The Sunday Papers. "your choice always was" edition.

by .:. iosaf ·.· ipsiphi Sun Jul 10, 2005 16:17

This is my sunday comment, coz I'm too busy to put out a sunday papers this 10th of june 2005.

And i'm leaving it here because of the illustration at the top, "we're on our way to the thrilling movies, & we'll know what we're going to watch when we get there"

It depicts a philosopher, alchemist, poet, scribe, mathematician, translator and all round polymathic dude who lived in Barcelona a long time ago.

His name is / was / will be Ramon Llull.
if you can pronounce his surname you can get your tongue around the lolation of catalan and the language of the carthars. :-) its a bit like "yyyyyyyyyuuu" with a tiny touch of the tongue to the palate.

he was born in Mallorca in 1235, became the tutor of King James II of Aragon. He wrote in Arabic, Latin and Catalan. In 1265 he had a religious experience, and became a tertiary Franciscan, a follower of Francis of Assisi the rich man's son who abandoned materialism for poverty, caring for lepers and getting along really quite famously with birds (of the feathered type).

Llull pressed for the study of Arabic and other tongues of the mediterranean in Aragon for the purpose of the conversion of Muslims to Christianity.

He went to Tunisia after being in Rome in 1285 to convert the muslims, remember it was crusade times. And he was very violently expelled.

And when he returned to Barcelona he joined the list of Jewish, Muslim and Humanist polymaths which that city have given the world calling for a unification of the three monotheistic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - which, together, he hoped, would be able morally and psychologically ( i suppose a bit anachronistic) to defeat the Asian invaders then threatening Europe and the Middle East.

He met met Duns Scotus in 1297, (older readers will remember Scotus from the older 5 punt note)
and received the title Doctor Illuminatus.

Llull wrote on everything, bestiaries, mystical guides, he translated the mathematical theories of the muslims, the cabalistic tracts of the jews.

a qoute :- {"Around 1275, Llull designed a method, which he first published in full in his Ars generalis ultima or Ars magna (1305), of combining attributes selected from a number of lists. He also invented numerous 'machines' for the purpose, each of which consisted of two or more paper discs inscribed with alphabet letters that referred to the lists of attributes. The discs could be rotated individually to generate a large number of combinations of ideas.

The method was an early attempt to use logical means to produce knowledge. Llull hoped to show that Christian doctrines could be obtained artificially from a fixed set of preliminary ideas. For example, one of the tables listed the attributes of God: goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue, truth and glory. Llull knew that all believers in the monotheistic religions - whether Jews, Muslims or Christians - would agree with these attributes, giving him a firm platform from which to argue.

The idea was developed further by Giordano Bruno in the 16th century, and by Gottfried Leibniz in the 17th century for investigations into the philosophy of science. Leibniz gave Llull's idea the name ars combinatoria, by which it is now often known. Some computer scientists have adopted Llull as a sort of founding father, claiming that his system of logic was the beginning of information science."}

Ramon Llull today has a university (private) named after him where well off young Catalans and Spaniards and people from all the Mediterranean get quite a good education. Beyond that, he is still a very interesting writer. One who changed his "geopolitical vision" and in doing helpd altar the world vision of his society and city.

Helping to make arguably one of the most civilised cities of that time. One where muslim, jew, christian and non believer could live in harmony.

He ( I believe ) is one of the founding fathers of
"Our Way of Life". & indeed one of those extra special reasons why I chose to live in Barcelona.

Saleem = Shalom = Pax = Pau = Paz = Paix = Peace

by .:. iosaf ·.· ipsiphi Mon Jul 11, 2005 17:47

I am continuing a textual compression of those ideas I had wished & planned last week to share epistle to the Eire and readers of English as far away as the americas and united kollectives on Sunday last.

{if you want to keep things simple don't bother reading this}

The life of Ramon Llull, in the illustration at the top, and short biography in the comment previous, saw a conjunction of msytical knowledge and beliefs which helped an ethical consensuality emerge, amongst the people's of the mediterranean and then by "trickle down effect" those of europe. The ground work was laid for the Rennaisance. And useful bridges in the understanding of superstition were built to what is still termed "the dark ages" when the root causes of the crusades are inaccurately placed.

Ramon ( like me these last weeks ) had access to many writings, not only religious such as those of the muslims and jews and franciscans to whom i have referred in the last comment, but also many other texts now lost to us, and of course those other fathers of our way of life "the satirists" of Greece and Rome to whom I often refer, as the closest readers know.

The qoute above from Horace was thus well known to Llull and his contemporaries.
"Diruit, aedificat, mutat quadratarotundis"
= He changes, he builds, he turns square things into round. I have added- "sed disjecta membra"
= yet the dismembered remain.

The most likely copy of Horace the satirist to be read by Llull was the so-called "barcelona codex" which is reliably sourced to ripoll a beuatiful romanesque town in the pyrennes being afforded its first mention on the 31/august 1353. But was most probably quite popular for many years before, a nearly identical collection of 77 numbered pages being first mentioned in the libraries of western aragon as early as the 12th century. It is quite possible that Llull included references to the timeless Horace and others in his "secondary" contact with contemporaries such as the muslim mathematician and mystic Ibn Khaldun, and whomever thought to use the then "quite fashionable" numerological systems of the Muqaddimah. In the Muqaddimah we see all the numerical permutations of various invocations of Allah, which show the "cross-polination" of mysticism at that time, as pretty much the same techniques of decryption of the "letters" and "numbers" of both creator and created passed from jewish qabala to humanist architecture to christian mystics to be tumbled in the logic machines of Llull and the first "magic squares" of the muslim faith. In short at the time, what some would term now "syncretism" saw complex ritualised use of numbers compared for the first time between all traditions of the same book, yet still using different dating systems. The handwritten notes to the Barcelona codex collection of Horaces satires and odes lists the psot roman city communities of France, the carthars and aragon tracing an unbroken (yet fantastical) lineage of kings, "the merrovingians" to Príam, of Troy. That was merely an attempt to "find the date". For whomever wrote such notes, celebrating their literacy and breaching most seriously the rules of any library, did not live in a time of "common era".
If they were christian or jewish or muslim or "humanist" they used different dates depending on a king's reign, the death of a prophet or the exodus of moses. The lineage to Priam is merely an attempt to place the "doodle" in the great flow of experience which is "TIME".

I write about time a lot. It interests me greatly.
I sometimes feel I store up little pieces of speculation and reflection on time for the future so they can be vacuos past, scant looks at battles that everyone agrees the dates of yet can not tell you the truth on.....

I for one find this all terribly fascinating. And I'll bring you through key "comparisons" and "contrasts" of such "superstitious" use of numbers some time soon, and to make it really really interesting I'll tell you about the other numerical systems then making their first tentative appearances on the radar and sonar of the savants and illuminates of Europe - the hindu systems which are quite extraordinary in their combination of lunar and "macro-number" calculations.

****************************************************

In the real world it is essential that at this time,
all concerned for "our way of life" insist that the events of July 7 which so stopped by usual sunday papers, are put to a public inquiry either by Westminster or the London Authority/Assembly or better both governmental institutions.
(there will be no need to mention by sunday papers) At that public inquiry, representatives of all boroughs affected, all emergency services used, all government departments responsible, all state isntitutions responsible and most importantly
a representative of the Victims ought ask and attempt to answer very difficult questions, and ensure that Londoners continue to live in a transparent, accountable democracy which might show "by example" all other cities "how to respond" to such attacks and guarantee "our way of life", for sadly these imitative terrorist crimes will continue in this XXI century.

by iosaf .:. the ipisphi ·.· Sun Jul 24, 2005 11:55

Nobody is capable of pithily dealing with this comment title in a few sentances of html, or for that matter a large circulation newspaper.
One of the point of "the sunday papers" articles are to remind myself and everyone that we all have very different ways of life but share the most mundane things and that is essential to the bedrock of civilised values upon which we have seen several "systems of collective organisation" evolve.

Something which concerns me is the use of the term "miraculous" in the irish press this weekend. Are those Irish who survived the bombs in egypt alive due to a miraculous escape?
Are the customers of the Irish bar on the red sea somehow protected by a divine force which did not extend to the supermarket under the hotel?
But the little girl last week in Turkey had evaded the miracle?
Was the bombings of 7/7 London not miraculous but the failed bombings of 21/7miraculous?
Was the death of a brazilian 22/7 short of miraculous but the survival of so many others supernatural?

Is this how we rationalise the arbitrary slaughter and threat of masacre of Terror?

Ramon Llull (continuing the illustration at the top and biogs in the comments previous) as well as Ibn Khalid were fully aware of the work of Rabbi Ben meir ibn Ezra before them, the sephard mathematician poet and mystic had lived in an earlier age, under the caliphate when jew and muslim were allies and christians their joint infidel & ignorant enemies.

with Ben Ezra's contact (& his contemporaries') with Arabic & Indian mathematics, we get the first book about these -
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
and the most important of all, this-
0
it would take us a long time to decide what to call
0
which resulted in the various words english still ascribes "0"; zero, nil, nought.
nothing will come of nothing. It is too late to call God to this war on any side.
We must I feel, find more mundane common concerns and values for we are supposed to be seeking the realistically obtainable.
Maybe the best miracles happen in peace.
Peace = Saleem = Shalom = Pax = miraculous?