Fun With Maths - Part 3 - The Bush Calculator

Fun With Maths - Part 3 - The Bush Calculator - by P.K.Odendaal

So we are in the bush, and we quickly need to calculate the number of stars in the night sky and our children are not there with their calculators. What do we do?

We draw a few lines in the sand.

We need to multiply two double digit figures with each other. Let's say 22 x 23 = 506.

Passion and Meaning

Passion and Meaning by P.K. Odendaal – April 2013

I'm afraid I've been thinking, a dangerous pastime, I know ... from Beauty and the Beast

A previous article I wrote about Passion, Emotion and Delusion left many questions unanswered and thus prompted me to rethink the subject - and this opened new perspectives in my mind. I never could have thought that passion and meaning were such integral and connected concepts.

Passion, emotion and delusion

Passion, Emotion and Delusion - by P.K.Odendaal - 7 April 2013.

I am quite sure that passion is the most important emotion in our lives and that of God - if one can refer to Him as having a life in that sense. I also know of many people who do not have that emotion, but I would not want to live without it. In fact, God displayed His biggest act of love towards us in the Passion of Christ.

 

Of course many people, notably the materialists, agnostics and atheists would disagree that these three non-material or non-physical things - passion, emotion and delusion - exist. For the rest of us who go off at a tangent when these things grip us know too well what they are.

Just one

Just One

One song can spark a moment,
One flower can wake the dream
One tree can start a forest,
... One bird can herald spring.

One smile begins a friendship,
One handclasp lifts a soul.
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal

The distribution of Happiness

The Distribution of Happiness - by P.K.Odendaal - March 2013.

We all should be engaged in the pursuit of happiness, but somehow the activity eludes us, because there are so many other things which occupy our thoughts and acts - and so the pursuit of happiness it filters down to the oblivion of the subconscious. When we realise that we are not happy, we wonder why that is, and it is simply because we did not pursue it. How can we realise or attain something when we do not pursue it? That only happens in fairy tales.

The notion of distribution is very easy and well known. The population of the earth is not spread evenly over the whole earth. If that was the case the distribution of the population over the earth would have been constant or homogenous. But now there are more people in cities than in rural areas, so that the distribution of the population is uneven. It is also valid for almost anything else like pressure, rain, poverty, minerals and wealth. We will return to the latter later on.

Human excellence and the trodden path

Human excellence and the trodden path - by P.K.Odendaal - February 2013.

Amended 5 March 2013

One stands amazed at the accomplishments of individuals who have attained feats of excellence never done before, and one thinks that it was built on years of methodical exploration, planning and experimentation. Although these accomplishments go hand in hand with exploration, planning and experimentation, the bigger truth is that it is built on a directionless procession of random events and the variation of circumstances.

The upper layer reveals to us an accomplishment of almost super human effort and insight, but it is built on a thicker layer of bricks or stones of doubt, mindless wanderings, meaningless efforts, botched opportunities, luck, unexpected outcomes and a thing called serendipity.

Science and fairy tales.

Science and fairy tales - by P.K.Odendaal - January 2013

I have written a lot lately about reality and meta-physics, and debunking the false aura of gullibility surrounding science. I need to place these in a multi-dimensional perspective and place it in its most realistic domain.

As starters, I wish to emphasize that science and fiction is the same thing, and therefore we have this strong genre of science-fiction - simply because there is a fine line or no line between the two. It is really difficult to place these two in different domains or different stages of reality. The one is no more real or fantastical than the other, but history has blinded our eyes to the most basic agreement between the two. We have just too many times been fooled into thinking that science is real and fiction unreal or imaginary.

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 10 - The Invisible hand

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 10 - The Invisible hand.

by P.K.Odendaal - January 2013

 

Our Protagonist's acronym GLC stands for God Loving Creature.

GLC:        Hi Atheist, care for a curved ball from me?

Atheist:   Why not?

GLC:        Have you heard of the Invisible Hand?

Atheist:   Why, no.

GLC:        It is quite a well known and basic principle in Economics.

Atheist:   Why do you want to tell me? I don't like economics.

GLC:        Because it demonstrates quite clearly the presence of God in inanimate things, of which Economics is an excellent example. We can then also extrapolate this phenomenon throughout the Universe.

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 9 - Talking to God

Dialogue with an atheist - Part 9 - Talking to God

GLC         Do you think that inanimate things have souls - or can feel emotion - or can understand something?

Atheists:  Of course, I believe in it. That is what Darwinism is all about. Darwinism posits that the tiny cells, even in inanimate things, steers the course of evolution in a random way. And if you did not know, electrons which are totally inanimate know their way around an atom's nucleus. This has been determined by our brilliant scientists. In fact, we do not believe in any external meta-physical influences on such an electron. It knows by itself and the nuclear forces acting on it, what it should do, and it does it every-time without fail.

To Russia, with Love - a novelette - Part 1

To Russia, with Love - a novelette - Part 1 - by P.K.Odendaal - January 2012 
 

Amended February 2013

To me is all, I to myself am lost,

Who the immortals' fav'rite erst was thought;
They, tempting, sent Pandoras to my cost,
So rich in wealth, with danger far more fraught;
They urged me to those lips, with rapture crown'd,
Deserted me, and hurl'd me to the ground.

Goethe, Marienbad Elegy, the last stanza, translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring

This poem was written by Goethe when he was 73 years old and in love with a woman of 18 years, to whom he proposed via a friend and got turned down. This theme of Goethe was later incorporated in a book and later in the film: 'Death in Venice' where Gustav von Aschenbach, an artist, author and philosopher, in his early fifties, falls in love with a young man, about 13 years old.