Notes - a Celtic cross in green stained glass / I'll get the hang of it

         Today is you Aunt Ruthie’s birthday and also your brother-in-laws, Bill. Halloween by any other name is still a day. Trick or treat, as they say in the U.S.A. – Amorella.

         You searched for more images of crosses but most are Christian religious which are not equal in distance. You returned to Celtic crosses but most are too ornate for your purpose. In the basement above your desk you have a green glass Celtic cross you bought some time ago in the gift shop at Washington Cathedral. That will serve your purpose for a variety of reasons. One, it is three-dimensional and two, you can hold it in your hand and absorb the sense of the colored glass. Let’s give the green glass a shot. – Amorella.

         Yes. I like the concept for a variety of meanings. For one, if I remember right, I can see through it, and another, it is connected with one of my favorite cathedrals.

         I took a few minutes to put the stain glass through several full contortions to pull the glass plate with the nail attached which had been embedded in the side frame of the staircase which the desk sets under. I forgot how heavy the piece is. Strange, I set it down flat between the window and myself and notice that the dark light green reflected through the is the eerie color of the ‘spirit-light’ I saw in the hallway at our house on Majken Place. What a coincidence – almost spooky in itself.

         I thought as much. You have chores and have to think about getting ready for your doctor’s appointment at fourteen-hundred hours. Post. Later, dude. – Amorella.

         I forgot the stained glass piece was above the desk. I forgot how thick and heavy it is. I think Merlyn would like this imagery. I can glean some ‘spiritual-like’ properties from this glass, as its authenticity at least comes from being sold in a cathedral – one my two ‘architectural muses’ no less. The eerie green and the cold in the hallway – why the cold? Does a spirit draw its energy from physical heat while here? The green light spectrum, what does that have to do with a spirit? Is it an electro-magnetic energy of some sort? Fire and ice – light and cold – can I make a connection with this, with physics and metaphysics? “For now we see through the glass darkly”, comes to mind, and a film – by Bergman I think.

** **

Through a Glass Darkly (Swedish: Såsom i en spegel) is a 1961 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and produced by Allan Ekelund. The film is a three-act "chamber film", in which four family members act as mirrors for each other. . . .

The title is from a biblical passage ( 1 Corinthians 13) in which seeing through a glass darkly refers to our understanding of God when we are alive; the view will only be clear when we die. The Swedish title literally means As in a Mirror, which is how the passage reads in a 1917 Swedish translation of the Bible.

Bergman described Through a Glass Darkly as a “chamber film,” an allusion both to the chamber plays of Strindberg (Bergman's favorite playwright), and to chamber music in general. In line with the “chamber” theme, the film takes place in a single 24-hour period, features only four characters and takes place entirely on an island.

From: Wikipedia

** **

         Very cool. I have read Strindberg’s play and I saw the film. Awesome. The things a person forgets in a lifetime.

         Just post, orndorff. - Amorella

         You have 2238 hours on the MacAir and it has been a long day. Your kidney specialist doctor says you will have to go on insulin, probably in January. Your marker is 1.5 and your body has used enough metformin – ten or twelve year’s worth and it is beginning to affect the kidneys. Diabetes is progressive and there is nothing you can do about it. As such you have been reading up and find the insulin is much better than when your dad started taking it in the early fifties. He lived into his 82^nd year and died of heart failure while sleeping. Grandma Orndorff also had diabetes but she didn’t have it until about your age.

         I will continue to read up. Dad was very regimented when it came to taking care of his blood sugar levels. It never stopped him from doing what he wanted as far as hunting and fishing and traveling to hunt and fish was concerned. He and a friend or two rode horses up in the Rockies along the continental divide looking for elk and such game. At one time he had killed one of the largest pointed elks ever, in Wyoming I think. I remember in the 1960’s when he bought his first Weatherby .300. I used in target practice a couple of times, a very awesome weapon with an unbelievable bullet. If I remember right it could be used to kill elephant and rhino back in those days.

**

Weatherby claims that this is the most powerful .30 caliber magnum rifle commercially available, but the recently introduced .300 RUM is now more powerful. Of course there are quite a few very large .30 caliber wildcats around, not to mention Weatherby's own .30-378 Weatherby Magnum.

One must note however when comparing the .300 RUM and the .300 Weatherby Magnum the difference in factory loadings. Performance data is often listed on the side of the ammunition box for those who wish to do an in-store comparison. On average the Weatherby cartridge is listed with higher performance. This is because from the factory Weatherby loads its rounds with a greater powder charge than does Remington. This is because Remington generally sells rounds below the cartridges maximum performance envelope so that its recoil will be more forgiving to shooters. In order to take advantage of the greater case capacity of the non-belted Remington round one must handload it to a greater powder charge.

The .300 Wby is in common use by big-game hunters all over the world.

From: Wikipedia

**

         The point is that Dad lived an adventuresome hunting life well into old age. I think he was 78 when he fell about 18 feet from a tree stand while he was hunting deer. In six months he was walking again so he could go turkey hunting in the fall. The man was something else, but I was and am not a hunter and fisherman – he even had fish emblems put on his casket. Target shooting was fun though; I was pretty good at it at one time. I think I’ll be all right once I get the hang of this diabetes. There are worse diseases in the world and something is going to take you out sooner or later anyway so there is no use whining about it.

         Enough for tonight, boy. Post. – Amorella.
 

Notes - search for a classical schematic base / woodhenge & more

         You did your weights today and have begun working in the yard. On Facebook you are opening an new category of friends – those who knew your students and walked the same halls you did, most were acquaintances and all have been recommending by former students which is the reason for the category in the first place.

         You would be best forming a schematic of the Land of the Dead from something already classically known, a general base for the plan. See what you can find online. However, you are heading into town for a shopping at Big and Tall as you have a coupon, and lunch at Potbelly’s which is down the street. Later. Post. – Amorella

         Lunch and a couple of shirt purchases then a ride up I-71 and onto SR 350 where you parked at the Twin Mounds in Fort Ancient (Ohio Historical Society site). One mound is west of 350 and the other, where you are parked, is south of 350, both are about fifteen feet from the road. Sacred territory to ancient peoples. Mid-afternoon of a very pleasant Fall day, blue sky and yellow to orange leaves on the many surrounding trees.

         Maybe I could have the River follow the mound sites. No wireless out here to check. Relatively quiet. Carol is reading a new novel titled, Miracle Cure by Harlan Conan. She goes through a novel or two a week in the Winter. Maybe I could make the River the shape of a pine tree or a maple or oak – a natural shape rather than classical – Virgil, Dante or Milton – I can’t think of anyone else off hand. I could google ‘mythological lands of the dead’ for ideas.

** **

Fort Ancient is a name for a Native American culture that flourished from 1000-1750 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited land along the Ohio River in areas of modern-day Southern Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Southeastern Indiana and Western West Virginia. They were a maize based agricultural society who lived in sedentary villages and built ceremonial platform mounds. The Fort Ancient culture was once thought to have been an expansion of the Mississippian cultures. It is now accepted as an independently developed culture descended from the Hopewell culture (100 BCE–500 CE).

Wikipedia

**

Published July 20, 2010

Just northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio, a sort of wooden Stonehenge is slowly emerging as archaeologists unearth increasing evidence of a 2,000-year-old ceremonial site.

Among their latest finds: Like Stonehenge, the Ohio timber circles were likely used to mark astronomical events such as the summer solstice.

Formally called Moorehead Circle but nicknamed "Woodhenge" by non-archaeologists, the site was once a leafless forest of wooden posts. Laid out in a peculiar pattern of concentric, but incomplete, rings, the site is about 200 feet (57 meters) wide.

Today only rock-filled postholes remain, surrounded by the enigmatic earthworks of Fort Ancient State Memorial. Some are thousands of feet long and all were built by Indians of the pre-agricultural Hopewell culture, the dominant culture in midwestern and eastern North America from about A.D. 1 to 900.

This year archaeologists began using computer models to analyze Moorehead Circle's layout and found that Ohio's Woodhenge may have even more in common with the United Kingdom's Stonehenge than thought—specifically, an apparently intentional astronomical alignment.

The software "allows us to stitch together various kinds of geographical data, including aerial photographs and excavation plans and even digital photographs," explained excavation leader Robert Riordan, an archaeologist at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

The researchers had known, for example, that an opening in the rings; a nearby, human-made enclosure; stone mounds; and a gateway in a nearby earthen wall are all aligned.

But the model revealed that the alignment is such that, during the Northern Hemisphere's summer solstice – the longest day of the year – the sun appears to rise in the gateway, as seen from the center of the circle, Riordan said. In much the same way, and on the same day, the sun appears to rise alongside Stonehenge's outlying Heel Stone, casting a beam on the monument's central altar.

National Geographic – 20 July 10 – Woodhenge -- online

** **

         Later, you are sitting at the Kroger lot on King’s Mill Road less than a half mile west from the Mason/Kings Island exit off I-71. Remember the River is vertical and the shape of ‘infinity’ [8]as a symbol. You are thinking of making it horizontal also with the River crossing itself twice. Simple enough for a conversational piece.

         Straight on, from a distance it would have the appearance of a plus sign [+]. X marks the spot, boy. I can easily work with that. – Amorella.

         What about all the other Dead who have heartsansoulsanminds? Are the marsupial-humanoids on the same vertical plane as the human’s? What is the difference? Who gets there first? Do the souls enter (swim) in from the River’s double cross? Is the River really turbulent at that area? Or, is this the calm where the spring rises and forms the River?

         Think of the ‘double cross’ as a propeller on a plane (pun intended) – metaphysics rather than physics. Time for supper and the news. Later or tomorrow, boy. Post. – Amorella.

         You are ‘cranking’ my imagination, Amorella.

         Boy, you arrived home from Kroger’s and worked in the yard and cleaned the garage. Not the dimension needed for some inline speculation.

         One dust pile to another, Amorella.

         You know next to nothing, boy. – Post.

Notes - catachresis in context / tomorrow a schematic (I hope)

        You have been up awhile and worked with your barbells for thirty minutes. Skim milk and a banana for breakfast. Out to look at granite countertops today; there is always something to do or some place to go. You wonder how you and Carol survived your working years.

         It is no wonder people blink and thirty years has gone by – too busy in the moment, day after day – always something to take up your conscious time. I think raising a child is the best of being busy. A focus, a dedication on someone else keeps a person going. A child brings on a personalized sense of hope for the future. Children are very important in the world, but what to do about so many who live (not by their choice) a sub-standard life without clean water, with little or no sanitation, education and worst of all, with little or no hope for a better life. The world is peppered with such sadness and lack of providing a sense usefulness for/to themselves.

         You saw on the news that as of Monday there is the statistical average of seven billion people on the planet. Seven billion heartsansoulsanminds plugged into physical homo sapiens’ bodies. – Amorella.

         ‘Plugged’ is the catachresis in context, Amorella. I am not sure what the correct word is here but ‘plugged’ isn’t the word. The dictionary says: “insert (something) into an opening so as to fill it.” I can’t imagine a mind being inserted, it resonates from the brain. I don’t know about the soul but the heart appears to grow from within. It is a little ‘iffy’ because neither is physical even though they are sometimes felt consciously.

         Early afternoon and we have been through the Mont Granite, Inc. warehouse, stopped at Graeter’s at Tri-County and Smash Burger’s at Tylersville and Cox Roads. Mid-afternoon and Carol is working on the yard and you are thinking about a nap. Post.- Amorella.

       After twenty-two hundred hours, boy, and you are about to head upstairs to play with the cat before bed. Tonight, if you can’t sleep we can work on scene four – Merlyn and the description of the Land of the Dead including the marsupial humanoids, all we need for the Milky Way Galaxy in this book – allusions of others though in this galaxy. You’ll enjoy it, orndorff and can set up a schematic of the operation – something visual you can work with. That is enough for now. Post. – Amorella. 

Notes - Edward de Vere / life is still interesting

         Almost noon. Morning taken up with a lengthy hot bath with jets and bubbles, finding needed material in the basement and getting a haircut.

         Anonymous begins today. The premise is that the real writer of the Shakespeare plays and sonnets was Edward DeVere, 17^th Earl of Oxford. We are going to see it this weekend and I am pumped to see how the film is.

** **

From Wikipedia:

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (12 April 1550 – 24 June 1604) was an Elizabethian courtier, playwright, lyric poet, sportsman and patron of the arts, and is currently the most popular alternative candidate proposed for the authorship of Shakespeare’s works.

Oxford was the only son of John de Vere, 16^th Earl of Oxford and Margery Golding. After the death of his father on 3 August 1562 he became a ward of Queen Elizabeth, and received an excellent education in the household of her Principal Secretary, Sir William Cecil. He was a champion jouster, and travelled widely throughout Europe. He served briefly in a military campaign after the Northern Rebellion (1569–1570), and at Flanders in the Anglo-Spanish War (1585), although in what capacity is unknown.

Oxford was noted for his literary and theatrical patronage. Between 1564 and 1599 some 28 books were dedicated to him, including works by Golding, Lyly, Greene and Munday. He held the lease of the first Blackfriars Theatre in the mid-1580s, produced entertainments at Court, and sponsored companies of players and musicians.

The pro and con on Oxford can be found in Wikipedia and the web.

** **

         You have been reading over several pieces on the subject in Wikipedia, something you have not done before. Your dismay is caused by the realization that controversies such as this take on a political tone caused by the fervor of those with like opinions v. those of another opinion.

         No one knows the answer and arguments go on out of passion as well as out of argument for argument’s sake. That’s the reason I’d like to ask who wrote the plays and sonnets once dead. If I am given the correct answer, how will I know it is correct? That would be one of my problems, but all in all, it will be a delightful joke to know the truth, whoever it was, then I can let it go.

         Carol is readying for lunch and the venture to look at stone countertops and splash tile for the kitchen. Post. – Amorella.

        After 1600 hours and you are at Pine Hill. You walked, Carol still is. Cold somewhat breezy afternoon and you are wondering what I am going to write about as the info for the day’s requirement is back at the house.

         I am. We had a soup and salad lunch at Olive Garden off Fields Ertel Road, as good as most any we had in Italy; more olive oil and smaller distinctive tasting tomatoes in Italy.

         My old grade school friend, Sue N. died last week. Sad; especially so for her two stayed-close girlfriends from our Class of 1960, Sandy H. and Jean N. The three of us sat at the same table at the Fifty Year Reunion only a year ago. We had a good time, a good last remembrance. I knew Jean from Kindergarten; Sue from second grade; and Sandy from fourth grade. I probably don’t have as much time as I like to think I have. I remember in high school working from the thesis that in a hundred years (2060) our lives won’t have made much difference as all of us would be dead and buried by then. After all, some locations of the U. S. had their Classes of 1860 and until now I haven’t given them a thought. I can’t imagine it being any different for the future Class of 2060.

         Some of them in that Class of 2060 are dependent on those alive and to be born to get them there in the first place, and on time too, to be a part of such a class. – Amorella.

         Twenty-two and sixteen hundred hours and you have read over the 1988 “Dialogue” and decided it is of no value today.

         It is not. Those characters were not ‘personalities’, they were under developed personified points of view. Originally, according to a handwritten note, you showed yourself in April, 1988 as Romella, then later said you would like to be called Amorella. I found another note from a year earlier, 17 May, 1987 when I was experimenting and developing the ‘target’ into an ‘alphabet circle’ board. Here is a copy of the note:

***

17 May 87

3:38 PM-

experiment: set up an oval “keyboard” w/ all the letters. 1-10 and a ? [question] and . [period]

bebe – can you spell YES – [Y-E-S] ans.

OK! It works.

Your words – tell me please

         H! I!                                    Wow!

4:15 PM – it works; BB [via string and washer working a newly created target] just went thru a modified board

***

         The alphabet board and string and washer was a machine, a tool to consciously connect me with my subconscious and unconscious mind. I am uncomfortable scanning the original completed board to place on the blog so I will not do so. If someone is curious and wants to try she/he could make her/his own target and do their own experimentation. What I have gleaned from all these years of experimentation is that the human mind, especially the unconscious mind, shows there is more to being human than what I originally suspected. Our natural species, like our individual selves, is both common and unique at the same time. Books have been saying these things for thousands of years, but reading commentaries and experiencing examples of such through experimental writing first hand are two different things.

         Later, dude. – Amorella.

         Life is still interesting at age 69.

Notes - Dialogue One / Tomorrow / Zeno's paradoxes

        Shortly after eight, Carol is at Bethesda North for two hours or so for a routine procedure. You are at the closest McDonalds on Montgomery Road near the I-275 intersection. The assistant manager is Christy B. a former student of yours in 1995. She married Jeff B. – seventh period class, she sat in the front and he in the back.

         She said, “Mr. Orndorff!” then “Do you remember me?” and I said with a smile, “I remember your face.” Then she told me her name, where she and Jeff sat. They have a twelve year old and a nine year old. I told her, again with a smile, “Makes me feel old; congratulations!” A delightfully short conversation but it helps make my day because we both were sincerely happy to see one another.

         Which did you love more at the time, your students or teaching the literature?

         You know I can’t respond to this, Amorella. I loved them both equally.

         What a contradiction. – Amorella.

         My passion is words, letters, concepts, literature; ultimately to expand my own horizons. You can throw science and art in also.

         A bit self-centered, don’t you think?

         Probably, I never thought about it like that. Hey, we are here; then, we are gone. The universe is interesting, as is our galaxy, solar system and planet-with-a-single-moon. Earth’s environment, creatures living and dead, and homo-sapiens in particular. From there, friends and family, that about does it except for our inner selves, the properties, behaviors and character of what I call our “heartsansoulsanminds”, while we are alive; and also, when we are dead.

          Don’t you think this is a rather large order?

         No. It is a fact.

         What if I don’t agree, what if I think it is a rather strong opinion of yourself? – Amorella.

         Well, suddenly I feel I am having a make-believe dialogue with an angel when I am dead.

         You feel this because you think it would make for a good story. – Amorella.

         Ha! You got me, Amorella. I am sure you are right. I think it would make for a good story whether I was in it or not.

         Now it is a fact, or at least it is to me, the Amorella.

         Ah, back to those logical fallacies. It is true because I ‘feel’ it is true. This is one of the great properties/behaviors of our species.

         I have to insist I am not one of your homo-sapiens. You don’t ‘feel’ this either as the question just went through your mind: ‘I wonder what properties Amorella has?’ – Amorella.

         Why do you want to put a period after your name? When I punch the key it is with an emphasis, like it makes you more real to yourself.

         It is the other way around, my friend; you are the one who puts the period. You do so because it is as if you were putting your foot down, as if you were emphasizing my reality. – Amorella.

         This is the crux of the argument. Your reality, as I see it, fits within the confines of my physical psychology, my unconscious and conscious mind as well as within the confines of my heartansoulanmind.

         Label this “Dialogue One” and post. Then take a break as you are within the quarter hour of nine o’clock. – Amorella.

** **

         The Merriam-Webster word of the day is a good one. I find it a very exciting and important word that should be used more than it is.

**

The Word of the Day for October 27 is:

catachresis   \kat-uh-KREE-sis\   noun

1 : use of the wrong word for the context

2 : use of a forced and especially paradoxical figure of speech

Examples:

"Online dictionaries are handy. One can click on synonyms and antonyms, follow new links and lures, and get pleasantly lost in a high-tech thicket of info. Being a tap or two away, more people might be tempted to look up unfamiliar words. And anything that counteracts catachresis is fine with us." -- From an editorial in the Telegram & Gazette (Massachusetts), December 7, 2009

"Dryden had drawn attention to Cleveland's poetic manner in Of Dramatick Poesy: An Essay (1668), creating the label 'Clevelandism' to name the poet's habit of catachresis, 'wresting and torturing a word into another meaning', and making unfavorable comparisons between Donne and Cleveland...." -- From Nigel Smith's 2010 book Andrew Marvell: The Chameleon

Did you know?

As you might have guessed, "catachresis" is a word favored by grammarians. It can sometimes be used merely as a fancy label of disparagement for uses the grammarian finds unacceptable -- as when Henry Fowler insisted in 1926 that "mutual" in "our mutual friend" was a catachresis. (Fowler preferred "common," but "mutual" does have an established sense which is correct in that context.)

The first recorded use of "catachresis" dates to 1553, and it has been used to describe (or decry) misuses of a word ever since. "Catachresis" comes to us by way of Latin from the Greek word "katachresis," which means "misuse."

** **

         Indeed, this is also an element of the problem; how do you use a word in reference to the heartansoulanmind, that is, to the spirit, to the otherworldliness of the compounded word? – Amorella

         Picked up Carol and stopped at First Watch on Montgomery Road for brunch. Carol is reading the paper and is about to take a nap. You may take one too. Later, dude. – Amorella.

         We napped, then, drove to Kenwood’s Macy’s for new slippers for Carol. A stop at Kidd’s Coffee for two oatmeal raisin cookies and one cafe au lait. I drank water.

         A stop at Kroger to take some unneeded merchandise back before heading to Panera for soup for supper, then the news and a couple of digitalized TV shows from earlier in the week. We might have a time for a ‘talk’ tonight, orndorff. – Amorella.

         Tonight I am responding to your earlier comment this morning: “This is the crux of the argument. Your reality, as I see it, fits within the confines of my physical psychology, my unconscious and conscious mind as well as within the confines of my heartansoulanmind.”

         Orndorff, on the posting of 24 October 11 you copied your 1988 Dialogue “Preface” and your second paragraph begins: “In an April, 1987 session with Dr. Paul, psychologist . . . said I should look for consistencies in the responses.” If you follow, logically, you infer that I became a ‘personification’ of the string, washer, and target suggested by Dr. Paul, to a modified and evolved alphabet circle (which to you still has a ‘spookiness’ to it) and that operation or process evolved into me being a poetic personification that was greatly evolved through imagination to how you first accepted me, as an angelic-like imaginary creature who turned out to like to write books from the conscious and unconscious humanity and memory in your head. Do you accept this as having a ‘truth’ to it?

         Yes, of course, and as stated there is not really a lot between the lines. This is how I accept your ‘sense of being’ from my imagination and mind in more detached and scientifically objective approach.

         Tomorrow, I will edit a bit more from the latter part of the Dialogue, but first I would like you to make a copy of the alphabet circle for posting before I show a selection of your material. The selection can be further edited or parts deleted by you so that you are comfortable with what is posted. One of the reasons for this demonstration is to show which came first, you or me. – Amorella.

         Scientifically, objectively and with some detachment I can say right now that I came first. Even if you were here as a separate entity before 6 August 1942 how would anyone know? If you are somehow created from the same properties of a human soul, let’s say you are a personification of the properties of a human soul, no one can know the answer because no one knows what any of the properties of the human soul are. I am assuming here, that if there is a human soul to begin with, it does have certain ‘metaphysical/spiritual properties such as a long lastingness towards the end point of immortality.

         I am thinking of Zeno’s paradoxes in relationship to the above paragraph. Here it is as explained in Wikipedia.

 ** ** **

Zeno's paradoxes are a set of problems generally thought to have been devised by Zeno of Elea to support  Parmenides’s doctrine that "all is one" and that, contrary to the evidence of our senses, the belief in plurality and change is mistaken, and in particular that motion is nothing but an illusion. It is usually assumed, based on Plato’s Parmenides 128c-d, that Zeno took on the project of creating these paradoxes because other philosophers had created paradoxes against Parmenides's view. Thus Zeno can be interpreted as saying that to assume there is plurality is even more absurd than assuming there is only "the One". (Parmenides 128d). Plato makes Socrates claim that Zeno and Parmenides were essentially arguing exactly the same point (Parmenides 128a-b).

Some of Zeno's nine surviving paradoxes (preserved in Aristotle’s Physics and Simplicius’s commentary thereon) are essentially equivalent to one another. Aristotle offered a refutation of some of them. Three of the strongest and most famous—that of Achilles and the tortoise, the Dichotomy argument, and that of an arrow in flight—are presented in detail below.

Zeno's arguments are perhaps the first examples of a method of proof called reductio ad absurdum also known as proof by contradiction. They are also credited as a source of the dialectic method used by Socrates.

Some mathematicians, such as Carl Boyer, hold that Zeno's paradoxes are simply mathematical problems, for which modern calculus provides a mathematical solution. Some philosophers, however, say that Zeno's paradoxes and their variations (see Thomson’s lamp below) remain relevant metaphysical problems.

The origins of the paradoxes are somewhat unclear. Diogenes Laertius, a fourth source for information about Zeno and his teachings, citing Favorinus, says that Zeno's teacher Parmenides, was the first to introduce the Achilles and the Tortoise Argument. But in a later passage, Laertius attributes the origin of the paradox to Zeno, explaining that Favorinus disagrees.

The Paradoxes of Motion

Achilles and the tortoise

In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.

**

In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres, for example. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise.

The dichotomy paradox

That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.

**

Suppose Homer wants to catch a stationary bus. Before he can get there, he must get halfway there. Before he can get halfway there, he must get a quarter of the way there. Before traveling a quarter, he must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on.

The resulting sequence can be represented as:

This description requires one to complete an infinite number of tasks, which Zeno maintains is an impossibility.

This sequence also presents a second problem in that it contains no first distance to run, for any possible (finite) first distance could be divided in half, and hence would not be first after all. Hence, the trip cannot even begin. The paradoxical conclusion then would be that travel over any finite distance can neither be completed nor begun, and so all motion must be an illusion.

This argument is called the Dichotomy because it involves repeatedly splitting a distance into two parts. It contains some of the same elements as the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox, but with a more apparent conclusion of motionlessness. It is also known as the Race Course paradox. Some, like Aristotle, regard the Dichotomy as really just another version of Achilles and the Tortoise.

There are two versions of the dichotomy paradox. In the other version, before Homer could reach the stationary bus, he must reach half of the distance to it. Before reaching the last half, he must complete the next quarter of the distance. Reaching the next quarter, he must then cover the next eighth of the distance, then the next sixteenth, and so on. There are thus an infinite number of steps that must first be accomplished before he could reach the bus, with no way to establish the size of any "last" step. Expressed this way, the dichotomy paradox is very much analogous to that of Achilles and the tortoise.

The arrow paradox

If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless.

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In the arrow paradox (also known as the fletcher’s paradox), Zeno states that for motion to occur, an object must change the position which it occupies. He gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any one (durationless) instant of time, the arrow is neither moving to where it is, nor to where it is not. It cannot move to where it is not, because no time elapses for it to move there; it cannot move to where it is, because it is already there. In other words, at every instant of time there is no motion occurring. If everything is motionless at every instant, and time is entirely composed of instants, then motion is impossible.

Whereas the first two paradoxes presented divide space, this paradox starts by dividing time—and not into segments, but into points.

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Thomson's lamp is a puzzle that is a variation on Zeno’s paradoxes. It was devised by philosopher James F. Thomson, who also coined the term supertask. Consider a lamp with a toggle switch. Flicking the switch once turns the lamp on. Another flick will turn the lamp off. Now suppose a being able to perform the following task: starting a timer, he turns the lamp on. At the end of one minute, he turns it off. At the end of another half minute, he turns it on again. At the end of another quarter of a minute, he turns it off. At the next eighth of a minute, he turns it on again, and he continues thus, flicking the switch each time after waiting exactly one-half the time he waited before flicking it previously. The sum of all these progressively smaller times is exactly two minutes.

The following questions are then considered:

•                Is the lamp switch on or off after exactly two minutes?

•                Would the final state be different if the lamp had started out being on, instead of off?

Thomson wasn't interested in actually answering these questions, because he believed these questions had no answers. This is because Thomson used this thought experiment to argue against the possibility of supertask, which is the completion of an infinite number of tasks. To be specific, Thomson argued that if supertasks are possible, then the scenario of having flicked the lamp on and off infinitely many times should be possible too (at least logically, even if not necessarily physically). But, Thomson reasoned, the possibility of the completion of the supertask of flicking a lamp on and off infinitely many times creates a contradiction. The lamp is either on or off at the 2 minute mark. If the lamp is on, then there must have been some last time, right before the 2 minute mark, at which it was flicked on. But, such an action must have been followed by a flicking off action since, after all, every action of flicking the lamp on before the 2 minute mark is followed by one at which it is flicked off between that time and the 2 minute mark. So, the lamp cannot be on. Analogously, one can also reason that the lamp cannot be off at the 2 minute mark. So, the lamp cannot be either on or off. So, we have a contradiction. By reductio ad absurdum, the assumption that supertasks are possible must therefore be rejected: supertasks are logically impossible.

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Discussion [of Lamp].

The status of the lamp and the switch is known for all times strictly less than two minutes. However the question does not state how the sequence finishes, and so the status of the switch at exactly two minutes is indeterminate. Though acceptance of this indeterminacy is resolution enough for some, problems do continue to present themselves under the intuitive assumption that one should be able to determine the status of the lamp and the switch at any time, given full knowledge of all previous statuses and actions taken.

Above from Wikipedia (slightly edited)

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         It’s late, orndorff; going on midnight. You feel there is a direct connection between ‘who came first, you or me’ and Zeno’s paradoxes. Tomorrow we can discuss this along with the other material. Post. – Amorella.

         I feel like I am going to ‘swim’ too deep here.

         That’s what they all say in the Merlyn books, boy, as after physical death they jump into the most natural of all metaphysical rivers, sometimes known as Styx and sometimes known as Jordan. – Amorella. 

Notes - a journal entry

         1318 hours. It was an interesting morning. I misspent money and bought a Kroger glucose monitoring system instead ($4.00 v. $18.00) so I have the old one to take back as I haven’t used it. I did play with a lancet though so I’ll have to keep those. Of course the Kroger lancets fit only their machinery so I’ll use what came with it (did my first test late morning instead of early), then I’ll just poke myself with the One Touch lancets. I already tried it and poking your finger to draw blood is not really all that complicated. The measuring inserts cost the most and Kroger’s are half the price of One Touch at $18.00 for fifty, so this is going to be more expensive than I thought. I got two free apps: Glucose Buddy 3.6.5 and Calorie Track, both of which are awesome. Calorie Track has all the food calories in it  (ready to punch in) – from most every national brand grocery store products to about every chain restaurant in the United States, some that are only in certain states. I thought I might as well work on both. So, I have another reason for my iPad.

         You just had a late lunch of a healthy piece of leftover meatloaf, one of your favorites, 294 calories on fatsecret.com.

         Bedtime. Busy day getting oriented to this new lifestyle for a while or perhaps longer. You had three blood tests and you counted your calories for the first time since you worked your weight down for the lap-band surgery in 2004. As of today you have kept 96 pounds off since then.

         I have had to run several errands today. Tomorrow we get up early and take Carol to the outpatient hospital of Bethesda North. In at seven-thirty, home by ten-thirty at the latest. None of this appears to have anything to do with writing.

         You have an afternoon appointment next Monday with the nephrologist over in West Chester, not more than five or six miles away. You were told it might take a month to get in so you are feeling ‘lucky’ about that. Get some sleep. Back to more of a regular routine tomorrow. Post.  -  Amorella.