Arquivo para a ‘Libraries’ Categoria
Blog surpasses 100 thousand readers in may
01
Jun
This blog surpassed the mark of 100 thousand readers in May.
On March 16, 2010, I wrote the first post of this blog about the iPad, even though the first iPad was launched only on April 3, 2010, thus our blog anticipated its success, even though it is critical of the company’s business model and uses Androids.On August 27, 2010, I added the first image to the blog talking about the Diáspora* network, whose development is now on a new link, but the project has not taken off yet.
In the same year, the internet was about to reach 2 billion users, we announced the arrival of the 4G model in the USA, pointing out that LTE technology was compatible with GSM,The LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology also has the advantage of being fully compatible with GSM, and the release of the book Practical Open Source for Libraries by Nicole C. Engard.
We never forget social concern, the fight in Brazil for the Ficha Limpa model against the corrupt, we commented on and popularized the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, Elinor Ostrom (2009), and her model of organizations managing common goods (Governing of Common), and we seek in various ways how to truly and directly confront poverty. I thank the readers; there is no media concern here (in the sense of personal promotion), I seek to look at all sides of social and political problems and to seek the truth.
I renew my commitment to a universal and fraternal humanity with respect for differences.
Truth, aphoria and asceticism
28
May
Truth for the ancient Greeks was called Aletheia, (to not and letheia conceal)
because it is concealment, not contradiction and was thus designated by the ancient Greeks as truth and reality, simultaneously.
The Greek word Aporia (Ἀπορία), which in Greek mythology meant impotence, difficulty and helplessness, or lack of means, was rethought by the Aristotelian school as impasse, paradox, doubt, uncertainty or even contradiction, and its studies are called aporetic.
Aristotle defined it as “the equality of contradictory conclusions” (Topics, 6.145.16-20), and this path that leads to the “illumination” of Being for Heidegger is the clearing.
However, the aporia is still trapped in the dualistic logic of Being or Not, and in addition to Heidegger’s clearing and St. Augustine’s “divine enlightenment” (we’ve already posted on this), there is something that covers up the truth and makes it difficult for human beings to find it
At the beginning of the year, I set out to read the book Verity by Colleen Hoover, famous for others such as “This is how it ends” (which has already been made into a movie) and “This is how it begins”, but I was interested in the truth and wanted to see what literature presents (Colleen is widely read).
The book tells the story of writer Lowen, who after a long period of seclusion to look after her mother, goes out to see a book proposal that her literary agent Corey has. On the way, she sees a truck accident that hits someone very close to her and the accident is so serious (a truck passes over the head of the pedestrian who dies) that blood splashes on her body and stains her shirt.
A passer-by nearby comes to Jeremy’s aid and, curiously, he was going to the same meeting. He lends her his shirt and they go to a nearby place so she can clean herself up and put on Jeremy’s (much larger) shirt.
At the meeting, they discover that Jeremy is the one who has been offered the job of continuing the work of his wife, Verity, who is a famous writer, but who has also suffered an accident and is apparently unable to write, so that she can finish the three remaining volumes of her collection, becoming Verity’s co-author.
At first she rejects it, but after a private conversation with Jeremy she accepts the project and receives an invitation to stay close to the family. There she discovers that Verity is in a coma, after her daughters died in tragic and very strange situations, dying in a lake and eating peanuts and choking.
While living together, he discovers many confusing psychological situations, the relationship between the couple and their daughters doesn’t seem to be very transparent and involves psychological manipulation, then he discovers that Verity’s coma wasn’t real in a letter and then he discovers a manuscript that reveals the “reasons” for simulating the coma.
I haven’t got to the end yet, but I’ve discovered what I wanted to, what there is between the situations of lies that many people get involved in and the difficulties of getting rid of them and finally, the manipulators are psychotic types.
Truth must therefore be linked to Love, to sincerely wishing the good for others and not developing pathologies that justify lies and simulations that cover up the truth and distance us from spiritual asceticism.
Hoover, C. (2018) Verity. Grand Central Pub. NY, New York.
Thought and information technology
12
Mar
The origins of almost all realities (if we don’t
consider the divine and eternal) come from human thought, the idea of politics in the Greek polis, the idea of the “art of war”, from the law codes of Hammurabi (1792 to 1750 BC) to modern contractualists, compilations of religious treatises, epistemological constructions of the sciences and computer science could not be left out.
In 1900, when physics and mathematics seemed to give an air of precision and certainty to the scientific universe, positivism still reigned in law, a German mathematician David Hilbert proposed 23 “final” problems for mathematics at an International Congress in Paris in 1900.
Among these was the second problem: the finitist solution to the consistency of the axioms of arithmetic, which together with the sixth problem, which was the axiomatization of physics, seemed to give a logical and precise finish to all of science, but there had already been a return to the question of Being through Husserl and Heidegger, and this returned thought to human complexity.
Kurt Gödel, a member of the Vienna Circle who eschewed this logic and for this reason was called a neologicist, proved the incompleteness of the second problem, that arithmetic was either consistent or complete, thus remaining in a paradox, called Gödel’s Paradox.
The question of arithmetic is important to understand the origin of the idea of algorithms, which were previously just formulas like Bhaskara’s formula (for 2nd degree equations), complex solutions to differential equations, while physics had the problem of formulating all of physics in a single theory, the so-called Standard Theory of Physics, but quantum mechanics and the theory of general relativity, where time and space are not absolute, changed this scenario.
The meeting of Claude Shannon and Alain Turing, who were working on secret projects to code transmissions (made for the Roosevelt government) and decode the Enigma machine captured from the Nazis (Turing’s secret project) will create a new event.
Unable to talk about their secret projects (Gleick, 2013, p. 213), they talked about Gödel’s paradox and wondered about the possibility of the machine elaborating thoughts, even if it was something limited, and both developed theories about language and algorithms.
While Turing devised a state machine that, through back and forth movements of a tape recording symbols, would produce intelligible sentences, Shannon worked on a similar model (using a theory called Markov chain) that, through finite vocabularies, could compose sentences and formulate broader ideas.
Alain Turing’s definitive contribution was the so-called Finite State Machine, whose model was completed by Alonzo Church, while Claude Shannon left the contribution of a Mathematical Theory for Communication, his theory establishing the amount necessary for the information transmitted not to be damaged, but within the limits of the “machine”.
The reductionist idea that it is possible to carry out actions without a necessary, elaborate, meditated and tested thought is part of current pseudo-scientific narratives.
Gleick. (2013) . Informação: uma história, uma teoria e uma enxurrada. (Information: a history, a theory and a flood). Transl. Augusto Cali. Brazil, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.
Totalitarianism and innocent lives
04
Oct
In war the first victim is the truth, a phrase
attributed to Aeschylus of ancient Greece, but the tragic thing is the proportion of innocent victims, pure and elevated souls that war consumes because of the dread that totalitarian leaders have of freedom, free people and true humanism.
There are countless cases, from hospitals and schools being bombed to cases of torture and cruelty to people who would bear great fruit for an elevated humanity, and that’s exactly why sick minds fight them.
I discovered among these various names, through a student, a Jewish woman named Etty (Esther) Hillesum, a Dutch daughter of Dutch father Louis Hillesum and Russian mother Rebecca Bernstein (Riva), a professor of ancient languages, from whom the interest in languages was probably born, but she goes to study Slavic languages, perhaps inspired by her mother, and then takes a master’s degree in law.
Her diaries and letters were written during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, and among the first books I came across were “Une vie bouleversée” (A Life Turned Upside Down) and 15 Days of Prayer with Etty Hillesum (published in Portuguese by Paulinas).
One of her phrases “inside me there is a deep well”, where inside there is sand and stones that prevent you from reaching something clearer, reveals a mystical path and the search within her to reach a deeper interiority, it is a refuge, I would say a spiritual resistance to Nazism and the climate that was generated around her.
Her relationship with psychiatrist Julius Spier (who was influenced by Karl Yung), initially for treatment and then for personal involvement, awakened her intellectuality, and in March 1941 she began to write her first of eight diaries.
In June and July 1942, he deepened his mystical dialog, writing: “God has become an interlocutor…” and it is in this context that we can talk about his writings on prayer.
He wrote in “15 Days of Prayer with Etty Hillesum”: “He took me by the hand, so to speak, and said to me: ‘That’s how you have to live’.” On the first day, he said of the second: “An hour of peace, you have to learn … I’m going to turn inward … half an hour of gymnastics and half a prayer of meditation”, the third day: ‘Hineinhorchen: listening inwardly’, listening to oneself, to others and to God.
This is how Etty’s itinerary goes: day four: “forgive my parents and their limits”, day five: “surrender to yourself and to your own guardianship”, in short, of a pure and innocent soul who indicates not just a path of repetitive and meaningless prayers, but an interior path.
One of the millions of innocent souls who died in concentration camps, she met her death in the Auschwitz camp at the young age of 29. Her writings are pure and profound, reminiscent of the purity of children and of people who live a human humanity.
Ferrière, P., Meeûs-Michiels, I. (2016) 15 dias de oração com Etty Hillesum (15 days of prays with the Etty Hillesum). Brazil, São Paulo: Paulinas editions.
Painless society and the midnight library
19
Jul
Byung-Chul Han wrote the Palliative Society,
not only about the Pandemic, but also and above all about the search for a world without pain, we are even capable of suffering and great efforts due to narcissism and personal aesthetics, what Peter Sloterdijk called of “the exercise society”, but a despiritualized asceticism.
The novel by English writer Matt Haig: The Midnight Library, tells of a 35-year-old woman full of talents and few achievements, regretting her bad choices in life, she wonders if she could have lived differently, after losing her job and his cat is run over, he decides to take his own life, in the stage between life and death he finds the Midnight Library (picture illustration brazilian cover), with the possibilities of lives he could have lived.
With the help of an old friend, she decides to move to Australia and renew old relationships, discovering that it is possible to review life and undo something that we regret, to have hope.
Among Nora’s initial dramas, I highlight the part where she says: “I get a headache looking at… cell phones”, it’s not just her, it’s a lot of people, this takes away the capacity for reflection and silence that Byung-Chul Han claims, the one that can make us reflect on life and our actions.
Palliative society, according to Byung-Chul Han, has nothing to do with palliative medicine, explains the Korean-German philosopher: “Thus, every critique of society has to carry out a hermeneutics of pain. If pain is left solely to the burden of medicine, we miss its character as a sign” (Han, 2011).
It reminds me of a saying by Ernest Jünger: “Tell me your relationship with pain, and I will tell you who you are!”, so every social or social suffering must precede and precede moments of reflection, or as Byung-Chul likes it, a “Contemplative Life ” another essay by the author.
“The survival society completely loses the meaning of the good life. Enjoyment is also sacrificed to health elevated to an end in itself” (Han, 2021, p. 34), that is, the very absence of a “hermeneutic” of pain can lead to the end of the meaning of life.
It also clarifies Agamben’s meaning of homo sacer and via nude: “Without resistance we subject ourselves to the state of exception that reduces life to bare life” (Han, 2021, p. 34).
Anguish, loneliness and depression do not only have social causes, but what we feed our souls on, in the biblical passage that the prophet Isaiah goes to visit Ezekiel who is stricken with a deadly disease (Is 1,1-6) after the supplications of Hezekah through the word of Isaiah God frees him not only from the disease, giving him another 15 years of life, but also “I will free you from the hands of King Assyria, together with this city, which I place under my protection” ( Is 1:6).
Of course, the social solution is not magical, but we face it better if our pain is understood.
Haig, M. (2020) A Biblioteca da meia-noite (The midnight library). Translation: Adriana Fidalgo, Brazil, RJ: Editora Record, 2020.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2021) A sociedade paliativa: a dor hoje (The palliative society: pain today). Trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil: Rj, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Affection and empathy heal wounds
13
Mar
Alberto Manguel is an Argentine writer well
known in university circles, both due to his relationship with Jorge Luis Borges, whom he met as a teenager and read books to him, as well as as the author of several anthologies and novels, including a book that I highlight as mandatory is A history of reading, in the original A History of Reading (1996).
A man of the world, in 1971 he lived in Paris and London, in 1972 he returned to Argentina but as foreign editor of the Italian publisher Franco Maria Ricci, in 1976 he moved to Tahiti, in 1982, Alberto moved to Toronto, Canada, where he lived until 2000.
He didn’t stop there, he moved to the Poitou-Charentes region, in France, where he bought and renovated a medieval monastery with his current partner Craig Stephenson, one of the renovations carried out was to accommodate his library of 40 thousand books.
In 2020 he donated the entire library to the future Center for the Study of the History of Reading (CEHL), and started living in Lisbon and is a columnist for the Canadian magazine Geist.
One of his famous phrases is “the banal belief that time heals wounds is a mistake: we get used to them, which is not the same thing”, but his phrase about reading seems to be a strong influence of Borges for whom the library was a paradise, it is about reading:
“The love of reading is something that can be learned but not taught.
In the same way that no one can force us to fall in love, no one can force us to love a book.
These are things that occur for mysterious reasons, but I am convinced that there is a book that awaits each of us.
Somewhere in the library there is a page that was written just for us.”
The phrase is also his: “Reading is always an act of power. And it is one of the reasons why the reader is feared in almost all societies”, there are others of course, but for this I invite my reader to read: “A history of reading”.
Manguel, A. (1996) History of Reading. New York : Viking.
Testimonies and humanism
09
Aug
True humanism is what allows the evolution
of the civilizing process, preserving what is essential that every man has, which is his Being, this goes beyond the conditions of economic, social and political survival, he must include the Other and give this testimony.
Testimonies range from cases in which someone needs information and turns to someone or some epistemic means (organized knowledge) to new scientific reports that reveal the most intricate mysteries of life and the universe.
Epistemologists agree on the importance of testimony as a source of justification, along with perception (cognitive and beyond), memory (all means of information and dissemination) and reasoning (beyond the logical, physical and metaphysical), The divergence lies in how falsely justified testimonial beliefs can arise from justified beliefs.
This is due to the fact that not only beliefs considered in the religious aspect, but also them, but the fact that it is possible that testimonial beliefs involving perception, memory and cognition (my addition) are reliable from previously justified beliefs, this is the current called reductionist, because regardless of the testimony, it is already justified.
Anti-reductionists argue that the justification of testimonial beliefs is straightforward: we are justified in believing something simply because someone testifies to something even though there are no reasons not to do so, there are different tentative responses to this debate.
Outside of this epistemic debate, we must think that we live in a time when it is difficult to think and organize information in order to reach the testimony as a source of truth, one can defend peace even by making war, one can defend democracy by limiting the civil rights and divergent ideas, justice can be defined by changing the rules of law to give rise to injustice, one can proclaim a belief even while limiting oneself to a partial practice.
Thus, what is at stake is not the testimony of beliefs, but often their own denial, and it can be a matter not just of bad faith or ill will, but of difficulty in cognition, which is why I made this addition to perception and memory, where the problem is the source of information.
A true humanism must presuppose testimony, otherwise we do not have a reliable reference for our arguments, dialogues and overcoming disagreements.
We can only test our way of life if we live up to what we witness.
Referência:
Leonard, Nick, “Epistemological Problems of Testimony”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/testimony-episprob/ , 2021.
Hearts that contemplate, love
28
Apr
Despite writing romantic novels in the sentimental romantic sense, the first
look I looked at Nicholas Sparks, who is very successful with the American public, with translations of his books in more than 50 languages, the first contact was due to interest in the subject.
Rescue, published in 2000 ( in Brazil Corações em Silêncio, published in 2016 by Asa Editor), tells the story of Taylor McAden, a volunteer firefighter who, in his personal life, despite intense loves, are short-lived and does not like to take risks.
In an unusual situation he needs to help find a boy when Denise Holton’s car goes off track, Taylor saves her and from there another quick relationship is born, but another terrible situation occurs, after recovering his senses he asks for his son who has learning difficulties and I was in the car with her.
A search begins and Taylor is faced with a situation that he really has to love.
There is no way to do contemplation or meditation without silence, not only of the environment but also of the soul, of our established values and preconceptions.
A search begins and Nicholas is faced with a situation that he really has to love.
There is no way to do contemplation or meditation without silence, not only of the environment but also of the soul, of our established values and preconceptions.
Silence, meditation, contemplation are often caused by unexpected situations more of pain than of love, but also of love, in these situations we have to make some courageous decision in the face of life, commitments and the relationship with the Other.
The silence and the discovery of the true value of love led him to an action beyond what could justify Taylor as his “job”, even if it was voluntary work.
The biblical passage that can inspire this meditation and contemplation is the one that the disciples who were going to the village of Emmaus and “listened” to Jesus, who only later will they understand that he was the teacher and ask Him (Lc 24,29): “Stay with us, for the night is coming; the day is nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them.”
The night is symbolic in the sense of dark and difficult moments in our lives, which require meditation, silence in order to listen to “that voice” of wisdom and common sense.
Sparks, Nicholas. The Rescue. New York: Warner, 2000. (versão brasileira Hearts in Silence, Editora Asa, 2016).
Coldness: from essence to appearance
18
Apr
Empathy, patience, true love and true feelings seem distant, bodies adorned,
made up and tattooed, minds distant and cold, empty and lacking in inspired ideas.
I read in the book “The book thief” (2005): “perhaps this is a fair punishment for those who do not have a heart: only realizing this when you can no longer go back”, is a harsh sentence, but it was important to analyze my social, personal and friendship context.
My inspiration to read, write and search within institutions, environments and social media for something intelligent, inspired and sweet, productive where I can find different paths from what I see and feel around me, made me understand and admire Markus Zusak’s book, at least unless I remember the 2013 edition (year of film), she was looking for a refuge, an escape from the contextual situation.
I wonder if this situation about the tension of a possible large-scale war is different, I see a lot of hypocrisy and manipulation in the air, while innocent people die in a stupid war, others prepare for an even bigger confrontation that slowly spreads across the globe.
I remember a biblical passage (Thessalonians 1,5:3) when they say: “There is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them, like birth pangs on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape”, but for those in a hurry I remember that it is written that this will not mean the end.
Sincere efforts for peace are lacking, armed spirits cannot promote any peace, they want allies for their temporal power, a timeless message is lacking, beyond immediate interests.
This is how hearts walk, and schools and the everyday life of the simplest and most fleeting life have already arrived, I saw a housewife from a small town excited in the supermarket speaking against that politician who ruined everything and a child who cried over a political situation that I didn’t quite understand.
You can’t put out a fire with gasoline, says popular wisdom, but poetry is no longer in the air, there are no songs that speak of pure love, only immediate interests of an erotic drive, in a society that actually lives “The agony of Eros”, a profound book by Byung Chul Han.
It is not a certain popular singer who speaks against teaching and good education, society echoes these hymns and there is almost no way to succeed without emotional and passionate appeals out of tune.
The dismantling of the human vision as Being and its transformation into the utilitarian vision of Having had a historical origin in Western thought and now penetrates and tries to destroy its meaning.
Zusak, Markus. (2005) The book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Leaked documents and rhetoric of tension
10
Apr
A leaked document that would contain alleged US secret information about
the war between Ukraine and Russia may contain part of the information true and some false, according to US military sources, the assessment of the death toll in the war in Ukraine would be false.
Newspapers like The New York Times, on the other hand, assess that it is an effort by Moscow to provoke more disinformation than news already known as the anticipated deliveries of weapons, as well as the formation of troops and battalions according to war strategies, however this already shows that there are some gaps in US intelligence in the effort to support Ukraine.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, “We are aware of the reports of social media posts, and the department is looking into the matter.”
The US Department of Justice opened investigations into these disclosures, which also included information from important allies such as Israel, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
American rhetoric and Western leaders continue to assert that Russia has committed war crimes, including the “deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia, condemned by the Hague court, while Russian rhetoric continues to be one of insecurity at its borders.
What the documents reveal, although without precise data, is a probable Ukrainian offensive next month, Finland’s official entry into NATO creates another frontier of conflict and some Russian response is also expected there.
In terms of peace, the Brazilian proposal to cede Crimea, which was already Russian territory before the war, in exchange for the resumption of territories occupied in the current war, was not accepted by Ukraine.
So both Russia and Ukraine seem to be taking the war to the limits of attrition, the death of countless soldiers and the economic consequences that have begun to appear in the world economy.
China has hit back at rhetoric that it is not making enough effort for peace, saying the “West are not in a position to dictate what we should do”, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui told Izvestia.
The hope that negotiations can move forward from countries outside the conflict remains.
