Reviewing Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, Part Two

In the previous post I review a Cleveland Orchestra performance of Belshazzar’s Feast. The Orchestra, the Chorus, the conductor were all wonderful. The music wasn’t bad, but nothing notable.

The words were the problem. They have legitimacy in our society because they come from a revered source, the bible. But they were telling a story that justified violence against those who had different beliefs than the story tellers.

There are people in the world today who claim than being sensitive to the feelings of others is “woke” and too politically correct. However, my review was written on the same day that these news items appeared.

A 23 year old woman is taken away at gunpoint from her home in West Gaza. It was midnight. She was asleep. Her elderly parents were forced to be silent and not say goodbye. The soldiers told them that, as soldiers, they could get away with anything as they were at war.

The same words were spoken in World War II against their own ethnic group 80 years ago.

China is arming Russia in its obliteration of Ukraine. And Ukraine is overwhelmed with missile attacks even as its energy infrastructure is being destroyed.

These same scenarios have been acted out before. In all cases, brutal wars are the result.

It’s world events like these that do not give me an optimistic feeling for the future. And it’s why we must search out and eliminate all sources of hate whenever and wherever it appears. Even in music.

Belshazzar’s Feast, a review

I enjoyed a performance of William Walton’s “Belshazzar’s Feast.” This was a few nights ago, by the Cleveland Orchestra.

• Choir performance – spectacular
• Baritone performance – fantastic
• Orchestra performance – their usual excellence
• Conductor performance – exuberant and joyful, and exacting
• Music itself – Most of the time it seemed more like the soundtrack to a Western movie.
• Words – Here, my appreciation plummets. Details below.

The words were are from the bible. This book of books is the basis of a particular ethnic group’s mythology. The story in Walton’s Feast tells of events that justify violence against others. The Babylonians are being punished because they stole items from a Zion temple. And their gods are being beaten by a better god.

The story throws shade on the Babylonians by making fun of their pantheism. The story says Babylonians have a god of gold, a god of silver, and others. In fact, Babylon’s mythology was both more complex and well constructed.

The story references Egyptian mythology. Egyptian faith is the foundation for many biblical beliefs, without credit. Here’s one example. The story mentions weighing the king’s deeds “in the balance” to see if he gets into heaven. This is a an Egyptian standard for determining the judgment of souls.

Worst of all, this story is relevant to the violence going on in Palestine today, 2024. (Please see my part two post for more.) This story justifies violence against those who are different. And it’s common to hear this from those doing most of the killing.

Pass on Walton’s piece if you come across it. If necessary, listen to it without words. Best of all, spurn all religious based story telling that’s used to denigrate others. Especially if it is justifying violence. There are many other better stories for our enjoyment.

Macho Economics

Dreaming great dreams helps me overcome an abusive childhood. I’ve always been curious. And overly sensitive to the feelings of others, even though I can’t show feelings very well. And I’m desperate to help others, but have an invisible voice.

You’re constantly connected, yet alone. You consume, and are also consumed. You know money is important; and evil. You believe society must be fair and care for everyone, or it benefits no one.

The alarms of MeToo woke me from a deep sleep, a sleep of ignorance. Then I also heard the alarms of Black Lives Matter, and LGTBQ+ Pride. I now see how some women continue to be insulted, slighted, suppressed, even abused. Most women. Pretty much every woman. I still believe that, with everyone’s help, we can make a better future. Still, hatred is everywhere. As a fighter, I choose to fight that hatred. And I could use your help.

MeToo exists inside the ivory silos of economics. Here, pale old men continue dominating women using soft power and institutional bias. Women are a fraction of the profession. Meaning the’re excluded from explosive life-changing prizes. Barabasi [1] pointed this out in 2018, and no one said anything.

The reasons are simple, and subtle. Barabasi found that women prefer collaboration. Men prefer isolation. Women are honest about what they know, and don’t know. Men exude bold confidence, even when wrong. The result is that women are not evaluated based on science, or insight. They are evaluated based on culture and psychology. This means that, fundamentally, Economics is not science, but art. Without rigor, there can be no learning. And Science is learning at its best.

What can you do? If you know an economist, demand definitions you understand, and can measure. Keep score of predictions. Prediction is proof of understanding. Anyone who resists keeping score is hiding something.

Have fun at the same time. Many love gambling; so start a betting pool for economists. A fun-filled way to hold their feet to the fires of publicity.

Yes, you can make a difference. Demand your teachers follow their own rules of rigor, logic, clarity, and measurability. Challenge their predictions. Ignore the Dow. Scoff at optimizing stakeholder values. Without rigor you learn nothing.

If I can dream, then so can you.
You are the future.
What you do today changes tomorrow.
All people, in all their diverse glory, need your help.
Remember the children.
I’m thinking of you.

[1] Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo; “Formula, the universal laws of success.” Book published in 2018, see pp 213-4 for observations about women in economics.

Infinity isn’t Real

Watching a great Numberphile video about how the number –1/12 keeps showing up in calculations that involve infinite series. To recap, a modern mathematician (Terrance Tao) figured out that this number shows up because it’s buried within the very fabric of how math deals with simplifying infinities.

I’m a lover of numbers, and of math in general. Triangles are a turn on. Despite the sharp points.

However, I’ve dedicated my life to understanding behavior. Not just about people. Animals. Bugs. Trees. Bacteria. Even Gaia – the whole Earth.

And looking at math from the perspective of a bacterium has opened my eyes.

Strangely enough. It wasn’t my idea to look at math from a bugs eye point of view. A guy named John Conway gave me the idea. And another guy named Knuth wrote about it in a way that I could *almost* understand.

Here’s one of my older posts about Conway and how his new numbers may in fact be old numbers.

Anyway, the discussion about infinity was something I didn’t think about, until now.

Infinity really isn’t real. It can’t be.

We know the universe is finite. We know that the resolution of the universe is finite. We know that light only travels a certain speed. We know that the universe can be only so many years old. And that time, and energy, can only be so small before they simply don’t exist anymore.

Each of those things is a limit. Can’t be too big. Can’t be too small. Can’t live too long.

So where’s infinity?

In our minds. It’s a make believe concept that has proven valuable for figuring out problems. But it’s not real. And that’s why math runs into problems. And physics, too.

Does the number pi go on forever? Absolutely. The ratio is something that we looked for, and we define it in terms of our made-up numbers.

Can we prove it goes on forever?

Absolutely NOT. We can’t because there isn’t enough time, enough space, enough energy.

So it’s not infinite.

Same for every other “irrational” number that exists. We made it up. And we have to live with the consequences.

What does this mean for those of us forced to live in “reality?”

Until a math genius comes along and turns the math world inside out, we have to wrestle with these imaginary problems.

Until we think of “surreal” numbers and “irrational” numbers as real as “natural” numbers, we’re going to have problems.

And this is where behavior comes in.

Because the problems aren’t math. The problems are us. In our minds.

Think about it. But not for long! We don’t have infinite time. LOL

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, Poet

As death draws near, my appreciation for the power of poetry grows. It’s more than enjoyment of the rythm, or the message, or the play of words. Much more.

My appreciation grows from my learning more languages. My appreciation grows from what I know of computers and artificial intelligence. My appreciation grows because of how little I understand of quantum mechanics. Indeed, how little anyone understands the quantum world.

Poetry may be the only true way to represent concepts that are beyond language, beyond numbers, beyond our ability to comprehend. Invoking images that transcend today’s textbooks may be the only way the next generation can break free of the old generation’s ruts.

Invoking images that are rooted in our deep genetic history, in the lives and memories of our very genes, is possibly the only way anyone can truly appreciate where our species has come from. Where it is going.

All that said, the reason for these musings is that I came across a Teddy Roosevelt speech that he made in Paris a century ago. It’s inspiring. And it’s timeless. And it’s poetry.

Absolutely brilliant. I hope you enjoy it as much as I. And I hope you don’t mind the way I’ve broken the lines so that it’s poetic element becomes more evident.

Peace to all.

Teddy’s Poem Starts Here

It is not the critic who counts;
not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds
could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs,
who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort
without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end
the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst,
if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be
with those cold and timid souls
who neither know victory nor defeat.

PS – This video from one of my favorite philosophic duos is what led my to the speech in the first place.