Kepler Space University Copyright 2009

In Memory of Rev. Dr. Richard Kirby

2009-10-08T13:51:00.004-04:00

Chaplain To The Stars
July 16, 1949 to September 24, 2009

O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely, has not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely afar,
In the sounding labour-house vast
Of being, is practised that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm!
Yes, in some far-shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past,
Still thou performest the word
Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live--
Prompt, unwearied, as here!
Still thou upraisest with zeal
The humble good from the ground,
Sternly repressest the bad!
Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse
Those who with half-open eyes
Tread the border-land dim
'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st,
Succourest!--this was thy work,
This was thy life upon earth.
from ‘Rugby Chapel,’ Matthew Arnold

Dr. Richard S. Kirby
Richard Stephen Kirby was born to Jean and Ted
Kirby on July 16, 1949 in London, United Kingdom
and grew up in Wimbledon with his sister Frances.
Even at an early age, Richard became an enthusiastic
student of astronomy.
As a young man, Richard flirted briefly with
business, earning a certificate in business studies at
Kingston Polytechnic in London. He went on to
receive his Bachelor’s degree in experimental
psychology from North East London Polytechnic (now
University of East London). He undertook research
from 1973 to 1976 in the Psycholinguistic Research
Unit at University College, London, and lectured in
psychology at North East London Polytechnic.
Richard met his first wife Ruth on a trip to the
United States. They were married in 1977 and lived in
London. Together, they moved to Abington, PA in
1978, where his daughter Alana was born in 1979.
During that time, Richard was the Director of
Community and Public Relations of the Institute for
the Exploration of Family Life. In 1982, the family
moved to New York, NY, where he trained for the
priesthood at The General Theological Seminary of the
Episcopal Church. In 1985, he graduated with an
M.Div. and was ordained.
Richard returned to Britain in 1986, where he
pursued a Ph.D. in Christian doctrine and history at
King’s College, London. Dr. Kirby graduated in 1992,
completing his dissertation, The Theological Definition
of Cosmic Disorder in the writings of Thomas Forsyth
Torrance. During his studies, he formed the Order of
the Academy of Christ, an Anglican counterpart to the
Jesuits. Its objective was to find innovative ways of
promoting the Christian Mission. He was authorized to
start an experimental congregation by the United
Reformed Church (an amalgamation of Presbyterians
and Congregationalists in Britain), and developed and
led a video unit for the Thames North Province (now
Synod) of the URC.
On a trip to the United States in 1988, Dr. Kirby
was instrumental in forming the World Network of
Religious Futurists, an organization that sought to
encourage members and adherents of all religious
traditions to work towards relieving poverty and
suffering. He remained involved with the World
Network of Religious Futurists throughout his life,
serving as chairman from 1993 to 2005, and
subsequently as Chaplain until his death.
From 1992 to 1994, he was International Director
of Administration of International Mensa. He was a
member of the British Society of Authors for many
years.
Richard emigrated to the United States in 1994 and
naturalized as an American citizen at the first
opportunity. He met his second wife Deborah at the
Light of Christ Community Church in Talequah, OK
and married her in 1996. ! He collaborated with Dick
Spady and Cecil H. Bell, and was invited to become a
Stuart C. Dodd Scholar in Social Innovation. In 1997
he became Executive Director of the Stuart C. Dodd
Institute for Social Innovation. He taught business
ethics at the University of Washington, and lectured at
Seattle Pacific University, the University of Puget
Sound, and Bastyr University.
In 2001 he formed the chaplaincy program for the
World Future Society and remained senior chaplain for
many years. He also founded the All Saints New
Church in 2003, where he posted weekly sermons to an
online congregation. He continued to serve as a
chaplain to the community, especially for those who
were wounded or ill.
In 2005 he became the first President and Chaplain
of Kepler Academy, an astronomical and theological
college. He was the Visiting Professor of International
Finance for the University of Russia's Academy of
Education. In 2008, he was chosen as Executive
Director of the URAE, USA. In 2009 he began to
develop the Kepler Space University, which is
continuing to form.
Richard met Abeba “Nunu” Haile in 2002 in
Edmonds and married her on August 23rd, 2003. He
often referred to Nunu as his BDIEM (Best Decision I
Ever Made) and they prayed and sang together
regularly. They particularly enjoyed watching movies
together. At the time of Richard’s death, he and Nunu
resided in Edmonds with their two beloved dogs,
Dexter and Willie.
Throughout his life, Richard maintained a prolific
output of articles, books, sermons, prayers, poetry, and
fiction. He could be counted on to speak on almost
any topic at a moment’s notice. He produced teaching
videos several times a week and distributed them
online. He produced weekly web sermons on a variety
of topics. Richard authored several books throughout
his life, including:
The Person in Psychology (1975), and
Individual Differences (1979), with John
Radford;
The Mission of Mysticism (1976);
Christians in the World of Computers
(1990), with Parker Rossman;
Temples of Tomorrow (1993), with Earl
Brewer;
The Leadership of Civilization Building:
Administrative and Civilization Theory,
Symbolic Dialogue, and Citizen Skills for the
21st Century (2002), with Richard J. Spady and
in collaboration with Cecil H. Bell Jr.
Nurturing Civilization Building (2004),
with Barbara Ray Gilles.
His last book, The People’s Astronomy was
collaboratively written in three days.
Richard’s interests covered an extraordinary range
including mathematics, astronomy, theology,
philosophy, psychology, science fiction, ethics,
sociology, finance, and the theory of government. He
had a deep enjoyment of music, and played hymns on
his piano or organ every day. He particularly
appreciated the spiritual aspects of the music of Gustav
Mahler and Ludwig von Beethoven, and was an avid
student of the works of Jean Sibelius. His religious
knowledge extended beyond Christianity and he
believed that people of all faiths could work together
to create an ideally profitable future.
One of his primary concerns was to improve the
well-being of the poor. Dr. Kirby made a real
difference in the lives of many children though
contributions to medical clinics and math schools in
Pakistan. He supported a family in the Philippines,
both financially and by helping them seek higher
education.
Richard was a devoted and loving son, husband,
brother and father. He was a true friend and spiritual
counselor. He will be sorely missed. He is survived
by his beloved wife Abeba “Nunu,” daughter Alana,
his beloved dogs Dexter and Willie, his mother Jean,
sister Frances and her husband John, his in-laws Yilma
Haile and Koki A. Meshesha, and his sisters- and
brothers-in-law.
The family would like to thank all of Dr. Kirby’s
friends and colleagues for their love and support.
He was such a wonderful and remarkable husband.
He was so positive all the time. He lives always in my
heart and I will miss him so much. Dexxie and Willie
miss him too. I love him forever. I will always
remember our great love.
! — A message from Richard"s Wife, Nunu
Our beloved Richard was so compassionate towards
those who were in need of love, or help of any kind,
that he sacrificed himself towards relieving their
anxieties, and fears... We hope that one, and all of
you, benefit from the love that Richard spread among
this congregation, and can live by it. Rest in peace,
Richard, you worked hard to bring the glory of God to
so many people, that you deserve it yourself.
! – A message from Richard"s Mother, Jean
Richard with his mother Jean
and sister Frances.

about Intellectual ruthlessness in our work together.

2009-09-18T11:24:00.002-04:00

Today’s StarTalk is on the subject of intellectual ruthlessness and could be seen as a part of our general toughening up for the Fall.

I want to use four examples today.

Behind this, though, let’s try and remember Socrates –a man of whom it was said by John Stuart Mill, here is a man we cannot remember too often, the so-called father of moral philosophy. "Let us follow the argument where so ever it goes," said Socrates.

Let’s also try and think of some examples of ruthlessness in other settings. See a boxer, instead of trying to be kind to his opponent, hit the knockout blow that’s perhaps is better for the losing boxer. The ruthlessness dropping the atomic bomb to save a nation so it’s argued; the ruthlessness of a tennis player serving out the set; the ruthlessness of a man who makes a marriage proposal instead of dithering around– and so on.

Now for the four examples and some of these may seem fairly shocking– so we begin. I have a book called Lives of the Prophets by a man named Steven Caiger. This was written during the 2nd World War and has a foreword by the Principal of Derby theological college. And the foreword ends with what we would now call, although the phrase didn’t exist then, the ;politically correct conclusion' saying that the merit of this book is that it will send people back to the Bible. And this is the kind of thing that leaves an uneasy feeling in my mind so I want to be intellectually ruthless and say why, why does it. Well perhaps because going back to the Bible is not what we need but doing what the Bible says –which is exactly, by the way, what the Bible's own man, the prophet Amos says –that more or less religion is out moded, and that social justice is 'in'. And that worship, liturgy and religious rituals are ceremonials which are defunct compared to that which they speak about.

So even though the principal of the theological college in those days would have been someone to reckon with, if I could remonstrate with him I would say to him let’s not talking about going back to the Bible. Let’s talk about doing the things that those prophets talked about.

Here is another example. Thomas Merton, the monk [1915-1968], famously built a hermitage within his own Carthusian Catholic Order's Kentucky monastery - so in order to get closer to God he would become more and more distant from his fellows, first by going to the monastery and then by entering the silence of the Trappist monk training and then by building a hermitage. And although he did go out and give talks, in fact he met his death in Bangkok by accident on one of those talks, that lonely life also leaves an uneasy feeling in my mind. Intellectual ruthlessness means to say, perhaps 'ultimate concern' [God] is not to be found by getting more and more distance from my fellow men but by being more and more among them. This raises a very interesting question about how to be "omnipresent." This is just of course mathematical speculation.

And then again I give another example less recondite. Albert Einstein is thought to have said the human race has become scientifically a giant but remain ethically a pygmy. Now what could be intellectually ruthless speaking about that? Well what he didn’t say was I am ethically a pygmy and I have created a ruinous science. Now that would have been brave and honorable. Why didn’t he? Well he wasn’t prepared to pay the price intellectually, morally and emotionally of owning his disaster. Same with Robert Oppeheimer my last example– who, after the Atomic Bomb was exploded in Alamogordo, New Mexico, said, "The physicists have known sin", but although he was the commander of the scientists he didn’t say I have known sin.

So do we have the intellectual ruthlessness to say what brave men and women should and must do?

Dare we say the unfashionable thing, trample on sacred cows, be iconoclasts, say the EMPEROR [e.g. Einstein] 'has no clothes'?

Do we care enough for truth to go beyond the conventional, the ideologically pure, the politically correct?

Do we want to embrace vitality or settle for a merely flickering memory of an intellectual fire, where only embers glow occasionally to remind ourselves that once upon a time people dared to think the truth that was the best as well as the newest? If so, we will join the Great Ones making a mighty discovery: the newest and the best are the same, just as is the case with the Ideal and the Real.

–superbly speedily transcribed by Barbara G. Frost–
–inspired in part by conversations with Arthur K. Ellis–
–part of the training of future pastor/missionary Cirilo Cena–

Krone's Kepler's StarTalk Tues September 15 2009:

2009-09-17T13:30:00.004-04:00

Comment from Chris:

There are limits to things - or so it appears - and we
> are sometimes asked an apparently paradoxical question: what
> is beyond those limits, just trying to understand Einstein.
> Some people take the idea of a thought experiment saying: “If
> you would go to the edge of the universe and throw a javelin,
> what would happen? Of course I get into questions about what
> is an edge, and so on.
>

There are neurological/sensory system issues here that need to taken into
consideration prior to speculations. The overall brain dynamic at the
mindless species level covers the natural response of, and a focus
upon/attraction to, symmetry to an asymmetric, thermodynamic universe. The
emergence of symmetric forms is a natural occurrence given demands for
energy conservation where such demands for specific conservation introduce
all of the other forms of conservation that come with symmetry.

Symmetric forms are CLOSED systems such that they are not broken, just
distorted (in particular in dealing with aspects of the whole). Since our
brains show an adaptation to EMF and EMF is shown to be grounded in symmetry
(Maxwell's equations don't work unless made symmetric) so our basic brains
take-on a closed system focus when dealing with the 'big picture'. Symmetry
BREAKING is more so a product of local context mediation demands where
distortions of symmetry (leading into a focus on anti-symmetry and so parts
processing) allows for possible 'transcendence' of the parts into a 'new'
whole (this ties us with paradox where a part cannot be broken free and yet
presents as if a whole. We see here the dynamics of metonymy at work)

Given move recent findings in cosmology, and they only by anomalies leading
to implications, all we can perceive is but 6% of all that is there. IOW
from the macrocosm through the mesocosm and down to the microcosm, a lot of
'space' is in fact filled with 'stuff' we cannot sense other than through
the activities of our one source of asymmetry processing - our consciousness
and its generation of languages.

Given that Einstein's reflections were grounded in the works of Maxwell etc
so such thinking is grounded in symmetry and so in a focus on SAMENESS - the
need for science to derive its truths from repetition and falsifiability etc
sets a ground of a bias to integrating, to working with PAIRS and so with
probabilities over certainties - not necessarily due to reality 'as is' but
more so due to our methods of interpretation.

The 'best form' of symmetry is a sphere and as such it has no 'edge' - we
see here emerge the post modernist focus on 'any metaphor will do' in
interpreting reality - all edges become relative, all meanings are metaphors
and so interchangeable. (Hegel delved into these issues with his two forms
of 'infinite' - the 'good' form of a circle and the 'bad' form that leads
into the realm of a perceived 'infinite regress'. Of note here is that
recursion leads into a possible infinite regress but is found to transform
from a mechanistic nature to an organic one given depth in the recursion -
IOW Hegel did not go deep enough in his reflections, as have many failed to
do to this day!

If we analyse the nature of such concepts as 'the infinite' we find a tie to
a property of our brain - sequencing - and with that a focus on aspectual
analysis through reductionism. Reductionism reflects the properties of
applying positive feedback where repeated discretisations and amplifications
can make mountains out of molehills as they can be too reductionist and so
reduce all to a 'point'. This level of translation of the dimensional to
the dimensionless covers the fact that discretisations of information
maintain some negative feedback within the bounds of what is discretised
where it is this feedback that integrates all that is within the bounds of
the discrete boundary. However to maintain the definition of 'integration'
one cannot reduce past a PAIR of points. Any such reduction shifts focus
into the runaway conditions of extreme positive feedback - we have lost what
keeps the boundary 'together'.

That said, the alternative perspective is that the sensation of the infinite
is in fact the manifestation of attempts to represent a dimensional form in
a dimensionless format. IOW the sense of the 'infinite' is the mark of an
irreducible 'perfection' where it cannot be rounded-off as we do with our
numbers. Thus all of the bonding numbers, the irrational numbers, reflect PI
or e or PHI etc as infinite mantissas when translated into 'point language'
to bring out the fact of irreducibility of a 'perfect' relationship; one
cannot 'round down' PI etc since to do so means introducing a subjective
element to the interpretation of a perfect relationship. Here we note that
the foundations of mathematics are in set theory and self-referencing and so
a CLOSED system reflecting a bias to symmetry - and with symmetry comes the
aesthetic appeal of 'perfection' (an so the ease in which the language we
call mathematics can share space with the language we call emotion)

The problems with symmetry-focused models, and so a tie to equivalence, to
sameness, is that it can be too top-down where it imposed regulation on the
massive degrees of freedom available from the realm of the asymmetric and
bottom-up realm, a realm of uniqueness, of DIFFERENCES. The more symmetric
the thinking becomes the more symmetry-minded one can become in general to a
degree of growing intolerance to difference and so an emerging focus on
stereotyping and on dumbing things down for 'ease in communication' but at a
price of surrendering precision.

We can experience this through basic logic where the 'irrational' element of
symmetric thinking is more so a focus on sameness and so a limit to its
ground where the base logic operator is the BI-conditional (IF and only IF),
whereas precision and so asymmetric thinking can 'reduce' to the conditional
(The IMPlies operator of logic). What we see demonstrated here is a
fundamental property of our brains application of recursion to meaning
derivation - some will favour a more 'integrating' or 'cooperative'
perspective but in doing so will focus on sameness and symmetry and lead
into such traits as stereotyping and 'social networking' where depth is
surrendered for width (of one has 700 friends in "Facebook" how can one
service so many? It is impossible, but the dumbing-down, socialisation
element of symmetry, with its focus on 'sameness' (we are all 'one')
devalues depth and that is a costly consequence of symmetrisation)

ANY focus on the 'infinite' now needs to be seriously reconsidered given our
emerging understanding of brain dynamics and the focus on
anti-symmetry/symmetry and the mediation of our asymmetric consciousness.
Our models of reality are shown to be relabelling of properties and methods
of our sensory system and the neurology and the properties and methods of
such need to be taken into consideration when we speculate about 'out there'
as well as 'in here' ;-) - the perceived limits of relativity etc covers a
model of reality grounded in symmetry and found to only describe a very
small part of 'out there' - consideration of our brains show a play of
OPEN/CLOSED systems that serve as a gateway into better understanding
difference/sameness, however our biases to instinctive attraction to
symmetry and 'sameness' can interfere with that understanding so we need to
be wary of the attraction of symmetry where THE universe is NOT symmetric
but OUR universe strives to be! ;-)

Chris.

Today’s star talk is on the theme of superlative courage and its 'beyond'.

2009-09-15T22:03:00.003-04:00

A [or the] superlative's 'beyond'?

Huh?!

Not nonsense actually; but obscure - yes. That 'beyond’s a rather technical concept in some schools of philosophy, theology and transcendentalism.

There are limits to things - or so it appears - and we are sometimes asked an apparently paradoxical question: what is beyond those limits, just trying to understand Einstein. Some people take the idea of a thought experiment saying: “If you would go to the edge of the universe and throw a javelin, what would happen? Of course I get into questions about what is an edge, and so on.

One thing is for sure: nobody has ever plumbed the depths of all the courage could be. No one has ever gone to a point where they could define the limits of courage. You may say those who died for the truth, went to their limits. Well, actually no, from our point of view, not all deaths are equal. In some cases people do something during their dying that results in let’s say ten other people being saved. And another person does where a hundred other people are being saved. Now were not saying that one person is better, you can only give your life once.

What we can say though is that we study the consequences and the limits of courage and I’m leading up to something particular here. First, to establish the point that courage has never been finally defined because it’s correlated with the infinite. And secondly, there are circumstances facing us that deserve our willingness to go the edge of our courage and throw a javelin into the beyond.

Now here I’m thinking particularly about religious fanatics and terrorists are the kind who seemingly gone to the limits of what madness can achieve for their so called religious cause. And people like Richard Dawkins the atheist biologist have argued that a jihadist martyr who sees heaven as having its gates self immolation in a so called just cause is the equivalent of a nuclear bomb; and that’s true.

But what Richard Dawkins doesn’t mention is that there is also a healthy side to religion which is correlated with infinite amounts of, say, courage and bravery, goodness, and power, in other words character.

Again, we can see character as something that you have or you don’t. I’m stronger, I’m weak, I’m good, and I’m bad. [Nominal level of measurement] Or you can say it in degrees: I’m very good, I’m very bad. [Ordinal level of measurement] Or you can see it on an interval scale of numbers with no upper limit {for there is no highest number, no largest positive integer}.

Once we embrace the idea of our unlimited courage, we can dare to think the unthinkable.

What if, for example: the solution to the jihad problem was to be even more morally passionate about our world of moral passion–and so, defeating them. So passionate that we were willing to die in a different way, and that’s to entertain a new idea: for example about our selves or our theories or our military science.

To dare to believe that we at Kepler have to have the courage to do the newer thing, the good/better/best thing, the braver thing, and to do it in radically new ways, now this is the transcendental courage, and this is what we have begun as we are asked by Provost Dr Krone: “To look at what is the black hole of inner space?” Let me take this to a third plane and say “What is the black hole of social space?” Or as Olaf Stapledon called the black hole of social space, Cosmic disorder and our job is to restore cosmic Order with galactic amounts of bravery, my brothers and sisters…peace on earth from the heavens. We are becoming a community of transcendental courage [the new University archetype] ....if we dare; if we endure; if we persist; if we finish well a job so well begun by Bob Krone.

So: superlative courage and its 'beyond': the new Face of the 'Hero with a Thousand Faces'– daring 'Star Peace-Making'

For more about the Hero with a 1000 Faces by Joseph Campbell, please contact Dr. Moshe Dror. Or read the Amazon.com reviews such as this:

316 of 333 people found the following review helpful:
A landmark of 20th century literature., April 27, 1998
By
William Errickson, Jr. "Will Errickson"
Joseph Campbell was one of the great souls of our age. I've read this book twice, first on my own and the second for a class in "Myth, Religion & the Mythic Imagination." I read the paperack to tatters, literally, marking each illuminating, exhilirating insight. "Dry"? "Not a fun read"? What book did YOU read? Campbell is unlike other writers on myth; he looks not at an entire myth but at its parts. By the end of the book, he has essentially created the Ultimate Hero Myth, which takes bits of every hero myth from virtually every culture (heavy on Native Americans). Campbell was not a dispassionate academic--this was his gospel, and he lived by it. This book is alive and inspiring like no other book I know. One unique aspect of it at the time it was published was its approach to Christianity. For Campbell, Christ's life had to be seen as a myth. Before him, most Western scholars wouldn't have dare to say such a thing. Others had written on that, but in a skeptical manner. Campbell's view is that the Virgin Birth, miracles, Resurrection, etc have meaning only because they ARE myths. Look, there'd be no "Star Wars" without this. No "Sandman" comics from Neil Gaiman. No "Watership Down." This book is for the intellectual who wants to LIVE, not just to sit sterile at the desk. Recommended like mad.

RICHARD KIRBY [RK] INTERVIEWS WALT PUTNAM [WP] ABOUT 'WHAT MUST BE DONE' 8/29/09

2009-08-30T20:49:00.002-04:00

RK1 Hello everybody… tonight’s StarTalk - partly on account of my not having much voice with the flu - is an interview with our illustrious journalism professor, and occasionally co-opted member of our Kepler Exec, Walt Putnam now back from South Carolina to Georgia. Walt - well, why were you in South Carolina?

WP1 Well, Genie and I went there to do some work around for a late mother in law’s house. So I’m very experienced now in all forms of gardening and handling of débris and that sort of thing so if anybody needs an extra hire, I may be available.

RK2 [chuckles] Well, we can always use a good Gardening Professor.

When did your mother in law pass away?

WP2 Well, 2 years ago, 2 years ago this fall. We haven’t been able to get there much to take care of these things; so things are pretty run down at this point.

RK3 Are you going back again soon?

WP3 As a matter of fact, in 2 weeks we plan to return and spend another 2 or 3 days doing the same, you know - or undoing what we were unable to take care at this time.

RK 4 So I think there is a time for everything and a time going under the sun.That connects really with this star talk. Not too much about the seasons, but the rhythm of the working week; and one of the purposes of these StarTalks is to try and illuminate, as with a narrow band of light the way forward, just for our circle of scholars and professors, the week beginning on Sunday [or Monday depending on one's religion].

What must be done Walt, for this coming week?

WP4 Well, the first thing I had to do is find out what’s wrong with my computer and return to Atlanta to find out that I simply had a message which says that “operating system not found”. So I’ve got to find the operating system. And that’s extremely discouraging because it’s not my field as you know.

RK5 I think this is another reason for the StarTalks, Walt, is that the people listening to this will include people who do know what an operating system is. It does make me wonder: if you can use your son’s laptop and Google your question [with information about your particular type of computer], it mightr come up with an answer pretty quickly for you.

WP 5 Well I’m hoping better than that, I’m hoping that my son will figure it out and take care of things for me. I’m used to writing on computers - but on very little else.

RK 6 I want to talk to you and take this to be the case in point of what community really feels like. I still connect this to the part of our work at hand this week. I just purchased an air conditioning unit for one of my protégés in the Philippines and that’s a very nice feeling knowing that we can, help - so the guy has a 'refrigerated brain' to get his thinking done. And at the same time I’m tasked to find a way to provide food for 400 waiting guests for the Andhra Pradesh wedding feast.

WP 6 So you are still working on that problem.

RK 7 I am. And I must say I find it extremely invigorating. I am a kind of a specialist in the principles of working productivity [partly I suppose this is the work of the mathematician and there are other reasons too]. My career has taken me down the road of studying these things.

Your situation with the computer has become a case in point. My goal is that every member of our community exhibits or manifests a maximum of productivity for good self esteem through each working day; and I’ve set up a whole system for myself of alternatives- So that if I’m halted by one computer failing, we know that there’s other ways that I can represent and transmit the outputs of my creative thinking.

And in this case, your case Walt, it would mean simply doing what were doing now: which is, you speaking to my dedicated WAV line and your words become an email to me [and if you wish, they can be transcribed by Barbara Frost or Cirilo or Romeo in the Philippines]. So, we are not going to be quenched by computer failures.

And this is our star talk for the day.

A cell phone in Edmonds, Wa Pacific NW was talking to a land-line in Atlanta Georgia, Atlantic South East, USA on Saturday August 29- 2009

Thank you so much everybody….

On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 8:23 PM, Richard Kirby <keplerspaceu.edu@gmail.com> wrote:
StarTalk for Saturday and Sunday, August 2-30, 2009:

Conversation with Prof. Walter Putnam

Income is what we accept together

2009-08-24T16:48:00.000-04:00

This is a continuation of the theme that Income Is What Happens Today, can only happen today. But having laid that foundation I want to develop the theme that it is something that two or more people achieve - or perhaps I should say accept - on behalf of our whole community.

To speak exactly: only the Kepler Space University community can receive for the Kepler Space University community. That is a kind of legal postulate but it has a great truth in it. The Kepler Space University is very much like human body. We have our feet - that’s me of course, [small toe anyway] - we have our legs and thighs, we have our chest and heart and we have our brain, that’s Bob Krone of course. We have our eyes we have our ears, we have our hands and fingers and nose and tongue and so on but everything that any part of the body garners in is obviously for the whole body. Now it’s not for nothing that we have two eyes: that is how we have depth perception; and as for two hands, well, we sure can do a lot more with them than with one [even though Maurice Ravel did write a piano concerto for left hand and orchestra]. But there is more - much more.

In the world of Quantum Theory {which I see as a revelation of human nature first and subatomic nature second}, we see that everything is as you might say a collaboration between a double identity and the wave and the particle or I and thou as the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber would say. Or put it another way: everything is relationship. The fundamental relationship that we have [according to most of human race and their religions] is the relationship between their soul or self and God.

We look upwards [so to speak] to converse with God [ that’s a vertical dimension] and we look horizontally to converse with each other. Now if theology is worth anything it is to tell us that it’s almost the case that everything that would be vertical ['God-ward'] can be expressed and probably should be horizontally [person-al]. That is to say that love is our essence, our quiescence - our core and our calling. This leads to this a couple of simple ideas: any two of us who strike a deal or a bargain that brings us today the income we need and deserve, that pair is/are expressing more fully our nature as bringers of space, peace and love than any one of us.

In fact my career over the last 15 years has been devoted to developing a movement of social sciences away from the cult of the individual towards the notion of the person - that is, the individual in community] and then there is a step beyond that: to the idea that the team or group is 'where the action is'. Now there is a simple derivative - and that is that all of us should, together, receive that income today. Or as they say in Italian: Tutti*. This is not to be confused with Tutti
Frutti [Italian for "all fruits"], which though delicious is an ice cream and not a university or a symphony. Enjoy.

Income is what we achieve

2009-08-21T20:48:00.000-04:00

This Star Talk is an undated bonus and has to do with income generation or cash income today.

Over the course of my career I’ve spent a lot of time working with not for profit organizations and some working with full profit organization like the British Leyland Motor Corporation - manufacturing trucks and buses (with not much help from me). And as a scholar I’ve had to forage and sometime scavenge daily bread or the wherewithal to buy it. And as a chaplain I’ve watched people in wealth and poverty. I’ve seen people say to me, "Cash is blood". I’ve seen the American mind at work saying, "I want it now," and I understand that.

I want to talk today about something - and I will call it approximately,

The periodic table of the elements of income

and see where it leads us.

I want to set forth as an axiom or a theorem or proposition or postulate
the following assertion:

Our income is something that happens today.

Now what I mean by that, is that it’s not an occasion for procrastination.

It is possible for us to organize our lives so that we are not looking at a cash flow forecast; cash flow is something that happens today.

It is possible to imagine from the point of view of say science fiction story, a colony of people like the community of geniuses in Olaf Stapledon’s novel Odd John who biologically, neurologically are only able to garner in money within the day that they desire it.

Like the manna from heaven! So if they try to keep an income generation plan over night, it’s dissolved by dawn.

Now let’s ask ourselves where does income come from?

Well we can find money in the streets and we can you know wait until we win the lottery and we can wait for Auntie Wilhelmina to send us that long awaited bequest. And those would be reactive and passive.

Yes! but if we are proactive then we are looking at an exchange. We have something; we offer it today in a market; we take the income that we want, and - blessing everybody in sight - go home and bank the money or spend it or whatever we want to do.

If we could only do that today then we’d either be looking for income from a nonprofit organization or from a for-profit organization or that hybrid we call the government or governors. Now this means that we should in any day and in fact in any moment of any day be ready to give an account of our products or our items for sale to a potential buyer and we should on any day have an 'income source of the day'. A Kustomer Keynote if you like; or if you are thinking with me chemically, a periodic table of elements, a gas, a metal or a salt, a trans uranium element. Income is what happens today.

This has nothing to do with budgets in the sense of balancing a budget.

It has everything to do with the will to present our case, our cause, our purspoe and our priduct. To whom? Why, to a person who has money that we want.

We have ready-to-go like a Meal Ready to Eat, a reason why we should make an exchange.

Our aim: to exchange what we have with what this person or persons wants.

Income is what happens today when we choose it. We also have to choose the amount. You could be working with a micro lender and swapping or bartering or selling something for a penny or a tenth of a penny.......

We could be working with a macro lender and swapping or bartering or selling something for a hundred billion pennies also known as a billion dollars.

Enjoy.

Earning together

2009-08-12T21:32:00.001-04:00

earning

Today’s Star Talk for August 12th and 13th in this blessed dispensation 2009 is dedicated to some reflections on philosophy and economics. And before everybody switches off! - it has to do with earning - or even better just getting, let’s just say being gifted, money, cash, wealth, moolah, boodle - you know, the wherewithal.

Cogito ergo sum

So I choose to do my instructions today by beginning to reflect on the situation of philosophers and philosophy. Letting that grow into a discussion of practical economics of living, especially for unemployed people, is my intention. So we start with René Descartes, the seventeen century philosopher and mathematician, who famously gave us the phrase in Latin Cogito ergo sum, his method of radical doubt asking on what premises he can begin led him to say “I think therefore I am.”

Subsequent philosophers declared this to being null and void is a case of petitio principii: Begging the question! They said, all he could have said really is they are thoughts. But I’m going use his formula today to make some points [that perhaps would be easier written down and used as playing cards] so here we go.

what does it mean to be a thinker?

Today, in August 2009, looking at the situation of people being laid off in whole industries like newspapers collapsing, what does it mean to be a thinker?

I’ll start like this:

I think - therefore I starve.

I speak truth - therefore I live a short life.

I work for a living - until I am fired.

I support my industry - until it collapses.

I embrace the present way that money is a social invention used to govern lives - until it ruins mine.

I save money - therefore I am hording it. I do not prosper.

I create wealth and I prosper. I earn because I create. I am homo faber, man the tool maker.

I am homo sapiens, a man of 'wisdom,' - therefore I starve.

I compete - therefore I go hungry.

I’ll end like this:

I collaborate - therefore I eat.

I co-create - therefore I feel good.

I throw my philosophy to the winds and embrace my vitality instead.

I feel therefore we are.

We feel - therefore we know. We know what to make.

We do not sell - we share.

I think, therefore I am... making a new world of money by social quantum theory everyday.

I’m industrious - therefore I eat.

I grow things in my mind - therefore we eat.

I do not look backwards but forwards - therefore we eat.

I recreate my dead or moribund industry - therefore my wisdom becomes my wealth.

I work therefore I’m happy.

Text Transcript of StarTalk™ for August

2009-08-10T22:11:00.001-04:00

1. University presidents, professors and mutual understanding

In today’s Star Talk for August 10 & 11, 2009 I want to talk about the way a university president can improve his or her relationships with all the faculty. All of them one by one. For this we have to embrace elementary - and it’s really elementary - mathematical literacy as a species of courage. And this is how it works.

2. university presidents - prompting a habit of self improvement

Bob Krone, Arthur Ellis and I are among those people who have tried to work with university presidents to see if we can inveigle them into just a little bit of improvement, of their quality of their work and their leadership on the plane of personality, character and so on.

As I speak these words I was just walking past a garden of a neighbor and friend who has some California poppies. There not as many as there were last month, but let’s say there are still dozens. Let us suppose he is actually selling them, and then I said to him, "So, how many of them do you produce?"

He said “oh quite a lot.”

I said, "well, don’t you need to know the actual number to market them?"

“Yes, yes.”

I said, "SO - how many?"

“Well it’s quite a few you know."

This would be laughed out of court by most people as being childish jest or fund? Or some sort of adolescent prank.

3. how good is a university president's communication with the faculty?"

Now let's transfer this and say to a university president,

"Hey, how good is your communication with your faculty?"

4. How not to be the last bastion of intellectual defensiveness

Well if you can actually persuade them answer the question and not to be the last bastion of intellectual defensiveness, they might say, "It's real good,"

or.
"It's great!" [or 'adequate']

or some off the cuff remark.

5. Owning mathematical literacy as a species of courage

Well let’s quantify that. Is it good, better, best, is it better than it was, is it pleasing, is it measurable? Well of course it’s measurable, you just have to set up the operational definitions.

Now to bring this down to cases. Over the last six months I’ve found that there are about 12 people that I really need to talk to everyday of the working week and to discuss strategy and tactics and how we are getting on as a university. But with each of those people I can mentally detach myself so that the two of us are just as it were face to face in a chamber of communicative excellence and there what I want to do is ask a simple question.

6. Twelve cockpits of communication brilliance: can we improve our ability to communicate through deep dialogue?

How can we improve our ability to communicate through deep dialogue? Deep dialogue is not the same as a sort of intellectual patina of over communication. It’s not shooting the breeze, it’s not passing the time. It’s the desire to get to the deep truth of everything. Our intellectual truth, our emotional truth and moral truth. The truth of our sociality. And the deeper we go the more we find accord - unless one of us stops, of course.

7. Let's stay in the conversation and trust one's feelings

There are a couple of ways of reaching this depth. One is simply to stay in the conversation and to trust one's feelings and inner strength. Another is simply to love the other person. Another one is to reflect quietly, separately or together until a deeper truth is reached. To pretend that there is no such thing is not only a sad pretence but is a real betrayal of people whom we serve.

8. Towards superb efficacious profitable ideal communication with each of the 12 people I speak to daily.

So my goal is to deepen my ability to grow, that is to have superb efficacious profitable ideal communication with each of the 12 people I speak to daily. And I don’t expect them to make the first move. I’m the one who has to be proactive here because I’m the one who has the value of communicative excellence.

The International Association of News Media Professionals

2009-08-08T10:19:00.003-04:00

Today’s Star Talk is for August 7th and 8th 2009.

7,8 and 9 - an ascending series or gradient

I was just thinking, esteemed colleagues that in the Old World of Europe and some other realms, that date would be written down as August 7th and 8th 2009,

or plain

7/8/09 or simply 7-8-9

and in the new world of America, as 8-7-9.

But I wouldn’t want to miss a chance to make the following point about gradients: good, better, best; new, newer, newest: from New World to Newer World.....which is all we can know of the to Newest World

You have your Old World of Europe, as we call it, cultured and gracefully.

We have the brave New World, America. Not culture but business is its business; not grace but velocity. Not Greece but Rome with its roads and armies.

the last best hope of the world?

John F. Kennedy spoke of America as the last best hope of the world. That’s good politics and even better drama; but that’s not good theology. It’s not good math either. What I do think is that it was the latest, not the last.

Newer World

I’m an American citizen but I’m interested in the Newer World; the new astronomical world. There is a poem by P.B.Shelley* New Hellas that talks about the possibility of everything getting better. And in the realms of science fiction ideas we think a lot about new nations, new worlds, orbiting cities like James Blish and his cities in flight and so on. But in theology, particularly in a branch of theology called eschatology, dealing with the last things, there is the idea of realized eschatology that deals with how these 'last' things are happening here and now, we see that the Newer World is actually present today. In fact if Kepler Space University isn’t the Newer World I want no part of it. I want to go somewhere where it is. But I believe it’s here and that’s why I want to be on the same ship as Bob Krone, Bob Frantz, Moshe and all of us.

a robin pecking in the grass

I’m just watching a robin here. I’m sitting in my car outside my fitness club and watching a robin pecking in the grass that looks like hay after the sun. I’m thinking to myself yes everyday we as a research university are like that. We’re pecking the ground to bring needed, nourishing things to us.

a sponsor and a creator of inventions

We of Kepler Space University have become a sponsor and a creator of inventions - particularly as I said the inspirimeter and the Genius box which short order will become actual electronic appliances. And it’s in the nature of what they signify that they must express it by their own continual improvement until our purposes are being met.

our purposes

One of our purposes is to advance the portfolio of each professor and today the man in the hot seat is Walt Putnam, our professor of media. Today I spoke to him and we have agreed that apart from a national news lab that we now see as an international news lab, we’re going to create an International Association News Media Professionals. And I didn’t have a chance to say this earlier to Walt but now I will say it to him through this medium and to everybody.

Measuring the wisdom, making the wealth

One of our first purposes is to inventory the skills and the talents and behind and above and between and among those things the wisdom of news media professionals, past, present and future. The going-out-of-existence of many print media has left a mart, as I see it, not a lot of unemployed people but a vast talent base. With a super conductive community we can bring them together and put them to work and wealth.

So the first duty of the News Media Professionals or as I said to Walt the new money princes and princess is to inventory their available talents and to harness those together in shared work in a way that will create sharing wealth, not redistributionism - no way!- but entrepreneurship. Revaluing wealth in new economic community for new media.

Newer World's news media cyber wealth creation

Moshe Dror, the world’s leading authority, in my view, on cyber media ecology beyond my limited comprehension, will lead us to the promised land of news media cyber wealth creation. May God bless it.

*

Existential Social Acceleration

2009-07-28T09:45:00.002-04:00

The mathematical sciences of acceleration are poised for explosive growth in the international culture of mathematical sciences and technologies and their derivative uses in all strata of government and in private-sector entrepreneurship. The reason for this 'Perfect Storm' of mathematical invention/discovery is a confluence of many factors. Decades of patient, methodical scholarly research by those who have interest and an active presence in mathematical sciences of acceleration made this moment of 'concrescence' possible.

Experimental practitioners of science, technology and research in the following fields, among others, have contributed to the emergence of a new paradigm of the human sciences of acceleration: Mathematical Science, Research and Education; Sociology of Mathematics; Philosophy of Mathematics; Quantum Physics and Mathematics; Theoretical Physics; Emergency Response Sciences; Military Science; Medical Science; and Financial Science; Political Science and the Reinvention of Government; Space Sciences. especially Rocket Science, Management Science and Quality Sciences; Experimental Aesthetics; Psychological Sciences and Neurosociology; Crisis-intervention theory; catastrophe theory; chaology; media ecology; communication sciences especially newsmaking and broadcasting technologies; and theory of money and investment, including banking sciences and government Treasury sciences.
The basic theory of acceleration is embedded in common sense, clothed in the conceptual apparel of familiar arithmetic. It operates up to a point in elementary algebra, in geometry and in the so called higher mathematics of analysis - calculus. Also the basic theory of acceleration appears as the crystallization of a highly potent human value [celerity] in levels beyond the elements of mathematics, including its understated function stretching the limits of the philosophy of mathematics. Philosophies of mathematics - themselves an heuristic field - help us to understand the place of conceptions of acceleration within human cultural parameters, civilizations and myths,

News about acceleration?

For those who don’t work professionally in the field of mathematical sciences there is the strong tendency to assume that the field of mathematical sciences is rather like the Bible… when it is said, it's said. And there is no more to be said. How can there be NEWS we everything important has been said? But that isn’t anywhere near the case in the general theory of acceleration as we hypothesize it. The phrase Mathematical Heuristics [general theory of discovery] is more accurate, and more relevant than Mathematical Science. That larger field includes Mathematical Arts, and Mathematical Myths, including the myths which professional mathematicians use as conceptual clothing for their ideologies within which their heuristics operate safely if sedately.

Acceleration theory is a human concern, a human idea, a human invention, a human convention. Acceleration theory is a varying set of human beings pursuing human goals: not as platonic objects but with moral passion, active intelligence and, we hope, curiosity... about speed, with the basic backdrop issue: How fast can we speed up our speed? A very human concern in love and war!

From the Greek history of mathematics, from the Arabic history of mathematics, from European geometry, from relativity theory and quantum theory we begin to see that the Theory of Acceleration, that is to say of speed in search of greater speed, always moves toward the limits of the function of instantaneousness. This, in fact, is the goal of emergency response, ambulance drivers, and para- medics, where one more second, one more heartbeat, will save a life.
But in the new understanding of the sociology of mathematics we see no reason why our technology should not move toward the limit of some facets of 'now' or 'this moment', of instantaneousness including putative quantum bi-locational effects. We see, even more importantly, no reason why the political will of those who govern emergency response should not be reorganized around a shared public/private sector purpose: reopening the civic question of circumstances under which what needs to be accelerated CAN be accelerated. Limits to the 'function' of acceleration, that is to say velocities in different dimensions of acceleration, are to be understood now as POLITICAL limits - and opportunities. For these limits are not so much the speed of light as the speed of thought and the capacity for flexibility of our thinking. The question of How Fast someone can Accelerate has long since ceased to be encapsulated by the theory of relativity and its opposition to the idea of traveling faster than light, let alone the earlier Newtonian theory. Relativity has been called the last of the classical physics. Quantum science offers us a plethora of imaginative alternatives for our political - or should we just say our financial? - thinking.
The new paradigm of the civic heuristics of the mathematics of acceleration is accelerating into our hands as we speak. Crisis-intervention theory, catastrophe theory, chaology, and theory of money are poised for reaching an extreme altitude of ideal velocities.

Conclusion: Existential social acceleration?

The basic theory of acceleration is embedded in common sense as cousin to the social theory of urgency.

At this opportune meta-moment in social time, Existential social acceleration is a new face of mathematical philosophy and all quality sciences. It is a field of heuristic community where the urgency of compassion has awoken the genius of mathematics in a new key. To provide the laboratory settings for this deeply human research agenda is a central purpose of the Kepler Space University math schools, and the wavefront of the proposed National Math Lab, its attendant Quantum Military Science, and its ingredient National News Lab.
Richard S. Kirby, Ph.D., President, Kepler Space University.
July 27 2009
2nd iteration.

Apathy as the real crystallization of energy

2009-07-25T09:01:00.001-04:00

I want to talk a little bit today about apathy as the real crystallization of energy. You know we learn from nuclear physics how the preservation of an atom as coherent pattern takes tremendous energy. The disruption of that releases unimaginably great amounts of energy according to the formula E = mc2 but we don’t know what that energy is really until we release it.

Apathy is like that. Apathy is the atomic structure that keeps a person hoarding energy that actually could be used for more enjoyable things. This is an example of "thinking out of the box," I hope, although it can be a lonely place until others jump out of the box too. And maybe we’ll talk a little bit about the "Schrodinger's cat" thought experiment***, and the double suspension of the state of the wise senior citizen as both apathetic and active as two possible quantum superpositions. Later perhaps we can enjoy developing the idea of which part of a person is most like a proton, and which part of a person is most like an electron - and so on. But for the moment the key idea is that we freeze ourselves according to certain ideas. In just the same way the atom holds a structure - which is in accordance with an idea, the universe’s idea, of an atom. Or perhaps one should say the atom holds a structure - which is in accordance with an idea, the universe’s idea of a society because that’s really what it is. A sub-atomic society, admittedly, but still a patterned sociality, or polity. A sub-atomic society of occasions, the process philosopher Alfred North Whitehead* might call it , but "sub-atomic society" is phrase enough for the moment; and so is a person a society of occasions.

*[cf.
Process and reality
By Alfred North Whitehead, David Ray Griffin, Donald W. Sherburne]

A person is a society of occasions too. A society of energies also; and these are governed according to the theory of the self that the person has. Sociologists in the early days of academic sociology, I’m thinking particularly between the two World Wars, George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley and their notion of the social construction of the self as a "looking-glass self." and so on. [http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1245820/mead_cooley_and_freuds_concept_of_the.html?cat=9]

George Herbert Mead and Charles Cooley did understand very well that what we call ourselves is a theory; and it’s a theory and a fashion and an agreement: a concordat about talking in certain ways to define ourselves in a somewhat consistent way, so that we can do things from a certain stance [which we discard later as we grow]. In The Foundation of Pragmatic Sociology: Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead, Hans-Joachim Schubert of the University of Potsdam, Germany asserted that Charles Horton Cooley was, according to George Herbert Mead, an idealist or mentalist for whom ‘imaginations’ and not ‘symbolic interactions’ are the ‘solid facts of society’. Contrary to Mead's critique, Cooley breaks through the Cartesian body–mind dualism in disagreement with idealism and behaviorism. His objective was to develop a theory of ‘communication’ and‘understanding’ as the foundation of pragmatistic sociology. Communication is the decisive starting point of Cooley's and Mead's sociological theory of ‘social order’ and ‘social change’ as stages in the process of action. In conflict with each other actors must define the meaning of the objective, subjective, social and symbolic world. To overcome problems of action actors create generalized perspectives such as ‘human nature values’ (Cooley) or a ‘logical universe of discourse’ (Mead) which guarantee ‘socialization’ or ‘social order’ and ‘individualization’ at the same time. [Journal of Classical Sociology, Vol. 6, No. 1, 51-74 (2006)]

How to train an elephant

So I want to switch the idiom here and think a little bit about how to train an elephant. That really is a case of going from the small to the big. But let’s think what we know about how you train an elephant that’s raised from birth to be in a circus and not to run away. When an elephant is small, they tie it by a rope to a stick in the ground that a grown elephant could uproot. But the grown elephant only remembers that as a baby elephant he or she could not do that so they don’t even try. And it’s the same way when we form a theory of the self at age two or twenty-two or forty-two and let it govern us when it is no longer appropriate.

It’s a commonplace idea in science fiction stories about the enhancement of the capacities of the human being by muscular implants, new limbs and so on. Science fiction and science faction meeting these days right on up to the moment of a brain transplant and we are already half way there as well. But that’s another story. Sufficient to say for now that the only technology we need is the psychological and spiritual 'technology' that melts the frozen self image of the senior and sets him free.

***Appendix:

The "Schrodinger's cat" thought experiment sounds to me like Berkeley's "To be is to be perceived." Do I err?
Seems to me that The "Schrodinger's cat" thought experiment, whatever the physicist intended, sounds to me like Bishop Berkeley's "To be is to be perceived." ["Esse est percipii"?]. Things remain in existence because God sees them. Same idea: the observer of the putative cat collapses by co-creative consciousness the possible [not actual] scenarios for the cat. Quantum theory rediscovered experimentally a truth known to the Irish thinker two hundred years+ earlier......

Full name
George Berkeley
Born
March 12, 1685
Died
January 14, 1753 (aged 67)
School/tradition
Idealism, Empiricism
Main interests
Metaphysics,Epistemology, Language,Mathematics, Perception
Notable ideas
Subjective Idealism, The Master Argument
Influenced by[show]
Influenced[show]
George Berkeley (pronounced /ˈbɑrkli/) (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory contends that individuals can only directly know sensations and ideas of objects, not abstractions such as "matter." The theory also contends that ideas are dependent upon being perceived by minds for their very existence, a belief that became immortalized in the dictum,"Esse est percipi" ("To be is to be perceived"). His most widely-read works are A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge(1710) and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713), in which the characters Philonous and Hylas represent Berkeley himself and his contemporary John Locke. In 1734, he published The Analyst, a critique of the foundations of infinitesimal calculus, which was influential in the development of mathematics.
Contents
[hide]
· 1 Life of George Berkeley
· 2 Contributions to philosophy
· 3 The Analyst controversy
· 4 Commemoration
· 5 Bibliography
· 6 See also
· 7 References
o 7.1 Primary
o 7.2 Secondary
· 8 External links
[edit]Life of George Berkeley
Berkeley was born at his family home, Dysart Castle, near Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland, the eldest son of William Berkeley, a cadet of the noble family of Berkeley. He was educated at Kilkenny College and attended Trinity College, Dublin, completing a Master's degree in 1707. He remained at Trinity College after completion of his degree as a tutor and Greek lecturer.
His earliest publication was a mathematical one but the first which brought him into notice was his Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, first published in 1709. In the essay, Berkeley examined visual distance, magnitude, position and problems of sight and touch. Though giving rise to much controversy at the time, its conclusions are now accepted as an established part of the theory of optics.
The next publication to appear was the Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge in 1710, which was followed in 1713 by Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in which he propounded his system of philosophy, the leading principle of which is that the world as represented to our senses depends for its existence, as such, on being perceived.
Of this theory, the Principles gives the exposition and the Dialogues the defence. One of his main objects was to combat the prevailing materialism of the time. The theory was largely received with ridicule; while even those, such as Samuel Clarke and William Whiston, who did acknowledge his "extraordinary genius," were nevertheless convinced that his first principles were false.
Shortly afterwards, Berkeley visited England, and was received into the circle of Addison, Pope and Steele. In the period between 1714 and 1720, he interspersed his academic endeavours with periods of extensive travel in Europe, including one of the most extensive Grand Tours of the length and breadth of Italy ever undertaken. In 1721, he took Holy Orders in the Church of Ireland, earning his doctorate in divinity, and once again chose to remain at Trinity College Dublin, lecturing this time in Divinity and in Hebrew. In 1724, he was made Dean of Derry.
In 1725, he formed the project of founding a college in Bermuda for training ministers for the colonies, and missionaries to the Indians, in pursuit of which he gave up his deanery with its income of £1100.
In 1728, he married Anne Forster, daughter of the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. He then went to America on a salary of £100. He landed near Newport, Rhode Island, where he bought a plantation – the famous "Whitehall." He lived at the plantation while he waited for funds for his college to arrive. The funds, however, were not forthcoming and in 1732 he returned to London. While living on London's Saville Street, he took part in the efforts to create a home for the city's abandoned children. The Foundling Hospital was founded by Royal Charter in 1739 and Berkeley is listed as one of its original governors. In 1734, he was appointed Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland. Soon afterwards, he published Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher, directed against both Shaftesbury and Bernard de Mandeville; and in 1735–37 The Querist.
His last two publications were Siris: Philosophical reflexions and inquiries concerning the virtues of tar-water, and divers other subjects connected together and arising from one another(1744) and Further Thoughts on Tar-water (1752). Pine tar is an effective antiseptic and disinfectant when applied to cuts on the skin, but Berkeley argued for the use of pine tar as a broad panacea for disease in general. It is said that his 1744 book on the medical benefits of pine tar was his best-selling book in his lifetime.[1]
He remained at Cloyne until 1752, when he retired and went to Oxford to live with his son. He died soon afterward and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. His affectionate disposition and genial manners made him much loved and held in warm regard by many of his contemporaries.
[edit]Contributions to philosophy
As a young man, Berkeley theorized that individuals cannot know if an object is; they can only know if an object is perceived by a mind. He stated that individuals cannot think or talk about an object's being, but rather think or talk about an object's being perceived by someone. That is, individuals cannot know any "real" object or matter "behind" the object as they perceive it, which "causes" their perceptions. He thus concluded that all that individuals know about an object is their perception of it.
Under his theory, the object a person perceives is the only object that the person knows and experiences. If individuals need to speak at all of the "real" or "material" object, the latter in particular being a confused term that Berkeley sought to dispose of, it is this perceived object to which all such names should exclusively refer.
This raises the question whether this perceived object is "objective" in the sense of being "the same" for fellow humans. In fact, is the concept of "other" human beings, beyond an individual's perception of them, valid? Berkeley argued that since an individual experiences other humans in the way they speak to him —something which is not originating from any activity of his own —and since he learns that their view of the world is consistent with his, he can believe in their existence and in the world being identical or similar for everyone.
It follows that:
1. Any knowledge of the world is to be obtained only through direct perception.
2. Error comes about through thinking about what individuals perceive.
3. Knowledge of the world of people, things and actions around them may be purified and perfected merely by stripping away all thought, and with it language, from their pure perceptions.
From this it follows that:
1. The ideal form of scientific knowledge is to be obtained by pursuing pure de-intellectualized perceptions.
2. If individuals would pursue these, we would be able to obtain the deepest insights into the natural world and the world of human thought and action that is available to man.
3. The goal of all science, therefore, is to de-intellectualize or de-conceptualize, and thereby purify, human perceptions.
Theologically, one consequence of Berkeley's views is that they require God to be present as an immediate cause of all our experiences. God is not the distant engineer of Newtonianmachinery that in the fullness of time led to the growth of a tree in the university quadrangle. Rather, my perception of the tree is an idea that God's mind has produced in mine, and the tree continues to exist in the quadrangle when "nobody" is there, simply because God is an infinite mind that perceives all.
The philosophy of David Hume concerning causality and objectivity is an elaboration of another aspect of Berkeley's philosophy. As Berkeley's thought progressed, his works took on a more Platonic character: Siris, in particular, displays an interest in highly abstruse and speculative metaphysics which is not to be found in the earlier works. However, A.A. Luce, the most eminent Berkeley scholar of the twentieth century, constantly stressed the continuity of Berkeley's philosophy. The fact that Berkeley returned to his major works throughout his life, issuing revised editions with only minor changes, also counts against any theory that attributes to him a significant volte-face.
Over a century later Berkeley's thought experiment was summarized in a limerick by Ronald Knox and an anonymous reply:
There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."
"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."
In reference to Berkeley's philosophy, Dr. Samuel Johnson kicked a heavy stone and exclaimed, "I refute it thus!" A philosophical empiricist might reply that the only thing that Dr. Johnson knew about the stone was what he saw with his eyes, felt with his foot, and heard with his ears. That is, the existence of the stone consisted exclusively of Dr. Johnson'sperceptions. What the stone really consisted of (given that such a question can in fact be asked sensibly) could be entirely different in construction to what was perceived - it existed, ultimately, as an idea in his mind, nothing more and nothing less.
John Locke (Berkeley's predecessor) states that we define an object by its primary and secondary qualities. He takes heat as an example of a secondary quality. If you put one hand in a bucket of cold water, and the other hand in a bucket of warm water, then put both hands in a bucket of lukewarm water, one of your hands is going to tell you that the water is cold and the other that the water is hot. Locke says that since two different objects (both your hands) perceive the water to be hot and cold, then the heat is not a quality of the water.
While Locke used this argument to distinguish primary from secondary qualities, Berkeley extends it to cover primary qualities in the same way. For example, he says that size is not a quality of an object because the size of the object depends on the distance between the observer and the object, or the size of observer. Since an object is a different size to different observers, then size is not a quality of the object. Berkeley refutes shape with a similar argument and then asks: if neither primary qualities nor secondary qualities are of the object, then how can we say that there is anything more than the qualities we observe?
Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge was published three years before the publication of Arthur Collier's Clavis Universalis, which made assertions similar to those of Berkeley's. However, there seemed to have been no influence or communication between the two writers.
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote of him: "Berkeley was, therefore, the first to treat the subjective starting-point really seriously and to demonstrate irrefutably its absolute necessity. He is the father of idealism…"[2].
[edit]The Analyst controversy
In addition to his contributions to philosophy, Bishop Berkeley was also very influential in the development of mathematics, although in a rather indirect sense. In 1734, he published The Analyst, subtitled A DISCOURSE Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician. The infidel mathematician in question is believed to have been either Edmond Halley, or Isaac Newton himself, although if to the latter, the discourse would then have been posthumously addressed, as Newton died in 1727. The Analyst represented a direct attack on the foundations and principles ofcalculus and, in particular, the notion of fluxion or infinitesimal change, which Newton and Leibniz had used to develop the calculus.
Berkeley regarded his criticism of calculus as part of his broader campaign against the religious implications of Newtonian mechanics – as a defence of traditional Christianity againstdeism, which tends to distance God from His worshippers.
As a consequence of the resulting controversy, Abraham Robinson rewrote the foundations of calculus in a much more formal and rigorous form using limits in his 1966 book, Non-standard Analysis. By regimenting the concept of infinitesimal, Robinson advanced an alternative way of overcoming the difficulties that Berkeley discovered in Newton's original approach.
[edit]Commemoration
Berkeley's influence is reflected in the institutions of education named in his honour. Both University of California, Berkeley, and the city that grew up around the university, were named after him, although the pronunciation has evolved to suit American English--(pronounced /bûrkli/ like Burke-Lee). The naming was suggested in 1866 by a trustee of the then College of California, Frederick Billings. Billings was inspired by Berkeley's Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America, particularly the final stanza: "Westward the course of empire takes its way; The first four Acts already past, A fifth shall close the Drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last." A residential college in Yale University also bears Berkeley's name, as does the Berkeley Library at Trinity College, Dublin.
[edit]Bibliography
§ Philosophical Commentaries (1707–08, notebooks)
§ An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (1709)
§ A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I (1710)
§ Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)
§ De Motu (1721)
§ Alciphron: or the Minute Philosopher (1732)
§ The Theory of Vision or Visual Language … Vindicated and Explained (1733)
§ The Analyst (1734)
§ The Querist (1735–37)
§ Siris (1744)
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:50 PM, Richard Kirby <keplerspaceu.edu@gmail.com> wrote:
Apathy is frozen EMOTIONAL DYNAMITE

DeFrosting Millions of Frozen Wisdom Vessels

2009-07-23T10:11:00.001-04:00

This is the second of five star talks spanning Tuesday to Saturday this week - July 21 -5; Wednesday to Sunday for the point of few of those hearing it in almost real time in Asia .

I began yesterday by telling the story of the neglect of wisdom. Now before I lose all of my viewers, readers and listeners, I should explain that this is not a discussion - let alone a homily - about orthodox and heterodox wisdom [such as we would be engaging in if I were speaking in a theological community and discussing the relationship between Job and Ecclesiastes and the heterodox wisdom of the New Testament and so on].

Instead what I want to talk about is desperately, frighteningly real for those who can dare to feel those feelings. And that is the efforts of innovation and sheer bravery and guts, needed for us to follow Bob Krone to the very edge and frontiers of our thought: and the inner strength that comes from the Supreme Being, strength which enables our effort, resolve, and intelligence to awaken the will of millions of senior people - in America, and by derivation elsewhere - to come out of learned helplessness, frozen rage and the apathy which comes to those who have been sidelined by society.

It is as if all the seniors are in a dream world, a world which values youth but not them. The world which pays youths but not them and the world which woes youth with all the ads for the latest perfume and hair 'brillantine' and so on. So this is a problem for all university presidents, led I hope by Dr. Krone and his faculty of Kepler Space University . The question is: under what circumstances would the senior citizens, the wisdom bearers, deliver their wisdom. It could be very hard.

I and many others have tried doing it to the very highest levels of government. Some such places exhibit the adamantine strength of intellectual defenses too well honed. The result is that fresh intelligence and vitality [even if wearing an elderly garb of flesh]and wisdom-bearing people are turned away on the grounds that 'nothing further needs to be done'. Some of us who remember that around the year 1900 we were told that physics was complete until the x-rays* came along in the next year or so [http://www.zazzle.com/the_first_x_ray_1901_photograph_sticker-217250790210291479]. I’m just speaking approximately here of course***.

We know that the Astronomer Royal of England, Sir Richard Van der Viet Woolley, around 1957 said space travel was “utter bilge” [that’s an old English expression for impossible]. Next year Sputnik came along and nullified his supposed erudition.

But our purpose is not so much an analysis of causes [as a Buddhist said, "If the house is on fire, you don’t ask why; you just ask, "Where is the exit?"]

So our purpose is to find ways of liberating frozen energy - that is, in effect, the specialized knowledge - and with it, the political will - of millions. The American Association of Retired Persons has its own agenda but we are dealing here with American Association of Wisdom Mobilized.

We want to do this through all the veterans’ associations and tomorrow we will inquire just how and where and who and to what effect.

StarTalk™
#2 of 5: DeFrosting Millions of frozen Wisdom Vessels - new voicemail
message

*X-rays, 'fax machines' and ice cream cones debut at 1904 World's Fair
Washington University in St. Louis and the 1904 World's Fair
April 7, 2004 -- April 30, 2004, marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the 1904 World's Fair, an event that showcased science advancements that startled the imagination a century ago and foretold technology still in place today. It ushered in a new era in which machines began taking over the work of humans, still a hot topic one hundred years later. The fair was headquartered on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, where significant scientific developments continue today, most notably at the nation's second-ranked medical school but also across many science and engineering disciplines.
Courtesy Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collections.
Lee DeForest (seated) sending wireless telegraph message from theLouisiana Purchase Exposition. Photograph from 1904.
The fair, also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (because it marked the 100th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's great acquisition), unveiled to the world new ideas, products and scientific advances that enthralled thousands of visitors. There was a meeting of great scientific minds at the fair, and Thomas Edison was even on hand to oversee use of electricity.
Washington University played a large role in the fair that predicted the development and mass use of electricity and the x-ray, not to mention the infant incubator, the private automobile and a number of other everyday staples of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Among the scientific wizardry introduced at the 1904 World's Fair were:
• The X-ray machine, now standard equipment in both hospitals and airports.
• The baby incubator. Tennessean E.M. Bayliss brought actual infant incubators, invented in 1888 by Drs. Alan M. Thomas and William Champion, to an exhibit on the Fair's Pike. Throughout the fair, premature infants from local orphanages and poor families lived in a row of 14 metal-framed glass incubators. Fairgoers paid to watch nurses care for the babies, and the admission charge helped fund the project.
• The electric typewriter, viewed by many secretaries past and present as the greatest invention of all time.
• The telautograph, an early version of the fax machine, invented by Elisha Gray of Chicago. This invention had received little notice at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Even after 1904, it took decades before this handy device earned its place as an indispensable office machine.
• The telephone answering machine, then called the Poulson telegraphone.
• Household and hotel products such as the tabletop stove, coffeemaker, automatic potato masher, bread machine and dishwasher. The electric dumbwaiter was a welcome update of the old hand-operated house elevator used by housewives and kitchen maids.
• The automatic gatekeeper at each fair entrance was the first to admit one person after receiving the proper coin, and then automatically lock again until the next coin was inserted.
• Electricity was the star of the show. All the major buildings on the fairgrounds were lit inside and out by electric lights, and the fair's thoroughfares were illuminated by electric lights. Within the Palaces of Machinery, Transportation and Electricity, many electric-powered machines and appliances were on display. Inventor Thomas Edison himself was brought in to oversee the assembly of the electrical exhibits.
• The electrical plug and wall outlet. One hundred years later, no house can have too many outlets.
• Wireless telegraphy came into its own in an exhibit of the DeForest Wireless Telegraphy Company, which sent daily news of the fair to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the St. Louis Star via its observation tower and seven stations on the fairgrounds. Also featured in the DeForest exhibit was a wireless telephone, precursor of the now-ubiquitous cellular telephone.
• A new underwater battleship called the submarine made a big splash, although the U.S. Navy's exhibit didn't include an actual submarine.
• Still in its infancy, the automobile was being adapted for private use, with its 40-horsepower engine capable of moving at 40 miles per hour. One shortsighted critic scoffed in a Cosmopolitan article that the exhibit of 140 fancy private automobiles was fanciful because the best use of automobiles would be for public transportation and freight — the private car would never catch on.
Letter carriers tooled around the fairgrounds in automobiles to collect mail, the first use of the automobile for that purpose in the United States.
A related invention by Thomas Edison, the steel-nickel storage battery for the automobile, was introduced at Edison's own exhibit.
• The gas producer and the resultant gas engine, already being used in Europe. A gas producer could transform a pound of coal into three times the power of a steam boiler. As expected, this revolution in industry had a profound effect on coal mining, transportation and air quality.
• The airplane. The fair featured several demonstrations of various flying machines that took off and landed from the aeronautic field, located in the area that later became Washington University's Fraternity Row. Although a contest offered $100,000 to anyone who could build anything that could fly bearing at least one person, few were successful.
And there was the meeting of great minds at the fair. "One of the most important events of the fair was the International Congress of Arts and Sciences, which brought together prominent scholars from all over the world in every academic discipline, including some who were on the Washington University faculty," said Washington University Archivist Carole Prietto. Most of the sessions were held at the university's Ridgley Hall. "After the fair, the proceedings of the Congress were published, and three of the eight volumes of that record deals with science and technology."
The original eight volumes of the proceedings are available at the Olin Library at Washington University. Photos of the Congress and other fair activities are available as well.
Other less scientific, but perhaps equally notable objects introduced at the fair were: the ice cream cone, iced tea and the hot dog. While these items are believed to have existed before the fair, many visitors had never seen them prior to their trip to St. Louis in the summer of 1904.
Overall, the advances showcased at the 1904 World's Fair ushered in a new era in which machines began taking over the work of humans, a phenomenon still a topic for debate and thought 100 years later.

***
In a biography of Max Planck:

"..The Munich physics professor Philipp von Jolly advised him against
going into physics, saying, "in this field, almost everything is
already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck

In the era before 1900, before the 'revolution in physics' created
the 'modern physics : Quantum Mechanics and Relativity it seemed to many
that 'classical physics' can explain everything.

It was an era of 'calm before a storm';

However, it was never a universal feeling that 'all was dicovered'.
Lord Kelvin (whose name was used to name a unit of temperature) was
aware of problems which lead to that revolution:

"On 27th April 1900, Lord Kelvin gave a lecture to the Royal
Institution of Great Britain. The title of the lecture was
Nineteenth-Century Clouds over the Dynamical Theory of Heat and Light.
Kelvin mentioned, in his characteristic way, that the "beauty and
clearness of theory" was overshadowed by "two clouds". He was talking
about the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment and the
problems of blackbody radiation. In fact, these "two clouds" were to
herald the early 20th century revolution in theoretical physics with
the emergence of relativity and quantum theory..."
http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/Physics3/Kelvin_online/clouds.htm

New Vision, New Wine, and New Wealth

2009-07-22T08:37:00.002-04:00

Here is my star talk for Tuesday, July 21 and Wednesday, July 22, 2009.

It has to do with mobilizing wisdom. And probably people have switched off by now! So if not let’s say it’s mobilizing wealth; and if that’s not sharp enough how about manifesting cash.

Let me start with a few stories here as I obey Dr. Krone, our Provost who asked me to speak on this subject tonight. I want to say first of all: you may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but you certainly can teach an old comedian new quips and for that matter, an old tragedian new slips and trips and so on. But this is a very high stakes game. I’ve never spoken words more meaningful to me than tonight. So I would like to start with a couple of fables invented just for the occasion.

Once upon a time there was a group of young people who had dumped on them an old fogey, an old, old man well into his eighties at least. They went off on a trip and the were compelled to take him because they were being paid by the State to keep this old geezer close to them. They came to a beautiful pond with a pagoda. They saw between them and the pagoda stepping stones. They were eager to get to the pagoda, because frankly, there were some very good looking girls there and these young folks were boys. The girls had their backs to them, so the boys thought they would surprise them. And the first one rushed forward and set his foot on the first stepping stone. The old man suddenly said to him quietly but loud enough to be heard “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The youngsters tried to silence him but something in his voice got the attention of the man with his foot almost on the stepping stones. Then he said, “Well, fifty years ago those stepping stones were crocodiles." And he was right. And he saved them all. Knowledge mobilized as wisdom.

Here is another fable. This one was made up just for you folks, us folks. I thought of this one tonight.

Once upon a time there was a man who was a Vintner and oenophile. He wanted the best wines, for the highest gustatory purpose. He knew how long they took to mature; so he stored them away in bins and made sure that everything was perfect. Unfortunately just before the day of their ripening he passed away from a heart attack. Then his great-grand children when down to the cellar and saw, in effect, the cobwebs and the aging bottles. So they said, "Hey, let’s get rid of those now". You know what they said: "Wine is youth and youth is wine."
And that fable is offered to illuminate the situation of the United States of America .

Now this is a high stakes game because computer science and the Internet have threatened not only to nullify the available wisdom of millions - hundred of millions, really - but to put out of work people in midlife [but that doesn’t include me, thank God, 'cos I can hardly remember midlife, it was so long ago.] But thousands, tens of thousands of journalists and others are threatened with unemployment and penury. All over the place technology is rendering people unemployed. The fact is that this doesn’t have to be the way it seems because we are not, unless we allow ourselves to be bewitched by the allure of money, in thraldom to the present economic system. This work/economic/finance complex is harnessed for the most part by a system of money that is way beyond its sell-by date. Its not for nothing that money is called filthy lucre. It's day is over - if we choose. Its stranglehold has to be undone. Now is a new day - for new wisdom, new wine, new wealth. New work, new employment. New happiness and contentment....

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 8:12 PM, Richard Kirby <keplerspaceu.edu@gmail.com> wrote:

Consecration of the composers in residence, KSU Philippines

2009-07-12T10:03:00.002-04:00

[Albert Einstein is on vacation to explore space-time paradoxes in recreation an a body at rest; and will return July 21]Dear Cirilo, Roeo and families:The following words will be the essence of your speechesof Consecration - given by you as organizer of the composers in residence, KSU Philippines.

The consecration of the composer is important - as a sacrament.

So, here are some thoughts
that thought may be of interest as we follow ourthree-fold path of consecration, creativity andorchestration or closing down, opening up andharmonizing.In the studies of the Highest Good in such books asthe Doctor’s Casebook in the Light of the Bible byPaul Tournier and Philosophies of India by HeinrichZimmer, we see the idea of the Highest Good as a formof personal liberation. In Hinduism - in my meagerknowledge of it - such words as moksha, kaivalya andnirvana are used to signify the liberation of the soulfrom the illusions of the personality and entry intothe stream of bliss.However in the Judaeo-Christian tradition at its best{which admittedly is rare!} we work not so much withthe sanctification of the individual as with thesanctification of the group.The word apotheosis is very germane here. We dealwith the notion of the apotheosis as in the final orhighest sanctification of the saints. It is RomanCatholic dogma that the saints possess all virtues.However I must confess my interest is not with theindividual; it never has been. It is with groups assmall a choir(SMILEE) and as large as a planet.The question of what is theosis, sanctification ordivinization in the Highest Good takes on a verydifferent guise when we look at groups, associations,organizations, cities, planets and so on.It is with this new birth of spiritual sociology thatwe are concerned in consecrating the officers of theKepler Space Univrsity in Cebu. In doing so we are in harmonywith the insight of the prophets of Israel that ourbeing is one being; our being is corporate.One case in point with this is that the composersaround the world can be considered to form what inmathematics is called a set or collection orassociation or assembly or group.We can also humorously put into this elementary settheory as follows: we can divide these composers intosubsets: for example the set of all composers who areinterested in global warming.One could say that presumably all of them are interested in global warming, because they are allhuman and this is our world. So we can image anothersubset. A set of all composers who are interested inglobal warming and are doing something musicallyabout it. Then we can go onto a further set. Those composerswho are interested in global warming and are doingsomething musically about it, and who are doingsomething about it effectively. And we can go on to a still further set. It would behose composers who are interested in global warmingand are doing something musically about it, and whoare doing something about it effectively, and aredoing something about it in a way that is increasinglyeffective and so on. Little by little this gradienttakes to towards the idea of the Highest Good of acomposer in a dying world.....or where one child is dying of hunger
or neglect or harm.We are looking at a task not only of composition butof leadership of composition. It is your job, with Romeo
and your wives and kids at your sides as musical Conveners to lead the composers- n-residence of
Manila and Cebu and all over the Philippines.Lead them to the honoring in song and dance and
symphony and setting and stage and screen, tocontemplation of the Highest Good* of composers.*That means: the Best Songs for the Best Lives!However - living in a world in the quantum age wehave instruments of thought at our disposal which werelacking to a previous generation, particularly in atime of urgency. Urgency! It is a commonplace idea in crisisintervention theory that if there is a desperateurgent need we respond to it now - by definition -but not later - since later there may be nothing torespond to. Everything may be destroyed. So what cando 'now'?No one has exhausted the possibilities of definingwhat 'now 'is.In fact so permeated with social concepts is thedoctrine of 'now' that something strange happens when

Star talk for July 7th and 8th 2009. Ingenuousness.

2009-07-08T18:08:00.001-04:00

in·gen·u·ous (n-jny-s)
adj.
1. Lacking in cunning, guile, or worldliness; artless.
2. Openly straightforward or frank; candid. See Synonyms at naive.
3. Obsolete Ingenious.
[Latin ingenuus, honest, freeborn; see gen- in Indo-European roots.]
in·genu·ous·ly adv.
in·genu·ous·ness n.

I want to talk today about the word, ingenuousness, not ingeniousness.
One letter makes the difference. ingeniousness is inventiveness. Creativity. Change.
Ingenuousness, is childlikeness. Curiosity, inquisitiveness, acceptance, cousin to delight.

I want to ask this question first of all: Can the innocence of childhood once lost, swallowed up in experience, be recaptured? My answer is "yes" and I say so for many reasons.

Experience of course, first of all - mine.

Yes, the innocence of childhood, once lost, can be recaptured: it’s allowed for in scriptures that some of us read, it’s allowed for in literature, it’s allowed for in life. That "yes" is the reason for talking about ingenuousness So let’s call this the second innocence.

Cash value? The second innocence is similar in terms of its pragmatic value as some of us love to say, to the phenomenon of daylight saving time.

When this was introduced in England around the time of the First World War [I’m not speaking here when it was in other countries, just what I know]. There was tremendous dispute about the value of it. You can imagine all of the dangers that were threatened about children going to school in the dark or coming home in the dark and so on. But it wasn’t until very recently that I saw the final and decisive irrefutable argument about it. It increased the net productivity of the country by, let’s say, about a hundred billion dollars or whatever the First World War equivalent ws.

It’s the same way with innocence. Innocence implies trust, trust implies faith and faith gives us inexhaustible energy.

So what is this quality of ingenuousness? I remember that when I was a teenager I was visiting a friend, a close school friend, Joe. We use to go on vacations together in Wales and things like that. And I was saying something to his mother in my usual innocent and curious way and she said, "oh Richard you’re so ingenuous! And she didn’t mean it as a compliment!

Some people say that ] ingenuous'means naïve or naïf, for it seemingly has this quality of being inexperienced. But actually ingenuousness is a quality of being wise and innocent - and it is something we want very much for ourselves.

One way to achieve this is to think with the mind of a child. We’re told in the Christian religion that unless we think like a child we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. And it is for that reason it’s important to read fiction - because it reminds us of our first innocence. This concept comes up in theology training as well in seminaries. Students go to seminary to read the Bible, trusting that its literally true. They go through a phase typically discovering that it was written by human beings. And a lot of it contradicts other parts and they are not quite sure what to make of it. But at the end of it they comes to what Paul Ricoeur calls the second naiveté. Yes - Scripture may in part be fiction but they can trust it to inspire them!

To be ingenuous is to be naïve is, to be childlike: in looking for the best and finding it. The second naiveté allows us to trustingly follow Bob Krone Beyond Earth to the heavens and say, "Well okay, maybe there is a lot of Star Wars stuff going on out there; but we’re going to make it a space civilization that is sane and beautiful and just and proper and well ordered and divinely happy.

So ingenuousness is a word to study. It's a way of being human and adult and inspired. It’s a quality to study and to inquire into. When we do we can start working with Bob Krone with new delight; and joy.

In Text reference: Moving from 'First Naivete' through Critical Reflection to 'Second Naivete'. The idea comes from the hermeneutical theorist Paul Ricoeur.
in·gen·u·ous (n-jny-s)
adj.
1. Lacking in cunning, guile, or worldliness; artless.
2. Openly straightforward or frank; candid. See Synonyms at naive.
3. Obsolete Ingenious.
[Latin ingenuus, honest, freeborn; see gen- in Indo-European roots.]
in·genu·ous·ly adv.
in·genu·ous·ness n.

Star Talks and Moon Talks

2009-07-03T06:45:00.001-04:00

Dear Friends,

I am in a mood to celebrate within my own family and within my extended family of friends in India , Asia and the Philippines. We have real impetus to let star talks develop their first progeny - and that is a moon talk.
StarTalks and MoonTalks™:

This is a very natural fulfillment of a space university in its communication functions. Especially one that perforce has a calling to go to the far frontiers of things like genres or idioms, media, and see what we find there. Just like the rockets ad e astronauts and the Voyager probes and so on in doing their realm. No end to the evolution of genres and medias and idioms in all and contexts but we do have a greater consciousness of that now and since my days as University College, London, 1973 to 6, when I was studying theses things within the double registration, actually, in the Departments of Psychology and Phonetics and Linguistics at Gower Street London, for people who like the details. I’ve had considerable occasion to be reflecting again and again, what is the medium that suits the message? How does media and message interact? Moshe Dror knows a lot more about that than I do. How can we find the vessels that are superconductive vessels that are empty enough to contain a vast love, a quantum "'vacuum' that isn’t "! Like a black hole maybe or like a white hole. Adrian Berry wrote a book about that.

But here is something very simple you need to understand.

Many of us have been astonished the way Michael Jackson, his life, his death, his legacy continue to dominate the television news at least day after day after day. It’s truly astonishing.

Michael Jackson invented the MoonWalk. I’ve already asked our friends in the Philippines to prepare by their own children’s "MoonWalk" training to apply this, so to speak, to be a moon walking orphans group to raise money for the poor. But a moonwalk needs a moon talk to go with it. We’ve had moon talks from astronauts but this is a moon talk that belongs to a different realm, the realm of fable, myth, fantasy, children stories but nonetheless real for that. So the moon talks will be the subject of a little Kepler three day book which Romeo, Cirilo and I will work on together. With help, I’m sure, from any others like Walt Putnam. Our goal is simple. It’s to speak to the world the legacy of Michael Jackson’s legacy of love in a way that it becomes the musical, Dancers of the Stars, and with it launches [through Terry Tang and others], our own Department of Innovative Psychologies that can accommodate the full range from child prodigy, child genius, adolescence trauma and Sturm und Drang, to so-called abnormal psychology, such as the problems of psychopathy and sociopathy - and psychotic disorders in children and [if the child is the father of the man], how - if such things exist they must be dealt with if the surface later years. All of this becomes the subject of moon talks, not to be given by me only but by a multitude of broadcasters who can speak after Michael Jackson, the hope of the world’s children, to live and love and not to starve. Thank you all.

Star Trek June 24

2009-06-25T09:04:00.004-04:00

Thank you Barbara Frost for the usual rapid, brave and imaginative transcribing.

Friends,

Some plain speaking we have to be the intellectual marines. We hear a lot about Navy Seals, we hear about Marines, we hear about the HardMen of the body, kung fu, karate, pugilistic, flexibility, strength, strength, courage, bravery. You know, my father during the Second World War was actually a weapons instructor with things like Bren guns. You ever heard of them?

My grandfather was a First World War sharp shooter. But we under the aegis of Kepler under the leadership of Provost Dr. Krone, Chancellor Dr. Ellis, Rabbi Dr. Dror and so on, we have to ask ourselves what is mental muscle and its training? What is intelligence and its elevation and what is mental excellence? Such questions always lead us in the end to science and Ph.D. training; but that’s really not what I would say is the tip of the iceberg, it’s more like looking at one continent on the map of the world saying that the others haven’t yet been reconnoitred.

I want to give you an example of some things we have thinking about recently. I have in mind for us to go to the Oval Office. As you know, our plan is for two 86 year olds to take this historic trip. Sid Parnes, the Doyen of National Creative Education for 50 years, perhaps with his wife Bea would go, along with Warren Bennis, the leader of leadership education. I can imagine how easy it is to say, "Well, we don’t have access to the Oval Office." Well - that isn’t true; but, even if it was, there’s something else that we train in mental excellence training - and that’s the training of the will. This is something that is not as well known in the west - perversely, you might say - as it is in the east. But it doesn’t matter, we have to do it.

Techniques are all in place. It’s essentially a matter of owning this truth: where there is a will there’s a way. It’s time I enunciate some of the most well know aphorisms here. Some people put their wishbone where their backbone should be and other forget to will [as a verb]; they simply wilt when they see a difficulty. But this is not the way of the man of purpose, the man of will. Obstacles cannot withstand our strength of purpose if our hearts are pure.

So this is what I would say and do say to someone who says, "the Oval Office, that’s a very top of the tree, it’s not accessible or it’s not easily accessible," I say that we will build another Oval Office and as a matter of fact this is a very, very ordinary operation in science fiction thinking. It’s usually done by the name of the Other Earth. And even outside of science fiction George Bernard Shaw wrote a play [1904] called John Bull’s Other Island. This other idea of making the familiar strange is 'Synectics' creativity education method [W.J.J. Gordon] is one of the principles behind this. It is not an act of disobedience but of hyper obedience to create an alternate Oval Office to make as a play, a drama, the arrival of Sid Parnes to bring in our own cast of characters - and I think we should actually enlarge this to the First Lady as well so the creative education of women through Barbara Hero and her redoubtable leadership; and we should actually enlarge this to children too, through my mother’s work and my daughter.

So the first thing we say is, "Yes - we can create an Oval Office: but it’s the ideal Oval Office towards which the one that we have is pointing; and the same with the Pentagon. For years now I have worked on designing a Hexagon; the extra wing is for women, by the way. I don’t want to make this sound too lighthearted; but there is no harm in that either. The important thing is that we are in training now under Dr. Krone, in training to be 'Navy Seals of America’s intellect" to make our country intellectually and therefore morally great again.

Star Talk June 22 and 23

2009-06-23T09:46:00.002-04:00

Appreciation is given to Barbara G. Frost for brilliant, faithful and above all speedy transcription from voice file. rk
Good Evening, Esteemed Colleagues,

Here is our Star Talk for June 22 - and 23, depending on where and when you are listening to it.

I want to talk to you tonight about the military industrial complex. This is a phrase that we associate particularly with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. A few days before the end of his second term as president he gave a farewell speech which was also a warning. He spoke about the power that the military industrial complex or as people would say today the iron triangle of government, military and industry had or could have, he said even unwittingly, or could have over the life of the State. Considering that Eisenhower had fought in Word War I and being in a position of extremely high command in World War II, this statement is something to take quite seriously.

I am attaching the text of his farewell address to this Star Talk. In a meeting with half of dozen of what I would call the inner circle of Kepler Space University as a national research organization today, we took a decisive step towards taking a leadership position in national invention engineering technology. Inevitably this has some presence and overlap with the military industrial complex. People often feel stumped about the way forward and they understandably feel that they’re forced to make a choice between civil obedience and civil disobedience. I have a different message and a third viewpoint on that today.

Civil obedience to a so-called military industrial complex of people say means to give into this leviathan, this monster of blotted weapon manufacturer and corruption on a gigantic scale. On the other hand there is civil disobedience means to risk robbing our country of its shield of defense and being unpatriotic and so on. But these are not the only two possibilities. Beyond obedience and disobedience I call hyper-obedience or simply the will to improve to improve the capacity of the State to pursue excellence.

In this connection we need to have up our sleeve a new paradigm of political science and government. This has been foreshadowed in a number of ways by efforts to improve government. But I’m going to bring it down to a simple, but I hope, memorable phrase today, that’s the military industrial simplex.

A simplex is a technical term in mathematics but it will suffice for the moment. What we are going to do, our circle, our think tanks, our Kepler group, is to recreate the military industrial necks around certain themes of hyper-intelligence, hyper-proft, capital demonstrated the pursuit of excellence as a inner gradient. There are many people who feel that this is not possible and Dr. Krone and I, Dr. Ellis and I discussed this on a number of occasions. We feel that it is very easy to fall victim to a kind of philosophic dualism in which we see forces of light and dark like in the Old Persian myth of coequal and warring factions until the end of time. But the best modern philosophy, sociology, personology, metaphysics - even politics - does not see this view of the world. It’s just our will to good now ready to create the military industrial simplex and its social profit.

2009/6/22 Richard Kirby <keplerspaceu.edu@gmail.com>
StarTalk
for June 22-23: The Military Industrial SIMPLEX*. America/Israeli audience only
please. Barbara Frost will transcribe.
*Operational name: "Your search - Military-Industrial_Simplex - did not match any documents."
Eisenhower's farewell address
(Redirected from Military-Industrial Complex Speech)
←Wikisource:Speeches
Eisenhower's farewell addressby Dwight D. Eisenhower

The farewell speech of U.S.A. President, Dwight Eisenhower. Given on 17 January 1961 and televised in the U.S.A.
(Link to audio recording.)
Good evening, my fellow Americans.
First, I should like to express my gratitude to the radio and television networks for the opportunities they have given me over the years to bring reports and messages to our nation. My special thanks go to them for the opportunity of addressing you this evening.
Three days from now, after a half century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen. Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the nation. My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and finally to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years. In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the nation good, rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with Congress ends in a feeling -- on my part -- of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts, America is today the strongest, the most influential, and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among peoples and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defenses; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress. Lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration. The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their Government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of threat and stress.
But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. Of these, I mention two only.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or, indeed, by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual --is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system – ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
During the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war, as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years, I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
So, in this my last good night to you as your President, I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and in peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy. As for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I, my fellow citizens, need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nations' great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration: We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings. Those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; and that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth; and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
Now, on Friday noon, I am to become a private citizen. I am proud to do so. I look forward to it.
Thank you, and good night.

Space Lullaby

2009-05-18T12:23:00.003-04:00

Little StarChild: Anthem of Kepler Space University Nurseries

words by Richard S. Kirby, Music by Johannes Brahms

Little StarChild, how we love you, as the Stars set, we say,
"Get your rest now, dream the heavens, map the spacious sky above
Astrokids, sleep till dawn,
for tomorrow you take off,
Chase the comets, map the meteors, ride the rockets you will own.

O you space children dear, your new world is so roomy,
when you wake, you will shake
sleep off as you dress to launch.

Thank your teachers of math,
as they sketch out your Flight path:
thank the tellers of space Tales
for they gave you new Life-Trails

Sun-blessed kids, solar system
boys - and girls who there kissed' em
from beyond earth you'll grease
roads to permanent sweet peace.

Richard Kirby 517pm pt Sunday May 17, 2009

Request a Space Lullaby for the millions of babes now in a cradle incubating for their being The Future of Humans in Space.

"POETS"

2009-04-27T20:11:00.000-04:00

"The Kepler Space University (KSU) works toward a Peace On Earth Through Space (POETS) that results from advances in intelligence, in Space education, in moral leadership, in quantum social and financial culture changes, in unprecedented resources for Earth's needs, in science and technology advances including Military Science, and in Policy Sciences. We recognize the pathologies in human inner space that have been historic barriers to conflict resolution. We are optimists, but not naive visionaries. All history records wars. But history shows no barrier to humans living in space dedicated to benefiting Earth and its people.

If America had failed to design aircraft we would have lost every war beginning with WWII. Victory would never have happened. If no one designs POETS it will not happen autonomously. KSU is in that design process. Our aim is to coordinate the New Sciences of Human Victory. The Space Age can also be the Earth Peace Age. Global needs, statesmanship and perceptions of failure today reveal that the political arts and sciences are ripe for this.

We are committed to the building of civilization on Earth and Beyond Earth by the wise cultivation and deployment of the greatest strengths and forces available to contemporary and future leaders in all walks of life. The vistas of Outer Space give us an Overview Outlook, in which to reweave the future positively and with progressive accuracy and wisdom, all sciences and arts to bring victory for human dignity, respect and survival. The vastness of Beyond Earth enables us to amplify all available tools and technologies for physical, mental and social health, happiness and prosperity which can grow towards being universal. Humankind is the midwife of space civilization building, and this is our mission and our hope, and space civilization building is our method in all lands and all media".

The Leadership of Kepler Space University, 1 May 2009

The Urgency of Re-employment

2009-04-26T09:22:00.001-04:00

This is an instructional module for the students in Kepler Space University course the Urgency of Re-employment, which is a derivative of the larger course, The Urgency of Genius, which is a program of the Johannes Kepler Professorship of Mathematical and Astronomical sciences.
I am asking people in several countries to listen to this. Some are students and some are instructors.
First of all I’m speaking to Satya in America, on the east coast; to Cirilo, in the Philippines; to Bishop Gootla Nelson in Andhra Pradesh, India; to Roberto Lafaro in Brussels; to Dr. Krone, my co-professor in San Diego. And here we begin.
Ladies and gentleman - this is an approach to getting good jobs, as fast as possible, by activating as a community some basic ideas of applied mathematics. I know that this is a frightening subject to many but it’s not complicated. First of all you have to be ready to do some work with the idea of zero or nothing and in particular zero time, which means now. You have to be prepared to think of acceleration, being able to accelerate itself so that if you go faster and faster you arrive at your destination in the end, now. Those are two approaches to the concept of now. And then thirdly if we can move without speed as a group, and without friction like ego, we have super-conductive community. It’s in this spirit that we are going to start showing the world a new way to create work out of our present situation.
The next idea I want you to learn to be comfortable with is the idea of an infinitely small moment of employment or an instant of unemployment and to learn to see them as two sides of the same coin. Also we are going to learn to study our own morale, a sense of being inspired as a response to whether we feel we are employed or unemployed.
We are going to develop together a new vocabulary based on our feelings of self-esteem, worth and usefulness.
Instead of speaking about being employed in the sense of being paid by somebody else to do our work, we will speak with a phrase from Buddhism of right livelihood. We will think about what is justice for us in using our talents. And particularly, we are going to learn about the use of time in such a way as to make it a revelation of our power to do a great deal in a little space of time. For this reason I published this week on Newgenius.com/religion an essay on the Mondays of Tomorrow which I wrote a few years ago.
We as a community are going to begin by testing the ideals in that article about Mondays, a day of radical creativity. We are going to apply that to your movement from a sense of being unemployed to a sense of being employed and from a sense of being employed in a work that you don’t like to a sense of being in your ideal job with your ideal community - in a place you will learn to like.
Also, as part of your course, you will learn to to build your own Genius Box. And you will give to your teacher whatever is proportional to anything you have earned because of what you have learned.
There is no fixed price in the normal sense. Technically speaking in monetary terms we are testing flotation . This isn’t about price however, it’s about value and the supreme value of any one moment or instant - in which your 'frozen outlook' is your attitude. So we begin.

Mensa writing competition on Financial Intelligence - in its many moods and meanings - has begun.

2009-04-11T15:09:00.000-04:00

Seattleite Mensans Ed Ledger, Richard Kirby are the organizers. We will be getting input in any genre, idiom or form that can illuminate the origins and future improvement of Financial Intelligence. Our approach is practical: our aim is to help people survive the recession, and build a bright financial future for themselves and others. Building towards an international Mensa Financial Intelligence SIG - already Beta-tested in the U.K. - we need writers, illustrators, party-planners,editors and judges. We want Mensans of any age, their family, from youngsters to super-seniors, individually, in families or in teams. We plan to publish all contributions and get sponsorships for prizes. Example: if you could remake the Wall Street Journal, or Wall Street, what would you do? Answers could be from cartoon strip to essay to novel to PhD thesis to child's garden of verses to experiment to Business Plan to partying...in any language, including the language of music. Mensans in other countries will join with us, sometimes competing, sometimes collaborating to embody new models of wealth creation and financial problem-solving, and to birth together a better, saner financial ethics and profession. Please email keplerspaceu@gmail.com for more details.

Poem By The Reverand Doctor Richard Kirby

2009-03-29T11:10:00.001-04:00

In this Third, Relational, Age of Space,

the cosmic beauty of the family

is now being liberated

for the people's homes and hearts

by the freeing of the gentle inner light

of the space sciences and domestic arts

for the higher nutrition

And for the good of planetary humankind

cherishing Mother Earth, reverencing environments,

blessing soil and seed and space and satellite,

as we settle civilization in space

by the awakening through kindness and forgiveness

of the women's rights, through love's ubiquitous genius

by nourishing in farm and field

Earth's and Heaven's fertility,

releasing in ecstasy Cosmic Woman's glorious fruitfulness

in the bliss-dance of galactic babe and birth, infant and child

and the women's wisdom, earthedness and peaceability

to pursue the Absolute Cultural Goods

of Sanity and Survival, Peace and Heavenly Sustenance,

in love, health and happiness

of astronomically great stature

in the present high heroines' New Time

of the Women and the Children,

and the untortured Animals, of the Stars,

for our wise old people and their worship,

in our brave young humanity and their adventures,

in the healing of our hates

through the kissing of our mates

in the quiet song of joy

in the blessed Martian fields

and in exotic cosmic climes

in asteroidal mines,

in vagrant comets' tails,

from the Cradle of Humanity

to the Cradles of the Cosmos,

seeking the Soul of the World,

in our closeness finding her together.

The Inspirimeter

2009-03-24T08:09:00.003-04:00

Meanwhile, as a herald of that lovely Spring, I attach a sketch from last year of one of my inventions, which speaks for itself: the Inspirimeter, a precursor of the Kepler Genius Box I am developing with Ed Kiker. Please look at the attached picture: take a journey away from the vertical or y axis along the abscissa, & as you go from left to right on that x-axis baseline, see you're moving from infinitely uninspired to infinitely inspired, at which point you will be inspired to help me improve the theory and design and deployment of this invention, this incipient technology. Try to read this paragraph again but substitute the phrase, ' infinitely unprofitable to infinitely profitable,' for 'infinitely uninspired to infinitely inspired' to see the value of this model.

Friends, I was taught that the first 'model' was made by Aniximander*; it was a map. He created a map of the world that contributed greatly to the advancement of geography. Just think how rich his grandkids would have been had he patented it....so we shall not repeat his mistake.
*Ancient Greek: Ἀναξίμανδρος) (c. 610 BC–c. 546 BC) was also called the first astronomer. We hear that this Greek philosopher is often called the founder of astronomy, the first thinker to develop a cosmology, or systematic philosophical view of the world. How apt for Kepler.

Kepler Space University President's Seasonal Addresses

2009-03-22T09:24:00.003-04:00

Memorandum concerning inauguration of Kepler Space University Presidential seasonal lectures

Commencing March 20th 2009 the Kepler Space University president will annually deliver four seasonal lectures at the equinoxes and solstices as follows***.

The pattern will also be offered as a template for the members of the International Association of University Presidents.

***Vernal Equinox: on March the 20th each year the topic will be on the text of Immanuel Kant concerning the "starry heavens above and the moral law within" in order to explicate the mission and progress of Kepler Space University.

Summer Solstice: On June 20th the presidential lecture will concern Charles Sanders Peirce and will deal with the summits and apices of original thinking.

Autumnal Equinox:On September 22nd the autumnal lecture will an explication on the works of William Law. Particularly concerning his books the “Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life” and “the Spirit of Love”.

Winter Solstice: The December 21st 2009 winter lecture will be an explication on the thought of W. Olaf Stapledon in association with the theme of Winter Light.

{http://www.archaeoastronomy.com/2009.shtml}

I will deliver the first four [calendar year 2009] of these lectures. It will be our custom that the president will deliver these lectures or will ask a proxy to deliver them each year, in perpetuity. This year’s lecture may also take the form of a video address and will be an encomium* praising the mind of the Kepler Space University Chancellor Dr. Arthur K. Ellis as an exemplification of the Kantian awe-inspiring "'starry heavens above' and 'the moral law within'" .

Richard Kirby 1843h pst, Saturday 3/7/09

*Encomium is a Latin word deriving from the Classical Greek ἐγκώμιον (encomion) meaning the praise of a person or thing. Related to this general meaning, "encomium" also identifies several distinct aspects of rhetoric:
§ A general category of oratory
§ A method within rhetorical pedagogy
§ A figure of speech. As a figure, encomium means praising a person or thing, but occurring on a smaller scale than an entire speech.
§ The eighth exercise in the progymnasmata series
§ A genre of literature that included five elements: prologue, birth and upbringing, acts of the person's life, comparisons used to praise the subject, and an epilogue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encomium

Appendix

With grateful appreciation to http://www.archaeoastronomy.com/seasons.html

The sun bathes our planet with heat and light. Indeed, seasonal
temperatures vary depending upon how much solar radiation falls at a
given latitude. Only at the moments of Equinox, twice each year, does sunshine fall in balanced proportions on our Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Otherwise, the 23°26' tilt of the earth's axis to the orbital
plane's perpendicular favors one hemisphere over the other. At the
moment of the greatest imbalance in the sun's shining on the respective hemispheres, we experience one of two, annual Solstices. The warmest
and coolest days of the year arrive weeks later as thermal retention
diffuses through the oceans and atmosphere.
Figure 1. Seasonal cusps in the Northern Hemisphere; for the
Southern Hemisphere, rotate labels 180°
Until 500 years ago most people other than a few far-sighted philosophical scientists imagined the sun, the planets and the stars all revolved around a stationary earth. After all, the same heavenly track made by the sun during the day is the planetary passageway at night. Eventually, the earth was shown
by Nicolaus Copernicus to spin on its axis and revolve around the sun.
Yet, the apparent orbit of the sun around the earth, the Ecliptic, is the principal model used by astronomers even now to plot the sun's
displacement in the sky. The Ecliptic Plane, Figure 2, is the
two-dimensional slice defined by this imaginary solar orbit around the
earth. The area shown represents approximately 50 quadrillion square
miles. As with earth'sactual orbit of the sun, the Ecliptic is not quite
circular.
It is an ellipse whose major axis is the red line. Aphelion is furthest separation. Perihelion is nearest approach. The radius is 150 million kilometers ±1.7%. The sun revolves counter-clockwise in this view.
Table 1. Travel Intervals
Angle
Event/Arc
Days
0°
Vernal Equinox
0° to 45°
45.88
45°
Beltaine Cross Quarter
45° to 90°
46.88
90°
Summer Solstice
90° to 135°
47.13
135°
Lughnasad CQ
135° to 180°
46.51
180°
Autumnal Equinox
180° to 225°
45.38
225°
Samhain CQ
225° to 270°
44.45
270°
Winter Solstice
270° to 315°
44.20
315°
Imbolc CQ
315° to 0°
44.82
0°
Vernal Equinox
circuit
0° to 360°
365.25
Figure 2. Angular positions along the Ecliptic for Equinoxes, Solstices and Cross Quarters
The beauty of visualizing with the Ecliptic is that Equinox solar positions
are at precise right angles to Solstice solar positions. And the Cross
Quarter moments exactly bisect these, forming perfect 90° angles with neighboring CQ's. Only at Equinox moment is the sun on the earth's
Celestial Equatorial Plane, another two-dimensional slice extending into space, defined by the earth's Equator. The Ecliptic Plane intersects this Equatorial Plane along the blue line in Figure 2, with their angle of intersection matching the 23°26' polar tilt. By astronomical convention the 0° point on the Ecliptic is occupied by the sun at Vernal Equinox. According to Johannes Kepler's Second Law, any line between the earth
and the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal time. Even in a slightly
elliptical circuit, orbital velocity accelerates from Aphelion to Perihelion
and decelerates from Perihelion toAphelion. Thus, the sweep intervals
along each 45° arc must be unequal due to unequal areas within each pie
slice, offset as they are to the apparent orbit's major axis stretching from
the bulge near 102° to the flats near 282°. Table 1 displays the
approximate time intervals in recent years along the eight 45° arcs.

WATCH THE VIDEO
"Solstices, equinoxes and seasonal midways called cross quarters were
vital to ancient people for regulating
their calendars and knowing when to plant, when to harvest, when to stay, when to move. From the earth on the ecliptic plane, the sun appears to
cycle each year past the same,
twinkling stars of the Zodiac.
Equinoxes and solstices are separated
by precise 90 degree angles according to astronomical convention. The cross quarters exactly bisect these and
served as Celtic boundaries for each
of the four seasons. The Celts named
the cross quarters Beltaine,
Lughnasad, Samain and Imbolc. Displayed below these names are the modern calendar dates that match
them astronomically."
1.3 MB ©MMV TransVision
Figure 3. Animation of changing sunrise locations up to
5
days before and after Equinoxes and Solstices in
Northern Hemisphere(for Northern Hemisphere sunsets, flip all labels
horizontally; for Southern Hemisphere sunrises,swap Equinox labels and swap Solstice labels; for
Southern Hemisphere sunsets, reverse North and South
labels only)
Figure 3 diagrams the offset of sunrise and sunset positions at the horizon --- approximately equal to one solar diameter each day --- near the Equinoxes, the greatest day-to-day movement at any time of the year. Ancient
skywatchers almost certainly were aware of this. Near the Solstices sunrise and sunset positions at the horizon are approaching and receding from
their annual extremes, reversing direction at some point within a virtual standstill of about a week's duration. Solstices occur when the sun appears directly overhead at either of its most extreme latitudes --- 23°26'N or
23°26'S --- of the year. At Solstice the semi-annual northbound or southbound apparent journey of the sun turns around. It is practically impossible to determine exactly when a Solstice occurs based only on shadowplays cast by the rising or setting sun within the standstill week.
With an intuitive grasp of the sun's movement along the Ecliptic, and
given a choice, ancient timekeepers would have found that memorializing either Equinox in stone, versus construction of a Solstice alignment, left posterity a superior tool toaccurately clock the year.
Seasonal Cusps as Pagan and Religious Holidays
In common parlance Equinoxes are when day and night are equal in
length and the sun rises due east and sets due west, assuming unobstructed and flat horizons. At the precise moment of Equinox, the sun crosses the
earth's Celestial Equatorial Plane. Religions likely discovered that by acknowledging and even honoring ancient and mythic sun ceremonies,
non-believers could more readily be brought into the fold. Clerics termed
the Vernal Equinox Eostar and the Autumnal Equinox Mabon to salute, perhaps even to sanctify, these special days of pagan worship. Likewise,
the Church named Summer Solstice Lithaand the Winter Solstice Yule.
Here is a hint if you have ever wondered why Christmas and Easter have uncanny calendric correspondencies to the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. The supernova that may have been the Star of Bethlehem is not
fixed historically on any specific date. Before Jesus was born, the Winter Solstice carried powerful mythic weight. Watch our 3 minute video podcast on the Winter Solstice's connection to
Yule at the Store The Vernal Equinox, around Easter, holds special magic, ushering in the return of warmth, and with it, the renewal of plant and animal life. Coincidentally, Christianity marks this time as the anniversary of the Resurrection. Old Celtic calendars observed Cross Quarters, approximately midway
between each pair of adjacent Equinox and Solstice days. Unlike modern calendars that define the start of a season on a Solstice or Equinox, the
Celts perceived Solstices and Equinoxes as events occuring mid-season,
with the seasons actually beginning and ending on the Cross Quarters. Thus, Imbolc was the beginning of Spring. Imbolc corresponds more or
less to Groundhog Day in the USA, February 2, when tradition has it that
if a sleepy groundhog creeping out of its burrow at dawn sees its shadow, there are 6 more weeks of winter. (If not, we surmise, only 42 days remain.) Solmonath and Candlemas were Church-approved substitute
names for Imbolc, which is spelled Imbolg by some pagans. Druids prefer Oimeaig, pronounced IM-mol'g. Beltaine was the start of Summer, just a few days beyond May Day on the modern calendar. Fertility is at its peak as bees pollinate the flowers.
Seedlings are poking through the cool soil, seeking the warmth and energy of the sun. Early Christians preferred the name Whitsuntide instead of
Beltaine. The pronunciation of this cross quarter is BEE-awl-ten-ah Lughnasad was the beginning of Autumn, when crops thrive in the hot sun. Lughnasad was observed as a pre-harvest festival day and time for
strength and endurance competitions among young men. Variations on this CQ name include Lughnasadh, Lughnasada and Lugnasadh. It is pronounced LOO-na-sah regardless of the spelling. The religious
equivalent isLammas or Lammos. The Celtic Winter began with Samhain. It ends one planting cycle and
begins another. Seeds for the next year were often planted at this time. Samhain comes about a week after Hallowe'en, the eve of All Saints Day when, some folks believe, all departed souls of the preceding year are finally freed from earthly ties. Indeed, the Christian name Hallowmas was
swapped for the pagan term, sometimes spelled as Savain.
Regardless of the spelling, this CQ day is pronounced SOW-an or SOW-in. Listen to our 3 minute podcast on Samhain and the Celtic New Year at the Store Perhaps the Celtic perception of the seasonal calendar harmonizes best
with nature. Should Summer's arrival really mark a time of year when
daytime just gets shorter and shorter? Is it logical for days to only lengthen throughout Winter? It seems to contradict our perception of what these seasons are, or is it just a mid-Summer's night dream of mine? The Celts believed major transitional days --- Solstices and Equinoxes --- should be enveloped by the time of year they signify, not stand for mere boundary markers! Celtic calendar keepers favored the Cross Quarters as bookends
for every season under the sun.

Kepler Space University's Moral Vision

2009-03-18T17:20:00.002-04:00

Kepler Space University’s moral vision is the core of our mission definition. This mission conception fuels our international purposes. As an academic, civil and scientific scholarly community our aim is unswerving pursuit of the highest human excellence. Our goal is a moral vision specifically for the University in the Space Age. There are new horizons of opportunity for humanity in school, in scholarship and in its technological fruits - on a galactic scale previously unimaginable. The vast expanses of Space and of potential territory are visible in the Night Sky. To political economists and leaders of States, Space is the place of New Freedom from constraints of poverty of thought and product. There are astronomical amounts of wealth available to extra-terrestrial humanity. These new sources of wealth and hope are a marvelous tonic for the imagination. For those who are steering the Ship of State, the Astronomical Outlook -- Arthur C. Clarke's The Promise of Space [1960] - offers fresh hope. The Space Promise is potential for new paradigms of dynamic space civilization. Our moral vision pursues this emergent culture not as the limited realm of astronauts and satellites. We advance this vision with sharp, unremitting purpose as enlarged human capacity, a boundless strength and a freshly illuminated science and technology. Our moral vision is neither of ‘Star Wars’ nor of an unexciting and precarious 'Star Peace'. It is a vision which understands peace as the result of strength, strength as the fruit of goodness, goodness as the result of truth pursued in scientific community for benevolent universal purposes. Our moral vision celebrates the courage of the military, and embraces a call to fashion a new military science for the Quantum Era of social and allied sciences and their technologies. Our moral vision is of the new harmony between the courage and sacrifices and ingenuity of the military, and their counterpart among scientists who sacrifice their hypotheses for the sake of more excellent truth. Thus, Kepler Space University's moral vision is of a School Fit for Heroes. Veterans of war, veterans of science, masters of mathematics and economics work hand in hand with the young Scholars and the New Warriors and their Military Academies, with UNESCO and with public and private sector science research programs, in the Space Setting we call Beyond Earth. Kepler Space University's moral vision is to discover, liberate and harness productively the energies, ideals and wisdom of Disabled Veterans, Prisoners of War, and the best imaginative brains currently at work on Planet Earth. In this way, we aim to offer a new prototype for any University. We see that our call is to propagate this new educational archetype through our active membership of international scientific and education associations. We also see our moral energies finding fulfillment in the creation of new and fulfilling careers for veterans -- and high achievement in the pursuit of excellence by the agencies which serve them.

2009-03-18

KSU Department of Finance

2009-03-16T17:57:00.000-04:00

Kepler Space University Department of Finance opens Monday 2/16/9 "The Acceleration of Venture Capital Adventures."

Dear Colleagues,

Happy to announce I just conferred with Kepler Provost Dr. Krone. We are opening for business our Department of Finance on Monday 2/16/9. As is the case of the University of Washington the Department of Finance is situated within the School of Business.

We are launching the Department of Finance with a signature course provisionally called "The Acceleration of Venture Capital Adventures." A fruit of KSU's Department of Finance will be the new International Venture Capital Association - to be run by KSU in association with the National Venture Capital Association, the International Association of University Presidents, and the CA Disabled Veterans Business Entrepreneur's program out of the Office of the Secretary of State in the Arnold Schwarzenegger gubernatorial administration.

I will teach this one myself, although the staff and I will look for two or three employed or unemployed financial professionals from any country as teaching assistants and instructors. We are pricing the course at $1000 for organization or sponsor and the only student groups allowed to participate will be venture capital firms from any country represented by one or more persons whom they send. We will recommend at least two persons from each group, so they can expect to achieve stereoscopic perception of their firm's own fulfilment. There is to be a certain flexibility in the upfront payment [or possibly free tuition with deferred fee as commission on VC's earnings] and negotiations can be done on an individual basis. We propose to recruit 100 organizations with a gross revenue of $100,000 for this course which can span from three minute to three months depending on the participant's progress in remaking their firm.

"The Acceleration of Venture Capital Adventures," will be organized to begin on March 21st and run through the end of Spring, June 20th. In each of the three 'course months' there will be a distinctive emphasis.

First month will be devoted to the history and the emergence of venture capital in general for each student group; second month will be devoted to the present predicament of the US Financial world, and also exploration of prospects and the need for transformation of venture capital. Final, third month will display the different constituent elements of the varieties of venture capital being transformed into more supple and subtle instruments of capital and wealth creation. All will converge in the new International Venture Capital Association - a fruit of KSU's Department of Finance. We will be asking Governor Schwarzenegger to launch the program with Rich Dryden of CA DV BE, so that 10% or more of the income will be devoted to establishing in association with an innovation expert such as Langdon Morris a laboratory of financial innovation for disabled veterans. We will ask Ted Schlain, president of the National Venture Capital Association, to send a proxy to accept a free enrolment as our 'loss leader'. We will also ask Barham Madain Ayub, president of the International Association of University Presidents [IAUP] , to send a proxy to accept a free enrolment as our 'loss leader'. I append*** a recent interview with our new friend-to-be, Professor Barham Madain Ayub of Chile - Current President of IAUP (2008-2011). Please read it!

Recruitment of customer-collaborators will be supervised by Dan Shaw with powerful financial incentives for him. The marketing and sales will commence February 23rd, when Dan returns from a short trip to Oregon dentistry. With as few as 5-10 participants the course can begin on an a-synchronous basis. Later participants can begin in the first of each month commencing April 1st. Targeted customer-collaborator firms will be hand-picked by me.

My thanks to Barbara G. Frost for rendering the first draft of this document into intelligible sentences.

By executive order

Richard Kirby, Ph.D, President

428pm pst 2/13/09
Edmonds, Wa.

***Barham Madain Ayub
Current President of IAUP (2008-2011) What have the benefits been for you since joining IAUP? Barham: It means a lot of new knowledge that is happening in the world. A lot of new thoughts about cultural development affairs, and relations with higher educational leaders or presidents of very well known universities. So it has been a very good experience to learn more and to be a better president. This kind of international organization has some political goals like reaching peace and development through education. This of course, represents a good way to make this desire of internationalization real. I think one of the main interests to join is you can have some kind of way to concrete your social responsibility for the world and open opportunities for your instituition.
When you look around the world does IAUP's motto "Peace, Welfare and Security through Education" seem more difficult to attain?
Barham: You can only make changes through education and sharing values or progress and peace so that's the chain of education. Peace and process. IAUP is a form of ideas and relations between all universities that represent the force of a higher education system throughout the world. If we are one thousand or two thousand universities in the world we can become a voice to political leaders, international organizations, United Nations, the World Bank, and Ministers of Education.
Today we are all the same. Today we have problems in the states. Subprime mortgages. The banks are broke. And we have this problem all over the world. We are all happy about the election Of Obama. We see this man as a hope and change of mind. And that in someway represents that we are all in the same boat. Right now it's important who the President of the United States is. And who the President of China is too and what's happening in the political process of China.
How is the connection between IAUP and China?
Barham: China is more open today to world relations. We have the South Asian council. We had an executive committee meeting two years ago in Kunming China, and we learned a lot about the Chinese University System. We know they have ten percent as exchange students and they want to raise that number to twenty percent or more which means a lot more students. If you think China has grown ten percent per year even though there is a recession.....that's around 1 billion people. This represents the world no doubt about that.
A lot of people in China are interested in learning Spanish. Its very important to us here in Latin America to recognize this developing world and to see our opportunities for over there. And I think this is the basis of all that is education and what we are doing. We need to educate our people somehow with this view, not only our university students but middle school students and our population in general.
These kind of international organizations that have some political goals like to reach peace and development through education. They of course, represent a good way to make this desire of internationalization real.
What about Africa and IAUP?
Barham: We have a big interest in African universities and are working on projects as we speak. The last thing we did was this commission of a working group for improving connectivity and technology with African universities. It was a program led by universities in Denmark and Africa. We have a lot of interest in helping to improve the quality of education in Africa. Today we are trying to rebuild those links with a university in Angola. To make more meaningful relationships with Africa we need money and one of our goals in this three year period as president of IAUP is to see if there are any private or public foundations that can help to raise new profits to help in the development of Africa.
And helping the United Nations in the "Academic Impact" program. This seeks to teach the African students in the world that we are asking for help from our members to sponsor two African universities by paying their membership fee for them through IAUP. Africa is a way of making concrete programs for IAUP from the point of view in development. Since IAUP is globalized, Latin American universities or any other have a way to touch such international issues. This is extremely valuable in this day and age.
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 12:44 PM, <BobKrone@aol.com> wrote:
Langdon, this is an update on Kepler Space University and an invitation for you to chat with President Rich Kirby about mutual collaboration.

You can see from the signature block that Kepler Space University has existed in concept for decades and in operations since 1 January 2009.

Since Rich Kirby has spent his professional life in innovating everything he chooses to address, I referred him to your website. He immediately called with his usual leap forward.... this one into his creating a course within the Kepler system (we already have several courses initiated through the Ashburn University Learning Management System) which will enroll scholars from Venture Capital firms for the purpose of achieving Financial Innovation for those firms and for their clients.

Since collaborating expertise is one stepping stone to success, if you are interested in discussing possibilities for Innovative Labs - Kepler Space University futures, Rich's e-mail is at the CC and his phone is:

206-446-0888

Warmest Regards,

Bob

Welcome to KSU Blog

2009-03-12T20:11:00.000-04:00

Dear Colleagues,

As discussed in KSU Council, my enunciation of the scientific philosophy of the Office of the President of KSU will necessarily take the form of a paradigm-defining treatise of philosophical syntax in mathematical garb, to empower our financial and heuristic efforts 'across the board'.

Discussions today with AKE, WSB and BK have allowed me to commit my time and thought as follows: probably the Opus will take the form a Treatise or Tractatus on the New Mathematical Principles of Human Philosophy, as I've said before, thus harmonizing three lines of descent from Newton, Spinoza and Kant - Mathematical theology and ideal philosophy.....for foundations of the mathematical sciences of wealth creation, peace sciences and sci-tech industries.

The result has to be done fast and concisely to serve our urgent need. I envision therefore a short book of 35000 words laid out somewhat like Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus, with a minimum - though not an absence - of technical and 'higher' mathematics. The reason I can use this Wittgenstein idiom is that I wrote a first draft of this as an unpublished book in 1974 - a treatise on mathematical philosophy of creativity, novelty etc using some complex recursive principles. I have keep the ms. carefully for 35 years and now its philosophical syntax is ready to hatch. [Thoreau]

Now, the real and final version - for which that was preparation. KSU's need is my spark to the powder keg of decisive inspiration. I have decided that I must, as it were, to hold my breath and do it by March 21 latest, with probably six research assistants, stenographers and scribes decking it out in the finest apparel of scholarship. The method of composition will be akin to that which I or any present or former university math dept head can achieve if all the grad students are seconded to this urgent task. And it is indeed the mathematico-moral foundations of the mathematical and moral sciences and arts of urgency which is our subject. In parallel idiom, I may say that this is a call to all mathematicians to do "Our Utmost for His Highest". The 'Divine Madness" of mathematics of which Morris Kline wrote in Mathematics: the Decline of Certainty can be the fuel for the birth of astronomical sanity on the beleaguered Planet Earth from its Beyond of Prospective Peace Communities. And this is the high purpose of our University, dear colleagues.

The presence of 35 or so modules in a 35,000 word text points to an average of 1000 words per module. This requires compressed thought - but that is no bad thing for ones accustomed to think in terms of axioms, theorems and postulates. The writing target of completion in eight weeks calls for a steady output by me and concerted work with the assistants. This rhythm of creativity should set a pace for many arenas of KSU work and cultural life.

Our university is well named, as this book is timed to celebrate the quatercentenary of Johannes Kepler's Astronomia nova, published in 1609.
Follows here* a sketch of the First Edition

*{ Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica Nova
Tractatus Mathematico-Philosophicus}

The New Mathematical Principles of Human Social Philosophy

by Richard S. Kirby Ph.D
President, Kepler Space University

Foreword by Bob Krone, Ph.D. The 2009 International Year of Astronomy and Kepler Space University commemorate the 400th anniversary of Johannes Kepler's Astronomia nova.

Author's Preface: The Global Warming of the Mathematical Career

Section I: Background and Foreground Modules I, 1-10

1 Universal mathematics - an historical interdisciplinary perspective
2 Descriptions of global disorder and the Human Predicament
3 Bob Krone's Beyond Earth and the Hypercosmical Reality
4 Modern and post-modern Theories of Ethics: Kant, Stapledon, Derrida
6 Cosmologies, astronomies and mathematical philosophies juxtaposed for the new Astronautics
7 The significance of Science Fiction and its shapes of Things to Come in Future Science Fiction
8 The mathematics of Peace - and War - in the Many-Worlds Hypothesis of Quantum Science
9 Economics as system and science, ideology, profession
10 The moral ruin of financial mathematics and its cures in the Multiverse

Section II: New Instruments of Thought for Mathematicians Modules II, 1-12

1 Empiricism reviewed: new potencies off hypothetic-deductive method
2 Cybernetics
3 Set theory and model theory
4 The Infinite and the Absolute Ideal
5 Mathematical theology
6 Sociology of Mathematics
7 Mathematical Associations - national
8 Mathematical Associations - international
9 Computer sciences and AI, Moral Intelligence, Hype-intelligence, high IQ Societies - past, present and future
10 Mathematical arts, poetics, experimental aesthetics
11 The Business of Mathematics and the Mathematics of Government: the Pursuit of Excellence re-defined
12 Educational, social and financial innovation

Section III: Principiae Mathematica Novae Modules III, 1-12

1 Universal Arithmetic - the populist face of Number Theory vs. 'Aristocratic Mathematics'
2 Universal Al-gebra, world religions and spiritualities and spiritual civilization building
3 Universal Geometry and non-Euclidean experimental social cosmologies
4 Universal Mathematics as the Language of world science and UNESCO
5 Universal Mathematical Philosophy as the fulfillment of 'scientific philosophy'
6 Universal Mathematical Finance as the architecture of banking science and Treasury designs
7 Universal Academic Administration Mathematics and the hyper-cosmical university
8 The Anthropic Cosmological Principle restated as a principle of moral profit and vigorous peace
9 The Urgency of Mathematical Genius beyond its limits
10 Mathematical Quantum Theories restated for Political Science and Government
11 Mathematical languages and experimental sociolinguistics: the basic grammar of mathematical invention
12 The first concerns and communities of the Mathematicians and Moral Leaders of the New Absolute Idealism

Afterword by Moshe Dror, Ph.D.
Appendices
References
Bibliography
Subject index
Name index

Richard S. Kirby Ph.D
President Kepler Space University