Category: Philosophy

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A Hidden Code within the Three, Five, and Seven Steps

It is said that symbols used in Masonry both conceal and reveal. In the Fellow-Craft (2nd) degree of Blue Lodge Masonry candidates are introduced to the symbol of a winding staircase consisting of three, five, and seven steps. There has been a tremendous amount of writing that describes the meaning behind this symbol. In every instance these descriptions define each group of the steps as having separate areas for consideration.

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The group of three steps are said to reflect the three stages of life: youth, manhood, and old age. They also allude to wisdom, strength. and beauty.

The five steps are said to represent the five orders of architecture are Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. And, within each order of architecture certain characteristics are said to be represented. These steps are also said to represent the 5 senses.

The seven steps allude to the seven Sabbatical years, seven years of famine, seven years in building the Temple, seven golden candlesticks, seven wonders of the world, seven wise men of the east, seven planets; etc.

I submit that his symbol conceals more than it reveals. Here is a little math that seems to indicate that more is hidden behind the 3, 5, and 7 numbers. If you have MS Excel, this math becomes easy to do.

First Computation:  Take any group of consecutive numbers and individually divide them by 3, then 5, and then 7.  Sum the results for each consecutive number.  As an example, here is the result for the number ‘2’

a.  2  / 3 = .66667

b.  2 / 5 =  .4

c.  2 / 7 =  .2857143              

d.  Summation =1.352381

The difference between each consecutive result (summation) will always be .676190476……

First Computation

Second Computation:  For any numbers where steps ‘a’ through ‘c’ (above) were performed:

a.   divide the result obtained for step ‘b’ by step ‘a’  (in this example we used the number ‘2’ and the results for step ‘b’ and ‘a’ are .4  and .66667) The result, regardless of what number was used in the first computation will always be 0.6

b.  divide the result obtained for step ‘c’ by step ‘b’  (in this example we used the number ‘2’ and the results for step ‘c’ and ‘b’ are .2857143  and .4) The result, regardless of what number was used in the first computation will always be 0.714285714285714.

c.  Add the numbers together from this computation (a and b immediately above) and the result will always be mankind’s early understanding of the approximate value of pi divided by 10 +1   or (22/7/10) +1, or 1.31428571428571.  Or, perhaps more aptly stated the result minus 1, times 10 = the early understanding of the value of pi. This could also be stated as:  “The result times 10, minus 10 equals pi”.

Second Computation

Third Computation:  In the last sentence of the First Computation we found that the results between two consecutive numbers always equaled   0.676190476….

a.  If we deduct the result of step ‘a’ of the Second Computation (0.6) from the difference that exists between two consecutive numbers ( 0.676190476) we get 0.076190476

b.  If we add the result of step ‘b’ of the Second Computation  (0. 714285714285714)  to the difference that exist between two consecutive numbers (.676190476) we get 1.39047619047619.

Third Computation

c.  When we subtract the result of step ‘a’ (immediately above) from the result of step ‘b’(immediately above), we again get mankind’s early understanding of the approximate value of pi divided by 10 +1   or (22/7/10) +1, or 1.31428571428571.  Or, the result minus 1, times 10 = the early understanding of the value of pi. Also as:  “The result times 10, minus 10 equals pi”.

I really don’t know what all of this means (other than it’s too cold outside to work in the garden !)

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What Do They All Have In Common?

“When you look historically at socialist and communist states, what do they all have in common? The only way they can enforce equality is through a police state. … You can’t have equality without a police state or without a massive form of government coercion. That is what’s not being said. That is what’s not being taught. And that is what Americans need to understand.”

–Monica Crowley

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Thoughts

A few weeks back I mentioned that there were several thousand courses that could be taken free on line. I finished the photography series (the verdict is still out on the utility) and am now taking a series of courses that compare and contrast science, religion, and philosophy. These courses focus not only on the domains each purport to occupy, but also the compatibility of each with the other two.

Those who hold that science is the premier approach to understanding life and the world seem to hold the high ground. To them science is their god and there is no other God. For them there is no capital ‘G’ God. For my part, when science can explain what a ‘thought’ is, how it forms and influence, and where it goes once it is thought, then I’ll allow that science may intrude into religion’s space. Until then, I’ll just play with my thoughts.

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The Dangers of Good Intentions

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

– Daniel Webster

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End of the Road

I drove into Pulaski Tennessee on Friday to do a little shopping and drop off the boat payment at the post office. Because I rarely travel there, I ended up taking a wrong turn and found myself in a portion of town that was in slow motion decay. It was a mix of 60 or 70 year old cheaply built homes with clapboard siding interspersed with a type of light industry that lent itself to gravel parking lots and rusting, outdated, equipment waiting to be reacquired by nature.

The homes were badly rundown. Here and there you could see where folk were battling back against the unrelenting decay, but their cause is lost even if they were unwilling to concede the battle to time and the elements.

Near the center point of this area there was once a cemetery. Many years ago the city threw in the towel on trying to keep it maintained and turned it into a park of sorts. You could call it a memory garden without the garden. Soon it will be without memories as well. Such is our lot.

It was a cold and gray day that was perfectly lousy for photography and yet the weather, neighborhood, and the gray stone and headstones put me in a mood that I thought could be shared through photo’s, and importantly, I could photograph. I failed, but not miserably so I do have a little to share of what I found.

The photo’s do a poor job of capturing the mood. It was not sadness, not remorse nor even melancholy. It’s that mood that comes when you meld the awareness of the inevitable with recognition of the smallness of our individual lives. Wish I could capture that feel on film.

A parting note. There were many of these (below) throughout the garden. You would expect as much from frontier living in rural Tennessee in the 1800’s. Whenever I see one of these I think of the unspeakable sadness of the parents as they placed the stones. This stone is particular in that, I suppose, the parents spent their last penny on purchasing her marker.

Give a little thought to how you spend your day(s).

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Questions and Answers

In Richard’s time I’m sure his logic prevailed. In our brave new world I’m afraid the electron Nazi’s are quickly closing down dissenting voices. What should encourage us all is the knowledge that ‘it’s all on a wheel: what goes around……’

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Truth and Trust

” … for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.”

– Alexander Hamilton

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The Manly Man

The Art of Manliness is highlighting a work by Robert Greene that talks to knowing your limits.  It’s a lengthy but very readable piece.  Excerpt below and a link to the article here.  Enjoy.

We humans have a deep need to think highly of ourselves. If that opinion of our goodness, greatness, and brilliance diverges enough from reality, we become grandiose. We imagine our superiority. Often, a small measure of success will elevate our natural grandiosity to even more dangerous levels. Our high self-opinion has now been confirmed by events. We forget the role that luck may have played in the success, or the contributions of others. We imagine we have the golden touch. Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last. Look for the signs of elevated grandiosity in yourself and in others—overbearing certainty in the positive outcome of your plans; excessive touchiness if criticized; a disdain for any form of authority. Counteract the pull of grandiosity by maintaining a realistic assessment of yourself and your limits. Tie any feelings of greatness to your work, your achievements, and your contributions to society. 

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Gods Fingerprint

Much more thought fodder to add to an already full plate.  I’m certainly pleased that there are folk out there that provide these videos for our consideration.  Enjoy

The Fibonacci Sequence – Golden Ratio and The Fractal Nature of Reality

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They Mean to be Masters

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority … the Constitution was made to guard against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

– Noah Webster

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Power

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.

GeorgeOrwell, “1984”

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Revolution’s Logic

Snipped from The American Mind.  Another ‘buckle up’ warning.  Full article here

‘Regardless of these elections’ outcome, however, this “resistance” has strengthened and accelerated the existing revolutionary spiral. We begin with a primer on such spirals, on the logic of mutual hate that drives them, and on their consequences; move to a general description of our evolution’s driving logic, describe the 2016 elections as the revolutionary spiral’s first turn and the “resistance” thereto as the second. Then we examine how the “resistance” affects the other side, and how this logic might drive our revolution’s subsequent turns.’

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The Statists and The Donald

This may be one of the reasons that Democrats are literally loosing their minds with The Donald, he’s tearing down their many years of effort to force more and more government upon us and thus diminish the freedoms we are guaranteed.  It’s as if the phrase ‘enumerated powers’ has no meaning to these people.

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13th Saying in the Gospel of Thomas

Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.”

Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous angel.”

Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.”

Thomas said to him, “Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like.” 

Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.” And he took him and withdrew and told him three things.

When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?” Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”

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Original Intent -from an Originalist

“On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

– Thomas Jefferson

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18th Saying in the Gospel of Thomas

The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us how our end will be.” Jesus said, “Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death.”

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Checking in with Liberal Central

An excellent read on plantation live and liberal control is posted at the American Spectator.  In part it reads:

The media’s meltdown over Kanye’s trip to the Oval Office reflects nothing more than its horrified realization that Trump is eating the left’s lunch, poaching more and more voters from once-monopolized lib constituencies. Apparently Kanye West is supposed to check with the central office of the Left’s Ministry of Truth before opening his mouth. Anything less is “surreal,” according to the media. What a bunch of totalitarian creeps.

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Sagan: Should We Listen to the Left?

“The fact that someone says something doesn’t mean it’s true. Doesn’t mean they’re lying, but it doesn’t mean it’s true.

All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based – or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven’t thought of, or demonstrates that we’ve swept key underlying assumptions under the rug – it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault.

In his celebrated book, ‘On Liberty’, the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is “a peculiar evil.” If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the “opportunity of exchanging error for truth”; and if it’s wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its “collision with error.” If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true.

It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.”

– Carl Sagan 

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When Men Were Free

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and passed on … or we will spend our sunset years telling our children’s children what it was like in the United States when men were free.”

– Ronald Reagan