On the Kingdom of God

Christan values and ethics comprise a theonomy in-the-world looking past the world. Anti-Christians sometimes don’t know that Biblical ethics are for believers, and are instructions on how to act in a world of original sin, so they want to attack those ethics and extirpate belief. Yet faith in God is a personal concern that harms no one. Worldly harm is done by those that don’t understand the Word of God.

There won’t be a perfect world political order until the Second Coming. Worldly systems are made by sinful humans and they eventually fail.

I like to write on a variety of philosophical issues yet sometimes feel a response to attacks on Christians is warranted, especially since they usually aren’t erudite or scholarly in nature and can use a modicum of edification.

Cultures Have Restricted Knowledge in the Past

It would be fun to say that each culture assigns the number of liters individuals and classes may have of knowledge when reaching adulthood, though I won't.

Cultures plainly have in the past set limits. Slaves often were banned from learning math or being literate. Conservatives were censored  for using language leftists didn't like on social media, women were banned from getting driver's licenses in Saudi Arabia etc.

Pragmatist Truth Parameters

A Pragmatist Truth paradigm seems to be somewhat of a verficationist paradigm. Socrates said that true belief and knowledge are equivalent. Truth values are found with verification and usefulness of something asserted as fact. That is not the same as saying that such a thing as truth-in-itself exists as a realist entity. Instead it is a neo-realist description.

If one says that AX is Z, and then tests the proposition finding that AX necessitates Z commutatively, and Z works in algorithms just like AX then it is true to say that AX and Z are equivalent.
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Christian Faith is Not in Worldly Politics

 Worldly ethics differ from Christian. Christians may demure to worldly government for the Lord is Jesus Christ; not the President, Pope, Dictator, King or party. Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

Paul wrote that he was a slave of Christ. Such will spend eternity in heaven, not with the faithless That makes no sense to the faithless sometimes. Worldly government is fallen though moderated by God. Nazis were a minority power. Practically though once Hitler became chancellor he was a dictator. It's wrong to blame the masses for blind allegiance to authority when they had no choice with death a likely outcome. Stalin evolving through killing off communist rivals to leadership had no need for public support from the start. He used raw secular power to subjugate everyone. Stalin was the most absolute mass dictator that has ever existed. In South Africa segregation occurred because race wr was common. Zulus were not tame subjects blindly obedient to government. Eventually the paradigm of race war as normal followed by the inertia of established way of doing things became transcended so apartheid ended.

Slavery was a normal human institution worldwide until the 19th century. Paul's advice was practical then  Rome entirely eradicated Jerusalem in 70 ad with a million dead Jews, and they were the legal authority. Spartacus leading the Roman slave revolt never stood a chance and all those thousands of slaves were crucified.

There will always be secularists willing to revolt. They want worldly power. Jesus said that his kingdom is not of this world. He was not Barrabas, he is God. His ways and wisdom differ from those of the Godless

California Wildwires; How to Change the Criterion

Established economies are difficult to change to something better. Too much is invested in the present system. Change evolves at best with directed evolution instead of revolution.  Putting fire breaks and fire proof housing in established communities would be nearly impossible.

What might work is using new technologies for improved fire spotting and suppression. Fire resistant Tesla style solar roof panels to create energy self-sufficiency to reduce fire ignition sources in power transmission lines suc as the Paradise fire ought to be mandatory.

I wrote years ago about establishing a million goat army to eat brush and forest floor dead leaf layers as a practical way to reduce fire combustibles. Before humans lived in North America lightning was the only source of ignition. Today there are literally billions with drunks tossing cigarette butts out the window along with a cloud of additional sources. Maybe some d signer bug will eat Los Angeles foliage occasionally in the future.

Drones could be used for fire spotting and faster suppression response time. Desalinating sea water on a large scale could fill covered fire control water reserves. I would suggest building canals along the Mexican border to fill with seawater pumped uphill to the Continental divide with solar power. Let the water and be collected when it comes on sloped clear roofs from the locks numbering in the thousands. Freshwater would flow in pipelines east and west to bring water to deserts.

Getting fire breaks built across the west will be nearly impossible with established vested interests resisting. As global warming increases national desertification people will want more water and find less unless the make it themselves. Making home power production increase is part of the equation for satisfactory fire suppression.

A nation cannot afford to pay for reconstruction of costly homes for the prosperous lost because the rich sometimes are airheads on public safety concerns a priori.

Context in Proverbs Chapter 3 Verse 5

One might want a little more context; “3 My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:

2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:

4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.

5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

Trusting in God now is trusting in God; the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Faith in God does not require abandoning reason. Mind does not work that way. One may have faith that a barbeque shredded beef sandwich quality is healthful and give thanks to God at the same time.

One might want a little more context; “3 My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:

2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:

4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.

5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”

Trusting in God now is trusting in God; the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Faith in God does not require abandoning reason. Mind does not work that way. One may have faith that a barbeque shredded beef sandwich quality is healthful and give thanks to God at the same time.

Trust in God is comparable in some respects to trusting in your instructors the first time you make a head-first Australian repel that you won't just fall and hit the ground. It is like trusting a guide to lead you across the desert or a navigator to make a course across the sea. Edifying Bible reading is for your own benefit. Trust in God is not retirement from effort or responsibility. As is said God has a plan for your life

Veganism Experienced Inflated Food Prices Too

Apparently there are two major branches of veganism; dietary and ethical. The first is for health and the latter to stop cruelty to animals. I found a web site where they explain their outlook on that, that I will post.

It can be expensive to be vegan though. Fresh fruit and vegetables can be costly for the poor. One needs a refrigerator and range for food storage and prep- even running water to remove residue chemicals and germs from.handlers.

Steak can be costly too. Some need just to find affordable food like Bologna and cheese or even tacos made from beef.

The Impossible Whopper at Burger King is good enough yet all that transport and farming can cause environmental harm to wildlife as well. It can destroy habitat and make the animals homeless. Thank goodness for All Saints day when even armadillos may feel free and safe for a few hours.

https://www.vegansociety.com/news/blog/foundations-ethical-veganism

On the First Democracy

The first modern Republic occurred in Holland led by the Dewitt brothers who were eventually torn apart by a mob of political opponents in favor of a return to royal rule.  Locke, Hume, John Stewart Mill and even Aristotle seemed to favor democracy in some form; they did not excoriate it.

The Roman Republic was created in 509 BC.  It actualized some of the shape of the Republic Plato wrote about. Rome had two consoles and The Republic had two philosopher-kings. Plato wrote The Republic circa 375 BC. Socrates wanted a restoration of oligharchy and  Rome may have provided and abstract template to synthesize with a Spartan social structure. Rome's Republic was more like a democracy than Plato might have liked.

   American founders of democracy were in revolt against authoritarianism and social class supremacy; those were perennial challenges for the polis in needing to get rid of royalty.

Nature Gets Rid of "Things That Do Not Work"?

Nihilism only takes the broken and 'non-working'? Things that exist necessarily work, even corruption? Forever evolving is a natural selection removing just things that don't work from existence? Plate tectonics is getting rid of the Pacific Ocean because it doesn't work and expanding the Atlantic because it does?

The Twin Towers didn't work so nature removed them? Cities destroyed in war didn't work? Peace doesn't work so wars end the terrible decay. Planets shattered by asteroid collisions didn't work, and stars that blast as supernovas just cleanse a galactic parsec of things that don't work? At least Pacific Palisades homes burned in the wildfires were known not to have worked? 

Destruction is recognized by some as creative cleansing. At Auschwitz the gas chambers were for those that did not work as well? German guards walked in under the sign that said 'Work makes you free'. They saw improvement in destroying things that do not work as if they were abortionists ridding the world of fetuses that do not work.

So many things exist and change form, like mountains that became beach sand. Every change and process of being is part of a continuum. Humans alone can choose to work against entropy and for a time prevent destruction. 'Do not go gently into that good night  Rage against the dying of the light' (Dylan Thomas).

Wisdom

Wisdom could be said to be understanding social behavior and development of an ability to understand human behavioral characteristics. It is also knowledge of the natural world and man's place in nature.

There are innumerable specialized applications of an appellation of wisdom to a guru of computer science, an understanding of weather, and a thousand area of expertise that merit the term 'wise'. The book of Proverbs is about wisdom. Solomon wrote it- reputably the most wise man to have ever lived. He concluded that all is vanity. God said that what is wisdom to man is foolishness to God. Perhaps for a reason like that Paul said that he would know nothing among his brethren except Jesus Christ, crucified.

The Problem With N.A.T.O.

 With 32 member nations N.A.T.O. is a very large military body. It can throw it’s power around such as in Ukraine, without concern for retaliation from nations it has sponsored war on. Recently met with the Zelinsky faction and guaranteed it would provide weapons and supplies to Ukraine at least until 2027. An undeclared war on Russia by the largest military alliance on Earth is a problem not only for Russia; it is a problem for the United States.

Zelinsky said the Rammstein accord will oppose the USA making Greenland part of America. He seems to want to make the U.S.A. an enemy of N.A.T.O. and to replace the U.S.A. after the U.S.A. quits the organization.

https://youtu.be/7MxDh5qKVOw?feature=shared

Russia never attacked a member of the alliance. N.A.T.O. leadership decided that it did not support any Russian claim to Ukraine or pre-emptive Russian move to defrappe its military activities in Ukraine and continued it membership build up to intimidate and threaten Russia. With plutocratic control of the press and western governance; governance bone-headed enough to believe that Ukraine war can be profitable for the west 

So instead of seeking a peaceful resolution to end the conflict and restore normal relations with Russia continued to escalate  even allowing attacks directly on Russia with N.A.T.O. weapons including missiles. Russia has yet to retaliate because it probably doesn’t ant to expand the war that would swiftly lead to a nuclear exchange.  N.A.T.O. leadership has arrogated the right to attack any nation that draws its ire despite that nation not having attacked a N.A.T.O. member nation. That is an expansion of the N.A.T.O. charter.

American Presidents that are Democrats may be sycophants of the new N.A.T.O. doctrine, or even leaders to be an 800 lb guerrilla throwing its weight around as the world’s anarchist.  Besides the United States the individual N.A.T.O. members wouldn’t have taken a belligerent stance with Russia over Ukraine. Yet as a military commune N.A.T.O. is a Don Corleone exerting its influence in a way that presets a threat even to the United States should it have strong dissension against a N.A.T.O action. There needs to be a better way to reinforce world peace and security than the N.A.T.O. alliance; once that conserves the sovereignty of the United States in foreign and domestic policy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNX8VEZZwwg

Writing and the Point of No Return

I read somewhere that one should always finish what one starts if it was worth doing to start with. Just put your head down and ride into the wind coefficient of adversity typing late through the night until dawn's early light at the last line of the final chapter.

One may experience doubt taking a skiff into rising difficult water. When the point of no return arrives one need put away doubt and focus on the task.

The West and Russia Need to Share Ukraine

Germans and Poles have fought with Russia over Ukraine for hundreds of years. For most of history Ukraine was Russian. Communist revolutionaries are the middle term that Democrats believe makes Ukraine not Russian. They are wrong about that. Sharing Ukraine with the west is a good deal for the west. Crimea though is Russia's Florida. Any intelligent human and maybe some chimps would know Russia would never give it up.

AI Hasn't Self-Awareness

AI has lots of information and no awareness. It has been trained to recognize language and meaning without any knowing. For those that wonder, it is like a human who believes his shadow is sentient.

AI can construct a posteriori structures yet I think the day is out there a way before it will produce brilliant synthetic a priori insights into science.

AI is like a human shadow that isn't conscious. It has digital neural networks and deep learning algorithms that train it to process human language-meaning in a correct way. It finds the most probably correct response. In its history from rule-based machine language to back-propagation, neural networks and deep learning it processed more data within increasing accuracy to produce an optimal response. That direction would never give it the consciousness of a mouse.  At some stage that unconscious algorithmic processing will enable it be self-evolving. Evolution piles things higher and deeper until they can't go further; humans need to be smarter and know when to branch. It may unconsciously be able to write code or to give itself (its program) instructions to act. That capacity would be dangerous installed in a pistol. Installed in real world interfaces it is many times more dangerous. No one is going to dumb it down either; there is just too much competition to upgrade it with strong financial incentives.

Manufacture Water to Put Out Calf Future Fires

Cutting enviro protection is wrong. More water needs to be manufactured by desalinating salt water. A trans-continental border security canal system filled with saltwater could evaporate under the sun and freshwater collected from a gabled roof capture structure. Salt water pumped to the Continental divide would flow east and west. Intelligence needs to be applied to maximize cost effectiveness.

I have written about desalinating water in a border canal for at least 20 years. Soon the federal government will declare a disaster and give billions to rebuild homes of California millionaires. With manufactured water from a border desalinating canal the lack of water could have been avoided 

Philosophy and Religion Share Some Data and Form

There is a broad variety of religious beliefs. Some are obviously consistent with some, not all, philosophical pursuits. Philosophy too has a broad variety of approaches; some of those have angular and/or radial juxtaposition.

There are a variety of religious and philosophical beliefs and systems with tremendous range and differences among them. Philosophy too has systems. Utilitarianism is a system with a few varieties. Hegelians, and left Hegelians had systems that informed others like Marx who adapted a synthetic system of dialectical evolution. Platonist realism brought Plotinus to write The Enneads and realism continues to be relevant for analytic philosophy. The list of overlaps is worth a thesis. Christianity contains the truth that the rest need point to for accuracy of varying degrees.

Inner Peace with Self-Acceptance for Slobs?

If one is a slob one might want to lose weight, launder clothes and clean up the yard.

A season of discontent can be edifying.

 Change can be as one is and is yet to be, rather than as one was. Tranquility for some is presentness and for others futurity. Being is becoming.

Writing Fiction- A Method

Jorge Louis Borge said writing fiction is an unnatural act. That was informative for me. In rural isolation I increasingly immerse myself in thoughts of a story and awaken with a thought at 2 am or whenever to write another page or two.

  When summer writing I am pressured by the need to finish a draft  before the temperature drops to near freezing and below. 

  They are philosophical science fiction works so insights into physics concepts appear as they will. With luck I might get ten pages in a day varied with three or four. Editing of a first draft need wait until May when the weather warms the Earth, or never.

Can a 'True Author' Have Fewer than 10 Million Words in Print?

 I don't use AI to write fiction. I tried editing with it and that didn't work. It would cut out 2/3's of whatever I let it work on so I stopped.

Most of my writing has been in an unelectrified rural Alaskan shed in a roadless area. This winter I'm outside with internet access.

I wrote philosophical science novels that were challenging to construct. I never had heating for an entire book and my fingers would freeze if I didn't stop writing so editing was tough. 

True authors must be those with 10 or 20 million words in print. I only have four or five million I guess. Just six sci-fi novels though of about 50,000 words each. Maybe one needs to have establishment approval to be a 'true author'. It's tough to write if society has made life difficult for a writer. A sedentary lifestyle is helpful.

AI can't edit philosophy or quantum cosmology ideas at all well. Neither really can human editors that are clueless on philosophical topics.

I took a computer programming course in 1980-81 with systems analysis and have followed the progress over the decades. My recent courses from Univ of Michigan online and elsewhere provided much information about AI. That's why I have confidence it will write novels for the public eventually. I don't plan to use that myself. I will just read philosophy and write one or two more sci-fi books if I have the time. I am very backlogged in other genres.

An AI song is one made for me to listen to. Designer music to suit one's preferences. Usually I just listen to instrumentals. It's just good music to enjoy. It doesn't need to be 'mine'.

I still buy sci-fi novels to read.P.R. Adams is my favorite writer presently. It's easy to see the time when people just read AI produced books though. That might save money for the poor.

A.I. and the Future of the Great American Novel

I believe some app will appear for free that will create a readable book when a reader wants one. Deep learning allows a continuum of upgrades in quality. People may not pay for what they can get for nothing.

AI can already write great poems. I haven't read much fiction by AI yet don't doubt it's ability to improve and write in first person, limited omniscience or omniscience with alacrity in a short time span if not presently.

 It may not be worthwhile for younger writers to pursue the starving artist route in life with intensified, ubiquitous AI competition ahead. The Great American novel may be generated by AI or pros with sinecures.

So much writing hasn't any philosophical content to complicate things. Simple plots and quality descriptive writing is good enough for many action novels. There are so many tropes that still work.

Creativity that is synthetic a posteriori is within AI's present capacity. I believe it may even master creativity in hard sciences like chemistry in time. People are very clever and continue to upgrade the programming.