Invictus

I learned the poem in seventh grade English. The our teacher, Mr. Hart, said that he held a thesis that it was actually translated from Latin and originated with Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and that name was also attached to the poem as it appeared on the blackboard. I never found any support for the claim, though the sentiment is clearly aligned to the philosophy of the emperor, philosopher, and soldier who was portrayed by Sir Alec Guiness in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

 

“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley

 

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

 

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

 

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

 

Previously on NecessaryFacts

The Cure for a Failing Empire 

The Influence of Ayn Rand's Objectivism 

The Scientific Method

The Scientific Method (revisited)  

Mortality 

Of Watches and Beaches and Atheists

I patronize the local atheist boutique to buy bumper stickers, pens, pencils, lapel pins, and badges. This one sat on my desk for a couple of weeks. Then, I had a reply. 

Watches only prove that beaches were not designed to be watches. And in fact, as variable as the tides seem to be to us land lubbers, for people who depend on the sea, the tides are more meaningful than an arbitrary clock, no matter how precise and accurate. You go out when the tide is right, not when the clock strikes an hour. 

Do watches prove that trees were not designed? Anything can be used to mark time. If we see a child after some months, we might say, "How you have grown!" Do watches prove that children were not designed?  In the near future, children might very well be more carefully designed than the best watch.

Our clocks are arbitrary. And we are always re-setting them. Timekeeping based on the rotation of the Earth is corrected against atomic clocks based on the vibration of Cesium-133 when excited by a specific wavelength of microwave radiation.  

Cesium Atomic Clock

http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cesium.html

Leap Second

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161228213356.htm

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/space-timekeeping-nasas-sdo-adds-leap-second-to-master-clock

The fallacy goes to the root of arguments for atheism.  You cannot prove a negative assertion. When you try, you run into non-sequiturs.

When something is true, it is provable many ways. (Over 300 proofs are known for the Pythagorean Theorem.) True statements are supported by other truths, and in turn lead to still other truths.  Truths do not come from falsehoods or lead to fallacies. That is the nature of truth.  Furthermore, when a statement is false, it fails in several contexts, not just one. So, attempting to prove that beaches were not created leads to nonsense statements.

The burden of proof for the creation of the universe, the Earth, or us is with anyone who makes the assertion.  Atheism holds only that, so far, no proof has passed the tests of objectivity, i.e., of empirical evidence explained by a logically consistent theory.

It may remain that the universe, the Earth, and we humans are anomalies: objects or events that are observably real (empirically real), but which lack a logically consistent, rational  explanation.  Quasars and tachyons are in that class.  We discover more facts about them as we observe them more often, but we have no consistent theory to explain them.

Also, while it is true that the universe had no creator, the Earth might have.  After all, we build houses, and cities. So, those are two separate questions. The creation of humans might be a third event, not directly related to the origin of the Earth, which was just here with its evolved animals until “someone” tweaked the chromosomes of apes, merging two and making us. 

 

https://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Human_Ape_chromosomes.htm

Be all that as it may – and I have no answers, even for myself – the fact remains that time and tide wait for no man because TIME and TIDE derive from the same root word. In the theoretical construct language “Indo-European” (spoken by our Caucasian ancestors about 6000 years ago),  dã-(i) meant “to part” or “divide.”  In modern German, the word for TIME is ZEIT, which is obviously close to TIDE. And in modern English, we still have archaic words such as Yuletide and eventide. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Imaginary Numbers are Real - but Pegasus is not
Atheists in Foxholes
god is not great
Kicking Nuns for Fun and Profit

Reflections on the Passing of a Comrade

“Thank you for participating in my cheap substitute for much needed therapy. The tone of my posts is best interpreted if you imagine a can of beer next to my keyboard.” --Fred Bartlett

'Crime is easier than calculus.'
Fred Bartlett

Fred passed away in January.  He was a regular on the Rebirth of Reason and Objectivist Living discussion boards. On OL, he posted as "Frediano."  (His family name had been Americanized from Italian some generations back.) This was his last contribution, placed on OL: 

 Posted 31 December 2014 - 10:04 AM[quoting a previous post to which this was his reply] The practice of homosexuality is jealously protected by secular leftist libertines who regard it as a Holy Sacrament of their political religion. Perhaps.   But my politics are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun.  I view the issue as a primary example of free association, in the most personal and individual sense of free association; the choice of one's life partner.  

I also see the issue as emblematic of what was once also an American principle; that one of the best ways to defend our freedom in this nation is to defend the freedom of our peers.  So, yes, in that political sense-- defense of individual liberty in a free nation, I see it as part of my political religion. Been a 'practicing' heterosexual my whole life.   Practice makes perfect, they say.   Been married to the same woman for decades.   Never been molested.  

I came to know and observe the relationships of adult homosexual couples as a young man, growing up on an island in a river in an industrial town of about 140,000.   Families lived on this island, it was a smaller community within a larger community.   Because of the nature of this island community, it was a place in this town where people could live without being hounded by the crusaders who were imbued with their special righteous concern over the skins and lives of others; you know, freedom eating busybodies.  The adults on this island would hire the kids in the summer to do odd jobs -- like, pour a cement deck or sidewalk or dock,   Work all day, get paid lunch and maybe $2 each.   Standing in the muck in the river, wrangling railroad ties and metal rods to back the cement forms, all kinds of fun.   Not every day; most days we were kids screwing around, and when we did so inappropriately, we'd get yelled at by the adults.   All the adults.  Equally.   Could not tell them apart in any significant fashion at all.   But I remember distinctly -- it was a life lesson -- an incident with one of the 'bachelor' couples.   One of them got sick, kidney problems, hospitalized for a while.   Was critical.  And the anguish and concern in his partner was palpable.  And when his partner recovered and was back home, the relief was palpable as well.    It was clear that these two human beings cared for each other, deeply, like any other pair of human beings I've ever seen on earth.   And in all that time on that island community, I never even heard of a single untowards incident or moment of abuse or molestation.   Maybe the local DIocese was covering up plenty in town at the time, later well documented in the papers,  but not anything I ever personally witnessed or heard of in that island community. 

So, we all have our theories about the choices of others.   Such as, where the deep seated need to crusade against the nobodies business but their own choices of others that has over-run the insane GOP comes from. regards,Fredright wing public secularist advocate of individual liberty and freedom

The Rebirth of Reason discussion board allows approval voting. (Disapproval voting is not an option.)  Fred had garnered 9558 Atlas Points, an impressive sign of appreciation from the community of readers. His writing was often rhapsodic. I asked him about that. He replied that as an engineer, he has to be matter-of-fact in his writing. Writing for Objectivist discussion groups was his chance to kick back and write freely.

It's 1961. I'm 6 years old, and in the kitchen of my buddy, Howie. Howie has a brother, a stay at home mother who is active in the local PTA, and a father who graduated from HS and is a janitor at Beth Steel. Howie's father is standing in the kitchen with one arm around his wife, who is crying and laughing. They are staring at his first weekly take home check that cleared the miracle amount of $100. They live in a clean neighborhood on a tree lined street, they send their kids to a good local school. They think they have just won the lottery.

The day this is happening, JFK's federal budget is $100B, over half of which is for defense at the peak of the cold war. JFK will soon give his speech at Rice, and America the nation, as well as American economies, are about to go on a tear. A nation of inspired youth is about to head off in a hundred million different quests to change the world. As well as the odd adventure in Vietnam. Flash ahead to 2012. The federal government spends over $3600B/yr of the nation's income, not $100B/yr. But where are the stories of joyous janitors and their happy wives crying with joy over bringing home a weekly check in which Dad the HS grad has cleared over $3600/wk?http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Books/0274_1.shtml#20

Fred graduated from Princeton University in 1977, then earned a master's from MIT in 1978. He worked around the world, usually for himself, occasionally hiring others.  

You can read the obituary at the funeral home here.  The notice and replies on Objectivist Living were posted here. The notice and comments on Rebirth of Reason were posted here. Fred wrote a novel, Running Through the Dark. He placed it on RoR in 2012 (read here) before selling it through Amazon. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Reflections on the Passing of Comrades 

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

Claude M. Watson (1922-2013)

The First Dagny

Reflections on the Passing of Comrades

Recently, two Objectivist writers passed away: William Parr, and James Kilbourne.  I knew them tangentially, at best. Their passings were noted on Michael Stuart Kelly’s discussion board, Objectivist Living. 

Bill Parr taught statistics at the China European Institute of Business Studies. Mikee (Michael Erickson) found biographical links online and posted them. 

http://www.ceibs.edu/faculty_c/notice/obituary_en.html

http://www.ceibs.edu/faculty/cv/images/20070316/5413.doc

https://www.linkedin.com/in/billparr

On MSK’s OL, I said this: 

So sad... I feel bitter about not knowing that he passed. Just a couple of general reflections on this if I may...   

1.  Bill was teaching statistics at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai and that was really cool. His CV is, indeed, as Mikee said, "impressive": he four-pointed his graduate and post-graduate degrees at SMU, no mean feat. After working at Harris Semiconductor, the University of Tennessee hired him with tenure - hired in 89, tenured from 90 - also an achievement. He had over 50 original papers and a slew of book reviews and et ceteras go along with that.  He had a life of achievement. His death at such an early age is sad, but no one knows how long they have. One Norn spins; one Norn measures; one Norn cuts; even the gods have no control over Fate.   This is not the first time that I wished I had gotten to know someone better before they died. (I lost a manager in an industrial accident...) And that leads to: 

2.  The paradigmatic downside to all this individualism is that lack of social contact.  That is very American.  We are not the only individualist culture in the world. Even Nigeria has them. But I find this in other social spheres as well. Right now, two of my hobbies are numismatics and astronomy, and while they do embrace large populations with attendant varieties of personality, they tend to attract those who do better with empirical concretes and their abstractions, than with they do with actual living people.  

My other hobby is the Texas State Guard here (or here) on my blog. No one is ever left out there alone. Twice in the last three months, I sat with another guardsman who told a personal story. While he and his family dealt with the grief of loss of a parent or a child, the "details" at the funeral home were "taken care of" and not another word was communicated. Someone knew about their situation and someone else responded. No one is ever left alone -- which has a downside, also.
 I do not know where the middle ground is.  Perhaps it must remain Either-Or.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHY1D0tKRA

James Kilbourne had been active on SOLO: Sense of Life Objectivists before it diverged into two sites, SOLO-HQ and RoR: Rebirth of Reason. James was proximally responsible for the split.  He posted an open letter about the owner of SOLO, Lindsay Perrigo, outing him as an alcoholic.  (As the site owner and moderator Perrigo allowed the post, if for no other reason than to open the discussion about his apparent mood swings.) Kilbourne was gay. It is not a surprise (and perhaps a cliché) that he shared several of Linz’s passions, including the performances of Mario Lanza.

With a great deal of sadness, I just read the following on a Facebook post by a person named Stoney Stone. This was posted on James's own Facebook wall.
 

Stone said

RIP James Gregory Kilbourne. News from Jean today that Jim passed away on Wednesday evening...a heart attack. Jim was a major influence on many of my friends and me in our younger years. He made me think. His spirit will live on in our hearts. — with James Gregory Kilbourne.

For those who don't know anything about James, he was one of Barbara Branden's closest friends.
 

Barbara Branden, on 01 Aug 2006 - 9:43 PM, said:

... James Kilbourne, whom I met eleven years ago on a moonlit terrace in Athens, Greece. A boyfriend once told me a fable that I loved, and I had him tell it again and again. The story was that my friends and I had been born and had lived on Rigel, where we had played, carefree and happy, among the stars. One day, God decided that it was time for us to go to Earth and learn its mysteries. He picked us up in His hands and scattered us over the earth – and from then on, each of us searched always for our lost playmates. In James, I knew almost at once that I had found my playmate from the stars.

Michael Stuart Kelly said: 

He also wrote an article on the old SoloHQ that caused a holy turmoil in online O-Land.Drooling BeastThis article was a catalyst that, from one angle, helped OL come into being. Back then, Barbara said good things about the article and Perigo, one of the site's owners and James's target, reacted with malice and hatred toward her that endures until today, even now that she is gone. Soon after, SoloHQ split into Solo Passion, Rebirth of Reason, and Objectivist Living.
 James was gay, for those who might find value in knowing this. He was open about it, but very low-key as an individual. I had the pleasure of meeting him once. Kat and I visited him with Barbara at his house for dinner. He was charming to the extreme. We even got Kat to listen to some opera.  I communicated with James regularly by email for a while, but eventually we drifted apart.  I always had in the back of my mind to look him up and try to dig further into the delight Barbara found in him. I no longer have that opportunity. The longing remains but James and Barbara now belong to memory. I hope there is an afterlife because I would love to see them playing among the stars and join them.Michael

Then I wrote this:

I saw this yesterday, but was blanking out on it. Another loss.  I remember the storm on SOLO, I did not remember that essay being the start. This is his SOLO (RoR) autobiography:

Quote

"Co-founder (1989) of Custom Training Institute (www.CustomTraining.com), a training company that applies the concept of knowledge engineering to solve a company's information technology challenges. We are survivors of the recent tech depression. I am a passionate lover of life, liberty, and great music, particularly symphonies and operas. Politically, I am a Washingtonian classical republican liberal with Jeffersonian leanings. I am a defender of the real victim, the overlooked innocent, and the truly heroic."

  

His articles covered a range, but he clearly shared several interests and perspectives with Lindsay Perigo, which may explain his concern.  James Kilbourne's SOLO (RoR) articles are here:

http://rebirthofreas...uthor_107.shtml

The first friend I lost was Fred Reenstjerna. Not an Objectivist by any stretch, Fred influenced my intellectual development by challenging me in ways that I never expected. I posted a obituary to Rebirth of Reason here: http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Dissent/0129.shtml

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Public Good Be Damned 

The Virtues of Aviation Culture 

Not Invented Here 
Gregory M. Browne’s Necessary Factual Truths 

ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES

As a philosophical objectivist, I am an admirer of the fiction works of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism. I participate in three discussion boards, Rebirth of Reason, Objectivist Living, and Galt’s Gulch Online. The producers of the Atlas Shrugged movies created Galt’s Gulch to promote the films. With the release of Part 3, the site had over 20,000 subscribers and hundreds of active writers and commenters. Of necessity, many of them are political conservatives, which Ayn Rand was not (here). They tend to receive Atlas Shrugged as a political novel condemning the Obama Administration, and to have less interest in formal philosophy.  

Preparing to evaluate a TXSG dive team
at the TMAR annual drill
April 11, 2015.
Not prior military when I volunteered
on November 22, 2014,
I was enlisted as a Petty Officer Third Class.

Today, contributor Inpuco, a 30-year USMC veteran posted a discussion topic linking to an American Legion article about saving the cross at Mt. Soledad Memorial. A Congressional bill authorized the sale of the federal site to a private association. That shunted aside an on-going lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the Jewish War Veterans. In my reply there, I granted that a privately-owned memorial for Christian soldiers could have a cross if they wanted.

The problem is that Jewish veterans also are buried there. Searching for the string “stein” revealed Col. David G. Epstein (plaque here) Sgt. William Rothstein (plaque here) and Navy Radioman Third Class Herbert A. Steinert (plaque here). Their memorial plaques all display the Magen David. It is easy to find other common Jewish family names. You can see why the Jewish War Veterans called on the ACLU to help remove the cross. It is the only religious symbol, and it dominates the landscape.

We have no easy way to know how many of the others interred were non-believers, freethinkers, agnostics, or atheists. Easily, the US military reflects the general population, with some skews. For instance, southerners are over-represented, and women are far less common. About 21% of the current military force self-identifies as “atheist or no religion.” In the general population, the number is 19%.  (Population Reference Bureau, 2004, Table 5.   cited in Wikipedia “There are no atheists in foxholes” here)

On the Rebirth of Reason website, Byron E. Garcia, posted an essay in 2005, "Atheists in a Foxhole" about his interactions and observations as a hospital corpsman in the US Navy. 

The Military Atheists and Freethinkers is an active association of over 200. Their website provides a wealth of statistical information and reporting.  

“Besides the MAAF members below, keep in mind atheists in foxholes whose stories have been in feature stories and documentaries: Pat Tillman, Afghanistan war Army Ranger and football player, Hans Kasten, WWII POW leader, Phil Paulson, Vietnam Veteran and activist, Kurt Vonnegut, WWII POW and author, Ted Williams, WWII Veteran and baseball player, Ernest Hemingway, WWI Vet and author, Sherwin Wine, Founder of Humanistic Judaism, Major Sidney Excell, who arrested Heinrich Himmler, Bob Kerrey, former Governor and Senator, Navy Seal, and Medal of Honor recipient.” See more at: http://militaryatheists.org.

In response to "there are no atheists in foxholes," Ayn Rand asked: "Who created the foxholes?" Wars are caused by political collectivism, which rests on moral altruism, which is derived from epistemological and metaphysical mysticism. It was the Age of Reason that led to the Enlightenment and capitalism and 100 years (1814-1914) of surprisingly low-level conflicts. It was not perfect, because the capitalism was not firmly grounded, but it indicated a truth we all know: when people can obtain what they want by production and trade, they have no need for war.

Christopher Hitchens is famous for his debates on atheism and his book god is not Great. Significantly, Hitchens also abandoned his former secular religion, Marxism. Ayn Rand, of course, often equated communism and Christianity for their identical moral codes. Rand did claim that Christianity was the first religion to center on the individual. I think that Buddhism was first, but the point remains that loving yourself is antecedent to loving your neighbor.

Also on Necessary Facts

Your State Defense Force

Armies Without Weapons 

Leadership
Peace is More Powerful
Capitalist Culture 

Evolution vs. God

The premise is that Darwinian evolution is unproved and unprovable. It is accepted on faith, passed to students on the authority of professors.   Darwinian evolution has its problems, but this video does not address any of them.  It is a religious tract.

I got the video on the UT campus where they were being handed out.  Packaged as a bait and switch,  Evolution vs. God is a one-sided argument with an assortment of college students and professors. They are neatly boxed in by their own ignorance of Darwinian evolution and their personal failings as moral philosophers.  And, of course, we never see the ones who were not defeated.

Scientists have bombarded fruit flies with radiation for over 100 years, and never created a new species.  However the monsters turn out, they remain fruit flies, apparently still able to breed with others of their kind.  (Institute for Creation Research.)  On the other hand, the Archaeopteryx of the late Jurassic remains factually among several transitional animals between reptiles and birds. Gratefully, we can go swimming without meeting any of the creatures of the Devonian.  What survived is fearsome enough. 

William Smith’s geological map of England was possible only because he relied on the facts of evolution. Simpler forms of the same kind never appear in rock strata higher than more complex forms.  Smith died 20 years before Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species.  

None of that is discussed in this video.  Nor did anyone ask the interviewer what happened to the dinosaurs.  And why do we not find fossil dogs and cats in rocks 150 million years old?

In the nineteenth century, geologists debated catastrophism versus uniformitarianism, and volcanism versus neptunism.  In other words, did the world we know now come about by sudden changes or gradual processes?  Were the primary forces violent explosions or accreting deposits?  Today, we regard those as false dichotomies. 

The debate between Darwinian evolution and Lamarckism may be another false dichotomy.  Epigenetics is the relatively new study of how the environment affects heredity.  The evidence seems compelling – and it seems unlikely that the environment would have no affect, leaving all evolutionary processes at the level of quantum physics.  The easy answer is: “I don’t know.” 

In science we live with our limits.  Science is self-correcting as we work to discover more about the world around us, and put that knowledge into an order that allows predictions.  Religion has no such limits.  They all claim absolute knowledge and – obviously and tragically – disagree about what that absolute truth may be.  Several times near the end, the interviewer (Ray Comfort, the producer) quoted an English translation of the Bible.  Which translation is right?  What happens when they disagree?  And, for that matter, the Qu’ran mentions Jesus about 25 times calling him Messiah and the Son of God.  And the Qu’ran acknowledges Mary as the Virgin and Mother of God.  Yet, somehow Muslims and Christians seem not to get along well. 

Evolution vs. God offers a second thesis: Darwinian evolution allows (even encourages and advocates) immorality.  According to this video, survival of the fittest excuses the harms, crimes, and horrors we perpetrate.  People embrace evolution to avoid following God’s Commandments.  “Are you a good person?” the interviewer asks.  Of course the subjects think well of themselves.  “Have you ever told a lie?”  “Have you ever stolen anything?” "Have you ever had lust in  your heart?" “Have you ever taken God’s name in vain?”  If you stop and think about it, the interviewer is also a sinner, but having accepted Christ’s sacrifice, he does not need to worry about that – or even mention it.  That being as it may, it is not a divine revelation that a selected handful of university undergraduates and professors have no idea what morality is.

All in all, the presentation was no better or worse than Reason TV productions where university students who say they voted for President Obama are happy to sign a petition based on the 1931 Nazi Party election platform. 

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Map that Changed the World

The Origin of What?

Epigenetics and Evolution

God is Not Great