Tomorrow is the last day and I’ll post a draft of the introductory chapter...
Here’s a concept for the cover I made this evening. While writing the introduction I was looking for a good example to explain that the questions you can ask of reality depend on what you believe to exist in reality. The four elements and the four humours are always a good example, but you can read about that later.
The interesting thing is of course that there are five elements in almost all cultures. The Chinese have: wood, fire, earth, metal, water. The Japanese: air/wind, fire, earth, water and void. Pagan: air, water, fire, earth and spirit/soul. The Greek had Æther as the 5th element.
The question of the existence of Æther has been an important subject in physics for a very long time. In short: when something moves in the univers, it has to move relative to something, and this is the Æther. Einstein's theory of relativity appeared to have made the final point against the existence of Æther. Well not quite, because in 1951 the brilliant Paul Dirac who is one of the fathers of modern quantum mechanics publisheda paper in Nature called: “It there an Æther?” in which he suggests there might actually be such a thing!
Ok, I think this it is safe to say it is not a concept, but the real thing, what do you think?
Thank god for the web! I found a quote by Henry Poincaré from the days before 1905, before Einstein's publication on special relativity. He describes the position I think is necessary to advance science, be aware that any theory and ontology is just a means to an end: Trying to understand phenomena. If it turns out you were wrong, well, then you were wrong! What remains however will always be some useful insights, some lawful behaviour or first principles that may be integrated into a new theory or ontology.
Here is the quote from the 1905 translation (out of French from 1889):
“Whether the ether exists or not matters little – let us leave that to the metaphysicians; what is essential for us is, that everything happens as if it existed, and that this hypothesis is found to be suitable for the explanation of phenomena.”
Interesting, I don't know if it is true but: Romance languages call anything German: Al(l)eman (add some diacritics depending on the language), so do the Turks and in fact all arabic languages. In English it’s: German, in Baltic languages and Finnish it’s: Saksa, in Dutch and other Germanic languages, it’s, Deutsch / Duits / Dutsk (Frisian) / Tusk (Norwegian, Swedish), etc.
Now, in the days of the Roman Empire, there were the provinces of Germania (Inferior and Superior). So why did this turn into Allemania for all of southern Europe? The Allemannen were a Germanic tribe. They were pretty annoying for the Romans and eventually stopped the progress of the Roman Empire and conquered the Germanic provinces. So the Romans in a way were “defeated” by the Allemannen and so you name that country after that tribe, logical. For the Baltics this also holds becuse the Saxons, that other Germanic tribe were the bad guys. The Roman province of Britannia, after the fall of the Empire, was conquered by yet some other Germanic tribes (the Angles and the Saxons, hence Anglo-Saxon). So you name your language after the ones who “defeat” you.
Now, France was conquered by the Franks, yet, yet another Germanic tribe. Those guys lived in the lower Rhine delta and around the “Zuyder Zee”, yep the Dutch and Flemish... (Not the Frisians, they held their own territory for a while and had some influence on the English language later on). The Franks went on to become the Merovingian Dynasty, but that is another story that centers around the French region of Orange and the date of the 30th of April (or is it just a coincidence this date is our Koninginnedag?).
So the Franken, Allemannen and Angles and Saxons all spoke kind of the same language. It was called the language of the people and “diutisc” means “of the people” (zum Volk gehörig) in althochdeutsch. Very consistent people, Volkswagen expresses the same idea. But also, Alle Mannen of course means All Men. And then some monks fled to the New World and that’s why the language “Nederlands” is “Dutch” in English (Could this be one of the first American English influences on British English?).
But I digress, back to the robots.
Sometimes you read a scientific paper that really stuns, amazes, infuriates, or inspires you... Sometimes you read a paper that appears to have been sent backwards in time from a distant future...
After I first came across this paper I immediately integrated it into a course I taught (now cancelled due to budget cuts), in which I predicted that soon engineers and technicians would know more about human development, human cognition, human emotion and well, basically everything psychology claims to study than psychologists would.
The reason: engineers and roboticists have long abandoned the idea that the human brain is something like a machine of the computer kind. So have I, so have philosophers of cognitive science, so have the ecological psychologists, but not mainstream psychology, behavioural science or cognitive science. Even the past proponents of the information processing approach admit it was a mistake to think that just increasing computation speed and storage of information would eventually lead to artificial intelligence. It does not, and if it ever will, it will not be an intelligence we will recognize as such.
I used to play a really cool roleplaying game hosted by my brother when I was young called TORG: the possibility wars. Situated in the Near Now, the background was that there were different Cosms or realities invading the Earth to obtain something called possibility energy. If successful they would impose their Axioms and Cosm Laws upon Earth’s reality, or Core Earth (f.i. Magic is possible). North America turned into The Living Lands (stone-age with dinosaurs), South-East Asia into Orrorsh (Horror genre), Egypt into The Nile Empire (Superhero / 1930s pulp genre), France into the Cyberpapacy (Cyber Punk genre), Great Britain / Scandinavia into Aysle (Fantasy genre) and more... Very noticeable changes for the inhabitants of those regions of course. Except for one region: Japan. Japan was invaded by the Nippon Tech cosm (Japanese SF genre). To the Japanese it just seemed that technological advances were happening more quickly than in the rest of the world. Nothing special.
Well, there may be some truth to that... just watch the video below:
What is important to remember is that there is no “pre-programming” of movements. They are all “learned” through perception and action. They even have simulations of fetal and movements in the womb and neonatal movements after birth, where they observe “self-touching” behaviour and very eerie realistic “uncontrolled” goal directed behaviour emerge from out of nowhere. The main reason why I think they are successful is that it is scary! It looks like there is someone inside that suit! Well, there isn’t and what it actually does in terms of movements is not pre-programmed as an algorithm but has developed... much like this cockroach robot that doesn’t have a brain at all (ok a two neuron brain).
On the site of the Asada Project we can read a clear vision of what future research should focus on:
“The 21st century is known as the "Century of the Brain" and will be an era of robot habitation with humans [...] It is important for life sciences in the 21st century to regard the brain as a complete system, and to clarify how brains realize function through interactions with the external world based on its dynamics.”
That is exactly what I (want to) do! It is kind of sad though, that this was also exactly what many great minds since the 60s have wanted to do, but never got the chance and were and are even now ridiculed or just ignored for proposing such ideas...
Well, guess again,
the Near Now... is Now
I’m sure they will eventually be able to Salsa-dance as well
My brother (Dirk Catharinus Johannes Hasselman) is in my grandmothers arms (Edith Ethel Hasselman - von der Pfordten). She was Bavarian nobility and died in 1979 at the age of 90. She was a Sufi. I guess this photograph dates back to 1975 or early1976, because my sister (Edith Olpha Catharina Dorand - Hasselman) was not born yet. Olpha is the name of my fathers first wife (Oplha Helene Lauten) who died of cancer, like my father eventually would. Catharina is the name of mother Ine (Catharina Maria Josefa van Barschot), who gave birth to me a year after she married my much older father, who married her a year after Olpha died. Catherinus Johannes (whom my brother was named after) was my grandfather (Catherinus Johannes Hasselman) who apparently died as a result of being weakened by the “hongerwinter” in Haarlem exactly one month after the Netherlands were liberated.
"Grandmother(left) and Grandfather(right) Hasselman in Glugur Indonesia"
My uncle Jack (also Catherinus Johannes Hasselman), my father, Olpha, my grandmother... they were all in Sumatera, Indonesia when the Japanese invaded. They were all sent to (seperate) civilian camps, except for my uncle Jack who was a soldier at the time, so he was sent to Burma to work on the infamous railway. I’m not sure where the other children were at that time (Charles, Dick and aunt Edith). Jack died recently at the age 92. He would not have allowed me to use the word Japanese, it’s “de Jap” and nothing else. He didn’t think Thailand was a place to spend a vacation and when I mentioned I had to take pills against Malaria he said he had suffered from Malaria 7 times and was still around. I guess that’s how you survive such an ordeal and reach an age of 92, still driving around, painting nudes that sell for 500 euros and basically dying because he could no longer take care of himself anymore after he became immobile. According to himself, he survived because he ate fresh lomboks in the Jungle and the British just wanted chocolate and cigarettes. No, he didn’t speak much about it.
He wasn’t pleased however when not long after 1945, just after having survived Burma, he was called for duty to go back to Indonesia and take part in the infamous “politionele acties”. Family history says my grandmother sent a letter to the Queen asking for my uncle to be relieved of duty. The latter is what happened, the first I can’t confirm. “Vadertje Drees” was also something you would not day when around my uncle.
In the 1950s my father moved to Japan with Olpha. To work there. For the Japanese. Yes... In Japan... ehh... I don’t know... My mother says he said something about not being able to hold a grudge forever. No, he didn’t speak much about it. The grudge and such.
Later he moved to Australia and Brazil where he worked for a toy factory. My uncle Jack never held his moving to Japan against my father and was apparently very close to him. When I last spoke to my uncle he told me my father wasn’t the strongest of the brothers, but could win any fight, partly because he was his mother’s favourite, but mostly because he was “Very sharp... with his tongue”. Apparently he inherited this from his grandfather (Charles Albert von der Pfordten) whom he described as “a great Malteser”.
Which could mean a large version of a usually small lion-like dog or a chocolate sweet.
Well, it is the guy sitting on the bench, with the mustache. Somehow I can see what he was trying to express.
Great-grand family von der Pfordten
Behind him is Fred (Frederick von der Pfordten),
the brother of my grandmother. I was named after him. Or after my father, who was named after him as well. Let’s just say I inherited some of his good looks :)
Where is Fred?
He went to India and was never heard of again.
So said my grandmother.
My cousin Margaret who lives in NY (Mary Margaret Hasselman) told me once she used to be afraid of my grandmother as a child because she was performing strange Sufi rituals all the time. I just remember boterbabbelaars.
She was much older when I was just a child.
Grandma
Searching for Fred I did find a Frederick George vonder Pfordten on the web. It was how I got to the site of Eddee. This Fred was my great-grandfathers brother and one of his children Arthur Reginald von der Pfordten who converted to Islam, was a Japanese POW during WW II and the grandfather of Eddee von der Pfordten who lives in Kuala Lumpur, whom I thank for his site and research!
Baron Freiherr von der Pfordten
Amazing.
We have the same great-great-grandfather: Baron Karl Ludwig Heinrich Freiherr von der Pfordten, professor of Law in Würzburg and Leipzig, minister of culture and foreign minister of Sächsen, foreign minister and two times prime minister of Bavaria:
First time (1849-1859) he resigned because his attempt to create a “third power” between Austria and Prussia failed. He was reinstated by Ludwig II (yeah he was funny in the head) in 1864 and resigned again in 1866 when the Austro-Prussian war was lost. The family was then “kicked out” by Bismarck as the family story goes. I guess they just fled because of the Kaisersbrief and the coming of the first German Reich. (Back) to Maltathat is, where he was a consul to Bavaria and Hanover.
Baron Karl apparently was also controversial in that he played an important role in the acceptance of a bill that gave more rights to Jews in Bavaria. The sharp tongue must have been present then as well:
Speech by great-great-grandfather prof.dr.jur. Baron Freiherr von der Pfrodten
I can’t relate another vdP to Ludwig, but there is also a Theodor von der Pfordten, a Bavarian who participated and died in something called the Hitlerputsch (coup) of 1923. Quite the opposite opinion I would say.
That happens a lot in these families. If you look at the family crests:
Hasselman
The crescent moons mean they participated in one of the crusades. That was against islam, yes. Yet my grandmother was -and a whole new branch of the family are- muslim.
von der Pfordten
I think that’s great! Just wait a couple of centuries and we’ll all change our minds again.
Why Malta? I wonder if it has something to do with this special category in the Malta Genealogy site: Crusade Families
The links to the Hasselman geneology are all from Fred A. Hasselman’s (unrelated) site, but originate from het Nederlands Patriciaat (Hasselman, Betuwe tak). A booklet of genealogies maintained by the Dutch state of families which have played an important role over a period of 150 years in Dutch society: Science, Politics, Culture.
Hendrik Dirk Stephaan Hasselman (www.oranjehotel.org)
There are the Hasselman ministers of Colonies or my grandfather’s brother (General-Major Hendrik Dirk Stephaan Hasselman) who was a member of the stijkelgroep but was arrested and executed in WW II, or the fact that the family used to own a large part of the Grachtengordel in Amsterdam a very long time ago and there were mayors of towns like Tiel and such. I’m in also in the book, so is Fred and Fred as well.
BRP Hasselman major of Tiel
My father was asked by the Bavarian government to take over my grandmothers title when she died, but he didn’t. I guess it’s the same with titles as with grudges: You can’t hold them forever.
A new Hasselman puppy was recently born, Finn. Uncle times 5 now!
Let’s see if we’ll make the Dutch Patricians the next 150 years as well. At least we have some stories to tell about his ancestors.
Anyway, I’m very glad that should we move to Millingen a/d Rijn, I can say my grandmother was from Duffelward (mother’s side: Willems) and my grandfather (mother’s side: Willem Cornelis van Barschot, that’s where the Willem comes from) from Groesbeek. No coats of arms, no patricians, no titles, but a hell of a good taste for picking a place to live. I also would have loved to learn from them about farming and keeping livestock.
...believe in such a thing as a totem animal in the supernatural sense that is...
Because believing is always the easier than knowing
When I met this guy in the picture, I knew, at that very instant, that my totem animal was a sloth. It just popped inside my head, inside my body, inside me. I knew then why people believe such things: Moving so slowly that fungus grows on your fur, chewing on hallucinogenic vines all day, intestines that turn upside down, swimming in a river full of crocodiles... that’s me!
Did I mention I was diagnosed with ADD earlier this year?
At the time I shot and named this picture (gucci dog, because of the necklace), I had no Idea that this little guy's real name actually is (Señor) Gucci and that he is a famous model and has a job in pet store.
We are friends now... well most of the time :)
(Hyves / Facebook users click "bekijk de originele post" or something like it for better display of pics / videolinks / etc.)
"They fuck you up your mum and dad, and if you are writing that is probably a good thing. But if you are planning on writing and they haven't fucked you up, well, you've got nothing to go on, so then they fucked you up good and proper."
Why all that is funny??? mmm... I've had years of training listening to (mostly British) symphonic rock: Let's just say Bennett, like a good sympho-band is able to translate a minor problem like getting through another rainy sunday into a multi-part 20+ minute epic rock-anthem using mostly keen observations, folk psychological reasoning and an amazing mastery of the English language.
