Anicca-vijja

The Buchardichurch in Halbertstadt offers the longest piece of music. It lasts for incredible 639 years and started 2001.  It is called „Organ2 / ASLSP“ and written by John Cage. The longest note takes 58 years, the shortest probably several months. There is a short report available on spiegel-online.

Stephansdom (Wien), 2009

Wien illuminated

Wien is surely worth to visit. The Leopold museum contains the largest collection of paintings of painter Egon Schiele who tragically died as a consequence of the Spanish influenza (like his wife). The Albertina museum contains artwork from Albrecht Dürer and many more. The architecture of the whole town is quite exciting. You can still feel the attitude of the old ‘KuK’-monarchy by looking at the historic buildings. However, I warn to visit the Sigmund Freud museum. The couch is missing and the idea behind the whole museum is a little bit outdated. There are almost no information about his thoughts on psychoanalysis. Similarly, information about what happened to the approach after Freud died are almost missing completely. Additionally, if you want to learn about the person (and not only the psychoanalyst) S. Freud, just read (in German) the book written by Eva Weissweiler (2008) ‘Die Freuds: Biographie einer Familie.’ There are a lot of surprises to learn about the founder of psychoanalysis – and not everything is funny.

The following is written in German as it points to a German broadcast about the biblical plagues in the Old Testament (Book of Moses) that took place in Egypt.

(Update 06-09-09: Der zweite Teil war nicht ganz so überzeugend… isb. bzgl. der Frage der toten Erstgeburten)

Der Sender ZDF sendet derzeit ein interessante dreiteilige Sendung aus der Reihe Terra-X über die möglichen historischen Hintergründe der biblischen Plagen im Ägypten. Die daraus entstandene Geschichte ist im Alten Testament über den Auszug des Volkes Israel aus Ägypten bekannt (unter der Schirmherrschaft von Moses als Propheten/ vgl. Buch Moses Kapitel 7). Wie die Sendung Terra-X über die biblischen Plagen berichtet, werden diese mit einer riesigen Umweltkatastrophe im Zuge des Ausbruch eines Vulkanes in Griechenland und anderen ökologischen Veränderungen in einen direkten Zusammenhang gebracht. Damit bekämen

• gefärbtes und vergiftetes Wasser im Nil
• Froschplage
• Stechmücken
• Ungeziefer (Stechfliegen)
• Seuchen
• die Bildung von Geschwüren bei Mensch und Tier
• besonders große Hagelkörner
• Heuschrecken
• Verdunkelung des Himmels

eine historische Begründung. Infolgedessen wurden vor allem Ernten vernichtet, Tiere und Menschen getötet und Hungersnöte brachen aus. Solche schweren Ereignisse werden i.A. von innenpolitischen  Problemen begleitet und der Ausübung wechselseitiger Gewalt und anderer schwerer Straftaten. Als Auslöser der Plagen werden tatsächlich existente Umweltkatastrophen angeführt. In Kürze besagt die These, dass durch den Ausbruch eines Vulkanes (auf der griechischen Kykladeninsel Santorin) ~1600 B.C. Tsunamis ausgelöst wurden, die wiederum zu Überschwemmungen führten und all dies einen großen Einfluss auf die Verbreitung und örtliche Ausrichtung von Tieren hatte und sich dies auf viele Umweltfaktoren ungünstig auswirkte. Hinzu kommt, dass im Falle von Vulkanausbrüchen extrem viel Staub und Schadstoffe in die Atmosphäre gelangen und sich später niederlassen und gleichfalls Auswirkungen zeigen. Je nach Klimaveränderung wirkt zusätzlich die jährliche Überschwemmung des Nils unterschiedlich, teilweise kann es sehr lange Trockenzeiten geben, etc. Plausibel ist, dass ein Vulkanausbruch den ‘normalen’ Ablauf der Jahreszeiten längerfristig stark verzerrt und durcheinanderbringt, so dass für Mensch und Tier Leid entsteht.

Bezogen auf die ‘Tierplagen’ besagt dies, dass sich etwa Heuschrecken von Hoch- nach Tiefdruckgebieten (sprich Regen) bewegen, sich extrem schnell fortpflanzen und infolgedessen unglaublich viel an Ernte in kürzester Zeit vernichten können. Ein paar Milliarden Heuschrecken vernichten zig-Tonnen an Nahrung (2g pro Tag pro Heuschrecke, was in etwa ihrem Eigengewicht entspricht). Für Stechmücken, Ungeziefer und Frösche lassen sich vergleichbare plausible Erklärungen finden. Die rote ‘blutige’ Verfärbung bzw. Vergiftung von Wasser (der Fluss Nil) kann auf das Vorhandensein der Burgunderblutalge (ein giftiges Bakterium) und Schadstoffen zurückgeführt werden – und später auf Tierkadaver (isb. Fische), die tot im Nil herumtreiben. Damit ist der Fluss umgekippt. Die Froschplage lässt sich erklären, dass Kaulquappen intuitiv das ‘Umkippen’ des Flusses spüren, sich schneller entwickeln und alle relativ gleichzeitig das Wasser verlassen. Die Bakterien haben jedoch ihre inneren Organe bereits angefangen zu zerstören, so dass in kurzer Zeit viele Frösche sterben und tot an Land liegen bleiben. Damit fehlen z.B. Stechmücken ihre natürlichen Feinde, da auch die Fische sterben. Folglich vermehren diese sich äusserst rasch und zahlreich.

Im Zuge von Tsunamis etwa ist bekannt, dass die vorhandenen (Trink-)Wasservorräte stark verunreinigt werden (u.a. durch Kadaver, etc.). Eine Folge davon ist das Aufkommen von Seuchen aufgrund vergifteten Wassers. Gleichzeitig entsteht ein Milieu, bei dem sich ebenfalls Stechmücken sehr wohl fühlen (da fehlende Feinde) und diese sich stark und schnell vermehren können. Hagelkörner benötigen für ihr Zustandekommen Staub in der Atmosphäre, da reine einzelne Wassertropfen ohne Staub selbst bei vielen Minusgraden noch nicht gefrieren. Mit etwas Staub geht dies ganz schnell. So können Hagelkörner auch besonders groß werden (viel Staub in der Atmosphäre im Zuge des Vulkanausbruches) und beim Hinunterfallen auf die Erde deutlichen Schaden anrichten (was viele Autobesitzer leider kennen). In Extremfällen können Hagelkörner Menschen und Tiere töten oder lebensgefährlich verletzen. Insofern erscheinen die bisherigen Schlussfolgerungen, die durch Feldforschung in Ägypten und Santorin, anhand von alten Schriften sowie Experimente und Untersuchungen in wissenschaftlichen Labors unterstützt werden (z.B. Datierung von Bims-Gestein mit der Radiokarbonmethode, Experimente zum Zustandekommen von Hagelkörnern im eisgekühlten Windkanal, Studien zur Verbreitung von Heuschrecken und ihrem Paarungsverhalten, Studien zur Burgunderblutalge und ihrem Einfluss auf Wasserqualität und Tiere, etc.) durchaus plausibel und gut begründet zu sein. Im Falle der biblischen Plagen ist das Buch Mose sozusagen eine recht genaue Beschreibung historisch Fakten. Die Figur Mose findet jedoch keine klare Entsprechung, wobei hierzu unterschiedliche Thesen existieren (etwa bei Laurence Gardner).

Die ZDF Mediathek ermöglicht ein nachträgliches Anschauen dieser Sendungen am Computer (wer die Sendung nicht sehen konnte). Spannend wird im dritten Teil sein, wie die letzte Plage

• die Tötung der Erstgeborenen

erklärt wird. Vermutlich wird dies über spezielle Funktionen, Handlungen und Aufenthaltsorte der Erstgeborenen erklärt, so dass eine ähnliche Katastrophe diese, aber nicht Spätergeborene traf. Letztere nahmen vermutlich andere Funktionen, etc. wahr.

Ein biologische Abhandlung zur Biologie der biblischen Plagen wurde 2008 von dem Forscherehepaar Anna und Hermann Levinson geleistet:

Levinson, Hermann und Levinson, Anna (2OO8). Zur Biologie der zehn biblischen Plagen. DGaaE Nachrichten, 22 (2), 83-102.

Der Artikel ist auf der Homepage der Deutschen Gesellschaft für allgemeine und angewandet Entomologie e.V. (DGaaE) zum freien Download erhältlich.

Question: Krishnamurti did not believe in a technique or gurus. I believe you met him, did you discuss this?

Answer by S. N. Goenka:
Certainly, I met him. He was a very saintly person, and I very much understood why he is against technique and why he is against gurus. Because he observed the situation all over the country where gurus just exploit the people saying “Look I am your guru and you are my disciple, you are so weak, how can you liberate yourself ? Just surrender to me and I will liberate you. I will liberate you.”

This is exploitation by gurus, this is against Dhamma and when you talk of technique that means you have got one object and you are just working with one object. It does not take you to the final goal.

Things are changing from moment to moment you are observing, you are observing. (This is Vipassana, this is not a technique, Vipassana is not a technique, it is a process of observation.)

So I discussed with him “Well in age you are an elderly person and in experience also you are an elderly person.” It was 30 years ago when we met. “You are elderly so let me know if I am making any mistake. I am teaching Vipassana because I got benefit from it and I want to share my benefit with others. That is the only reason. If I am making any mistake please tell me”. then he (K) asked me “First day what you teach?”. (I replied and he said)

”Oh! This is not a technique”…second day… (K said) ”This is not a technique”.
….all the ten days I explained (and K said) “This is not a technique, you are observing the truth. The truth from moment to moment. Perfectly all right !”.

And guru? (I said) “I never say that I will liberate you, you have to work out your own liberation. A guru can only show the path then only sadguru. Otherwise if he tries to exploit then he is not a guru, he is harmful to the country.” He said, “no this is not gurudom.” He accepted both.

J. Krishnamurti (Photo from Wikipedia)

X

(S. N. Goenka met K at KFI Rajghat in early 1970′s.)

Question for Shri S. N. Goenka about his meeting with J Krishnamurti (K)
Location: Pune, India.
Date: 17 October 2000.
Occasion: public Q/A session after a public talk by Shri S N Goenka on Vipassana meditation.

Thanks to buddhanet.net for posting this and thanks to Munish Agarwal who compiled the sayings of Krishnamurti to ” … present the teachings of Lord Buddha in the words of J. Krishnamurti.”

SN Goenka at the UN 2000 (Photo courtesy Beliefnet, Inc.)

Student: Our residence is in the midst of a crowded city which makes it difficult to meditate. Is there any way to keep outside disturbances away from our meditation?

S. N. Goenka: Either you change your residence, run away from the noises of society, or you become so powerful that you can stop all the noises around you. Both are not possible. You have to live in society and you may have to live in the same circumstances where you had been living before. Therefore, you have to strengthen yourself and learn how to ignore all these disturbances. Just as a lotus flower growing in a pond is not affected by the water, in the same way, all these disturbances can be ignored. We are now talking and a bird is chirping outside. The bird does not disturb us. We are busy with our discussion. In the same way, we are busy with our meditation. Let the noises be there. One has to train oneself. One has to live in the world full of disturbances, and, in spite of that, have peace and harmony. 

Thanks to Silent Lotus blog for posting this.

I like efficient but also nice looking page styles. One important thing for me is to see chapter as well as section-/ sub-section titles together with page numbers on the same vertical level. This looks like the following:

latex page style

You will see that the page numbers are outside the text area. This can be accomplished while working with ‘memoir class’ with the following code in the preamble that produces a page style:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% User specified LaTeX commands.
% headers and footers
\makepagestyle{abook}
\makeheadposition{abook}{flushright}{flushleft}{}{}
\makerunningwidth{abook}{1.2\textwidth}
\makeoddhead{abook}{\itshape\rightmark}{}{\hspace{2em}\rule[-0.4ex]{0.4pt}{5mm}~~~\thepage\hspace{2em}}
\makeevenhead{abook}{\hspace{2em}\thepage~~~\rule[-0.4ex]{0.4pt}{5mm}\hspace{3em}}{}{\itshape\leftmark}
% PW
\makeatletter
\def\brule{\rule[1.5em]{\textwidth}{0.4pt}}
% LG
\def\abookheadrule{\ifodd\c@page\brule\else\hspace*{0.2\textwidth}\brule\fi}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\makeatletter % because of \@chapapp
\makepsmarks {abook}{
\nouppercaseheads
\createmark {chapter} {both} {shownumber}{\@chapapp\ }{. \ }
\createmark {section} {right}{shownumber}{} {. \ }
\createmark {subsection} {right}{shownumber}{} {. \ }
\createmark {subsubsection}{right}{shownumber}{} {. \ }
\createplainmark {toc} {both} {\contentsname}
\createplainmark {lof} {both} {\listfigurename}
\createplainmark {lot} {both} {\listtablename}
\createplainmark {bib} {both} {\bibname}
\createplainmark {index} {both} {\indexname}
\createplainmark {glossary} {both} {\glossaryname}
}
\makeatother
\setsecnumdepth{subsubsection}
\pagestyle{abook}

The output can be seen here as .pdf and the .tex file is here. Thanks to Lars Madsen and Peter Wilson for their help to realize that. If you work with komascript, it is easy as well. The following code is necessary for the preamble:

\documentclass[oneside,english,ngerman]{scrbook}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin9]{inputenc}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{3}
\setcounter{tocdepth}{3}
\usepackage{scrpage2}
% make headrule
\setheadsepline{0.4pt}
% produce page numbers - different for even and odd pages
\lehead{
 \hspace{2em}\pagemark~~~\rule[-0.4ex]{0.4pt}{5mm}\hspace{3em}\headmark
}
\rohead{
 \headmark\hspace{3em}\rule[-0.4ex]{0.4pt}{5mm}~~~\pagemark\hspace{2em}
}

Do you also think that (La)TeX is wonderful, but most styles are a little bit boring and they do not look very exciting? Maybe this is not really important for scientific publications, but as long as people from practice or non-scientific fields of interest are part of the intended audience, it makes really sense to think seriously about the layout. In the past, I used koma-script which works fine and produces very good results. It is fitted for European needs and its special local requirements. Some time ago, I needed a better style for title pages and chapters. In ‘memoir class’ from Peter Wilson I found the right document class for LaTeX. It provides a lot of styles that can be changed quite easily and without much effort to fit personal requirements. It allows for nice looking epigraphs and all that stuff of page layout which is necessary (many different font sizes, etc.). For the bad news – memoir is incompatible with ‘fancyhdr’ – and for the good news – it provides equivalent opportunities. The user guide of memoir is very comprehensive. However, the short guide written by Lars Madsen is a good starting point to produce page styles together with memoir. Further styles can be found on the pages of Vincent Zoonekynd. There are chapter styles and title page styles available together with TeX-code and how the output looks like. He even produced section styles. At this point it must be mentioned that Zoonekynd also offers a huge free R-book on his website. Although it is not finished yet, it provides many examples of how to use R for statistical analyses, graphics, and demonstrations. If you use Lyx instead of plain TeX, the Lyx-Wiki contains a special page dedicated to the memoir class.

Much has been said about induction. I like the following very old citation:

“Yet, in fact, as I shall show here with very good reasons, the properties of the numbers known today have been mostly discovered by observation, and discovered long before their truth has been confirmed by rigid demonstrations. There are even many properties of the numbers with which we are well acquainted, but which we are not yet able to prove; only observations have led us to their knowledge.”

[Euler, Opera Omnia, ser. 1, vol. 2, pp.459, Specimen de usu observationum in mathesi pura]

There were and there are still many arguments about induction and whether induction is possible or not. However, I think this is the wrong question, because it is quite clear that there is nothing which can explain everything. We live in a relative world and if we think we work with mental or mental-somatic models and not with reality itself. Furthermore, anything is part of a context and this leads to the important question of:

• What from our present context (which elements) has influence on our topic of interest and what has not?
• How can we describe, understand, explain, forecast, and change these influences?

One of the best short outlines of induction can be found in Jaynes (2003). There, the author also performs a dedicated criticism of Popper’s argument against induction. In short, Jaynes argument that one should work on realistic problems and not just in abstract theory like Popper did. This reveals that one should not compare one theory with every possible imaginable theory, because then no solution at all is possible. This becomes clear at once. Moreover, what is needed is a critical comparison of all available and existent theories. Then, induction makes sense. This process of drawing inferences can be labeled as ‘plausible reasoning’ which was elaborated by George Polya (1954).

Technically, Bayesian statistics gives much respect to plausible reasoning and consistent argumentation. The Bayes Theorem allows to update the formula in accordance to all known information. In case of new information the formula is updated. By application of the Bayes Theorem it is possible to compare different theoretical approaches and explanations. Then, induction makes sense, because the best of all available theories or hypotheses can be chosen. But ‘best’ is always ‘relatively best’ and not an absolute term.

The same can be learned from the teaching of the Buddha: There is relative reality and there is absolute reality (nibbana). However, as long as we live in the realm of relative reality and in the field of sensual experiences of mind and body, it does not make sense to search for anything absolute with is not a product of cause and effect. So we can learn much from Buddhist teaching for scientific purposes.  But we have to remember that the teaching of the Buddha is a practical path of direct experience. It is not an academic and intellectual discussion. It is meant to be applied directly in life. Besides that, we can also mention that the Buddhist teaching involves a very complex system of logic. Some of these ideas actually found their way into psychotherapy and systemic structural sculpturing as it is shown very successfully by Varga von Kibed and Insa Sparrer (2009).

References:

Jaynes, E.T. (2003). Probability Theory. The logic of science (Edited by G.L. Bretthorst). Cambridge University Press.

Polya, G. (1990). Mathematics and plausible reasoning. Volume I: Induction and analogy in mathematics. (First print 1954). Princeton University Press.

Polyga, G. (1990). Mathematics and plausible reasoning. Volume II: Patterns of plausible inference. (First print 1954). Princeton University Press.

Sparrer, I. & Kibed, Varga von (2009). Ganz im Gegenteil: Tetralemmaarbeit und andere Grundformen Systemischer Strukturaufstellungen – für Querdenker und solche, die es werden wollen (6th edition). Heidelberg: Carl-Auer-Systeme.

This is the ‘first’ blog and I knew at once what it should be about: The new findings that heavily criticize the general findings of neuroimaging studies. A summary in German can be found in one of the lastes issues of ‘Gehirn und Geist’ (04-09, p.69) by Prof. Fritz Strack. Let’s look what is problematic besides the fact that neuroimaging studies do permanently perform a false logical conclusion, because they attribute characteristics of ‘whole’ human beings solely to their brains and neglect the rest of the body (and the mind)??

Telepolis published a short summary of the research of Edward Vul, a PhD student at the MIT in cambridge (USA) on ‘voodoo correlations’ and ‘non-independence error.’  In a first article he and colleagues write about artifical exaggerated correlations between voxels and external variables. These correlations are sometimes higher than the reliabilities which is far from being realistic! This was found not only in one, but in many studies that were re-analyzed … and not to mention all those articles that were published in high rated journals (but not re-analyzed). Additionally, in another article Edward Vul and colleagues concentrate on the selection of the analyzed brain areas (voxels). These were not independent from the behavior measurements that were done at the very same time. This means that from thousands of voxels those were selected for further analyses that showed a maximum correlation with the external behaviour measurements. Of course all further statistical relationships were high – but are they real or a methodological artefact? – that’s another story to be told.

Another article from Sirotin & Das (Nature 457) questions one of the most basic assumptions of neuroimaging studies: the covariation of local brain activity and blood flow. In an experimental study with animals the authors compared the neuronal firing of cells (direct measurement of cell firing) with the intensity of the blood flow. The results showed that both parameters did not correlate continuously with each other.

So what now? At first we should congratulate the cited researchers for their courage and the journals also for their courage to publish these important findings. What is needed in neurobiology and neuroimaging studies is a methodological discussion. Results should not or even must not be discussed without giving importance to methodological questions. Other disciplines like psychology or sociology have regular discussions of this kind (although sometimes the discipline does not considers change, e.g. ask a German psychologist why nobody does  Bayesian statistics?). I don’t like the last sentence of so many articles like ‘further research is needed,’ but this time I think – yes – these findings have to be understood properly and the experiments that led to their results have to be repeated.

References:

Sirotin, B. Y. & Das, A. (2009). Anticipatory Haemodynamic Signals in Sensory Cortex not Predicted by Local Neuronal Activity. Nature 457, 475–479.

Vul, E., Harris, C., Winkielman, P. & Pashler, H. (in press/ 2009). Voodoo correlations in social neuroscience. Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Vul, E. & Kanwisher, N. (in press/ 2009). Begging the question: The non-independence error in fMRI data analysis. To appear in Hanson, S. & Bunzl, M. (Eds.). Foundations and Philosophy for Neuroimaging.

…Articles to come…