One Whole Year

It's been a vast expanse of a day. Academic and personal developments... it all comes at once, seemingly.

Starting on a big fat wad of joy I have to say I think that for now I've come back to being on top of it all. So glad to be spending some ace quality time with God recently, loving reading the word again and generally feeling good! I say this straight because it ain't that common and it is fabulous when it seems as real and peaceful as this. I have even been working with an attitude of doing it for God despite what I can achieve wordlyly, which is not at all how I felt a few days ago... so I'm lovin' it while I can..!

I don't really know how much to share. I'm gonna do what I normally do and go for honesty over restraint, which I may regret later but the worst that can happen is I look stupid... and there is no shame in the Kingdom!

Today is a significant one in the personal calendar of Kat(i)e because it is exactly a year since the last time I saw someone who used to be one of, if not the, most significant person in my life (they're not dead mind). There is tons of history I have no interest in going into but the short version is that I feel I was moved to Switzerland because God was taking me out of this really unhealthy dependent relationship so I could get free! Which has happened in a huge way. So huge that I never in my wildest dreams would have predicted it and back then the idea of life without him was as scary and alien to me as scary aliens.

So this morning I wondered about if I should wonder about it. 3 years is a long time in the life of a 21 year old (especially as I don't remember most of the early ones) so part of me felt like I should register and ponder on what it all means. The truth was, I didn’t know how I felt. How should I commemorate this? Write a song, an extra verse for another song, a poem, a novel, a play? I still have aspirations for a musical but the plots lines are more befitting of a soap opera than an actual opera! A fake letter, a real letter, pour my heart out into a journal that nosey grandkids may read? Perhaps I should blog I thought; I dismissed this for a time but it seems I have cracked...! Thing is though, it all felt a bit like an obligation and as I tried to express I really had nothing to think. This memory belonged to someone so distant from me it didn't make sense to analyse. I wasn't interested. I wasn't even sure what was real and I didn't care either.

Of course this lack of interest interested me! I got pretty darn excited by the fact I didn't give a damn. A new sense of freedom flooded me and I wrote a journal, a poem, a song AND a verse about moving on! And now a blog...

So is that it? Well no, 'cause that's untested. I am fine, see me smile. Later in the day (about an hour ago actually) I came a bit more earthward and felt swamped by life (specifically the aspects pertaining to the philosophy of maths). Still impressively (not my ability but I am grateful for it) undespairing but kind of morose, I leave the library an unhappy mathematician. Momentarily overwhelmed I wanted to cry quite a lot. And so I settle into my ipod for the trudge home with this message ringing in my ears:

"It Must Have Been Love but it's over now. Save Tonight, 'cause I'm Lost Without You and tomorrow you'll be gone, Leaving me working my way Through The Dark. This Same Girl is Still With You so please just Stay Another Day 'cause You may be Forgiven but you'll never be Forgotten. I Still Miss Someone and They Can't Take That Away From Me."
You know what? Sometime random is just wrong. I kept skipping tracks and I kept finding numbers that wanted to indulge my inner Mood Indigo... but instead I Dried My Eyes. I'm well out of the dark actually, I Suddenly Saw a long time ago and have been On My Way From Misery To Happiness for ages. The only person I ever have and ever will be Lost Without is J.E.S.U.S., Yes! He is my First, Last, My Everything. I Walk Away and I realise that That's What The Love of God Can Do. That's what the love of God did do. Hence the feeling like I'm living in a Whole New World.

I'm always going to hit these low moments, especially when I am in the process of being refined, no sense in denying it. But how good does it feel to know that this particular era of self-indulgent misery is in the past! I can find plenty of other ways to throw myself a pity party but that door seems to be officially closed and I am so glad I got to both realise and confirm it. Also, I know that with the highs comes the lows and that is just the "egg-card" balance (obscure Brit-TVAd reference). I don't mind. When I'm up I'm too optimistic to fret it and when I'm down I can look forward to being back up!

So umm, I don't really have a concluding paragraph. Ah well, you can read the poem if you're that way inclined. It's one of them ones with 'looser structure':

One whole year
366 days
Such a lot can happen
Priorities change
Yesterdays fade and make space
To embrace a different Way
What a cliché
“Year ago today”
Do I really care?
Is it not just obligation that recalls?
The tiny details of the past
They make a nice contrast
But that’s all

The only use of pain as I see
Is a reminder of how I came to be free
Do not dismiss the reality of misery
But embrace it, to mark the path to liberty

A milestone
Who’d have thought that I was built for endurance?
Long distance seems so boring
And hard
It will surely wear me down before long

But long has gone
My legs grew strong
And as I came to love the run I looked around
At what I would have missed were I still underground
From the rising to the setting sun
Trees in fields, mountaintops, valleys glisten with dewdrops
Now I’d welcome that flock of sheep
That I once feared when lost
I was asleep
Eyes shut, arms crossed

Then suddenly they were opened
and the glare ached
Until the spots had cleared and revealed the Truth
I though my heart would break
but instead it was renewed

What would I say
if I went back
a year ago this very day?
Crocodile tears are all that I could offer while my former cried
Quite estranged

So I write to recognise the inconceivable distance I've come
Not to revisit some long gone strife
Done with that, I celebrate Life

Ha ha!

When I write I tend to do a bit here and there, hopping all over the place to different sections as I think of things and then spending most of my time cutting and pasting (or just cutting). I have over 26 pages... just only about 4 of them are useful thus far!

I was inspecting some random collections of my words: half written paragraphs, phrases, bullet points, notes to myself etc, just now and two jumped out at me as particularly amusing. Sorry to be quoting myself, I just laughed out loud and, since I am currently on a break, I figured I'd share:

"The thing about language is that it is always so very"

"CHECK - not quite wrt [with respect to] reality yet"

You may not appreciate this as much as I do but you just spent time reading it anyway, so there!

Maths and Fighting!

Re: "Clarity Restored": I meant extensibility not extendability. Which I think are interchangeable and both different from extensionality.

This is really pants. I swear my tutor said one and wrote the other. Well, I suppose I am just going to have to roll with it and pray (and perhaps ask a human person just to make sure). I've had a good day in assorted coffee shops though, 2,000 words down!! (Which may actually be a bad thing as I don't know how close I am to half way :-S) Ho hum, we are content and pretty darn peaceful :o)

I also wonder if there is truly a difference between "real" and "apparent" paradoxes... bloody mathematicians and all their silly nuances.

Was doing kids work this morning, it was ace, we were talking about The Great Commission. I love this church... there are enough adults out there that don't talk about that (which is a bit silly since it is The Last Thing Jesus Ever Said and not quite "P.S. Please put the cat out") and I got to supervise the making of documentaries about miracles, dramas about the defeat of Satan and posters about how much Jesus can change your life and bring salvation! They then prayed for help when it gets hard and spent some time learning to hear God's voice - talk about raising up an army!

Now this is extensibility applied to something infinite and eternal.

Clarity Restored

Extendability and Extensionality are very similar words. They mean very different things: the former that if you ever have any set you can generate another from it; the latter that if two collections have identical members then they themselves are the same.

This was the confusion with my essay. Particularly confusing as in different contexts both were paired (as potential axioms) with two other concepts: Totality and Comprehension respectively, which are not very similar words at all but both mean basically the same thing - that if "some" (starting at zero) things share a common property we can bunch them together as a collection or set. (If you want to know the difference between a set and a collection then you'll have to read my coursework... available on demand after 4pm next Friday, lol! Needless to say, a set is NOT a completed collection.)

At some indeterminate point, possibly inconsistently, I ended up merging the first two things together... ending up last week at a total logical impasse and having to give up writing and get an extension. I got all muddled and, well, there was no way I could find the answer myself in all that mess. Yet, having spoken to my tutor for all of 5 seconds, it was SO CLEAR what was wrong. Duh.

Sometimes we really need people in the know that can speak into our lives. I was well stressed about asking for help but when I did everything was sorted out in an instant. We have to be prepared to listen though and I only was when I got desperate!

This was the answer to so much prayer. Not just that I would be able to get clarity but that I would be able to fully rescue my theories. I liked my essay plan so much, I didn't want it to be wrong but there was just no way, when I broke down every stage into the purest logic known to anally-accurate-mankind, that it could be redeemed. Then, in an instant, all the seeming impossibility was ejected and I was back in the game! There was no hope and then there was loads. It didn't matter that in my mind there was no way back... He just pulled something unexpected and totally unpredictable out of the bag and: Hey presto! Magic. Yet, actually just life.

Always keep in mind that something you don't know about yet could make everything entirely different in an instant.

Lots of other cool things happened this week... but they are a secret!

I like writing as a philosopher because:

One can write in first person as much as one likes!

And we get to use silly analogies and generally be a bit funny and sarcastic. And no-one cares what words I use to start sentences or paragraphs with or whether you split infini-tives or end on the word preposition. Which is good 'cause those rules I really don't understand.

But that said I don't like it when I need to soon get 5,000 words done (the due date being 4pm on Friday) or that apparently comedy must be sacrificed for clarity and making caracitures of theories is frowned upon - which is pants 'cause that is mostly all I do, ever.

I have written several conclusions so far, none sufficiently academic and all getting ahead of myself, so I though I'd put one here just to make sure it gets used. It's a great example of fun imagery and any discworld fan surely love it they will...

"I wanted certainty in the kind of way in which people want religious faith. I thought that certainty is more likely to be found in mathematics than elsewhere. But I discovered that many mathematical demonstrations, which my teachers expected me to accept, were full of fallacies, and that, if certainty were indeed discoverable in mathematics, it would be in a new field of mathematics, with more solid foundations than those that had hitherto been thought secure. But as the work proceeded, I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was no more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable." - Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory 1956

It is my view that, as with religious faith, mathematics depends on the existence of something bigger than us, something with apparent paradoxes that lies somewhere beyond our limit of though. We can reach it in part but only through an intuitive belief. Whether there is a God, a Form, or a Foundation is yet to be seen but none are restricted by finitude of either capacity or reason, in the way that we currently are.

Ta da! Back to the grind stone...

Late Night Delight

I HAVE to be quick.

The most amazing day. Not even going to go into details as I will just get caught up and it will stop being a "quickie" but WOW! Really feel like what God is saying to me is that of all the things that are crazy and big and huge and wonderful and inconceivable awesome that I am seeking, He has even better stuff. Like you think my imagination is wild, what about His?! I know that there is always the "caveat" of 'but His will be done' but seriously, all that capacity, who doesn't want His will to be done?!

Still. I am praying pretty hardcore about some specific issues in my life, not least "the essay" and seeing great results that are actually more promising that I ever conceived. (Duh! But still, cool that He said it then straight away did it!) E.g. My plan is Shit Hot and basically has HUGE potential to be a fantastic collaboration of ideas and creative thinking (also potential to flop majorly but doesn't everything big and exciting? Who wants to play it safe, especially with God on your side...?!). Shit Hot isn't verbatim but I could see it in my tutor's eyes...

Talked far too much today about life in general and, though I had a great meeting and further thinking and writing stemmed, my bulk of time was spent with people catching up etc. The promise (like in that poem I posted, brilliant much?) is still much in potentia with graft in the near, but so far avoided, future. That will have to stop. Not least because my voice (which really hates me right now) is in need of rehab.

BUT it is pretty neat that there is this verse that totally says what I feel God is saying. Always good to have it in the bible too:

"When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:14-21

I located it using biblegateway.com, or google for Christians as I now know it (I have my sis to thank for that one!), then reread it at Mich's tonight in her NLT. Which I had forgotten how amazing it was (what with losing my version really sadly near the start of last term :-( ). The wording just grabbed me. Particularly the bit about "infinite resources" (one of the things I mentioned a few posts back about humanity not really being finite and couldn't find a well phrased verse on resources) and then the "infinitely more that we might ask or think" 'cause it is the maths AND the message. [Aside: NIV mentions hope which is cool too. Boy, this whole versions thing is clearly going to start confusing me!] Plus 'tis just a wonderfully phrased passage, I think I need to get a new one of these. Also, aside from the end which is the premise I based my search on, is the whole bit above about being rooted in God's love which is just totally the ongoing message both in general and specifically to me right now.

Anywho. Bed is SO the main objective. I get really frustrated by how much is going on that I am thinking and learning and experiencing, yet at a point where there is no time to write about it. Always the way. I suppose it is partly procrastination temptation though - there are always things happening but there aren't always things to avoid!

Oooh ooooh! I also found out really suddenly, before I was even caring or searching at all, what I shall be doing next year. How good is that?! All I need to do is get there...!

N'night x

Unnatural Hope in the face of Utter Horror

My Facebook status.

My life.

Just a comment about the reading I was doing today for the previously mentioned paper (in which my thinking is majorly affected by the Bible but it's hard to express that convincingly when writing about Philosophy of Maths... see a few posts ago...). A book called 'Beyond the limits of thought', the first line of which was:

"Finitude is a basic fact of human existence."

We are going to have some problems.

The dude (his name is Priest, ironically) goes on to give the examples of human endurance, resources or even life itself. I really am not feeling eye to eye on this. What with God and all - who is later given as an example of something beyond the limit of our thought (quite a debate there among these learned people as to whether or not He is; if only I could bring 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 into it.)

Then it hit me, just now, that this is exactly where I am at. My "status" is hope in horror. The horror being the deadline, the limitation (in endurance, resources and time). The hope being that I can go beyond the limitations; that I am subject to neither deadline nor death; that finitude is a myth and while things are beyond understanding they are also completely within my grasp by His spirit. A paradox explained, but only outside the realm of earthly "logic" (which is in fact my conclusion). My work is like my spiritual journey - the two being about the same thing as I rely on the impossible to be able to discuss the inconcievable in a way that is unimaginable yet fully comprehensible. Ummmm.

Reading 1 Corinthians 2 as part of my not-very-routine bible routine has once again proved completely relevant to what I am doing - even when what I am doing is maths homework. It has been a good day with lots of work (subjective view point granted) and some great God moments and, you'll never believe it, but I'm listening to Positive songs on my ipod now. Oh yes! The joy is coming back.

Incase you weren't already resigned, the next week or so will probably have a lot of crazy sounding maths that may or may not also claim to be spiritual. Sorry about that, but I'm gonna be pretty one tracked...

Oh, and one other cool thing. My old pastor from GVA sent round an email to anyone on the worship mailing list that said:
"Don't forget God is working His purpose out!!"
Really bloody handy that was, totally the sort of thing I need to hear. A little thrown by the randomness of it... till it came to light that that was the name of a hymn they are doing on Sunday! Still, good to know.

Hmmmmm. Feeling rather confident. Maybe it's the peace that passes understanding... Best go get something done this eve though. I have 2 ish hours, let's bend time!

War of Intuition: A Platonistic, Non-Foundational Approach to Maths

So I have a title (for my big nasty essay). It's far too pretentious to keep but I like it for now. My thought is that maths as we know it is just a shadow of the truth, that we can use different and overlapping theories (pluralities, sets etc) as analogies but that we can never fully get the right picture and that is because the truth is outside of our "set" or "language" and so we cannot fully comprehend. Like with Plato and his good old shadows of Forms or, I don't know, say Paul and his poor reflections.

Analogies, allegories, parables... they all seem to serve a good purpose. It's kinda the way of the world and not just a communication tool. Maybe it's just me "seeing" semblances of truth in everything I do and the stretching it to a contentious metaphor but it seems that everywhere there are signs of something else, something bigger: hair cuts, Disney songs, a moment with a friend, a great picture, a poem, a cool proof, a new political appointment (OK I am a bit Obama-happy right now!), a mundane task or a speed limit on the motorway. We can see some great truth in a million different tiny things and it's like some kind of set hierarchy when the little extends to the big. Or a fractal where it just keeps getting reiterated larger and larger but always the same basic form. Or when, maybe you glimpse eternity 'cause of a perfect shopping trip or well-timed doctors appointment. All these things are made of something bigger.

Now. All I have to do is express this without relying on the bible to backup what I say. More to the point, I have to rely on stuff that is far more complicated and bizarre (which is saying something) and show some kind of pretense that I know what any of that jazz is about, without talking too much about Cheerios or saying "well, Duh, it's obvious...". Which is hard 'cause that seems to be all that the proper Philosophers do.

But I do have a temporary title, which is sort-of progress.

Whoops

I didn't do the reading for my seminar today.

I mean, I didn't even check what it was and pretend - which is all I usually manage anyway.

I have been very busy and working hard (term ends tomorrow!!) and, well, it was not feasible and I knew it wasn't the most important thing anyway. I have my essay idea sort of in-hand and anyway if you learn too much it pushes the old stuff out...

I really really really wish I had though. We were looking at two papers - opposing arguments type thing - and two boys in the group had to present on them. Easy. I sit and take notes on what they say and if anything relevant does come up then I go read it later. The first was by some bloke called Williamson: one interesting thing I actually heard was about how metalanguages (that is like English like) aren't fully logical but we do get them so what does it matter and if we have the choice between expressing ourselves and "technically making sense" then the first is totally the best one. I agree with this guy, semantic pessimism sucks arse.

I'll give you an example. "I've packed everything" clearly doesn't mean everything but we know what it is on about. Hell, we even get little annoying jokey retorts like "Even the kitchen sink?" from it. People know what we mean and why faff about the details?

The other day in class I actually ranted about this annoying semantical debate saying, and I do believe this is verbatim(ish), that "this whole course is just about saying the same thing in different ways then arguing about which is right. It doesn't matter... Can you model stuff? Yes. Then it works!" That didn't go down so well...

And I think deciding that the seminar was so boring I wasn't going to pretend to pay attention didn't either. It wasn't like it was anyone's fault, I just couldn't be arsed to try to get it. When the lad doing the response piped up I did have one thought, which was: "why didn't they say who the were presenting on? What is my subheading supposed to be?". Paper's are normally referred to by the author as though we all know the dude. Like, Boolos was all over it being about... I don't remember... Plural Quantification maybe? This one didn't even get named on the handout.

Halfway through looking like I didn't give a shit I realised WHY they hadn't introduced it. Despite the fact that the usually well spoken boy was talking in such a strange way along the lines of "you then do this and you say that" I didn't clock till I looked at the pages in his hand that the author was MY TUTOR. The dude that we DO all know. Sitting on my other side having himself (misre)presented to a room full of bored looking students. I could have died. The first week I haven't made any effort at all and he is so nice I just wanted to comment. But I really hadn't got a clue.

Oh deary deary deary. And what is more worrying is that I think he opposes everything I have ever thought (and expressed) about Philosophy of Maths. I suppose dedicating your life to it is already quite an opposing view point... Give me Evolutionary Game Theory any time. My friend wrote a paper about "Wishful Thinking", I'm planning on writing a model for "Disappointment", it's cool; I can't even begin to care about the best way to contrive set hierarchies or which language to describe them in - one people can UNDERSTAND.

I have reached my intellectual limitations and I'm not even close to being humbled.