems, no offense, almost like an outward symptom of a mental defect. You are denying, denying, and denying, and where does it get you? It gets you to ask a question such as this, which seems to imply you cannot recognize meaning, any meaning. It is a fruitless mental loop (not to be confused with Fruit Loops, or maybe you have to be an American to get that one.)

Your consciousness might know nature is meaningless. I believe it is possible for people to "know" things which are, in fact, errors. This is a good example. You obviously should not search for objective meaning, then, if you believe such a search is doomed to failure and is therefore absurd.

Many people search all their lives for what may be called either "meaning" or "deeper understanding" or some other more appropriate term which is not coming to mind just now. As the world progresses step by step, sometimes at a fast pace, sometimes maddeningly slowly, it is evident that not all such searches come up empty. Some people do, in fact, find what they have been looking for, even if it assumes a form they might never have predicted. What is pretty clear is that the person - obviously educated and intelligent - who asks the question in the above quote, is one of the last people with whom one would want to share their meaningful, significant discoveries or realizations.

I am not trying to be critical. Well, let me rephrase that: I am trying not to be critical. But you sound in the above quote as if you have never had an epiphany of any sort which you could not, would not, and did not dismiss. It seems superfluous to think if one is going to think like that.

Do you see what my gripe is here, Dave? No one is asking you to swallow everything people say. But it sounds like you won't swallow anything that has any meaning, because you are denying meaning can exist. To say meaning can only be subjective is literally to rob a meaning of its meaning! What then does it leave you? Why bother with discourse of any sort? Why even bother to think? If you yourself were to be struck down like St. Paul with God's own illumination, it would be pointless because you could not then share it with any authority as it is purely subjective.

Can you see how this is intellectually extremely unfulfilling and unsatisfying? A proper response to the existence of junk food in the world is not to stop eating. Your quote above might simply mean you have never found anyone else's profound insights to have more than a subjective meaning which another can simply accept or reject arbitrarily at will. But it sounds as if you are willing to throw in the towel, to never search for that illumination which might change your mind about the nature of meaning itself; to hear that from an obviously intelligent person, or any person, really, I find to be profoundly sad.

Again, no offense is intended.

[Cory Duchesne]

Well, it's true that an elaborate cosmogony, like any story, does need to be passed along in order to survive. But from what I read of him, Gurdjieff's propositions about the universe are totally at odds with the discoveries of astronomers and other scientists, and can only be compared to science fiction. Really, to the skeptical reader, Gurdijeff's picture of the universe appears to be a psychotic delusional system. Ludicrous neologisms abound, rendering his cosmology obscure, incoherent and divorced from any objective evidence.

Here's a passage from a chapter of a book I'm reading called "Feet of Clay - A study of Gurus" which focuses on Gurdjieff:

Gurdjieff's arrogance and disregard of established experts were extraordinary. When he visited the caves of Lascaux, he told J.G. Bennett that he did not agree with Henri Breuil's dating of the rock paintings at thirty thousand years ago because he had concluded that the paintings were the work of a brotherhood that existed after the loss of Atlantis some seven or eight thousand years ago.

Sounds like a rather poor source for investigating Gurdjieff. I mean, lumping him with David Koresh and Jim Jones, let alone Winston Churchill, is a giveaway right there.

Gurdjieff, along with Rudolph Steiner (whom Storr rightly regards a saint), Freud and Jung are all depicted in the book as very different from those men and from each other. Instead of lumping them together, he depicts each man as occupying a different part of the spectrum of Guru-dom. Some are higher frequency, others lower. Differences are well depicted, and then significant commonalities are stressed, the most general one being that these men were all generic gurus whose lives conform to a certain generic pattern.

From Publishers Weekly
...Storr's elegantly written account is tarnished by his own unacknowledged authoritarianism. He never entertains the notion that there may be states of consciousness, states of knowing, that exceed customary bounds, so that a strange cosmology like Gurdjieff's might be understood not as a paranoid delusion or mere belief, but as a challenge to habitual modes of perception and cogitation that is composed with a clockmaker's care.

I'm quite sure Storr is aware that he is arguing in favor of an empirical view. He simply stresses that evidence is what matters, and that each man he writes about in his book was convinced they had attained special insights, insights which could not be verified by the observation of outsiders.

But let's revisit something you said earlier:

Basically, the Law of Three says there are three forces involved in any action, while the Ray of Creation describes how energy and influence is stepped down from the Absolute to the minute, and explains such things as how musical scales came into being, and why efforts in one direction often skew the opposite way or just plain run out of steam.

I think there are only two ways of knowing that are useful:

A) Through the senses, and B) Through logic

Cosmological explanations such as the Ray of creation are contrivances, they are neither the result of logic, nor the result of perception. They are the products of a fanciful imagination, which, as David mentioned, wishes to dress up reality and make it more appealing to the emotions.

[Carl G]

Cory wrote:

I think there are only two ways of knowing that are useful:

A) Through the senses, and B) Through logic

Cosmological explanations such as the Ray of creation are contrivances, they are neither the result of logic, nor the result of perception. They are the products of a fanciful imagination, which, as David mentioned, wishes to dress up reality and make it more appealing to the emotions.

Well, how do you know. You don't. You imagine. The teaching need not be taken at faith; its level of truth can be tested, to one degree or another, by the individual. The usefulness of the model is a personal matter. Finally, the Gurdjieff work certainly does not make reality more appealing to the emotions. The Ray of Creation is tough cerebral work to understand and integrate into one's life.

Thanks for the clarifications regarding the book you are reading. Interesting that it portrays Steiner as a saint. He and Gurdjieff tracked along the same lines in their lectures.