The Voice before the Void: Arcana, Story, Poetry

“The matter is not settled.”

“Ortega hypothesis”

Wikipedia

The Ortega hypothesis holds that average or mediocre scientists contribute substantially to the advancement of science. According to this hypothesis, scientific progress occurs mainly by the accumulation of a mass of modest, narrowly specialized intellectual contributions. On this view, major breakthroughs draw heavily upon a large body of minor and little-known work, without which the major advances could not happen.

1. Citation research

The Ortega hypothesis is widely held, but a number of systematic studies of scientific citations have favored the opposing “Newton hypothesis,” which says that scientific progress is mostly the work of a relatively small number of great scientists (after Isaac Newton’s statement that he “stood on the shoulders of giants”). The most important papers mostly cite other important papers by a small number of outstanding scientists, suggesting that the breakthroughs do not actually draw heavily on a large body of minor work. Rather, the pattern of citations suggests that most minor work draws heavily on a small number of outstanding papers and outstanding scientists. Even minor papers by the most eminent scientists are cited much more than papers by relatively unknown scientists; and these elite scientists are clustered mostly in a small group of elite departments and universities. The same pattern of disproportionate citation of a small number of scholars appears in fields as diverse as physics and criminology.

The matter is not settled. No research has established that citation counts reflect the real influence or worth of scientific work. So, the apparent disproof of the Ortega hypothesis may be an artifact of inappropriately chosen data. Stratification within the social networks of scientists may skew the citation statistics. Many authors cite research papers without actually reading them or being influenced by them. Experimental results in physics make heavy use of techniques and devices that have been honed by many previous inventors and researchers, but these are seldom cited in reports on those results. Theoretical papers have the broadest relevance to future research, while reports of experimental results have a narrower relevance but form the basis of the theories. This suggests that citation counts merely favor theoretical results.

2. The name

The name of the hypothesis refers to José Ortega y Gasset, who wrote in The Revolt of the Masses that “astoundingly mediocre” men of narrow specialties do most of the work of experimental science. Ortega most likely would have disagreed with the hypothesis that has been named after him, as he held not that scientific progress is driven mainly by the accumulation of small works by mediocrities, but that scientific geniuses create a framework within which intellectually commonplace people can work successfully. For example, Ortega thought that Albert Einstein drew upon the ideas of Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach to form his own synthesis, and that Einstein did not draw upon masses of tiny results produced systematically by mediocrities. According to Ortega, science is mostly the work of geniuses, and geniuses mostly build on each other’s work, but in some fields there is a real need for systematic laboratory work that could be done by almost anyone. The name “Ortega hypothesis” refers only to this last element of Ortega’s theory, not the main thrust of it. Ortega characterized this latter type of research as “mechanical work of the mind” that does not require special talent or even much understanding of the results, performed by people who specialize in one narrow corner of one science and hold no curiosity beyond it.

U.S. Inauguration Day:

“All the multiple manifestations of a free and democratic society fail of their predicted issue, and we find ourselves lapped in confusion and numb with disappointment and chagrin.”

“Why We Do Not Behave Like Human Beings”

Ralph Adams Cram

The Ancient doctrine of progressive evolution which became dominant during the last half of the nineteenth century, was, I suggest, next to the religious and philosophical dogmas of Dr. Calvin and the political and social doctrines of M. Rousseau, the most calamitous happening of the last millennium. In union with Protestantism and democracy, and apparently justified in its works by the amazing technological civilization fostered by coal, iron, steam and electricity, it is responsible for the present estate of society, from which there is no escape, it would seem, except through comprehensive calamity.

I state my thesis thus bluntly in order to get it over with. Its justification as well as its implications I shall now expound as best I can.

Let me say that I was born and bred in the briar-patch of this same progressive evolution. By the time I was of age I had read all of Spencer’s “Synthetic Philosophy” as well as the greater part of the writings of Darwin, Tyndal and Huxley, though, fortunately I believe, with a strong admixture of Ruskin, Emerson, Matthew Arnold and Carlyle, the latter group acting as a counter-agent that became operative and dominant after the passage of years.

Now the point I make is that the entire scheme was based on what was then a very partial and limited knowledge of geological, biological and anthropological facts and on a particularly faulty deductive process, whereby the nature of man, his period of existence in time and space, his relationship to other forms of life, his inherent potency and his ultimate destiny were gravely misinterpreted, with the result that during the last century he has been possessed by “delusions of grandeur” that have made it impossible for him justly to estimate his own acts, to acquire a right standard of values, or consciously to provide against the issue of his own follies and parlous courses.

According to the old doctrines of my youth, now showing so thin and thread-bare, man was the crown of an immemorial sequence of inevitable and even mechanical development from lower to higher, engineered by myriads of small upward steps from primeval slime through one vertebrate to another, through femur and anthropoid ape to homo sapiens, Paleolithic and Neolithic man, to the Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman and their successors, ever in an ascending line, to the glorious product of the Victorian era. As there had always been a constant, though intermittent upward progress to this delectable event, so, logically, this must continue indefinitely with an ever extending horizon of ever increasing glory and honour.

The prospect was alluring and it is no wonder that it was accepted with avidity. Coming in the midst of a bewildering epoch of discovery, invention and material aggrandizement, almost, though by no means quite, equal to that that we now know, occurred between 4000 and 3500 B.C., it gave a cachet of sublimity to events then transpiring and fixed the assurance that, as it was then most erroneously assumed, the Greeks were greater than the Egyptians, the Romans than the Greeks, the Renaissance than Hellenism. (They naively slurred over the thousand years of Christian civilization as an anomalous retrogression made amends for by the sixteenth century recovery.) Therefore, and inevitably, the new era of Protestantism, democracy and industrialism must be better than the Renaissance, with God knew what of glory in the proximate future if only all those things going strong were pushed to the limit and the old and outworn things relentlessly cast aside.

As I say then,

What a great poem.

-The Voice before the Void

“A Late Good Night”

Robert Fuller Murray

My lamp is out, my task is done,

And up the stair with lingering feet

I climb. The staircase clock strikes one.

Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!

My solitary room I gain.

A single star makes incomplete

The blackness of the window pane.

Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!

Dim and more dim its sparkle grows,

And ere my head the pillows meet,

My lids are fain themselves to close.

Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!

My lips no other words can say,

But still they murmur and repeat

To you, who slumber far away,

Good night, my love! good night, my sweet!

Thirty years old.

-The Voice before the Void

“Robert Fuller Murray”

Wikipedia

Robert Fuller Murray (1863–1894), was a Victorian poet. Although born in the United States, Murray lived most of his life in the United Kingdom, most notably in St Andrews, Scotland. He wrote two books of poetry and was published occasionally in periodicals.

Murray was born 26 December 1863 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, son of Emmeline and John Murray, the latter a Scotsman and a Unitarian minister. In 1869 his father took him to Kelso and from that point on, except for a brief visit to Egypt, he stayed in the U.K. He attended grammar school in Ilminster and Crewkerne and in 1881 he entered the University of St Andrews. In 1886 his father died. He worked for a while assisting John M.D. Meiklejohn, Professor of the Theory, History, and Practice of Education at the University of St Andrews, and contributed some poems to the school newspaper. In 1889 he left St Andrews and worked in Edinburgh at low-level journalism, including a period of employment at the Scottish Leader. He began to have frequent bouts of colds. In 1890 he returned to St Andrews, where he contributed occasionally to Longman’s Magazine. At this point it became clear he had the beginnings of “consumption” (likely tuberculosis). In 1891 he went to Egypt, but his stay was short as he disliked it. He again returned to St Andrews, and his first book, The Scarlet Gown, was published. His second book, Robert F. Murray: His Poems with a Memoir, was published in 1894 after his death. The volume includes a lengthy biographical introduction by Andrew Lang. In attempting to place Murray in the context of his contemporaries, Lang wrote:

…the Victorian age produced Scottish practitioners of the art of light verse who are not remembered as they deserve to be. Lord Neaves, perhaps, is no more than a ready and rollicking versifier, but George Outram is an accomplished wit, and Robert Fuller Murray a disciple of Calverley who might well have rivalled his master had death not taken him while still in his pupilage.

Xmas:

The most glorious misanthrope, Bierce, gives the best holiday greetings.

-The Voice before the Void

“A Social Call”

Ambrose Bierce

Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you,

With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue?

Less redness in the nose—nay, even some blue

Would not, I think, particularly hurt you.

When seen close to, not mounted in your car,

You look the drunkard and the pig you are.

No matter, sit you down, for I am not

In a gray study, as you sometimes find me.

Merry? O, no, nor wish to be, God wot,

But there’s another year of pain behind me.

That’s something to be thankful for: the more

There are behind, the fewer are before.

I know you, Father Christmas, for a scamp,

But Heaven endowed me at my soul’s creation

With an affinity to every tramp

That walks the world and steals its admiration.

For admiration is like linen left

Upon the line—got easiest by theft.

Good God! old man, just think of it! I’ve stood,

With brains and honesty, some five-and-twenty

Long years as champion of all that’s good,

And taken on the mazzard thwacks a-plenty.

Yet now whose praises do the people bawl?

Those of the fellows whom I live to maul!

Why, this is odd!—the more I try to talk

Of you the more my tongue grows egotistic

To prattle of myself! I’ll try to balk

Its waywardness and be more altruistic.

So let us speak of others—how they sin,

And what a devil of a state they ‘re in!

That’s all I have to say. Good-bye, old man.

Next year you possibly may find me scolding—

Or miss me altogether: Nature’s plan

Includes, as I suppose, a final folding

Of these poor empty hands. Then drop a tear

To think they’ll never box another ear.

Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler Incident Anniversary:

War is a crime and war stories are horrific, but any story of mercy is a great story; any story that humanizes an enemy is a great story; and any story of friendship is a great story. This story is triply great.

-The Voice before the Void

“Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident”

Wikipedia

The Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident occurred on the 20th of December, 1943, when, after a successful bomb run on Bremen, 2nd Lt. Charles “Charlie” Brown’s B-17 Flying Fortress (named “Ye Olde Pub”) was severely damaged by German fighters. Luftwaffe ace Franz Stigler had the opportunity to shoot down the crippled bomber, but for humane reasons, he decided to allow the crew to fly back to England. After an extensive search by Brown, the two pilots met each other over 40 years later and developed a friendship that lasted until Stigler’s death in March 2008.

1. Pilots

2nd Lt. Charles L. “Charlie” Brown (“a farm boy from Weston, West Virginia,” in his own words) was a B-17F pilot with the 379th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces’ 8th Air Force, stationed at RAF Kimbolton in England. Franz Stigler, a former airline pilot from Bavaria, was a veteran Luftwaffe fighter pilot attached to Jagdgeschwader 27; at the time, he had 22 aerial victories to his name and would be eligible for the coveted Knight’s Cross with one more downed enemy bomber.

2. Bremen mission

The mission was the Ye Olde Pub crew’s first and targeted the Focke-Wulf 190 aircraft production facility in Bremen. The men of the 527th Bombardment Squadron were informed in a pre-mission briefing that they might encounter hundreds of German fighters. Bremen was guarded by 250 flak guns, operated by the elite Officer Candidate School of gunners. Brown’s crew was assigned to fly “Purple Heart Corner,” a spot on the edge of the formation that was considered especially dangerous.

Bomb run

Brown’s B-17 began its 10-minute bomb run at 8,300 m with an outside air temperature of −60 °C. Before the bomber released its bomb load, accurate flak shattered the Plexiglas nose, knocked out the number two engine, and further damaged the number four engine, which was already in questionable condition and had to be throttled back to prevent overspeeding. The damage slowed the bomber and Brown was unable to remain with his formation and fell back as a straggler – a position from which he came under sustained enemy attacks.

Attacks by fighters

Brown’s straggling B-17 was now attacked by over a dozen enemy fighters (a mixture of Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Focke-Wulf Fw 190s) of JG 11 for over 10 minutes. Further damage was sustained, including damage to the number three engine, which would produce only half power (meaning that the aircraft had at best 40% of its total rated power available). The bomber’s internal oxygen, hydraulic, and electrical systems were also damaged, and the bomber lost half of its rudder and its port elevator, as well as its nose cone. Many of the gunners’ weapons then jammed, probably as a result of improper pre-mission oiling, leaving the bomber with only two dorsal turret guns and one of three forward-firing nose guns (from eleven available) for defense. Most of the crew were wounded: the tail gunner, Eckenrode, had been killed by a direct hit from a fighter shell, while Yelesanko was critically wounded in the leg by shrapnel, Pechout had been hit in the eye by a shell fragment, and Brown was wounded in his right shoulder. The morphine syrettes onboard froze, complicating first aid efforts by the crew, while the radio was destroyed and the bomber’s exterior heavily damaged.

Franz Stigler

Brown’s damaged bomber was spotted by Germans on the ground,

Seems legit.

“Acámbaro figures”

Wikipedia

The Acámbaro figures are several thousand small ceramic figurines allegedly found by Waldemar Julsrud in July 1944, in the Mexican city of Acámbaro, Guanajuato. The figurines are said by some to resemble dinosaurs and are sometimes cited as anachronisms. Some young-Earth creationists have adduced the existence of figurines as credible evidence for the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans, in an attempt to cast doubt on scientific dating methods and potentially offer support for a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative.

However, there is no known reliable evidence for the validity of the Acámbaro figures as actual ancient artifacts; and many have questioned the motives of those who argue for their validity.

1. History

The Acámbaro figures were uncovered by a German immigrant and hardware merchant named Waldemar Julsrud. According to Dennis Swift, a young-Earth creationist and major proponent of the figures, Julsrud stumbled upon the figures while riding his horse and hired a local farmer to dig up the remaining figures, paying him for each figure he brought back. Eventually, the farmer and his assistants brought him over 32,000 figures which included representations of everything from the supposed dinosaurs to peoples from all over the world including Egyptians, Sumerians, and “bearded Caucasians.”

The figures attracted little attention from scholars and scientists, and when Julsrud began to assert that they were accurate representations of dinosaurs created by an ancient society, he only alienated himself further from serious scientific investigation. Tabloids and popular media sources covered the story, however, and the figures steadily became somewhat famous.[citation needed]

Archaeologist Charles C. Di Peso was working for the Amerind Foundation, an anthropological organization dedicated to preserving Native American culture. Di Peso examined the figures and determined that they were not authentic, and had instead been produced by local modern-day farmers.

“He concluded that the figurines were indeed fakes: their surfaces displayed no signs of age; no dirt was packed into their crevices; and though some figurines were broken, no pieces were missing and no broken surfaces were worn. Furthermore, the excavation’s stratigraphy clearly showed that the artifacts were placed in a recently dug hole filled with a mixture of the surrounding archaeological layers. Di Peso also learned that a local family had been making and selling these figurines to Julsrud for a peso apiece since 1944, presumably inspired by films shown at Acámbaro’s cinema, locally available comic books and newspapers, and accessible day trips to Mexico City’s Museo Nacional.”

-Pezatti, Alex (2005). “Mystery at Acámbaro, Mexico”. Expedition Magazine. 47(3):7-8. University of Pennsylvania Museum.

Others, however, argued that Di Peso could not have conducted a thorough investigation in the four hours he spent at Julsrud’s home. Charles Hapgood, pioneer of pole shift theory, became one of the figures’ most high profile and devout supporters.

Worth listening twice.

-The Voice before the Void

“Body Ritual among the Nacirema”

Horace Mitchell Miner

Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style. A single value or pattern of perceiving the world often leaves its stamp on several institutions in the society. Examples are “machismo” in Spanish-influenced cultures, “face” in Japanese culture, and “pollution by females” in some highland New Guinea cultures. Here Horace Miner demonstrates that “attitudes about the body” have a pervasive influence on many institutions in Nacirema society.

The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different people behave in similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. In fact, if all of the logically possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere in the world, he is apt to suspect that they must be present in some yet undescribed tribe. The point has, in fact, been expressed with respect to clan organization by Murdock. In this light, the magical beliefs and practices of the Nacirema present such unusual aspects that it seems desirable to describe them as an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go.

…

Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which has evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the people’s time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these labors and a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people. While such a concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique.

The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man’s only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of ritual and ceremony. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses. Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls.

While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me.

The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live. These preparations are secured from a variety of specialized practitioners. The most powerful of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must be rewarded with substantial gifts. However, the medicine men do not provide the curative potions for their clients, but decide what the ingredients should be and then write them down in an ancient and secret language. This writing is understood only by the medicine men and by the herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm.

The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but is placed in the charmbox of the household shrine. As these magical materials are specific for certain ills, and the real or imagined maladies of the people are many, the charm-box is usually full to overflowing.

“Obligaciones que no se quieren cumplir…”

http://www.poemas-del-alma.com/blog/mostrar-poema-1211

“Train of thoughts”

Alsazzi Terrato

translated from the Spanish by the author and The Voice before the Void

Houseplants, “well trimmed nails.”

street and documents… a little Dr. Pepper over sterile soil…

blind men and federales…

red Mustang, torn bills and blood… dried blood on leather seats…

moss and stones. A familiar voice… your lies are old…

but you tell them very well… and all seems unreal…

the unreality makes all the things seem real…

sad luck.

Old ships, deception and French men.

A little Chopin to cheapen life,

Vietnam on the walls and Montevideo on the mind…

alfajores* and a fistful of pine nuts…

later than one in the morning and the laughter has ended,

canyons in the distance, in the past, roaring… and still deafening us…

in this solitude all is cold…

the bags of garbage, the light of the television, the smoke of incense

and even the occasional maulings of a cat.

Cold feet even though one finds oneself covered to the head…

itch on the nape of the neck and flowers recently sent, without a sender… without a purpose.

obligations that one does not want to fulfill and rejection of oblivion…

pizza in an orange place,

cola poured in transparent plastic cups,

ice cracking in tepid liquid,

now Italians talking of Lebanon and Mussolini,

black shirts… why not brown…

obligations that one does not want to fulfill,

sudden panic attacks in a world that seems to be too vast…

obligations that one does not want to fulfill,

to sleep… it is better to sleep.

*a marzipan candy of Latin America

“Tren de pensamientos”

Alsazzi Terrato

Plantas, well trimmed nails.

calle y documentos… un poco de Dr. Pepper sobre tierra estéril…

ciegos y federales…

Mustang rojo, billetes rotos y sangre… sangre seca sobre asientos de piel…

musgo y piedras. Una voz conocida… tus mentiras son viejas…

pero las dices muy bien… y todo parece irreal…

lo irreal hace que todas las cosas parezcan reales…

triste suerte.

Barcos viejos, decepción y franceses.

Un poco de Chopin para abaratar la vida,

Vietnam en las paredes y Montevideo en la cabeza…

alfajores y un puñado de piñones…

mas de la una de la mañana y se terminaron las risas,

cañones a lo lejos, en el pasado, rugiendo… y aún siguen ensordeciéndonos…

en esta soledad todo es frío…

las bolsas de basura, la luz de la televisión, el humo de incienso

y hasta los maullidos ocasionales de un gato.

Pies fríos aunque uno se encuentre cubierto hasta la cabeza…

comezón en la nuca y flores recién enviadas, sin remitente… sin sentido.

obligaciones que no se quieren cumplir y rechazo al olvido…

pizza en un lugar color naranja,

refresco de cola servido en vasos transparentes de plástico,

hielo crujiendo al cuartearse en líquido tibio,

ahora italianos hablando de Líbano y Mussolini,

camisas negras… porque no mejor cafés…

obligaciones que no se quieren cumplir,

ataques repentinos de pánico en lo que aparenta ser un mundo tan vasto…

obligaciones que no se quieren cumplir,

dormir… mejor es dormir.

“Happy the Man”

Horace

translated from the Latin by John Dryden

Happy the man, and happy he alone,

He who can call today his own:

He who, secure within, can say,

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Be fair or foul or rain or shine

The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.

Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,

But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.