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LAW PUNDIT Friday, January 28, 2005 1/28/2005 07:13:00 PM [Home]
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Jacob Grimm and Law(s)
[What is a good font for blog postings? Our previous posts use the Verdana font. This posting uses Trebuchet. Is it better for reading longer texts? Tell us what you think in the comments if you have an opinion. We may have some more variations in the coming posts.]
Jacob Grimm is one of the most famous scholars to have studied law. Grimm is best known in English-speaking countries for his collection of "Grimm's Fairy Tales". What is lesser known is that Grimm is also remembered in the world of linguistics for having discovered "Grimm's Law", the most famous law in all of linguistics, and for collecting ancient Germanic myths, tales and legends, some of which later came to be known as the "fairy tales" of our childhood (even though many such tales may in fact have some actual historical background).
Interesting is the following analysis of the connection between law and language - between the legal and the linguistic - found at the Wikipedia article on Jacob Grimm, which is almost a verbatim copy of the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica entry on Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm. Note, however, the great amount of work which has gone into creating the Wikipedia links, which the 1911er does not have.
The Wikipedia entry for Jacob Grimm has this paragraph on law and linguistics:
"Although, by the introduction of the Code Napoleon into Westphalia, Grimm's legal studies were made practically useless, he never lost his interest in the scientific study of law and national institutions as the truest exponents of the life and character of a people. By the publication (in 1828) of his Rechtsalterthumer, he laid the foundations of historical study of the old Teutonic laws and constitutions which was continued with brilliant success by Georg L Maurer and others. In this work Grimm showed the importance of linguistic study of the old laws, and the light that can be thrown on many a dark passage in them by a comparison of the corresponding words and expressions in the other old cognate dialects. He also knew how (and this is perhaps the most original and valuable part of his work) to trace the spirit of the laws in countless allusions and sayings which occur in the old poems and sagas, and even survive in modern colloquialisms."
Today, the people of the law should pay more attention to what the linguists are doing, because much of what the linguists are doing is not correct.
Of interest is Grimm's statement that law and national institutions are the truest exponents of the life and character of a people.
How do you change the society of peoples on our planet whose modern and historical character is one of lawlessness and the lack of the rule of law? Is this not the major problem in the Middle East and in other places of strife and conflict on our planet?
What do we do with peoples whose national character is manifested by their bowing down to idols (of religion) or by their allegiance to a rule by men (i.e. to rule by the whims of tyrants or religious despots) rather than by a rule by law? That in our opinion is the major modern problem of the current clash of civilizations.
We would ask: if a nation by the character of its people does not value individual freedom, can we ever really give it to them? or will they always revert back to the tyranny from which we are trying to free them? Perhaps there is no choice available but to act according to the most optimistic of answers, whereas those with a pragmatic bent of mind may be sceptical about the ultimate outcome.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/28/2005 07:13:00 PM
Jacob Grimm and Law(s)
[What is a good font for blog postings? Our previous posts use the Verdana font. This posting uses Trebuchet. Is it better for reading longer texts? Tell us what you think in the comments if you have an opinion. We may have some more variations in the coming posts.]
Jacob Grimm is one of the most famous scholars to have studied law. Grimm is best known in English-speaking countries for his collection of "Grimm's Fairy Tales". What is lesser known is that Grimm is also remembered in the world of linguistics for having discovered "Grimm's Law", the most famous law in all of linguistics, and for collecting ancient Germanic myths, tales and legends, some of which later came to be known as the "fairy tales" of our childhood (even though many such tales may in fact have some actual historical background).
Interesting is the following analysis of the connection between law and language - between the legal and the linguistic - found at the Wikipedia article on Jacob Grimm, which is almost a verbatim copy of the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica entry on Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm. Note, however, the great amount of work which has gone into creating the Wikipedia links, which the 1911er does not have.
The Wikipedia entry for Jacob Grimm has this paragraph on law and linguistics:
"Although, by the introduction of the Code Napoleon into Westphalia, Grimm's legal studies were made practically useless, he never lost his interest in the scientific study of law and national institutions as the truest exponents of the life and character of a people. By the publication (in 1828) of his Rechtsalterthumer, he laid the foundations of historical study of the old Teutonic laws and constitutions which was continued with brilliant success by Georg L Maurer and others. In this work Grimm showed the importance of linguistic study of the old laws, and the light that can be thrown on many a dark passage in them by a comparison of the corresponding words and expressions in the other old cognate dialects. He also knew how (and this is perhaps the most original and valuable part of his work) to trace the spirit of the laws in countless allusions and sayings which occur in the old poems and sagas, and even survive in modern colloquialisms."
Today, the people of the law should pay more attention to what the linguists are doing, because much of what the linguists are doing is not correct.
Of interest is Grimm's statement that law and national institutions are the truest exponents of the life and character of a people.
How do you change the society of peoples on our planet whose modern and historical character is one of lawlessness and the lack of the rule of law? Is this not the major problem in the Middle East and in other places of strife and conflict on our planet?
What do we do with peoples whose national character is manifested by their bowing down to idols (of religion) or by their allegiance to a rule by men (i.e. to rule by the whims of tyrants or religious despots) rather than by a rule by law? That in our opinion is the major modern problem of the current clash of civilizations.
We would ask: if a nation by the character of its people does not value individual freedom, can we ever really give it to them? or will they always revert back to the tyranny from which we are trying to free them? Perhaps there is no choice available but to act according to the most optimistic of answers, whereas those with a pragmatic bent of mind may be sceptical about the ultimate outcome.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/28/2005 07:13:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Wednesday, January 26, 2005 1/26/2005 09:38:00 AM [Home]
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Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #12 - Americas Populated only Recently
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #12.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #12 - Americas Populated only Recently
JARED DIAMOND, Professor, biologist and geographer at UCLA and author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, believes that:
"[H]umans first reached the continents of North America, South America, and Australia only very recently, at or near the end of the last Ice Age."
We Agree.
Diamond also writes:
Every year, discoveries of many purportedly older sites are announced, then to be forgotten. As the supporting evidence dissolves or remains disputed, we're now in a steady state of new claims and vanishing old claims, like a hydra constantly sprouting new heads."
We agree.
The reason, says Diamond, is:
"It makes better newspaper headlines to report "Wow!! New discovery overturns the established paradigm of American archaeology!!" than to report, "Ho hum, yet another reportedly paradigm-overturning discovery fails to hold up.""
We agree.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/26/2005 09:38:00 AM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #12 - Americas Populated only Recently
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #12.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #12 - Americas Populated only Recently
JARED DIAMOND, Professor, biologist and geographer at UCLA and author of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, believes that:
"[H]umans first reached the continents of North America, South America, and Australia only very recently, at or near the end of the last Ice Age."
We Agree.
Diamond also writes:
Every year, discoveries of many purportedly older sites are announced, then to be forgotten. As the supporting evidence dissolves or remains disputed, we're now in a steady state of new claims and vanishing old claims, like a hydra constantly sprouting new heads."
We agree.
The reason, says Diamond, is:
"It makes better newspaper headlines to report "Wow!! New discovery overturns the established paradigm of American archaeology!!" than to report, "Ho hum, yet another reportedly paradigm-overturning discovery fails to hold up.""
We agree.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/26/2005 09:38:00 AM
LAW PUNDIT Sunday, January 23, 2005 1/23/2005 03:54:00 PM [Home]
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Who Rightfully Claims the Holy Land?
Who rightfully claims the Holy Land of the Fertile Crescent?
In the previous posting, we published our "Decipherment of the Megaliths of the Holy Land", showing that these megalithic sites were erected ca. 3000 BC as an astronomically based survey of the land by the megalith builders.
Although the identity of the megalith makers may still be open to question, there is no question that megalithic markers served as boundary stones in ancient days. See Stars Stones and Scholars.
These boundaries were persistent and the owners of lands so marked have retained them for thousands of years, all over the world.
It is quite clear, for example, that the Holy Land was ruled by the Pharaohs of Egypt in the 18th Dynasty prior to the Amarna Period. See The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, p. 233. Pharaonic presence in the Holy Land goes back to the early Dynasties (pp. 65-66, 77-78) and we think that Pharaonic civilization goes hand in hand with the history of the Hebrews.
The Pharaohs Ruled the Holy Land in the 18th Dynasty
Our map above is based on a map found in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, p. 233.
Who were the megalith builders?
Shaw writes (pp. 65-66) that starting with Flinders Petrie, many persons have claimed that Egyptian civilization was founded by a migrating group of people, and we also hold to that view, especially since the recent discovery of "long boats" at Abydos dating to ca. 3000 BC.
Dieter Braasch in his book Pharaonen und Sumerer - Megalithiker aus dem Norden [The Pharoahs and Sumerians - Megalith Builders from the North], analyzes the history of ship-building technology in ancient days and suggests that the boat-building technology used by the Ancient Egyptians to make seaworthy craft had to come from elsewhere originally, even if it were then later developed indigenously. It is also worth mentioning in this regard that the oldest known wooden boats stem from the Baltic Sea ca. 6000 BC.
What about Earlier Periods?
Earlier periods take us back again to the region of Madaba and Amman. We quote from the book Stars Stones and Scholars, p. 19:
One of the earliest centers of civilization in the Ancient Near East is ‘Ain Ghazal, near Amman, Jordan. The archaeological excavation of ‘Ain Ghazal has led to stratified layers of inhabitation representing the following – alleged – chronological time periods.[footnote 33: Gary Rollefson and Zeidan Kafafi, The Town of 'Ain Ghazal, online at http://inic.utexas.edu/menic/ghazal/intro/int.html]
Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (MPPNB) 7250 – 6500 BC
Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB) 6500 – 6000 BC
Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC) 6000 – 5500 BC
Yarmukian Pottery Neolithic 5500 – 5000 BC (?)
Human figurines molded of clay and plaster – which look “Magdalenian” – appear at ‘Ain Ghazal and Jericho at the start of the MPPNB. [footnote 34: To see these figurines, go to http://www.asia.si.edu/jordan/html/jor_mm.htm, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution.] The Yarmukian influx of pottery coincides with "The Flood". Was the end of the MPPNB actually the time of the Flood? Rollefsen and Kafafi write that the end of the pre-pottery period in the Levant was marked by great changes in the settlement of the region. Farming villages in the area of modern Israel and the Jordan Valley were abandoned and migrating populations then surfaced in highland areas, as in Jordan, and certainly some at ‘Ain Ghazal. Was Ghazal the home of the Catals, Gaidels, Gaetuli & the later Cohen Gadols?
Written further at Stars Stones and Scholars (p.23):
"Yosef Garfinkel writes that the term “Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC)” has been coined to deal with the results presented by the period from 6100 to 5600 BC, based on the new stratigraphic evidence from the site ‘Ain Ghazal near Amman, Jordan.
Previously there had been a transition seen from Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the Yarmukian Neolithic Pottery Period, but this division could not deal effectively with the new archaeological finds.
Garfinkel concludes that Yarmukian pottery also at ‘Ain Ghazal and Jericho shows two different styles of workmanship and design and is thus evidence of the presence of two different peoples.
Yarmukian pottery (also spelled Yarmoukian) has been described by E.B. Banning to include decoration with bands in which rows of chevrons are incised [the herring-bone pattern]. [footnote 41: E.B. Banning, University of Toronto, Syllabus, Lecture of February 14, 2001, online at http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~banning/ARH_360files/360Y5.htm.]
The pottery from Jericho IX, which is also called Lodian, on the other hand, is much more a painted pottery type, using diagonal lines and marked by knobs and handles near the rim. [footnote 42: E.B. Banning, ibid.]
Garfinkel writes, most significantly for an accurate understanding of the ancient history of the Near East, that there is a clear geographic distribution of the pottery types. [footnote 43: Yosef Garfinkel, The Yarmukian Culture in Israel, Paleorient 19/1, 1993, pp .115-134, online at http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/archaeology/golan/articl11.htm.]
The incised [geometric] Yarmukian pottery is found in the northern and central areas of present-day Israel, whereas the painted pottery [non-geometric] is found in the southern areas of present-day Israel. This north-south difference continues today.
Boian pottery is like Yarmukian pottery in design. Hence, incised pottery is the pottery of the peoples fleeing the Black Sea Flood. From the point of view of the present book, this means that the “people of the Flood”, the Magdalenians, had arrived in the Near East, catalyzing ancient Near East Civilization. Indeed, the incised herring-bone design is then later found on the artifacts of the Pharaohs."
This would mean that the migrant peoples were seafarers who came from Europe via the Black Sea, a hypothesis substantiated by ancient trade routes ("The Baltic Sea-Vistula-Dnieper-Black Sea water route was one of the most ancient trade-routes, the Amber Road, on which amber and other items were traded from Northern Europe to Greece, Asia, Egypt, and elsewhere") and by the wooden boats from 3000 BC at Abydos.
These boats at Abydos used the following technology:
"After examining the hull section, Dr. Ward ["Dr. Cheryl Ward, a nautical archaeologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee"] said the flat-bottomed boat reflected "a previously undocumented style of construction" for that period. The boat appeared to be built from the outside in, in contrast to the later shipbuilding technique of starting with an internal frame. The thick planks were lashed together by rope fed through mortises. The seams between planks were filled with bundles of reeds to make the boat watertight. Additional reeds carpeted the floor."
Herodotus in his History (Book II) [Herodotus Histories translated into English by G.C. Macaulay] writes about Egyptian boats as follows:
"96. Their boats with which they carry cargoes are made of the thorny acacia, of which the form is very like that of the Kyrenian lotos, and that which exudes from it is gum. From this tree they cut pieces of wood about two cubits in length and arrange them like bricks, fastening the boat together by running a great number of long bolts through the two-cubit pieces; and when they have thus fastened the boat together, they lay cross-pieces[81] over the top, using no ribs for the sides; and within they caulk the seams with papyrus. They make one steering-oar for it, which is passed through the bottom of the boat; and they have a mast of acacia and sails of papyrus. These boats cannot sail up the river unless there be a very fresh wind blowing, but are towed from the shore: down-stream however they travel as follows:--they have a door-shaped crate made of tamarisk wood and reed mats sewn together, and also a stone of about two talents weight bored with a hole; and of these the boatman lets the crate float on in front of the boat, fastened with a rope, and the stone drag behind by another rope. The crate then, as the force of the stream presses upon it, goes on swiftly and draws on the /baris/ (for so these boats are called), while the stone dragging after it behind and sunk deep in the water keeps its course straight. These boats they have in great numbers and some of them carry many thousands of talents' burden."
See also Pharaonic Ships and Boats.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/23/2005 03:54:00 PM
Who Rightfully Claims the Holy Land?
Who rightfully claims the Holy Land of the Fertile Crescent?
In the previous posting, we published our "Decipherment of the Megaliths of the Holy Land", showing that these megalithic sites were erected ca. 3000 BC as an astronomically based survey of the land by the megalith builders.
Although the identity of the megalith makers may still be open to question, there is no question that megalithic markers served as boundary stones in ancient days. See Stars Stones and Scholars.
These boundaries were persistent and the owners of lands so marked have retained them for thousands of years, all over the world.
It is quite clear, for example, that the Holy Land was ruled by the Pharaohs of Egypt in the 18th Dynasty prior to the Amarna Period. See The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, p. 233. Pharaonic presence in the Holy Land goes back to the early Dynasties (pp. 65-66, 77-78) and we think that Pharaonic civilization goes hand in hand with the history of the Hebrews.
The Pharaohs Ruled the Holy Land in the 18th Dynasty
Our map above is based on a map found in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, p. 233.
Who were the megalith builders?
Shaw writes (pp. 65-66) that starting with Flinders Petrie, many persons have claimed that Egyptian civilization was founded by a migrating group of people, and we also hold to that view, especially since the recent discovery of "long boats" at Abydos dating to ca. 3000 BC.
Dieter Braasch in his book Pharaonen und Sumerer - Megalithiker aus dem Norden [The Pharoahs and Sumerians - Megalith Builders from the North], analyzes the history of ship-building technology in ancient days and suggests that the boat-building technology used by the Ancient Egyptians to make seaworthy craft had to come from elsewhere originally, even if it were then later developed indigenously. It is also worth mentioning in this regard that the oldest known wooden boats stem from the Baltic Sea ca. 6000 BC.
What about Earlier Periods?
Earlier periods take us back again to the region of Madaba and Amman. We quote from the book Stars Stones and Scholars, p. 19:
One of the earliest centers of civilization in the Ancient Near East is ‘Ain Ghazal, near Amman, Jordan. The archaeological excavation of ‘Ain Ghazal has led to stratified layers of inhabitation representing the following – alleged – chronological time periods.[footnote 33: Gary Rollefson and Zeidan Kafafi, The Town of 'Ain Ghazal, online at http://inic.utexas.edu/menic/ghazal/intro/int.html]
Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (MPPNB) 7250 – 6500 BC
Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB) 6500 – 6000 BC
Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC) 6000 – 5500 BC
Yarmukian Pottery Neolithic 5500 – 5000 BC (?)
Human figurines molded of clay and plaster – which look “Magdalenian” – appear at ‘Ain Ghazal and Jericho at the start of the MPPNB. [footnote 34: To see these figurines, go to http://www.asia.si.edu/jordan/html/jor_mm.htm, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution.] The Yarmukian influx of pottery coincides with "The Flood". Was the end of the MPPNB actually the time of the Flood? Rollefsen and Kafafi write that the end of the pre-pottery period in the Levant was marked by great changes in the settlement of the region. Farming villages in the area of modern Israel and the Jordan Valley were abandoned and migrating populations then surfaced in highland areas, as in Jordan, and certainly some at ‘Ain Ghazal. Was Ghazal the home of the Catals, Gaidels, Gaetuli & the later Cohen Gadols?
Written further at Stars Stones and Scholars (p.23):
"Yosef Garfinkel writes that the term “Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC)” has been coined to deal with the results presented by the period from 6100 to 5600 BC, based on the new stratigraphic evidence from the site ‘Ain Ghazal near Amman, Jordan.
Previously there had been a transition seen from Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the Yarmukian Neolithic Pottery Period, but this division could not deal effectively with the new archaeological finds.
Garfinkel concludes that Yarmukian pottery also at ‘Ain Ghazal and Jericho shows two different styles of workmanship and design and is thus evidence of the presence of two different peoples.
Yarmukian pottery (also spelled Yarmoukian) has been described by E.B. Banning to include decoration with bands in which rows of chevrons are incised [the herring-bone pattern]. [footnote 41: E.B. Banning, University of Toronto, Syllabus, Lecture of February 14, 2001, online at http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~banning/ARH_360files/360Y5.htm.]
The pottery from Jericho IX, which is also called Lodian, on the other hand, is much more a painted pottery type, using diagonal lines and marked by knobs and handles near the rim. [footnote 42: E.B. Banning, ibid.]
Garfinkel writes, most significantly for an accurate understanding of the ancient history of the Near East, that there is a clear geographic distribution of the pottery types. [footnote 43: Yosef Garfinkel, The Yarmukian Culture in Israel, Paleorient 19/1, 1993, pp .115-134, online at http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/archaeology/golan/articl11.htm.]
The incised [geometric] Yarmukian pottery is found in the northern and central areas of present-day Israel, whereas the painted pottery [non-geometric] is found in the southern areas of present-day Israel. This north-south difference continues today.
Boian pottery is like Yarmukian pottery in design. Hence, incised pottery is the pottery of the peoples fleeing the Black Sea Flood. From the point of view of the present book, this means that the “people of the Flood”, the Magdalenians, had arrived in the Near East, catalyzing ancient Near East Civilization. Indeed, the incised herring-bone design is then later found on the artifacts of the Pharaohs."
This would mean that the migrant peoples were seafarers who came from Europe via the Black Sea, a hypothesis substantiated by ancient trade routes ("The Baltic Sea-Vistula-Dnieper-Black Sea water route was one of the most ancient trade-routes, the Amber Road, on which amber and other items were traded from Northern Europe to Greece, Asia, Egypt, and elsewhere") and by the wooden boats from 3000 BC at Abydos.
These boats at Abydos used the following technology:
"After examining the hull section, Dr. Ward ["Dr. Cheryl Ward, a nautical archaeologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee"] said the flat-bottomed boat reflected "a previously undocumented style of construction" for that period. The boat appeared to be built from the outside in, in contrast to the later shipbuilding technique of starting with an internal frame. The thick planks were lashed together by rope fed through mortises. The seams between planks were filled with bundles of reeds to make the boat watertight. Additional reeds carpeted the floor."
Herodotus in his History (Book II) [Herodotus Histories translated into English by G.C. Macaulay] writes about Egyptian boats as follows:
"96. Their boats with which they carry cargoes are made of the thorny acacia, of which the form is very like that of the Kyrenian lotos, and that which exudes from it is gum. From this tree they cut pieces of wood about two cubits in length and arrange them like bricks, fastening the boat together by running a great number of long bolts through the two-cubit pieces; and when they have thus fastened the boat together, they lay cross-pieces[81] over the top, using no ribs for the sides; and within they caulk the seams with papyrus. They make one steering-oar for it, which is passed through the bottom of the boat; and they have a mast of acacia and sails of papyrus. These boats cannot sail up the river unless there be a very fresh wind blowing, but are towed from the shore: down-stream however they travel as follows:--they have a door-shaped crate made of tamarisk wood and reed mats sewn together, and also a stone of about two talents weight bored with a hole; and of these the boatman lets the crate float on in front of the boat, fastened with a rope, and the stone drag behind by another rope. The crate then, as the force of the stream presses upon it, goes on swiftly and draws on the /baris/ (for so these boats are called), while the stone dragging after it behind and sunk deep in the water keeps its course straight. These boats they have in great numbers and some of them carry many thousands of talents' burden."
See also Pharaonic Ships and Boats.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/23/2005 03:54:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/23/2005 01:51:00 AM [Home]
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Megaliths of the Holy Land Deciphered
The Law Pundit does not generally mix in LexiLine postings with other of his websites, blogs and activities, but he recently made a discovery which is spectacular (if true), and it is thus presented here to our readers.
Megaliths of the Holy Land Deciphered as Ancient Land Survey by Astronomy
To the files of the LexiLine Group Newsletter on the History of Civilization which the Law Pundit owns and moderates, a new folder has been added entitled
Holy Land: Decipherment of the Megaliths of the Holy Land
In that folder are found the files
megalithsoftheholyland.gif and megalithsoftheholyland.png (both identical to the above graphic)
under the title
Astronomical Decipherment of the Megaliths of the Holy Land
as well as
tallalumayri.png (shown here below)
which shows the Megaliths of Tall al-Umayri, Madaba Plains, also deciphered previously as astronomy by the Law Pundit.
Megalithic Temple of Tall al-Umayri, Madab, Jordan deciphered as astronomy
These files intersect and complement one another as Tall al-Umayri, Madaba is a planisphere centered at Andromeda. In the megalithic survey of the Holy Land ca. 3000 BC, Madaba is a star of Andromeda. It is a perfect match.
My book Stars Stones and Scholars: The Decipherment of the Megaliths as an Ancient Survey of the Earth by Astronomy does not include a decipherment of the megaliths of the Holy Land because I had previously not deciphered them due to insufficient materials.
Due to an amazing stroke of good fortune, I recently acquired a book by Dieter Braasch entitled Pharaonen und Sumerer - Megalithiker aus dem Norden which contains a map of megalithic sites in the Holy Land (p. 171) based on an original map published by Peter Thomsen (1875-1954) in a book entitled "Kompendium der palästinensichen Altertumskunde" and published in 1913 (Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1913. (VIII, 109 pp.) 23x16 cm. Wrappers, frontspiece, 42 text figures, German text.) See AbeBooks which has numerous copies available at varying prices.
According to my decipherment, which leaves no doubt whatsoever, The MEGALITHIC sites of the Holy Land (Fertile Crescent, today's Israel, Palestine, parts of Jordan) are an astronomical sky map (Planisphere) of the Heavens ca. 3000 BC. It is an astronomical geodetic survey which is also recorded at TALL AL UMAYRI on the Madaba Plains in Jordan somewhat South of Amman and east of Jerusalem with Madaba marking principally Andromeda as confirmed by this new megalithic map based on Thomsen (1914) and Braasch (1997) and as deciphered by yours truly, Andis Kaulins, in 2005.
Based on a Vernal Equinox point ca. 3000 BC just West of Beersheba, the megalithic sites on Thomsen's map extend from Beersheba in the South to Sidon in the North.
As I have discovered, ALL of the megalithic sites of the Holy Land on Thomsen's map represent stars of the heavens. These sites are found organized into clusters of stars which represent classical stellar constellations of the sky, some as we see them today, some somewhat different, but all clearly recognizable. It would be possible to err on one or two such constellations, but not on this many. The overlap of the Holy Land Megaliths with this star map by pure chance is zero. There is no doubt that this was an ancient survey of the region by the megalith makers.
In the South are marked Aries, Triangulum, Andromeda, Perseus and Auriga. Today's Jerusalem would be located at the top of Perseus as the star gamma, west of Madaba (Southwest of Amman, Jordan), which marks the star beta in Andromeda.
Perseus and Auriga are to the West of the Dead Sea, whereas Aries, Triangulum and Andromeda are to the right of the Dead Sea.
The River Jordan to the North thus marks Al Risha, the legendary cord of the fish in astronomy. I had suspected this earlier when I wrote about Madaba:
"In the astronomical survey of the fertile crescent, we thus find - provisionally - that Jordan apparently marked Andromeda, as evidenced by the large prominent stone in the temple which has the stars of Andromeda cupmarked on it. JORDAn is a name said to derive from Hebrew YARAD meaning "descend" or "flow down" and thus originally applied to the River Jordan. We find the ancient Arabic name al 'ARD for Andromeda to be possibly related (see Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names, p. 36). Perhaps this is origin of the astronomical line marked here at Andromeda as al RISHA, the band of the fish, which was called ARIT in Egypt, according to Renouf. All of those terms are similar matching the geography to astronomy in the hermetic tradition."
North of the Dead Sea, we find Cassiopeia to the right of Cord of the Fish except for one star to the left. The "5-point-dice" form of Cepheus is also to the right of the River Jordan as is Lacerta, a constellation which the ancients considered important in ancient days.
Above Cepheus we find stars of Draco (apparently intermingled with the bright stars of Ursa Minor?) in a large half circle to mark the North Ecliptic Pole, i.e. the immovable "eye of God" in the heavens. But perhaps only Draco is intended.
To the left are the stars of Ursa Major (not complete - are two megalithic sites missing?). To the right of and above Draco, as well as to the right of the Sea of Galilee, we find megalithic sites marking Cygnus and Lyra.
The big surprise is found further North where all the bright stars of Hercules are used to mark the Northern region of the Holy Land.
To the left we find Tyros (Tyre) marking Arc-Turus and Sidon (Latvian Ziedon-is, blossom) marking Spica (the linguistic equivalencies are speculative).
We do not know if any megalithic sites exist North or South of these marked Megaliths.
In spite of the constant strife over this region in modern times, in 3000 BC the Holy Land belonged to the megalith-makers.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/23/2005 01:51:00 AM
Megaliths of the Holy Land Deciphered
The Law Pundit does not generally mix in LexiLine postings with other of his websites, blogs and activities, but he recently made a discovery which is spectacular (if true), and it is thus presented here to our readers.
Megaliths of the Holy Land Deciphered as Ancient Land Survey by Astronomy
To the files of the LexiLine Group Newsletter on the History of Civilization which the Law Pundit owns and moderates, a new folder has been added entitled
Holy Land: Decipherment of the Megaliths of the Holy Land
In that folder are found the files
megalithsoftheholyland.gif and megalithsoftheholyland.png (both identical to the above graphic)
under the title
Astronomical Decipherment of the Megaliths of the Holy Land
as well as
tallalumayri.png (shown here below)
which shows the Megaliths of Tall al-Umayri, Madaba Plains, also deciphered previously as astronomy by the Law Pundit.
Megalithic Temple of Tall al-Umayri, Madab, Jordan deciphered as astronomy
My book Stars Stones and Scholars: The Decipherment of the Megaliths as an Ancient Survey of the Earth by Astronomy does not include a decipherment of the megaliths of the Holy Land because I had previously not deciphered them due to insufficient materials.
Due to an amazing stroke of good fortune, I recently acquired a book by Dieter Braasch entitled Pharaonen und Sumerer - Megalithiker aus dem Norden which contains a map of megalithic sites in the Holy Land (p. 171) based on an original map published by Peter Thomsen (1875-1954) in a book entitled "Kompendium der palästinensichen Altertumskunde" and published in 1913 (Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1913. (VIII, 109 pp.) 23x16 cm. Wrappers, frontspiece, 42 text figures, German text.) See AbeBooks which has numerous copies available at varying prices.
According to my decipherment, which leaves no doubt whatsoever, The MEGALITHIC sites of the Holy Land (Fertile Crescent, today's Israel, Palestine, parts of Jordan) are an astronomical sky map (Planisphere) of the Heavens ca. 3000 BC. It is an astronomical geodetic survey which is also recorded at TALL AL UMAYRI on the Madaba Plains in Jordan somewhat South of Amman and east of Jerusalem with Madaba marking principally Andromeda as confirmed by this new megalithic map based on Thomsen (1914) and Braasch (1997) and as deciphered by yours truly, Andis Kaulins, in 2005.
Based on a Vernal Equinox point ca. 3000 BC just West of Beersheba, the megalithic sites on Thomsen's map extend from Beersheba in the South to Sidon in the North.
As I have discovered, ALL of the megalithic sites of the Holy Land on Thomsen's map represent stars of the heavens. These sites are found organized into clusters of stars which represent classical stellar constellations of the sky, some as we see them today, some somewhat different, but all clearly recognizable. It would be possible to err on one or two such constellations, but not on this many. The overlap of the Holy Land Megaliths with this star map by pure chance is zero. There is no doubt that this was an ancient survey of the region by the megalith makers.
In the South are marked Aries, Triangulum, Andromeda, Perseus and Auriga. Today's Jerusalem would be located at the top of Perseus as the star gamma, west of Madaba (Southwest of Amman, Jordan), which marks the star beta in Andromeda.
Perseus and Auriga are to the West of the Dead Sea, whereas Aries, Triangulum and Andromeda are to the right of the Dead Sea.
The River Jordan to the North thus marks Al Risha, the legendary cord of the fish in astronomy. I had suspected this earlier when I wrote about Madaba:
"In the astronomical survey of the fertile crescent, we thus find - provisionally - that Jordan apparently marked Andromeda, as evidenced by the large prominent stone in the temple which has the stars of Andromeda cupmarked on it. JORDAn is a name said to derive from Hebrew YARAD meaning "descend" or "flow down" and thus originally applied to the River Jordan. We find the ancient Arabic name al 'ARD for Andromeda to be possibly related (see Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names, p. 36). Perhaps this is origin of the astronomical line marked here at Andromeda as al RISHA, the band of the fish, which was called ARIT in Egypt, according to Renouf. All of those terms are similar matching the geography to astronomy in the hermetic tradition."
North of the Dead Sea, we find Cassiopeia to the right of Cord of the Fish except for one star to the left. The "5-point-dice" form of Cepheus is also to the right of the River Jordan as is Lacerta, a constellation which the ancients considered important in ancient days.
Above Cepheus we find stars of Draco (apparently intermingled with the bright stars of Ursa Minor?) in a large half circle to mark the North Ecliptic Pole, i.e. the immovable "eye of God" in the heavens. But perhaps only Draco is intended.
To the left are the stars of Ursa Major (not complete - are two megalithic sites missing?). To the right of and above Draco, as well as to the right of the Sea of Galilee, we find megalithic sites marking Cygnus and Lyra.
The big surprise is found further North where all the bright stars of Hercules are used to mark the Northern region of the Holy Land.
To the left we find Tyros (Tyre) marking Arc-Turus and Sidon (Latvian Ziedon-is, blossom) marking Spica (the linguistic equivalencies are speculative).
We do not know if any megalithic sites exist North or South of these marked Megaliths.
In spite of the constant strife over this region in modern times, in 3000 BC the Holy Land belonged to the megalith-makers.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/23/2005 01:51:00 AM
LAW PUNDIT Saturday, January 22, 2005 1/22/2005 03:43:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
Apple's Low Cost Mac PC - the "Mini Mac"
The blog Datapoint at ZDNet points to an amazing explosion of readership for Apple in the last month, a "heightened buzz" which they attribute to announcement of a low cost Mac PC, which also fits into the iPod strategy.
A Special Report at Platinax Internet News entitled "Apple explodes mass marketing" covers not only the "Mac Mini" but also Apple's unprecedented "major incursion into mass consumer shopping", citing to NixLog.
There is surely enough dissatisfaction out there about Microsoft Windows, its instability and security problems, that many will now give a cheaper Apple a second look. The PC competitors always had some advantages. We ourselves look fondly back to the days of our Atari Mega ST4 (in those days with absolutely dependable 4MB RAM) which ran without a hitch for years and NEVER crashed - not once. We have a good friend who composes music and today still runs his synthesizer programs on a Korg workstation using aging Ataris. Incredible.
By contrast, our Windows XP PC still crashes (freezes) regularly as it reaches its memory and virtual memory limits.
So it will be interesting to see what the "Mini Mac" can do.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/22/2005 03:43:00 PM
Apple's Low Cost Mac PC - the "Mini Mac"
The blog Datapoint at ZDNet points to an amazing explosion of readership for Apple in the last month, a "heightened buzz" which they attribute to announcement of a low cost Mac PC, which also fits into the iPod strategy.
A Special Report at Platinax Internet News entitled "Apple explodes mass marketing" covers not only the "Mac Mini" but also Apple's unprecedented "major incursion into mass consumer shopping", citing to NixLog.
There is surely enough dissatisfaction out there about Microsoft Windows, its instability and security problems, that many will now give a cheaper Apple a second look. The PC competitors always had some advantages. We ourselves look fondly back to the days of our Atari Mega ST4 (in those days with absolutely dependable 4MB RAM) which ran without a hitch for years and NEVER crashed - not once. We have a good friend who composes music and today still runs his synthesizer programs on a Korg workstation using aging Ataris. Incredible.
By contrast, our Windows XP PC still crashes (freezes) regularly as it reaches its memory and virtual memory limits.
So it will be interesting to see what the "Mini Mac" can do.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/22/2005 03:43:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/22/2005 03:03:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
Threat of Software Patents in Europe noted at KNOPPIX Linux Live CD
KNOPPIX on Software Patents at KNOPPIX Linux Live CD writes (correctly in our opinion) as follows:
"'Software-Patents' in Europe: The threat prevails
Soon the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers will again decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called 'software patents' in Europe, which are already used by large companies in other countries to put competitors out of business. This can lead to the termination of many software projects such as KNOPPIX, at least within Europe, because the holders of the over 30,000 already granted 'software patents' (currently without a legal foundation) can claim exclusive rights and collect license fees for trivial things like 'progress bars', 'mouseclicks on online order forms', 'scrolling within a window' and similar. That way, software developers will have to pay the 'software-patentholders' for using these features, even in their own, completely self-developed applications, which can completely stall the development of innovative software for small and medium companies. Apart from this, the expense for patent inquiries and legal assistence is high, for even trying to find out if the self-developed software is possibly violating 'software-patents', if you want to continue to market your software. Contrary to real patents, 'software-patents' are, in the draft proposed by the commission, monopolization of business ideas and methods, even without any tangible technical implementation.
More about the current major problem at http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html."
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/22/2005 03:03:00 PM
Threat of Software Patents in Europe noted at KNOPPIX Linux Live CD
KNOPPIX on Software Patents at KNOPPIX Linux Live CD writes (correctly in our opinion) as follows:
"'Software-Patents' in Europe: The threat prevails
Soon the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers will again decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called 'software patents' in Europe, which are already used by large companies in other countries to put competitors out of business. This can lead to the termination of many software projects such as KNOPPIX, at least within Europe, because the holders of the over 30,000 already granted 'software patents' (currently without a legal foundation) can claim exclusive rights and collect license fees for trivial things like 'progress bars', 'mouseclicks on online order forms', 'scrolling within a window' and similar. That way, software developers will have to pay the 'software-patentholders' for using these features, even in their own, completely self-developed applications, which can completely stall the development of innovative software for small and medium companies. Apart from this, the expense for patent inquiries and legal assistence is high, for even trying to find out if the self-developed software is possibly violating 'software-patents', if you want to continue to market your software. Contrary to real patents, 'software-patents' are, in the draft proposed by the commission, monopolization of business ideas and methods, even without any tangible technical implementation.
More about the current major problem at http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html."
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/22/2005 03:03:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Friday, January 21, 2005 1/21/2005 05:19:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
European Commission sworn in by EU High Court but Wasteland Media Takes Little Notice
Update: Please note that the European Union was expanded to 27 States on January 1, 2007 as Romania and Bulgaria joined the ranks of Member States.
_________________________
What a difference, and I am not sure it is a good one from the standpoint of the European Union or the major news media, if we look one day later after President Bush's inauguration, to the January 21, 2005 swearing-in ceremony of the 25-member European Commission by the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
We found the story at the Scotsman Online at EU High Court Swears in European Commission.
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union.
Nevertheless, the home page of the European Commission had nothing about the swearing-in ceremony, not even at its press release page, as of 5 p.m. Brussels time on this Friday, the day of the ceremony.
We did however find a mention of it at:
the Agenda page of Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission from Luxembourg
and
the Agenda page of Joe Borg, Member of the European Commission from Malta
EuropeanVoice.com has a rather confusing calendric entry regarding the ceremony.
The online front page of the BBC has nothing about it and concentrates on music, murder and soccer. How low the BBC has sunk in recent years.
CNN.com has an online front page filled with stupid garble about marginal events of little importance. An irrelevant photo captioned "Bush's father and Vice President Cheney give the president money for the collection plate" highlights the page and CNN then goes in one breath from that meaningless photo to Bush's very important inauguration message of US policy "with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." What jerks the people at CNN are, treating the inauguration address and Bush and Chaney in church as vaudeville.
There is no mention of the ceremony in Luxembourg.
Google News has nothing about the ceremony but a lot of muckraking.
USNews.com has nothing about the EU on its front page.
The International Herald Tribune features Middle East events of no long-term importance.
The German FAZ.net has nothing about the EU and features yet more news about a corrupt German politician. So what is new?
Even our favorite German newspaper DieWelt prefers a sensationalistic article about nuclear weapons problems to sober reporting of Bush's inaugural speech. No word on the EU.
When T.S. Eliot wrote "The Wasteland" he was probably foreseeing modern mainstream media:
"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? [with emphasis on the rubbish] Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, [MSM - mainstream media - calls those broken images headline stories today] where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. "
In any case, the EU ceremony, on the world scene, is apparently a "no event".
On the other hand (we will exclude the on-the-ball Scotsman), when one looks at what garbage the major news media generally carry as their main news features, we can thank the Lord for blogs and bloggers.
The Scotsman writes about the EU ceremony:
"The ceremony in Luxembourg came two months after EC President Jose Manuel Barroso finally had his team approved by the European Parliament.
In their oath of office before the European Court of Justice, 25 EU commissioners – one from each EU state – promised not to favour their countries. The pledged to work “in the general interest” of the EU and vowed “neither to seek, nor to take instructions from any government or from any other body” until the end of their posts in 2009.
The Commission is the EU’s driving force and executive body. It drafts EU laws, oversees their implementation and ensures the free movement of goods, services, capital and people across the union.
Over the years, it has been given a greater role in steering economic policies. Mr Barroso, a former prime minister of Portugal, has given key posts to reform-minded figures to revive Europe’s sluggish economic growth. "
Compare that message with President Bush's inaugural address and much in the difference between the missions of the United States and the EU worldwide will become clear. The United States has the responsibility to protect freedom and liberty on this planet, whereas the EU is provincially centered on its own economy and its own welfare, operating by means of commissions and committees, and taking its freedom and liberty for granted, which it has only by the grace of the military power of the USA.
Our advice to the mainstream media, by the way, if they are to survive the advance of blogging and similar "grass roots" developments, is that they learn to be able to distinguish and at least partially separate the wheat from the chaff in reporting daily ephemeral events and concentrate at least occasionally on things which have long-term significance. The inaugural address is one such piece of news which sets the tone of world policy of the USA for coming years. It should not be treated as vaudeville and should be given treatment in breadth. One begins truly to wonder what idiots are in charge of much of the major news media.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/21/2005 05:19:00 PM
European Commission sworn in by EU High Court but Wasteland Media Takes Little Notice
Update: Please note that the European Union was expanded to 27 States on January 1, 2007 as Romania and Bulgaria joined the ranks of Member States.
_________________________
What a difference, and I am not sure it is a good one from the standpoint of the European Union or the major news media, if we look one day later after President Bush's inauguration, to the January 21, 2005 swearing-in ceremony of the 25-member European Commission by the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
We found the story at the Scotsman Online at EU High Court Swears in European Commission.
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union.
Nevertheless, the home page of the European Commission had nothing about the swearing-in ceremony, not even at its press release page, as of 5 p.m. Brussels time on this Friday, the day of the ceremony.
We did however find a mention of it at:
the Agenda page of Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission from Luxembourg
and
the Agenda page of Joe Borg, Member of the European Commission from Malta
EuropeanVoice.com has a rather confusing calendric entry regarding the ceremony.
The online front page of the BBC has nothing about it and concentrates on music, murder and soccer. How low the BBC has sunk in recent years.
CNN.com has an online front page filled with stupid garble about marginal events of little importance. An irrelevant photo captioned "Bush's father and Vice President Cheney give the president money for the collection plate" highlights the page and CNN then goes in one breath from that meaningless photo to Bush's very important inauguration message of US policy "with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." What jerks the people at CNN are, treating the inauguration address and Bush and Chaney in church as vaudeville.
There is no mention of the ceremony in Luxembourg.
Google News has nothing about the ceremony but a lot of muckraking.
USNews.com has nothing about the EU on its front page.
The International Herald Tribune features Middle East events of no long-term importance.
The German FAZ.net has nothing about the EU and features yet more news about a corrupt German politician. So what is new?
Even our favorite German newspaper DieWelt prefers a sensationalistic article about nuclear weapons problems to sober reporting of Bush's inaugural speech. No word on the EU.
When T.S. Eliot wrote "The Wasteland" he was probably foreseeing modern mainstream media:
"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? [with emphasis on the rubbish] Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, [MSM - mainstream media - calls those broken images headline stories today] where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. "
In any case, the EU ceremony, on the world scene, is apparently a "no event".
On the other hand (we will exclude the on-the-ball Scotsman), when one looks at what garbage the major news media generally carry as their main news features, we can thank the Lord for blogs and bloggers.
The Scotsman writes about the EU ceremony:
"The ceremony in Luxembourg came two months after EC President Jose Manuel Barroso finally had his team approved by the European Parliament.
In their oath of office before the European Court of Justice, 25 EU commissioners – one from each EU state – promised not to favour their countries. The pledged to work “in the general interest” of the EU and vowed “neither to seek, nor to take instructions from any government or from any other body” until the end of their posts in 2009.
The Commission is the EU’s driving force and executive body. It drafts EU laws, oversees their implementation and ensures the free movement of goods, services, capital and people across the union.
Over the years, it has been given a greater role in steering economic policies. Mr Barroso, a former prime minister of Portugal, has given key posts to reform-minded figures to revive Europe’s sluggish economic growth. "
Compare that message with President Bush's inaugural address and much in the difference between the missions of the United States and the EU worldwide will become clear. The United States has the responsibility to protect freedom and liberty on this planet, whereas the EU is provincially centered on its own economy and its own welfare, operating by means of commissions and committees, and taking its freedom and liberty for granted, which it has only by the grace of the military power of the USA.
Our advice to the mainstream media, by the way, if they are to survive the advance of blogging and similar "grass roots" developments, is that they learn to be able to distinguish and at least partially separate the wheat from the chaff in reporting daily ephemeral events and concentrate at least occasionally on things which have long-term significance. The inaugural address is one such piece of news which sets the tone of world policy of the USA for coming years. It should not be treated as vaudeville and should be given treatment in breadth. One begins truly to wonder what idiots are in charge of much of the major news media.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/21/2005 05:19:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Thursday, January 20, 2005 1/20/2005 01:14:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
Free RSS News Feeds: Politics, Law, Media, Europe and more
Moreover.com has free Moreover RSS News Feeds for more than 330 news categories divided up into the following general headings (Business: general :: Business: media :: Companies :: Entertainment :: Finance :: Industry :: Internet :: Lifestyle :: Regional :: Science :: Society :: Sports :: Technology :: Top stories :: US regional). We have made a sample selection of some of these 330 feeds by category:
POLITICS
US Political Columnists
US Politics News
LAW FEEDS
Law News
IP and Patents News
UK Law News
MEDIA NEWS FEEDS
Media: Europe News
UK Media News
EUROPEAN UNION NEWS
EU Integration News
Europe News
European Business News
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/20/2005 01:14:00 PM
Free RSS News Feeds: Politics, Law, Media, Europe and more
Moreover.com has free Moreover RSS News Feeds for more than 330 news categories divided up into the following general headings (Business: general :: Business: media :: Companies :: Entertainment :: Finance :: Industry :: Internet :: Lifestyle :: Regional :: Science :: Society :: Sports :: Technology :: Top stories :: US regional). We have made a sample selection of some of these 330 feeds by category:
POLITICS
US Political Columnists
US Politics News
LAW FEEDS
Law News
IP and Patents News
UK Law News
MEDIA NEWS FEEDS
Media: Europe News
UK Media News
EUROPEAN UNION NEWS
EU Integration News
Europe News
European Business News
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/20/2005 01:14:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Wednesday, January 19, 2005 1/19/2005 01:36:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
Economics: The Theory of Earning and The Theory of Spending
Our previous post attacking the inheritance of wealth is not without a precedent in economics.
See The Economics of Inheritance (1939,1971) by Josiah Wedgwood (Director of the Bank of England 1942-1946 and owner of Wedgwood ceramics - the famous "Wedgwood China")
"in which he [Wedgwood] attacked the principle of inherited wealth."
As written at Josiah Wedgwood:
"Like many radicals at the time, Josiah Wedgwood was deeply influenced by the writings of Henry George. After reading Progress and Poverty Wedgwood wrote: "Ever since 1905 I have known that there was a man from God, and his name was Henry George! I had no need thenceforth for any other faith." In Progress and Poverty [1877] George argued that the gap between the rich and the poor could only be closed by replacing the various taxes levied on labour and capital with a single tax on the value of property."
Our previous post on Milton Friedman's "economics of spending" does not mean that we are not capitalists. Quite the contrary, we are staunch capitalists - it is clearly the most pragmatic of all possible economics. However, any economic "theory of spending" must also have a comparable "theory of earning". When we plug the search phrase "theory of earning" into Google, we get only 12 hits as compared to 105 for the "theory of spending". Not only is an economic "theory of earning" nearly non-existent, but an economic "theory of spending" is also unexpectedly sparse. What on earth do the economists research??
Mike Alexander has a page devoted to the sparsely found "Spending Theory", which analyzes the Harry S. Dent view in The Great Boom Ahead (1993) which concludes that spending is determined by demographic factors.
Alexander writes:
"Dent proposes that economic boom times are associated with increasing size of the mid-forties population, the major 'spenders', and that bust times are associated with a decreasing size of this population. He calls these oscillations in the number of middle-agers (at their peak-spending years) the spending wave."
Interestingly, Dent in his book The Roaring 2000s (1998) calculates that immigration boosts spending with a 14-16 year lag since the average age of immigrants (in the USA) is age 30. Hence, writes Alexander, for Dent:
"it is the absolute changes in immigration (or birth) rate that affect the economy [years down the road]."
However, writes Alexander, a theory of spending must also take into account the theory of earning:
"What can explain the post-war boom were the strongly rising wages during this period, reflecting strong productivity growth. Two things are required for there to be a rise in spending. One is the desire to spend and the other is the means to spend. The first ought to be influenced by the population-relative spending wave in much the way that Dent hypothesizes. The second depends on growth in people's earnings and the employment level. We can construct a "wage-adjusted" spending wave by multiplying the smoothed spending wave by the product of the median real wage and the percentage of workers who are employed. This adjusted spending wave correlates well with the post-war stock boom. Clearly, there was a spending wave in the 1950's and 1960's that arose not so much from an increase in the propensity to spend (demographics), but rather, from an increase in the ability to spend (wages & employment).
The adjusted spending wave shows a peak in 1969 and then a long decline until the early 1980's, reflecting the combined effects [of] the rapid fall-off in the unadjusted spending wave after 1969 and stagnant wages after 1973. The rise of the wage-adjusted spending wave in the 1980's and 1990's reflects the strong growth in the middle-aged population after 1982, even though wages have remained stagnant. If the economy were to fall into recession in 2001, as seems increasingly likely, wages would likely fall in real terms and unemployment would certainly rise. We can use the relative changes in wages and employment during the 1990 recession as a template for predicting how the wage-adjusted spending wave might change after the year 2000 if we were to have a recession. ... We find that, assuming a recession beginning this year, the wage-adjusted spending wave will have peaked in 2000, suggesting that the stock market peak in 2000 (and not some later peak around 2007) was the end of the secular bull market." [emphasis added]
The way it looks to us, Alexander's analysis has been proven correct. Although the demographics are present for increased spending at the current time, there has not been a necessary growth in people's earnings or in their employment level. In the USA, the rich have been becoming increasingly richer (partly due to stupid tax refunds made by the Bush administration) and the poor have been becoming increasingly poorer, with the middle classes being dried out economically by greed at the top levels of the wealth ladder.
Indeed, the Bush administration tax refunds have been taken out of a government budget surplus which constituted assets of "all of the people" and put into the hands of the better-earning few, who have put that money back into treasury certificates, etc. - i.e. have loaned that same money back to the government to creat a budget deficit - whose interest payments "all of the people" will have to pay down the road. Some people have thus been made much richer and many have been made much poorer - this is the economic legacy of the Bush administration (note: we otherwise are generally favorable to the Bush administration in foreign policy).
Essentially, our analysis supports the most elementary conclusions of Keynesian economics. As stated at ECON 6030 STUDY PROBLEM #1: KEYNESIAN MACROECONOMICS by Roger W. Garrison, Professor of Economics at Auburn University)
"The workers' loss of income means reduced spending, but spending isn't reduced as much as the reduction in income (This is the key implication of Keynes's consumer-spending theory: ... Income and expenditures spiral downwards until ... excess inventories are dissipated--at which point income equals expenditures, and the economy is in macroeconomic equilibrium...."
"The income level needs to rise if prosperity is to be achieved, but the market process (as envisioned by Keynes) will instead cause income to fall--until the level of savings is just enough to finance the current level of investment and government spending. This sort of perversity is characteristic of the market system according to John Maynard Keynes's 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money."
Keynes' major contribution to economics in that book was the following:
Distinguished British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) set off a series of movements that dramatically altered the ways in which economists view the world. In his most important work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), Keynes critiqued the laissez faire policies of the day, particularly the proposition that a normally functioning market economy will bring full employment. Keynes' forward-looking work transformed economics from merely a descriptive and analytic discipline to one that is policy-oriented. For Keynes, enlightened government intervention in a nation's economic life was essential to curbing what he saw as the inherent inequalities and instabilities of unregulated capitalism.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/19/2005 01:36:00 PM
Economics: The Theory of Earning and The Theory of Spending
Our previous post attacking the inheritance of wealth is not without a precedent in economics.
See The Economics of Inheritance (1939,1971) by Josiah Wedgwood (Director of the Bank of England 1942-1946 and owner of Wedgwood ceramics - the famous "Wedgwood China")
"in which he [Wedgwood] attacked the principle of inherited wealth."
As written at Josiah Wedgwood:
"Like many radicals at the time, Josiah Wedgwood was deeply influenced by the writings of Henry George. After reading Progress and Poverty Wedgwood wrote: "Ever since 1905 I have known that there was a man from God, and his name was Henry George! I had no need thenceforth for any other faith." In Progress and Poverty [1877] George argued that the gap between the rich and the poor could only be closed by replacing the various taxes levied on labour and capital with a single tax on the value of property."
Our previous post on Milton Friedman's "economics of spending" does not mean that we are not capitalists. Quite the contrary, we are staunch capitalists - it is clearly the most pragmatic of all possible economics. However, any economic "theory of spending" must also have a comparable "theory of earning". When we plug the search phrase "theory of earning" into Google, we get only 12 hits as compared to 105 for the "theory of spending". Not only is an economic "theory of earning" nearly non-existent, but an economic "theory of spending" is also unexpectedly sparse. What on earth do the economists research??
Mike Alexander has a page devoted to the sparsely found "Spending Theory", which analyzes the Harry S. Dent view in The Great Boom Ahead (1993) which concludes that spending is determined by demographic factors.
Alexander writes:
"Dent proposes that economic boom times are associated with increasing size of the mid-forties population, the major 'spenders', and that bust times are associated with a decreasing size of this population. He calls these oscillations in the number of middle-agers (at their peak-spending years) the spending wave."
Interestingly, Dent in his book The Roaring 2000s (1998) calculates that immigration boosts spending with a 14-16 year lag since the average age of immigrants (in the USA) is age 30. Hence, writes Alexander, for Dent:
"it is the absolute changes in immigration (or birth) rate that affect the economy [years down the road]."
However, writes Alexander, a theory of spending must also take into account the theory of earning:
"What can explain the post-war boom were the strongly rising wages during this period, reflecting strong productivity growth. Two things are required for there to be a rise in spending. One is the desire to spend and the other is the means to spend. The first ought to be influenced by the population-relative spending wave in much the way that Dent hypothesizes. The second depends on growth in people's earnings and the employment level. We can construct a "wage-adjusted" spending wave by multiplying the smoothed spending wave by the product of the median real wage and the percentage of workers who are employed. This adjusted spending wave correlates well with the post-war stock boom. Clearly, there was a spending wave in the 1950's and 1960's that arose not so much from an increase in the propensity to spend (demographics), but rather, from an increase in the ability to spend (wages & employment).
The adjusted spending wave shows a peak in 1969 and then a long decline until the early 1980's, reflecting the combined effects [of] the rapid fall-off in the unadjusted spending wave after 1969 and stagnant wages after 1973. The rise of the wage-adjusted spending wave in the 1980's and 1990's reflects the strong growth in the middle-aged population after 1982, even though wages have remained stagnant. If the economy were to fall into recession in 2001, as seems increasingly likely, wages would likely fall in real terms and unemployment would certainly rise. We can use the relative changes in wages and employment during the 1990 recession as a template for predicting how the wage-adjusted spending wave might change after the year 2000 if we were to have a recession. ... We find that, assuming a recession beginning this year, the wage-adjusted spending wave will have peaked in 2000, suggesting that the stock market peak in 2000 (and not some later peak around 2007) was the end of the secular bull market." [emphasis added]
The way it looks to us, Alexander's analysis has been proven correct. Although the demographics are present for increased spending at the current time, there has not been a necessary growth in people's earnings or in their employment level. In the USA, the rich have been becoming increasingly richer (partly due to stupid tax refunds made by the Bush administration) and the poor have been becoming increasingly poorer, with the middle classes being dried out economically by greed at the top levels of the wealth ladder.
Indeed, the Bush administration tax refunds have been taken out of a government budget surplus which constituted assets of "all of the people" and put into the hands of the better-earning few, who have put that money back into treasury certificates, etc. - i.e. have loaned that same money back to the government to creat a budget deficit - whose interest payments "all of the people" will have to pay down the road. Some people have thus been made much richer and many have been made much poorer - this is the economic legacy of the Bush administration (note: we otherwise are generally favorable to the Bush administration in foreign policy).
Essentially, our analysis supports the most elementary conclusions of Keynesian economics. As stated at ECON 6030 STUDY PROBLEM #1: KEYNESIAN MACROECONOMICS by Roger W. Garrison, Professor of Economics at Auburn University)
"The workers' loss of income means reduced spending, but spending isn't reduced as much as the reduction in income (This is the key implication of Keynes's consumer-spending theory: ... Income and expenditures spiral downwards until ... excess inventories are dissipated--at which point income equals expenditures, and the economy is in macroeconomic equilibrium...."
"The income level needs to rise if prosperity is to be achieved, but the market process (as envisioned by Keynes) will instead cause income to fall--until the level of savings is just enough to finance the current level of investment and government spending. This sort of perversity is characteristic of the market system according to John Maynard Keynes's 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money."
Keynes' major contribution to economics in that book was the following:
Distinguished British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) set off a series of movements that dramatically altered the ways in which economists view the world. In his most important work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), Keynes critiqued the laissez faire policies of the day, particularly the proposition that a normally functioning market economy will bring full employment. Keynes' forward-looking work transformed economics from merely a descriptive and analytic discipline to one that is policy-oriented. For Keynes, enlightened government intervention in a nation's economic life was essential to curbing what he saw as the inherent inequalities and instabilities of unregulated capitalism.
[Amazing here is that politicians in Germany do not understand the implications of Keynesian theory for Germany's unemployment problem and we would not be surprised if most of the Schroeder cabinet had never even heard of Keynes. It is rather incredible that such economic incompetents are running one of the world's leading economies.]
In any case, rather than concentrating on a sensible "theory of earning", the economists wander about - sometimes aimlessly - in the world of capital, envisioning only that CAPITAL and its INTEREST (i.e. accumulated and mostly INHERITED viz. GRATUITOUS wealth profiting from "earners") - rather than POLICY and LAW (as in the case of inheritance or in achieving full employment), are the key to modern economies, without however analyzing the effects of "inherited wealth" or "gratuitous wealth" on those same economies.
By "inherited wealth" or "gratuitous wealth", we mean here not only wealth that passes in testate (i.e. by a testament viz. will) but also include such inherited wealth and CAPITAL as private or government oil fields, etc., which confer "income" on the owners without their actually "earning" anything by work or talent. An owner of an oil field becomes wealthy because he has obtained ownership of the oil field and subsequently farms out the work to working "earners". Many oil-producing countries have thus become phenomenally wealthy while others do the work. This kind of non-earned money tends to lead to evil ends, not only in oil-producing countries but all over the world. People who have not "earned" the money by either work or talent are given the means to make economic and political decisions which affect the world. This can not turn out well in the long term since people obtaining "freebies" are major policy makers for a world which can only survive if the "earners" earn.
Friedman sees the worst possible alternative of his four listed spending possibilities to be his number four:
"Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40% of our national income."
We see the worst possible spending alternative to be an unstated FIFTH:
"Worst of all, I can spend money I have not earned on endeavors to make the world a worse place for everyone who does not believe the way I do."
We need only study man's war-torn history, not just merely current events, for myriad examples of this type of economic spending. Indeed, most governments fall into this fifth alternative category of spending, pushing their own private views of the world rather than trying to make that world a better place for their citizens.
When economists talk about capital and interest rates, they have to look to who it is that has that capital, how they got it and what interests drive the economic and political decisions of the controllers of capital. Then one can talk about money supply and interest rates and not before. A prime example of this principle are oil prices, which are determined politically and selfishly by oil cartels (otherwise illegal in capitalist systems) who control accumulated wealth which they themselves largely have not earned but which wealth is produced for them by external technology, external workers AND external consumers. They merely "sit" on the land where the oil is located. This lack of any connection between "having" wealth and actually "earning" that wealth leads to bizarre spending patterns by those controlling that same wealth. It is not necessary here to list them - everyone knows what they are.
If the people who "earned" the wealth of the world made the decisions - and this is one principle of democracy in permitting every citizen to vote and having that vote count equally as every other vote - then things would look better, as they do in the capitalist countries of civilization, such as the USA, where decisions to spend accumulated wealth are still connected - if imperfectly - to the will of the majority of "earners". Such earners will tend to spend money for things that benefit THEM and THEIR interests in the long term. In countries such as many of the oil-producing nations, where democracy is not present in fact, tyrannical rulers or ruling privileged luxury oligarchies spend accumulated non-earned wealth to create worldwide political, social and military problems and to push their belief systems on others.
Strangely, on the macro-scale of nations, most people understand fully what a terrible thing the accumulation of wealth in the hands of "non-earners " is. At the same time, those same people have trouble admitting that inheritance of wealth at the lowest level, i.e. personal inheritance by individuals, is equally undesirable.
So, the world continues to honor men who inherit wealth and do nothing, as some of the wealthy nobility of Europe do and dishonor men who do not inherit wealth and do nothing, as some of those who inherit nothing do. But both are doing nothing and are actually equals, from the standpoint of the economic needs of the world. Only "their" wealth is working - and that need not then be in their hands - it can be elsewhere.
Let a man earn what he can, and he will likely spend that money sensibly. Give a man his wealth without having earned it, and his spending will likely be inimical to societal needs in the long term. That is our theory of earning and spending.
There are of course exceptions to every rule. We have good friends who have inherited wealth and are doing wonderful things with their inheritance. So in some cases inheritance works.
But vast numbers of men around the world with similar fortunes do nothing for humanity - indeed, quite the contrary, they either spread violence and misery or spend their time in the vanities of money. Hence, the exceptions can not be used to make a general rule for all.
In closing, we must distinguish capital "earned" and capital "gratuitously received". We look with great admiration to a man like Bill Gates of Microsoft - an "earner" rather than "inheritor" of his accumulated wealth - who is putting that wealth to work for the good of all through his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And that is as it should be.
Who is making this world a better place: Bill Gates or the oil-producing countries?
The answer is clear, even if we occasionally have trouble with Windows XP.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/19/2005 01:36:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Tuesday, January 18, 2005 1/18/2005 01:13:00 AM [Home]
[Print]
Four Ways To Spend Money - Milton Friedman Misses the Boat
Via JurisPundit on Behavioral Economics
we are taken to
Cafe Hayek
on the Distorted Case for [Government] Intervention
quoting Milton Friedman
as interviewed by David Asman of FoxNews at QandO:
"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money.
Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost.
Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm sure going to have a good lunch!
Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40% of our national income."
Milton is a great guy and we love some of his economics, which are quite practical, if often too simplistic, but Miltie sometimes misses the boat on the fact that "spending" money also has something to with "earning" money as opposed to "having" or "inheriting" non-earned money.
Although all the world struggles to earn a living, most of the world's wealth is passed by inheritance each generation in amounts that most people could never earn in a lifetime. Is that inherited money really "their" money? Yes, by law it is, but only because "the government" says so. We could or could not allow inheritance by law. Why should we? Why not make everyone earn their way? Why not abandon taxes on "earned" money and increase taxes to 100% on "not-earned" money. Then you would have a fair system for all and the world would look much different than it does today.
We have plenty of examples of inherited money being burned away by the inheritors, because even if it is "their" money, they never earned it. The daughter of Onassis reportedly spent millions per day, yet the revenue on her inherited wealth increased more per day than she could spend. Her money? Naw. It was the money others were earning for her by the sweats of their brow, not hers.
Miltie, you missed the boat and really do not have a good idea of where the money is. If you have to earn money, you are basically poor. If you have money earning for you - which only can happen if "others" are working to earn it - then you have a luxury ride. That's the way a good share of our economy works and why over 90% of America's wealth is in the hands of 1% of the population.
The problem is not so much government. The problem is in fact false distribution - and that distribution exists because of inheritance and not because of Uncle Sam. Frankly, Uncle Sam does not do enough to distribute America's wealth fairly, and that is why there is so much criminality and social unrest. On this score, Europe thus far has done a much better job, but we now have so many idiots here in government as well, chief of whom are the Schroeder administration in Germany, so things do not look good for the future. Some are getting richer and richer and more and more are getting poorer and poorer. Miltie, your economics will not help them.
Down the road, there will be war and revolution. That is the price for false economics and inequitable distributions of wealth.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/18/2005 01:13:00 AM
Four Ways To Spend Money - Milton Friedman Misses the Boat
Via JurisPundit on Behavioral Economics
we are taken to
Cafe Hayek
on the Distorted Case for [Government] Intervention
quoting Milton Friedman
as interviewed by David Asman of FoxNews at QandO:
"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money.
Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost.
Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm sure going to have a good lunch!
Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40% of our national income."
Milton is a great guy and we love some of his economics, which are quite practical, if often too simplistic, but Miltie sometimes misses the boat on the fact that "spending" money also has something to with "earning" money as opposed to "having" or "inheriting" non-earned money.
Although all the world struggles to earn a living, most of the world's wealth is passed by inheritance each generation in amounts that most people could never earn in a lifetime. Is that inherited money really "their" money? Yes, by law it is, but only because "the government" says so. We could or could not allow inheritance by law. Why should we? Why not make everyone earn their way? Why not abandon taxes on "earned" money and increase taxes to 100% on "not-earned" money. Then you would have a fair system for all and the world would look much different than it does today.
We have plenty of examples of inherited money being burned away by the inheritors, because even if it is "their" money, they never earned it. The daughter of Onassis reportedly spent millions per day, yet the revenue on her inherited wealth increased more per day than she could spend. Her money? Naw. It was the money others were earning for her by the sweats of their brow, not hers.
Miltie, you missed the boat and really do not have a good idea of where the money is. If you have to earn money, you are basically poor. If you have money earning for you - which only can happen if "others" are working to earn it - then you have a luxury ride. That's the way a good share of our economy works and why over 90% of America's wealth is in the hands of 1% of the population.
The problem is not so much government. The problem is in fact false distribution - and that distribution exists because of inheritance and not because of Uncle Sam. Frankly, Uncle Sam does not do enough to distribute America's wealth fairly, and that is why there is so much criminality and social unrest. On this score, Europe thus far has done a much better job, but we now have so many idiots here in government as well, chief of whom are the Schroeder administration in Germany, so things do not look good for the future. Some are getting richer and richer and more and more are getting poorer and poorer. Miltie, your economics will not help them.
Down the road, there will be war and revolution. That is the price for false economics and inequitable distributions of wealth.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/18/2005 01:13:00 AM
LAW PUNDIT Sunday, January 16, 2005 1/16/2005 11:43:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
Where is the geographic center of Europe?
Where is the geographic center of Europe?
If one plugs the search phrase "geographic center of Europe" into Google, we find numerous claims to this honor. It all depends on where you put the borders of "Europe".
The Site of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty has an article by Valentinas Mite on the matter indicating that the French have calculated that the geographic center of Europe (if one includes Iceland) is in Lithuania.
Karl Schlögel has a superb article in German entitled
"Remapping Europe oder: was die Wissenschaften leisten könnten, das neue Europa zu denken" Vortrag an der Viadrina am 17. Mai 1999 (unkorrigierte Version).
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/16/2005 11:43:00 PM
Where is the geographic center of Europe?
Where is the geographic center of Europe?
If one plugs the search phrase "geographic center of Europe" into Google, we find numerous claims to this honor. It all depends on where you put the borders of "Europe".
The Site of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty has an article by Valentinas Mite on the matter indicating that the French have calculated that the geographic center of Europe (if one includes Iceland) is in Lithuania.
Karl Schlögel has a superb article in German entitled
"Remapping Europe oder: was die Wissenschaften leisten könnten, das neue Europa zu denken" Vortrag an der Viadrina am 17. Mai 1999 (unkorrigierte Version).
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/16/2005 11:43:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Tuesday, January 11, 2005 1/11/2005 03:41:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #11 - Consciousness is a Trick
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #11.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #11 - Consciousness is a Trick
NICHOLAS HUMPHREY, a psychologist at the London School of Economics and author of The Mind Made Flesh thinks that "consciousness is a conjuring trick".
The concept of human consciousness is best known from Descartes who wrote "I think, therefore I am" but its existence in human language may already be found in the symbol of the raised arms KA in the hieroglyphic writings of the Pharaohs, where KA describes, according to the British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, "the creative life-force of each individual, whether human or divine.... [coming] into existence at the same moment that the individual was born...."
We think that the Pharaonic Egyptian KA is the same as the hypothetical Indo-European root AUG (still found in Latvian as the major word AUG), which applies to the concept of "growth" or "increase" or "becoming" in living things (from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Appendix I, Indo-European Roots):
"ENTRY: aug-
DEFINITION: To increase....
The question of the nature of human consciousness is of course at the root of all religion and is integrally tied with the idea of a soul. As long as our cells are still "growing", i.e. metabolizing, we continue to live. When life processes cease, we enter a different sphere. If human consciousness exists, what was it before our human conception and what is it after our human life?
Our answer is that human consciousness is one aspect of the principle of the universe, embodied in our human form.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/11/2005 03:41:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #11 - Consciousness is a Trick
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #11.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #11 - Consciousness is a Trick
NICHOLAS HUMPHREY, a psychologist at the London School of Economics and author of The Mind Made Flesh thinks that "consciousness is a conjuring trick".
The concept of human consciousness is best known from Descartes who wrote "I think, therefore I am" but its existence in human language may already be found in the symbol of the raised arms KA in the hieroglyphic writings of the Pharaohs, where KA describes, according to the British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, "the creative life-force of each individual, whether human or divine.... [coming] into existence at the same moment that the individual was born...."
We think that the Pharaonic Egyptian KA is the same as the hypothetical Indo-European root AUG (still found in Latvian as the major word AUG), which applies to the concept of "growth" or "increase" or "becoming" in living things (from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Appendix I, Indo-European Roots):
"ENTRY: aug-
DEFINITION: To increase....
The question of the nature of human consciousness is of course at the root of all religion and is integrally tied with the idea of a soul. As long as our cells are still "growing", i.e. metabolizing, we continue to live. When life processes cease, we enter a different sphere. If human consciousness exists, what was it before our human conception and what is it after our human life?
Our answer is that human consciousness is one aspect of the principle of the universe, embodied in our human form.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/11/2005 03:41:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/11/2005 03:21:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #10 - Human Smarts are Unique
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #10.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #10 - Human Smarts are Unique
MARC D. HAUSER, a psychologist at Harvard University and author of Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think, thinks that human smarts are unique because of our "capacity to take as input any set of discrete entities and recombine them into an infinite variety of meaningful expressions".
We disagree in part. Of course, by definition, human smarts are unique. However, we think that the principle that drives thought is universal in the universe.
As stated at andiskaulins.com in "What is the Universe?":
"Thought by its nature is combinatorial... as if it would not tolerate a single, static world. Is this also the mechanism of the universe?"
We find that it is the impossibility of a single dimension which drives the mind, as also the rest of the universe. We are not unique in the true sense, but only a particular species applying a principle of the universe which is incorporated in us as "thought".
Surely all other animals "think", but only at a lower scale of sophistication than humans. A monkey who gets a ladder to reach an otherwise unreachable banana is thinking, and we stem from the apes. Thought did not just "begin" with us. That would simply be a very limited, egocentric view of the human species.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/11/2005 03:21:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #10 - Human Smarts are Unique
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #10.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #10 - Human Smarts are Unique
MARC D. HAUSER, a psychologist at Harvard University and author of Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think, thinks that human smarts are unique because of our "capacity to take as input any set of discrete entities and recombine them into an infinite variety of meaningful expressions".
We disagree in part. Of course, by definition, human smarts are unique. However, we think that the principle that drives thought is universal in the universe.
As stated at andiskaulins.com in "What is the Universe?":
"Thought by its nature is combinatorial... as if it would not tolerate a single, static world. Is this also the mechanism of the universe?"
We find that it is the impossibility of a single dimension which drives the mind, as also the rest of the universe. We are not unique in the true sense, but only a particular species applying a principle of the universe which is incorporated in us as "thought".
Surely all other animals "think", but only at a lower scale of sophistication than humans. A monkey who gets a ladder to reach an otherwise unreachable banana is thinking, and we stem from the apes. Thought did not just "begin" with us. That would simply be a very limited, egocentric view of the human species.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/11/2005 03:21:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Monday, January 10, 2005 1/10/2005 09:46:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #9 - Consciousness Exists
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #9.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #9 - Consciousness Exists
DANIEL GILBERT, a psychologist at Harvard University, believes that consciousness exists and he has not "the slightest doubt that everyone I know has an inner life, a subjective experience, a sense of self, that is very much like mine."
We agree. Is not the entire organization of our human world based upon this oft unstated belief?
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 09:46:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #9 - Consciousness Exists
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #9.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #9 - Consciousness Exists
DANIEL GILBERT, a psychologist at Harvard University, believes that consciousness exists and he has not "the slightest doubt that everyone I know has an inner life, a subjective experience, a sense of self, that is very much like mine."
We agree. Is not the entire organization of our human world based upon this oft unstated belief?
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 09:46:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/10/2005 09:27:00 PM [Home]
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Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #8 - Birds have Dialects
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #8.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #8 - Birds have Dialects
GEORGE B. DYSON, science Historian and author of Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship believes that birds not only have dialects, but that the borders of these dialects may be similar to the language dialect borders of humans.
We agree. Influences of environment and climate impose themselves upon human language, such as the north to south shift of "p" to "pf" to "f", so why should this be any different for birds, or any other animal for that matter?
A master of the hunt who recently passed away and who we knew in England had 80 hounds (do not say "dogs"), each of whom responded unfailingly to their particular name. Only people who have not worked with animals entertain strange notions about them and think that animals have no understanding of language, including some human terms, especially their names. Of course, they have their "own" language too, and just as the appearance of animals varies with geographic location, so also will their animal language expression vary with that same location.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 09:27:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #8 - Birds have Dialects
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #8.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #8 - Birds have Dialects
GEORGE B. DYSON, science Historian and author of Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship believes that birds not only have dialects, but that the borders of these dialects may be similar to the language dialect borders of humans.
We agree. Influences of environment and climate impose themselves upon human language, such as the north to south shift of "p" to "pf" to "f", so why should this be any different for birds, or any other animal for that matter?
A master of the hunt who recently passed away and who we knew in England had 80 hounds (do not say "dogs"), each of whom responded unfailingly to their particular name. Only people who have not worked with animals entertain strange notions about them and think that animals have no understanding of language, including some human terms, especially their names. Of course, they have their "own" language too, and just as the appearance of animals varies with geographic location, so also will their animal language expression vary with that same location.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 09:27:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/10/2005 08:33:00 PM [Home]
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Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #6 & #7 - Consciousness is Based on Language
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #6 & #7.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #6 & #7 - Consciousness is Based on Language (Calvin, Dennett)
WILLIAM CALVIN, neurobiologist, University of Washington and author of A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond and DANIEL C. DENNETT, philosopher, Tufts University and author of Freedom Evolves believe that consciousness is based on language, in the case of Calvin, that consciousness is structured intellect with good quality control, especially in preschoolers, and in the case of Dennet, that human language is a necessary precondition to consciousness.
We definitely disagree.
Although language surely plays a great part in structuring modern consciousness, we must ask the chicken and egg question: Which came first - language or human consciousness? We would argue that human consciousness gave origin to language and not vice versa. Language could not have originated in a vacuum. Hence, language develops in concert with consciousness.
Indeed, as a parent having seen the development of an infant from day one, it would appear to us that it is the human consciousness of an infant which permits him or her to learn a language in the first place. It is a different consciousness which prohibits animals from learning that same human language. This does not mean that animals have no consciousness, but rather that this consciousness is not human.
Furthermore, as someone who has seen first hand a human being recovering from a brain operation over time, it is quite clear that individual human consciousness is based on a sense of individual identity, which is a function of memory and recognition. A person recovering from brain surgery can for a time not know who he or she is and also not recognize close loved ones, even when the language facility is still clearly present. One can speak like a human, but still have human consciousness greatly impaired.
The corollary theory to those of Calvin and Dennett would be that the most verbally language-adept humans would have an elevated consciousness over their fellows, a theory which would be negated by a deaf-mute painter and which is also simply negated by experience. Many people have been taught a human language and still have remained primitive brutes. Just view the daily news of events. Other people have been nerds at language, for example Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton (via Shark Blog), but have demonstrated exceptional "human" abilities.
We would argue that language can be used to structure existing human consciousness - that, yes. But that human consciousness must be there to begin with, which we think is a function of genetics and the way the universe works, and not just of the acquisition of language.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 08:33:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #6 & #7 - Consciousness is Based on Language
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #6 & #7.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #6 & #7 - Consciousness is Based on Language (Calvin, Dennett)
WILLIAM CALVIN, neurobiologist, University of Washington and author of A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond and DANIEL C. DENNETT, philosopher, Tufts University and author of Freedom Evolves believe that consciousness is based on language, in the case of Calvin, that consciousness is structured intellect with good quality control, especially in preschoolers, and in the case of Dennet, that human language is a necessary precondition to consciousness.
We definitely disagree.
Although language surely plays a great part in structuring modern consciousness, we must ask the chicken and egg question: Which came first - language or human consciousness? We would argue that human consciousness gave origin to language and not vice versa. Language could not have originated in a vacuum. Hence, language develops in concert with consciousness.
Indeed, as a parent having seen the development of an infant from day one, it would appear to us that it is the human consciousness of an infant which permits him or her to learn a language in the first place. It is a different consciousness which prohibits animals from learning that same human language. This does not mean that animals have no consciousness, but rather that this consciousness is not human.
Furthermore, as someone who has seen first hand a human being recovering from a brain operation over time, it is quite clear that individual human consciousness is based on a sense of individual identity, which is a function of memory and recognition. A person recovering from brain surgery can for a time not know who he or she is and also not recognize close loved ones, even when the language facility is still clearly present. One can speak like a human, but still have human consciousness greatly impaired.
The corollary theory to those of Calvin and Dennett would be that the most verbally language-adept humans would have an elevated consciousness over their fellows, a theory which would be negated by a deaf-mute painter and which is also simply negated by experience. Many people have been taught a human language and still have remained primitive brutes. Just view the daily news of events. Other people have been nerds at language, for example Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton (via Shark Blog), but have demonstrated exceptional "human" abilities.
We would argue that language can be used to structure existing human consciousness - that, yes. But that human consciousness must be there to begin with, which we think is a function of genetics and the way the universe works, and not just of the acquisition of language.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 08:33:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/10/2005 08:15:00 PM [Home]
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Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #5 - Our Universe is not Unique
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #5.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #5 - Our Universe is not Unique
LAWRENCE KRAUSS, physicist at Case Western Reserve University and author of Atom, believes that our universe is not unique, writing:
"At every instant there may be many universes being born, and others dying....I nevertheless find it satisfying to think that it is likely that not only are we not located in a particularly special place in our universe, but that our universe itself may be relatively insignificant on a larger cosmic scale."
What else can we say. We agree. Except that we would add that each of us is a part of the larger universe and that the essence of the universe is IN US. We are not outside looking inside. We are inside looking inside. Whatever the universe is made up of, so are we too. For us, that is the ultimate comfort and the ultimate root of religious faith. The universe (seen as all of existence) probably has no center and no end, so that the center is where we make it. Perhaps that is one motivation for living and one beauty of each individual life. We were born (as matter) in the stars and to there shall we return, as the ancient Pharaohs long ago believed.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 08:15:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #5 - Our Universe is not Unique
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #5.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #5 - Our Universe is not Unique
LAWRENCE KRAUSS, physicist at Case Western Reserve University and author of Atom, believes that our universe is not unique, writing:
"At every instant there may be many universes being born, and others dying....I nevertheless find it satisfying to think that it is likely that not only are we not located in a particularly special place in our universe, but that our universe itself may be relatively insignificant on a larger cosmic scale."
What else can we say. We agree. Except that we would add that each of us is a part of the larger universe and that the essence of the universe is IN US. We are not outside looking inside. We are inside looking inside. Whatever the universe is made up of, so are we too. For us, that is the ultimate comfort and the ultimate root of religious faith. The universe (seen as all of existence) probably has no center and no end, so that the center is where we make it. Perhaps that is one motivation for living and one beauty of each individual life. We were born (as matter) in the stars and to there shall we return, as the ancient Pharaohs long ago believed.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 08:15:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/10/2005 07:52:00 PM [Home]
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Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #4 - Progress
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #4.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #4 - Progress
NEIL GERSHENFELD, physicist at MIT and author of When Things Start to Think believes that there is such a thing as "Progress". Neil says that the belief in progress is a "leap of faith" and that technology has left us with mixed blessings.
We think that a belief in progress is a matter also of definition. If we plug the term "progress" into Google as "define:progress", the resulting definitions contain a number of similar but yet different concepts for a definition of progress, terms such as advancement, improvement, betterment, growth, movement forward and development.
Obviously, if we insist on a definition of progress which includes a qualitative evaluation of the state of things at any given point in time in man's history, believing in progress as "betterment" or "improvement" is sometimes difficult. A man sitting at his computer might believe in progress. A man holding a weapon on a field of war may have his doubts.
On the other hand, since everything in nature is either in the process of growth or decay, a definition of progress which encompasses the concept of growth will surely find many advocates. Indeed, perhaps progress is always a combination of growth AND decay, i.e. something along the lines of two steps forward and one step backward.
The idea of "moving forward" coincides in my view with a vision of time as a one-directional vector. We may not know where we are going, but we are moving...indeed, we have no choice but to move.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 07:52:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #4 - Progress
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #4.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #4 - Progress
NEIL GERSHENFELD, physicist at MIT and author of When Things Start to Think believes that there is such a thing as "Progress". Neil says that the belief in progress is a "leap of faith" and that technology has left us with mixed blessings.
We think that a belief in progress is a matter also of definition. If we plug the term "progress" into Google as "define:progress", the resulting definitions contain a number of similar but yet different concepts for a definition of progress, terms such as advancement, improvement, betterment, growth, movement forward and development.
Obviously, if we insist on a definition of progress which includes a qualitative evaluation of the state of things at any given point in time in man's history, believing in progress as "betterment" or "improvement" is sometimes difficult. A man sitting at his computer might believe in progress. A man holding a weapon on a field of war may have his doubts.
On the other hand, since everything in nature is either in the process of growth or decay, a definition of progress which encompasses the concept of growth will surely find many advocates. Indeed, perhaps progress is always a combination of growth AND decay, i.e. something along the lines of two steps forward and one step backward.
The idea of "moving forward" coincides in my view with a vision of time as a one-directional vector. We may not know where we are going, but we are moving...indeed, we have no choice but to move.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 07:52:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/10/2005 07:37:00 PM [Home]
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Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #3 - Animals have Feelings
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #3.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #3 - Animals have Feelings
JOSEPH LEDOUX, Neuroscientist, New York University, and author of The Synaptic Self, believes that animals have feelings and other states of consciousness.
Most anyone who has household pets will vouch for the fact that animals have feelings. We find it rather remarkable that people ever came to the idea that they do not. Perhaps the feelings are not the same as experienced by humans, but they are feelings nevertheless - or have you never had a cat turn its back on you, or purr on your lap?
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 07:37:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #3 - Animals have Feelings
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #3.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #3 - Animals have Feelings
JOSEPH LEDOUX, Neuroscientist, New York University, and author of The Synaptic Self, believes that animals have feelings and other states of consciousness.
Most anyone who has household pets will vouch for the fact that animals have feelings. We find it rather remarkable that people ever came to the idea that they do not. Perhaps the feelings are not the same as experienced by humans, but they are feelings nevertheless - or have you never had a cat turn its back on you, or purr on your lap?
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 07:37:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/10/2005 03:19:00 PM [Home]
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Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #2 - Mental processes outside the body?
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #2.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #2 - Mental processes outside the body?
STEPHEN KOSSLYN, Psychologist, Harvard University and Author of Wet Mind: The New Cognitive Neuroscience asks whether mental processes can have an out-of-body existence.
Kosslyn has stated that "the mind is what the brain does" and notes that much of what the brain does is an interaction with the brains of others, something that he calls the use of Social Prosthetic Systems (SPSs). The brain is essentially "extending" itself beyond the limitations of the body in which it is found.
A good example which we might use to illustrate Kosslyn's idea would be the value of blogging to blog readers, where "other people's brains come to serve as extensions of your own brain."
More drastic out-of-body experiences have been documented for the brain in patients with neurological problems and are seen as body-cognition disorders, perhaps localized in the angular gyrus of the brain. Abnormalities in the symmetry of the angular gyrus have also been linked to schizophrenia.
Of course, Kosslyn is much more interested in the projection of the brain (in the mind of its owner) into the outer world and interacting outside of itself, something we each do every day, for example, in putting our thoughts into action, or even in simply conversing.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 03:19:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #2 - Mental processes outside the body?
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #2.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #2 - Mental processes outside the body?
STEPHEN KOSSLYN, Psychologist, Harvard University and Author of Wet Mind: The New Cognitive Neuroscience asks whether mental processes can have an out-of-body existence.
Kosslyn has stated that "the mind is what the brain does" and notes that much of what the brain does is an interaction with the brains of others, something that he calls the use of Social Prosthetic Systems (SPSs). The brain is essentially "extending" itself beyond the limitations of the body in which it is found.
A good example which we might use to illustrate Kosslyn's idea would be the value of blogging to blog readers, where "other people's brains come to serve as extensions of your own brain."
More drastic out-of-body experiences have been documented for the brain in patients with neurological problems and are seen as body-cognition disorders, perhaps localized in the angular gyrus of the brain. Abnormalities in the symmetry of the angular gyrus have also been linked to schizophrenia.
Of course, Kosslyn is much more interested in the projection of the brain (in the mind of its owner) into the outer world and interacting outside of itself, something we each do every day, for example, in putting our thoughts into action, or even in simply conversing.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 03:19:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT 1/10/2005 01:48:00 PM [Home]
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Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #1 - String Theory in Physics
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #1.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #1 - String Theory in Physics
PHILIP W. ANDERSON, Physicist and Nobel laureate, Princeton University, regards string theory to be "a futile exercise as physics". The Wikipedia writes:
"String theory, as with any current theory of quantum gravity, is unverifiable, and therefore it is also unfalsifiable."
And therein lies part of the problem. That of course is no standard of proof. In "real science" we have to look to evidentiary probabilities.
In view of our own theory that the universe is the manifestation of the principle that a single dimension can not exist (a principle manifesting itself at any measured relation or "point" in space), we also find "string theory" to be a rather improbable, if also possibly mathematically useful concept. We see string theory as a modern version of epicycles in physics: i.e. a convoluted theory of simple events which the theoreticians can otherwise not explain except by conceptional mathematical tricks and contortions.
Robbert Dijkgraaf has a good short and simple summary of string theory (with graphics at that site):
"String theory is based on the (deceptively simple) premise that at Planckian scales, where the quantum effects of gravity are strong, particles are actually one-dimensional extended objects. Just as a particle that moves through spacetime sweeps out a curve (the worldline) [a] string will sweep out a surface (the world-sheet). In contrast with particle theories, string theory is highly constrained in the choice of interactions, supersymmetries and gauge groups. In fact, all the usual particles emerge as excitations of the string and the interactions are simply given by the geometric splitting and joining of these strings: In this way the usual Feynman diagrams of quantum field theory are generalized by arbitrary Riemann surfaces. Much recent interest has been focused on D-branes. A D-brane is a submanifold of space-time with the property that strings can end or begin on it." [emphasis added]
What are the main logical problems with string theory (alleged physical laws) from our point of view?
a. Perceived physical reality in physics is always a function of the system of measurement. Measurements are by definition relations presupposing frames of reference to be measured by some sort of "measurement ruler". Thus, "measured" reality is 1) a function of the frames of reference chosen for the relationships being measured (for example, particles, waves or "strings") and 2) the means of measurement (motion, inertia, velocity, weight, dimension, extension, contraction, etc.)
Let us take a simple example. The weight of a human being weighing 200 pounds on Earth is a weight of only 33 pounds on the Moon, for the same physical entity, for the same atoms and molecules. Weight depends upon gravity. So what are we weighing? Our weight is only the measure of a relationship, it is not an absolute measurement.
Furthermore, our measurement rulers have limitations. If a velocity which were the square of the speed of light existed, how would we measure it? Indeed, how could we identify it (which is nearly the same thing)? At the level of subatomic quantum physics, the physicists labor under the limitation that their conclusions are mathematically and theoretically derived, but can currently not be proven under a microscope or by other physical means because the "posited" particles are simply too small. Theoretical physics has become, more or less, pure theoretical mathematics.
As for any choice of physical frames of reference, we need not stick to particles, waves or strings, but we can even imagine the universe as consisting not of strings but of an infinite number of invisible extensible and contractible vibrating rubber bands (dimensioned from infinitely small to infinitely large). Essential to the understanding of physical reality is the understanding that our measure of a thing (any frame of reference) is not the thing itself, but only our measure of that thing. Accordingly, many measurement "models" of reality are possible. Strings are simply one such model. This measurement should not be confused with the reality.
b. String theory has another critical drawback. We can either try to measure the whole or its parts but we can not measure both things at the same time, much as we can not measure the position and movement of an object simultaneously. Strictly seen, a moving train is in motion and never fully "stopped" at any given point on the tracks. In the physically measurable universe, also in the world of subatomic particles, everything is everywhere in motion and we thus measure "appearances" rather than the actual "reality".
String theory tries to get around this problem by posing a frame of reference which "cheats". Under string theory, we see neither the fixed position of the locomotive at some small segment on its journey nor the pace of its entire course of journey from start (S) to finish (F) at a given or varied velocity, depending on the terrain. Rather, we view the entire trip of the locomotive as one blurred photo "string" from start to destination, i.e. as an alleged extended one-dimensional photographic panorama. We thus artificially merge the concepts of position and movement at the subatomic scale. Perhaps such a merger is useful in physics and mathematics for those who grapple with these problems every day for a living, but it surely does not describe the actual reality of what goes on between S and F above and in what time reference.
c. Strings are said to be one-dimensional, which is already a significant logical flaw in string theory. "Stringers" beg the question by saying a string is a one-dimensional "extended" object, which is impossible. A world of one dimension A (a single dimension) is impossible to perceive. A world of two dimensions A (the thing) and B (the extension) is similarly impossible of perception without a world C in-between the extended "ends" of the string. A world of three dimensions A, B and C is also impossible to perceive since it would be static and unmoving and hence not discernable to us. Only when A B and C change relations with respect to one another do we get any kind of physical perceived reality and that dimension four D is Time. Time is our measurement of a change of relations in the systems we measure. Spatial orientations of three-dimensional space are merely applications of A, B and C above, plus the added and necessary element of D, Time.
String theorists would be more honest in not assuming without proof an impossible "one-dimensional EXTENDED object" but rather in sticking to a normal three-dimensional object whose extension in space and time the mathematical formulas treat as negligible, or more correctly, as currently difficult to measure or compute.
Based on the above arguments, only a four-dimensional universe can be perceived. No other universe is possible. Additional alleged dimensions (counting in the dozens in string theory) are convenient artificial mathematical fictions. Modern physics is adding epicycles, much as the ancients created non-existent epicycles to explain the movement of heavenly bodies in what they erroneously viewed to be a geocentric universe:
"If you have a bad design (such as trying to work out the motion of planets on paper while constrained by dogma to pretend that the sun moves more than the earth), and if you then find you keep having to add more bad design to add features to that design, then you are 'Adding Epicycles'."
Indeed, this basic dimensional flaw is recognized for string theory by stringers themselves, who currently presuppose dozens of "string theory" epicycles, which in and of themselves, are evidence of "bad design". As written at Superstring Theory:
"The final question for making a string theory should be: can I do quantum mechanics sensibly? For bosonic strings, this question is only answered in the affirmative if the spacetime dimensions number 26. For superstrings we can whittle it down to 10. How we get down to the four spacetime dimensions we observe in our world is another story."
Applied to string theory, if A is the string, then you still have to account for B, C and D, and that is going to prove difficult for the stringers, until they recognize that each string is merely the extension A-B-C at a subatomic level, and vibrated (changed in their relations) by D, Time. We'll bet you a rubber band.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 01:48:00 PM
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #1 - String Theory in Physics
LawPundit does not limit itself to the legal field. There are all kinds of laws and beliefs in this world beyond "law" itself and also encompassing the laws of the physical sciences and the humanities. Interestingly, much of what we believe in science is not based on evidence but rather on intuition or guesswork.
The highly acclaimed Edge Foundation has 120 prominent minds commenting on John Brockman's question: "WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?"
We comment on these comments by 120 prominent minds: This is #1.
Belief Without Proof : Evidence and the World - #1 - String Theory in Physics
PHILIP W. ANDERSON, Physicist and Nobel laureate, Princeton University, regards string theory to be "a futile exercise as physics". The Wikipedia writes:
"String theory, as with any current theory of quantum gravity, is unverifiable, and therefore it is also unfalsifiable."
And therein lies part of the problem. That of course is no standard of proof. In "real science" we have to look to evidentiary probabilities.
In view of our own theory that the universe is the manifestation of the principle that a single dimension can not exist (a principle manifesting itself at any measured relation or "point" in space), we also find "string theory" to be a rather improbable, if also possibly mathematically useful concept. We see string theory as a modern version of epicycles in physics: i.e. a convoluted theory of simple events which the theoreticians can otherwise not explain except by conceptional mathematical tricks and contortions.
Robbert Dijkgraaf has a good short and simple summary of string theory (with graphics at that site):
"String theory is based on the (deceptively simple) premise that at Planckian scales, where the quantum effects of gravity are strong, particles are actually one-dimensional extended objects. Just as a particle that moves through spacetime sweeps out a curve (the worldline) [a] string will sweep out a surface (the world-sheet). In contrast with particle theories, string theory is highly constrained in the choice of interactions, supersymmetries and gauge groups. In fact, all the usual particles emerge as excitations of the string and the interactions are simply given by the geometric splitting and joining of these strings: In this way the usual Feynman diagrams of quantum field theory are generalized by arbitrary Riemann surfaces. Much recent interest has been focused on D-branes. A D-brane is a submanifold of space-time with the property that strings can end or begin on it." [emphasis added]
What are the main logical problems with string theory (alleged physical laws) from our point of view?
a. Perceived physical reality in physics is always a function of the system of measurement. Measurements are by definition relations presupposing frames of reference to be measured by some sort of "measurement ruler". Thus, "measured" reality is 1) a function of the frames of reference chosen for the relationships being measured (for example, particles, waves or "strings") and 2) the means of measurement (motion, inertia, velocity, weight, dimension, extension, contraction, etc.)
Let us take a simple example. The weight of a human being weighing 200 pounds on Earth is a weight of only 33 pounds on the Moon, for the same physical entity, for the same atoms and molecules. Weight depends upon gravity. So what are we weighing? Our weight is only the measure of a relationship, it is not an absolute measurement.
Furthermore, our measurement rulers have limitations. If a velocity which were the square of the speed of light existed, how would we measure it? Indeed, how could we identify it (which is nearly the same thing)? At the level of subatomic quantum physics, the physicists labor under the limitation that their conclusions are mathematically and theoretically derived, but can currently not be proven under a microscope or by other physical means because the "posited" particles are simply too small. Theoretical physics has become, more or less, pure theoretical mathematics.
As for any choice of physical frames of reference, we need not stick to particles, waves or strings, but we can even imagine the universe as consisting not of strings but of an infinite number of invisible extensible and contractible vibrating rubber bands (dimensioned from infinitely small to infinitely large). Essential to the understanding of physical reality is the understanding that our measure of a thing (any frame of reference) is not the thing itself, but only our measure of that thing. Accordingly, many measurement "models" of reality are possible. Strings are simply one such model. This measurement should not be confused with the reality.
b. String theory has another critical drawback. We can either try to measure the whole or its parts but we can not measure both things at the same time, much as we can not measure the position and movement of an object simultaneously. Strictly seen, a moving train is in motion and never fully "stopped" at any given point on the tracks. In the physically measurable universe, also in the world of subatomic particles, everything is everywhere in motion and we thus measure "appearances" rather than the actual "reality".
String theory tries to get around this problem by posing a frame of reference which "cheats". Under string theory, we see neither the fixed position of the locomotive at some small segment on its journey nor the pace of its entire course of journey from start (S) to finish (F) at a given or varied velocity, depending on the terrain. Rather, we view the entire trip of the locomotive as one blurred photo "string" from start to destination, i.e. as an alleged extended one-dimensional photographic panorama. We thus artificially merge the concepts of position and movement at the subatomic scale. Perhaps such a merger is useful in physics and mathematics for those who grapple with these problems every day for a living, but it surely does not describe the actual reality of what goes on between S and F above and in what time reference.
c. Strings are said to be one-dimensional, which is already a significant logical flaw in string theory. "Stringers" beg the question by saying a string is a one-dimensional "extended" object, which is impossible. A world of one dimension A (a single dimension) is impossible to perceive. A world of two dimensions A (the thing) and B (the extension) is similarly impossible of perception without a world C in-between the extended "ends" of the string. A world of three dimensions A, B and C is also impossible to perceive since it would be static and unmoving and hence not discernable to us. Only when A B and C change relations with respect to one another do we get any kind of physical perceived reality and that dimension four D is Time. Time is our measurement of a change of relations in the systems we measure. Spatial orientations of three-dimensional space are merely applications of A, B and C above, plus the added and necessary element of D, Time.
String theorists would be more honest in not assuming without proof an impossible "one-dimensional EXTENDED object" but rather in sticking to a normal three-dimensional object whose extension in space and time the mathematical formulas treat as negligible, or more correctly, as currently difficult to measure or compute.
Based on the above arguments, only a four-dimensional universe can be perceived. No other universe is possible. Additional alleged dimensions (counting in the dozens in string theory) are convenient artificial mathematical fictions. Modern physics is adding epicycles, much as the ancients created non-existent epicycles to explain the movement of heavenly bodies in what they erroneously viewed to be a geocentric universe:
"If you have a bad design (such as trying to work out the motion of planets on paper while constrained by dogma to pretend that the sun moves more than the earth), and if you then find you keep having to add more bad design to add features to that design, then you are 'Adding Epicycles'."
Indeed, this basic dimensional flaw is recognized for string theory by stringers themselves, who currently presuppose dozens of "string theory" epicycles, which in and of themselves, are evidence of "bad design". As written at Superstring Theory:
"The final question for making a string theory should be: can I do quantum mechanics sensibly? For bosonic strings, this question is only answered in the affirmative if the spacetime dimensions number 26. For superstrings we can whittle it down to 10. How we get down to the four spacetime dimensions we observe in our world is another story."
Applied to string theory, if A is the string, then you still have to account for B, C and D, and that is going to prove difficult for the stringers, until they recognize that each string is merely the extension A-B-C at a subatomic level, and vibrated (changed in their relations) by D, Time. We'll bet you a rubber band.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/10/2005 01:48:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Saturday, January 08, 2005 1/08/2005 02:24:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
University of Latvia in Riga and More
All About Latvia has a posting and photograph on The University of Latvia which is of interest to Latvians and those traveling to the Baltic.
Good sources for travel information about Latvia and the Baltic states in English are:
Latvia Tourism (English, Russian, Latvian)
LETA (The Latvian News Agency)">
The Baltic Times
Visit Estonia (English, German, Russian, Finnic, Estonian)
A good source for information about the Baltic in German is:
Baltikum Tourismus Zentrale
We ourselves were just in Riga in November during the coldest and snowiest weekend of the year, resulting in the following photo of the University of Latvia main building:
The University of Latvia
This is a scene looking to the right from the previous photo:
The University of Latvia Scenery
Further right from the University of Latvia and the previous photo is the Latvian national Opera where we saw Prokofiev's ballet of Romeo and Juliet:
The Latvian National Opera
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/08/2005 02:24:00 PM
University of Latvia in Riga and More
All About Latvia has a posting and photograph on The University of Latvia which is of interest to Latvians and those traveling to the Baltic.
Good sources for travel information about Latvia and the Baltic states in English are:
Latvia Tourism (English, Russian, Latvian)
LETA (The Latvian News Agency)">
The Baltic Times
Visit Estonia (English, German, Russian, Finnic, Estonian)
A good source for information about the Baltic in German is:
Baltikum Tourismus Zentrale
We ourselves were just in Riga in November during the coldest and snowiest weekend of the year, resulting in the following photo of the University of Latvia main building:
The University of Latvia
This is a scene looking to the right from the previous photo:
The University of Latvia Scenery
Further right from the University of Latvia and the previous photo is the Latvian national Opera where we saw Prokofiev's ballet of Romeo and Juliet:
The Latvian National Opera
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/08/2005 02:24:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Thursday, January 06, 2005 1/06/2005 06:27:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
Bill Gates on Blogs, RSS, IP Law at the CES 2005
Via the Law Pundit FeedDirect Newsfeed of Blogging News we are taken to Search Engine Watch and Search Engine News who comment on a January 5, 2005 News.com article by Michael Kannellos (Staff Writer, CNET News.com) entitled "Gates taking a seat in your den", which contains a Q&A session with Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2005) in Las Vegas.
Gates comments on blogs, RSS, intellectual property law (IP Law) and other new developments in information technology around the world. Read the article here.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/06/2005 06:27:00 PM
Bill Gates on Blogs, RSS, IP Law at the CES 2005
Via the Law Pundit FeedDirect Newsfeed of Blogging News we are taken to Search Engine Watch and Search Engine News who comment on a January 5, 2005 News.com article by Michael Kannellos (Staff Writer, CNET News.com) entitled "Gates taking a seat in your den", which contains a Q&A session with Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2005) in Las Vegas.
Gates comments on blogs, RSS, intellectual property law (IP Law) and other new developments in information technology around the world. Read the article here.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/06/2005 06:27:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Wednesday, January 05, 2005 1/05/2005 09:12:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog
The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog also known as "SEA-EAT" ("I saw the sea eat my wife and kids")
was set up as a clearinghouse to mobilize help for tsunami victims.
It has had over a million hits in its first nine days, showing the tremendous practical use to which blogs can be put.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/05/2005 09:12:00 PM
The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog
The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog also known as "SEA-EAT" ("I saw the sea eat my wife and kids")
was set up as a clearinghouse to mobilize help for tsunami victims.
It has had over a million hits in its first nine days, showing the tremendous practical use to which blogs can be put.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/05/2005 09:12:00 PM
LAW PUNDIT Tuesday, January 04, 2005 1/04/2005 01:04:00 AM [Home]
[Print]
Bloggers are People of the Year at ABC News
ABC News has named Bloggers People of the Year.
That is an excellent choice and well understands the impact blogs are having and will continue to have. See also boing boing and popdex for more.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/04/2005 01:04:00 AM
Bloggers are People of the Year at ABC News
ABC News has named Bloggers People of the Year.
That is an excellent choice and well understands the impact blogs are having and will continue to have. See also boing boing and popdex for more.
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/04/2005 01:04:00 AM
LAW PUNDIT Sunday, January 02, 2005 1/02/2005 03:05:00 PM [Home]
[Print]
New German Immigration Law Effective January 1, 2005
Happy New Year to readers of LawPundit!
Germany's changed laws on foreigners go into effect at the start of the New Year. (English downloads: Immigration Act download - Federal Law Gazette Volume 2004, Part I, No. 41, issued in Bonn on 5 August 2004, Act to Control and Restrict Immigration and to Regulate the Residence and Integration of EU Citizens and Foreigners (Immigration Act) of 30 July 2004: Immigration Act details [summary] download, Berlin, 18 June 2004, Details of the Immigration Act.)
Since nearly 7 and 1/2 million foreigners live in Germany, this is an important topic not only for those living here and for those yet to come, but also for the world political scene in general. In a world of 6 billion people and climbing, immigration problems are approaching a global scale.
English Language Materials
The German Deutsche Welle reports - in English - that the "First German Immigration Law Takes Effect" on January 1, 2005.
The German Federal Ministry of the Interior has an informative statement in English about the new Immigration Act entitled "The new Immigration Act: The next step following the updated Nationality Act".
An English-language legal analysis of the new Immigration Law in detail is found in the article "The New German Immigration Act" by Neil G. McHardy of McHardy Börschel & Partner at the website of AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association).
An analysis of this law in English is also found at the website of the Goethe-Institut, where it is written in general about the law:
"The Act provides that the immigration and residence of foreigners in Germany should be regulated by an overall policy on migration. This primarily means that skilled foreigners can enter in line with the interests of the economy and the labour market; it also means that the entry and residence of unskilled foreigners will be controlled and restricted to a greater extent than has been the case to date. Foreigners who have no right of residence in Germany will be sent back to their home countries; foreigners who decide to remain in Germany for a longer period must make greater efforts to integrate, for example, by demonstrating a knowledge of German. At the same time, the federal government, the regional states (Länder) and the municipalities must provide integration services. Furthermore, Germany will continue to offer refuge to those subject to political persecution and those in need of protection for other reasons.
Issues of domestic security will be particularly important. In view of the growing threat of global terrorism, the Act provides for swifter and more effective action to be taken against foreigners suspected of being members of terrorist associations."
See also:
- The English language analysis of the new German law at the site of Rechtsanwältin (attorney) Svenja Schmidt-Bandelow, at the end of which she links to important related German language sites.
- "Migration : Germany" by Antonella C. Attardo PhD (History of Law), Italy at Legislationline.org.
- "Immigration Act: The Road is Clear" by Gunter Hofmann at Deutschland Online
- Migration Information Source ("New German Law Skirts Comprehensive Immigration Reform" by Rainer Münz, Hamburg Institute of International Economics, August 1, 2004)
- German Embassy in Washington D.C.
German Language Materials
As reported in German by the German Ministry of Interior in "Schily: Zuwanderungsgesetz bringt viele Verbesserungen", the new Immigration Law (Zuwanderungsgesetz) replaces the old Law on Aliens (Ausländergesetz), also known as the Aliens Act:
"Am 1. Januar 2005 tritt das Zuwanderungsgesetz in Kraft. Es wurde am 9. Juli 2004 vom Bundesrat nach einem fast dreijährigen Gesetzgebungsverfahren verabschiedet. Gleichzeitig tritt das alte Ausländergesetz außer Kraft."
See also the German language pages at:
- Muenchen.de
- Aufenthaltstitel
- Ravensburger Nachrichten
- Auswärtiges Amt
- Fluechtlingsinfo-berlin.de
- Handelskammer Hamburg
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/02/2005 03:05:00 PM
New German Immigration Law Effective January 1, 2005
Happy New Year to readers of LawPundit!
Germany's changed laws on foreigners go into effect at the start of the New Year. (English downloads: Immigration Act download - Federal Law Gazette Volume 2004, Part I, No. 41, issued in Bonn on 5 August 2004, Act to Control and Restrict Immigration and to Regulate the Residence and Integration of EU Citizens and Foreigners (Immigration Act) of 30 July 2004: Immigration Act details [summary] download, Berlin, 18 June 2004, Details of the Immigration Act.)
Since nearly 7 and 1/2 million foreigners live in Germany, this is an important topic not only for those living here and for those yet to come, but also for the world political scene in general. In a world of 6 billion people and climbing, immigration problems are approaching a global scale.
English Language Materials
The German Deutsche Welle reports - in English - that the "First German Immigration Law Takes Effect" on January 1, 2005.
The German Federal Ministry of the Interior has an informative statement in English about the new Immigration Act entitled "The new Immigration Act: The next step following the updated Nationality Act".
An English-language legal analysis of the new Immigration Law in detail is found in the article "The New German Immigration Act" by Neil G. McHardy of McHardy Börschel & Partner at the website of AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association).
An analysis of this law in English is also found at the website of the Goethe-Institut, where it is written in general about the law:
"The Act provides that the immigration and residence of foreigners in Germany should be regulated by an overall policy on migration. This primarily means that skilled foreigners can enter in line with the interests of the economy and the labour market; it also means that the entry and residence of unskilled foreigners will be controlled and restricted to a greater extent than has been the case to date. Foreigners who have no right of residence in Germany will be sent back to their home countries; foreigners who decide to remain in Germany for a longer period must make greater efforts to integrate, for example, by demonstrating a knowledge of German. At the same time, the federal government, the regional states (Länder) and the municipalities must provide integration services. Furthermore, Germany will continue to offer refuge to those subject to political persecution and those in need of protection for other reasons.
Issues of domestic security will be particularly important. In view of the growing threat of global terrorism, the Act provides for swifter and more effective action to be taken against foreigners suspected of being members of terrorist associations."
See also:
- The English language analysis of the new German law at the site of Rechtsanwältin (attorney) Svenja Schmidt-Bandelow, at the end of which she links to important related German language sites.
- "Migration : Germany" by Antonella C. Attardo PhD (History of Law), Italy at Legislationline.org.
- "Immigration Act: The Road is Clear" by Gunter Hofmann at Deutschland Online
- Migration Information Source ("New German Law Skirts Comprehensive Immigration Reform" by Rainer Münz, Hamburg Institute of International Economics, August 1, 2004)
- German Embassy in Washington D.C.
German Language Materials
As reported in German by the German Ministry of Interior in "Schily: Zuwanderungsgesetz bringt viele Verbesserungen", the new Immigration Law (Zuwanderungsgesetz) replaces the old Law on Aliens (Ausländergesetz), also known as the Aliens Act:
"Am 1. Januar 2005 tritt das Zuwanderungsgesetz in Kraft. Es wurde am 9. Juli 2004 vom Bundesrat nach einem fast dreijährigen Gesetzgebungsverfahren verabschiedet. Gleichzeitig tritt das alte Ausländergesetz außer Kraft."
See also the German language pages at:
- Muenchen.de
- Aufenthaltstitel
- Ravensburger Nachrichten
- Auswärtiges Amt
- Fluechtlingsinfo-berlin.de
- Handelskammer Hamburg
Permalink : Andis Kaulins : 1/02/2005 03:05:00 PM
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