On 'Salt: A World History' by Mark Kurlansky

I had the good luck to read 'Salt: A World History' by John Kurlansky recently and shook out plenty of historical facts of sustainable interest. There were actually far too many, interesting points in Mark Kurlansky's 2002 Penguin Publishing book to summarize here with any semblance of a taste of the diverse and historically important subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt:_A_World_History

One learns a diverse array of interesting American facts of course such as the strategic importance during the American civil war of destroying confederate salt production without which preserving food was difficult in the era before refrigeration. The Erie canal was built preponderantly for the purpose of making delivery of Onadega salt available cheaply to New York City.

In 17th century France prisoners that died before trial were sometimes preserved in salt and brought to trial and public display that they might not escape justice. Prisoners sentenced to death following execution were on occasion likewise salted and presented for public ridicule. Salt has amazing preservative properties. Many salt mine workers and their costumes have been discovered remarkably well preserved from times as early as the 5th century B.C.

http://www.pilgrimhall.org/winslowjohnrecords.htm

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

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_ketchup

The first patent granted in America was given for a fellow named John Winslow about 1622 in Massachusetts for salt production techniques. Politics was not the bane of independent intellectual creativity of course, but instead on occasion supported the development of enterprise to produce salt even during the revolutionary war with cash incentives-the X prize bounties of the day.

Of most contemporary interest-more so than the 1200 feet below the surface of Detroit network of more than 50 miles of road built in a Morton Salt mine-was the curious history of perhaps the first or second American chronicler of tomato ketchup manufacture in America James Meese published the recipe in 1812. Is it possible that President Ronald Reagan's Chief of Staff Edwin Meese influenced the Presidential declaration that 'ketchup is a vegetable'?

Salt for thousands of years was a primary food preservative. Today most people have forgotten about salt cod, making sauerkraut or soy sauce. Kurlansky's excellent book 'Salt: A World History' provides a useful historical brief on that important element of human culture in enjoyable prose.

On the Non-Determinative Realm Prior to the Quantum/Solid-State-Determinative Realm

Its a context issue. The topical features of mass and energy perceived by physicists were long said to behave as waves and particle. The Chinese puzzle box of smaller particles and wave events were revealed in particle accelerators with additional energy input in the form of particles to decohere and seem as quarks or whatever-leptons, muons etc. Higher energy levels were required to reveal particle-wave forms bound up with the most strength or energy.

Decoherence-suppression of interference in quantum observations-can be included in 'the quantum realm' of which definition and location I will now identity with this universe's mass and energy at the quantum level. That is these are comparatively determiinistic contextually whereas the alternative primary non-deterministic realm before quantum determnation and solid states is not.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-decoherence/

The experiment I cited above actually observed quantum features in solid-state matter for the first time. The other theory I cited by a fellow working in Singapore was a blog post at Scientific American that postulated that the solid state mass in this universe at the smallest level would be comparable to a number to an uncertain power of entanglements by those particle-waves of uncertain character in a non-determined condition from what I refer to as the quantum realm for-itself. Because of some initial anisotropy there may be a cascade of quantum determination this universe state that in some way becomes entangled probabilities to allow energy to appear like standing waves epiphenomenalized as mass.

Staying in a tent in Alaska recently I experienced a heavy snowfall that let snow piled up on tall trees transition suddenly to fall with a thud making a loud noise with the capability of flattening the tent. Not only wind could make a line of trees drop loads of snow, but so it seems could a radio. That suggested to me that the Word spoken in the beginning from a quantum realm could have started a cascade of change in selecting the entanglement of quantum probabilities that would appear later as mass, light and the expansion of space-time in this Universe (1). That is a little off topic though.

In this universe there may be no real particles or waves-only energy that at the smallest level is obviously mysterious. Quarks and all those elementary particles are energy bound into patterns of behavior in quantum levels. Only so much energy may fit in valence shells forming atomic patterns.

The factors that may quarks and elementary energy units have select quantum values and differentiate at the basic universe entry level is unknown. There are myriad possibilities to consider. Some that I have thought about a little. Instead of the quantum realm I will call the energy patterns of this quantum universe inclusive of its appearance of uncertainty the determined universe and the other realm where energy does not appear in a particular quantum existence as the non-determined realm.

The idea of a non-determined realm of energy is paradoxic in numerous respects. That context would have not only a symmetric character without differentiation or spacing, it might have a neither finite nor infinite quantitative endowment of energy or space-time. That isn’t a very helpful concept even for myself. The probabilities of equal values regarding the relationships of energy within its perfected field would be 100% until change and cancellation of balance generated a field of entangled anisoptropic probabilities that might appear as something like a Higgs Field and the inflation. Interestingly enough the virtual particles that appear and disappear from space-time would not necessarily be artifacts from a subtler level of spatial dimensions of an inflationary era. They might be new energy intrusions from that non-determined realm.

I would guess that a good reason for the existence of extra spatial dimensions would be that those smaller dimensions might provide the quantum energy levels possible for space-time in this Universe. Too much energy in various atomic shells for particle-waves could not remain in those dimensions. The idea that radiation could be a process of trans-dimensional energy redistribution may be silly yet it’s a little interesting.

That idea too is off topic in comparison to the discovery of the characteristics of a non-determinative realm of energy primary to the solid-state mass-energy of this Universe (1).

Zero-Point Energy and the Uncertain Expanse of a Quantum Universe? (metaphysics)

Scientists have for the first time observed zero-point energy in a solid object in a solid object. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle means that solid mass observed at the quantum level will vague out into position or speed yet not both characteristics observed simultaneously. In fact the quantum world is quite unknown as a for-itself or in-itself.

What are the boundaries and characteristics of the quantum universe? Some theorists hypothesize that the solid-state appearance of mass in this universe is a result of concatenated probability entanglements of that waveform phenomenality priori to the space-time ordinal nature of the mass of this Universe (1).

It is that quantum realm where mass does not exist, and where quantum waves that are described from here as energy exist as possibilities of being in every place and perhaps time and speed. If quantum energy has the same time-at light speed or faster before becoming entangled different energy values might occur when they were entangled to appear as mass-yet the most basic particles might have the same quantum values perhaps as strings or membranes.

It is a metaphysical curiosity to me about what that quantum realm before or outside this Universe in which this Universe has phenomenalized is comprised, and of what its spatial and temporal character could be.

http://www.newscientist.com/articl...-rss&nsref=online-news

On the Question-Does an Intelligent Super-Organism Exist on Earth?

Pierre Telhard De Chardin wrote of a layered life approach and of a noosphere. The cosmogenesis approach is interesting. Telhard was a World War One French Army officer who got so drunk on Armistice Day that he couldn't get the key into the lock on his door. He was also a priest and theologian. It is impressive that he could view stomachs hanging in trees and later write such interesting and optimistic philosophy.

http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_2.html

James Lovelock and the Gaia hypothesis argued that the world ecosphere behaves like an intelligent organism. The complex feedback mechanisms of which there are a zillion act together. One can consider Elton's research on the way bare post-glacial era northern island became populated with vegetation and other, larger life as guano from seabirds and seabirds themselves as food and in other capacities helped to reinforce an increase population of life forms. If bees were taken out of the life equation on Earth that would present quite a few problems.

Regarding the web of life as an integral whole is a fundamental parameter of contemporary ecospheric research I would guess. Several books have been published on ecosystems integrity from the requirement that large predators exist to the harm done to the American southwest by the removal of mammoths of the elephant family whose footprints allowed seed to grow.
Human beings are too a part of the ecosphere as are their intellect such as exists outside the beltway. Some of the intellects are daft regarding the ecosphere and do their best to exterminate much of it en mass instead of conserving it while they advance science and technology to the purpose of knowledge and human well being. The ecosphere isn't just an aesthetic luxury.

Inevitably the political trail returns to the oval of NASCAR and high-octane automobile pollution-that may not change soon.

Lovelock wrote in 'The Final Warning' that the human population may drop to about 200 million in the future as a result of global warming and other issues. At that point the global temperature may stabilize. Lovelock conjectures that if humanity continues its usual greenhouse gassing at that point Gaia will simply remove the remnant of humanity.

Life may act on Earth as a giant organism. G.W.F. Hegel believed that life on Earth is a process of God realizing awareness of Himself in history that fits rather well with the Gaia criteria.

There are additional ways to consider an ecosphere in larger, intelligent organisms in discrete or monistic guise. Ant colonies sometimes seem to act as intelligent collectives-one must consider the Borg obviously as a future mode of ultra-right-wing or left wing consumerism.
Of even more concern to some is the potential that some of those giant fungi discovered now and then to be the largest organisms in the world have as much intelligence as federal budget planners. Then there are whales and ravens-seemingly happy creatures of moderate intelligence in tune with the temporal times even as they decline.
The entire quantum universe could be a super-intelligence, quantum computer or God running this Universe as a sub-routine.

Defining 'Spirit'

One might want to define truth in other than a context of Platonic realism. A disquotation theory or some other might be helpful.

Given a particular verbal lexicon of meanings, if one does not assent to the meanings a priori it is unlikely that one would understand the concepts or meanings. Pontius Pilate asked rhetorically of Jesus Christ 'what is truth?'.

If I read a contemporary cosmology theory or language and substituted my own values for the terms or expressions I would not understand what the theoretical physicist intended. Notably some expect understanding of 'truth' to be brought to them to overcome their skepticism. Perhaps one must be drawn by the Spirit unto a relationship with God or actively work to learn philosophical ideas instead of receiving insight as a bonus for signing up with 4g wireless service two years.

It is also helpful to define 'spirit'. One might say that it is simply the life experience of a human being regarded as a data set by God. In theory a morally conscious human being aware of the truth values of Jesus Christ might behave differently socially than one that regards 'spirit' as meaningless and human experience as entirely phenomenal. Those that are spiritually dead in the sense of being unsaved or unenlightened regarding the spiritual life can miss the boat and slip into the river Styx like a slithering creature in devolution down the slippery slope to oblivion and even judgment.

Well, if spirit is simply human experience perceived or unperceived as spirit that state of affairs might describe (so far as humanly possible) the Spirit of God (I would think) to be Divine experience-the uncreated Being in omniscience without cause.

On Philosophy

Philosophy is a method or process of reasoning rather than an ossified practice. Philosophical syncretism is a way of building that model of the man-in-the-Universe Johnny Cash sort of one-piece-at-a-time opinion about reality before one physically dies that differs from religious syncretism. The latter present ossified doctrine and the former is a map in progress.

It is possible to extract ideas from the sky religion that gave rise to Hinduism and Buddhism too indirectly and regard those elements within a cosmological context such as the recurrent Universe of Nietzsche, the spinning bucket in the void thought experiments of Newton, The World as Will and Idea of Shopenhauer, 'The Three Dialogues’ of Bishop Berkley and his ideas about idealism contrasted with the illusory nature of reality of Buddhism and of course the noumenal-phenomenal dichotomy of Immanuel Kant and so forth.

Sakyamuni was perhaps a prince of a society over-run by another culture. He may have became a political and religious exile and in some respects resembles Abraham more than a little. Abraham and the Buddha were founders of social events-methods that would become morph into religious practices. Buddhism is far more of an historically reviewable religion than is Brahmanism, and less complex in its kit.

The fifty billion year kalpa of Hinduism and a recycling Universe are fascinating primitive cosmological theorizing. If one views very early Hinduism and Buddhism without the elaborations accreted upon them one discovers more philosophical outlooks.

That reminds me of the saying of God to the prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament that everyone knows him, and they intentionally forget that He is. What Sartre calls 'false consciousness' set upon ancient ideas long ago. Christianity isn't much changed over two millenia though one may consider the accreted sectarian and heretical syncretisms that have flourished. Some forms of Hinduism and of Buddhism seem quite changed in comparison to the content created by their founders too.

One might enjoy reading of the historical growth of philosophical and religious thought concurrently in the past and perhaps today too. The rise of symbolic logic in the 19th century, and of Leibnitz' mathematical logic centuries before followed the ongoing progress in scientific knowledge and mathematics and was energized by the emerging paradigms. I would think that Darwin was stimulated not only by his Christian upbringing and the notion of sequential accretion of life forms in Genesis but from the entire continental expansion of knowledge as well. There were others regarding evolutionary change before Darwin.

The comparison of Descartes' cogito and 'Discourse Upon a Method' with Sartre's later 'Being and Nothingness' reveals the same sort of ratiocinating individual encountering an objective experience of a different real physical world-universe that is an implicit aspect of duality in other religious and philosophical methods.

One regards Zoroastrianism and its emphasis upon a duality of Good and Evil and reflects how that faith was historicaly eradicated by elimination of the believers. 'Beyond Good and Evil' was Nietzsche's tome, yet the only way one might rightly compare the transcendence of good and evil is through monism with pluralism as an apparent, or even illusory fact of the expression of being and life.

Thus one finds the malleability of words and reference objects of late 20th century analytical philosophy Strawson, Quine, Kripke etc within the ontology of uncertainty paralleled in the uncertainty of quantum mechanics. A quantum universe itself uncertain is a sort of larger expression of the subjective uncertainty and temporality of the world-for-itself.

One may find quite a lot of philosophy to favor, and then regard The One and The Son of God as the best inference worth faith.

Homosexuals Leading the Way in New Cases of H.I.V. in the U.S.A.

In the U.S.A. in 2009 about 26,000 cases of H.I.V. were made through male to male (homosexual) contact. An additional 4,500 cases were contracted in heterosexual relations inclusive of prostitution. Fewer than 2000 cases occurred through the use of contaminated needles.

In the United States, and in Tennessee, the H.I.V.-A.I.D.s issue is largely a concern of homosexuals, illegal drug users, the prostitution industry and those interested in preventing the increase of dangerous disease.

The African H.I.V. issue is a horse of a different color with the non-monogamy historical cultural practice being one of the causes of the transmission of A.I.D.s Many women have several contacts a day, and scientific research discovered that H.I.V. cases increase markedly with promiscuity.


http://www.avert.org/usa-transmission-gender.htm