• My Clarisse

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    March 24, 2004 /  Book Reviews, Musings After Midnight

    I was rereading Fahrenheit 451, for at least the tenth time, because I wanted to add a little exposition on my books page about the mostest bestest story I know. The full exposition on the tale of a Guy I’ll write up soon, but there’s a little side note worth mentioning. That’s my crush on a literary heroine, Clarisse McClellan. When I was almost 17 and crazy, reading the tale for the first time, Clarisse was not important. Sure, her portrayal is quite positive, but Montag and Beatty and even Faber were more compelling characters. She stayed to the side; it wasn’t until the third reading that I even saw Mildred’s casual mention of her death, generally jumping to Beatty. Also, in my aloneness, I was more concerned with high school and college and my personal soul. This time through, though, I thought more about Clarisse, and how attractive she would be. Well, if she were twelve years older, aging like me. Also, if she was a real person. Umm, let’s just move on and summarize qualities. Nothing says cute like bullet points!

    • Courtesy. Clarisse asks to walk home with Guy, and gives her full name, first and last. She also knows when to back off and be silent, instead of rushing headlong and painfully into something.
    • Sociability. The slow walk, coffee-table conversation, rattling chestnut trees, watching people – those are all wonderful activities. Not like the movie, or the fun park, full of caucophony.
    • Wonder and whimsy. Who looks for the man in the moon? Or walks in the rain and tastes it? Or picks late flowers and autumn leaves? My vocation searches for order and structure, which gives me more perspective into when it’s not necessary. Two year olds do not need play dates and art classes, which she knows too.
    • Laughter. When did you last hear a relaxed laugh? Too much of what passes for humor is really schadenfreude, pleasure from someone else’s pain or misstep. I can barely watch Jay Leno nowadays. There are still places of joy, like Strong Badia, but they feel as rare as last names on introduction.
    • Intelligence. To quote a great show, Smart Girls are Sexy. I can’t imagine spending 25 years with someone I can’t converse with.

    I’m watching a Beyonce video right now, called Naughty Girl, and Miss Knowles is extremely physically attractive. Don’t get me wrong. But Miss McClellan, only briefly physically described as a milk-white phase, is so much more beautiful. As I walk the corridors and roads of this fallen land, I’m wistfully searching for my Clarisse. If you know, well, you know how to reach me.

  • Mathematics After The Fall

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    March 21, 2004 /  Catholicism, Musings After Midnight, Statistics

    There’s this undergraduate I know, Patrick. He’s a third year at the University of Chicago, occasionally posts to
    his blog, prefers
    traditionalist liturgy, and most importantly likes theoretical
    mathematics. We actually took Math 207-208-209 together two years ago,
    him as a freshman (my blog gets to use this term, as it is quite
    appropriate) and myself as a second year doctoral student in Statistics.
    We didn’t know each other, though, until we recognized each other around
    Easter. Patrick sat in the front and was diligent; I sat in the back
    and was lackluster, though a large part of that was due to health
    reasons. At one point last school year, we got to talking in the lounge.
    I wondered about his academic intentions. With the hubris of a
    teenager, he touted the wonders of the mysterious field, group, and
    topological space. I countered with the joy of searching the numbers of
    applied statistics. Like most theoreticians, admittedly including me
    when I was 17, he found the messiness unattractive. I think his actual
    phrasing was like “statistics is mathematics without honor.” My
    rejoinder translated an old political saying, “Statisticians are
    Mathematicians Mugged by Reality.” (Substitute Republicans for Stats,
    and Democrats for Maths.) Another quip from Patrick’s mouth is that “Statistics is Mathematics after original sin.” Unlike his first one – my strong sense of personal dignity really does not appreciate a challenge to honor – this one has potential. I like it. A lot.

    For those of you not intimate with Genesis, let’s review original sin. To begin Chapter 3, Eve and Adam are just hanging out in the Garden of Eden, naked in a pleasure park. Earlier, the Lord told Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, on pain of death, and Eve knows too. The cunning serpent stops by, just to chat. He mentions that if they eat the fruit, they will not die, rather “your eyes will be opened and you will be like God who knows what is good and what is bad.” Eve eats the fruit and gives some to the man, who also feasts. The serpent’s statement is true, and they realize a lot of things, including nudity, shame, and evil. When God next stops by, they hide, and God realizes what they’ve done. The man blames it on “the woman you put here with me”, and the woman claims trickery on the serpent’s part; neither gender comes out well. The Lord is kind enough to make them leather garments before booting them from Eden. The term original sin is used to apply to this act, the loss of trust in the Lord, the need to search for seeming wisdom. The consequences are dire, as Adam and Eve lose the state of original holiness, and fall into decay and death. The story is in some ways allegorical, but the fundamental fact of the search for individual glory is true. After all, a friend once noted that the only doctrine of faith that can be empirically proven is original sin.

    How do we respond and organize our thought? I don’t recall much from my Catholic theology elective as an undergraduate, but I remember a discussion on “from Below” and “from Above”. The terms are applied to Christ and Church. The Catholic belief is that Jesus is both human and divine. Early church history contains many false beliefs and starts away from this path; most of the false paths denied one of Christ’s two natures. (The Arians with logos denied both, but this site is not designed to expand on Nicaea and Chalcedon.) If one looks only at divinity, one looks at Jesus from Above, and denial of divinity means looking from Below. It’s not that hard to extend the concepts of Above and Below to the world. Patrick’s preferred study, theoretical mathematics, is world from Above; he creates structures irrespective of what humans perceive, then assigns the world into those structures. My preferred study, model development, is world from Below; I examine the rhythms and patterns that humans perceive, then create structures that attempt to contain those data elements.
    At extremes, both Above and Below are problematic. Mathematical theorists can receive doctorates without considering a set that exists on earth. That denies one of the two natures of the world. It presumes a pure divinity, one without decay, death, or uncertainty. Theologically, it’s Gnostic, wanting only the symbolic. On the other side, applied statisticians grab hip waders and jump into the streams of despair. This has its problems; focusing so much on collection and optimization can form no structure, and grasp no sense on the underlying unity. Model builders become fully human; theologically, it’s A-Gnostic, wanting none of the symbolic.

    To break this impasse, I go back to Original Sin. In Eden, my namesake had no knowledge of good and bad; his world was clean. After the fall, humanity was booted into a world with good and evil, and more importantly the knowledge of such. Becoming like gods means that we perceive, interact, and change the world. That requires investment in the causes and actions of earth. Running away from that, as some mathematicians do, fails in our humanity. It also denies the God on earth, the Spirit promised and delivered. I can’t see how it can be ignored.

    Thus, when Patrick calls me a “Mathematician After the Fall”, I take it as a compliment. We all should be. I’ve even thought about a new title for this site, “Mathematics in a Fallen Land”. Given my consulting on foster care systems this year, it feels even closer. The image is appealing; walking the country, a long black coat flapping in the breeze, saddlebag and laptop computer on my back. I come into town, find the problem, put together the model, take the payment, and ride out on the sunset. Maybe that’s why I like consulting; I even have the soundtrack.

  • Nobody Roots for Duke

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    March 18, 2004 /  Mass Media, Musings After Midnight

    It’s about 7:45 PM on March 18, First-Round Thursday, perhaps America’s finest day. I was assisting my boss in grading from 10 AM to 6:30 PM, so I’m eating leftover pizza from lunch and running through the basketball from this afternoon. TiVo is wonderful, as I get to jump right to the good parts of each game, the last four minutes. I watched Maryland escape, Southern Illinois come oh-so-close, and now VCU is 1 ahead of Wake with 1:45 left. It’s a little tricky, having to avoid the scores beforehand, but this is totally the way to go. Then I can roll right through commercials and clock malfunctions. Ack, VCU doesn’t deserve the win with their terrible clock management; Wake made their free throws and won to advance in the Northeast regional, or East Rutherford, or whatever they’re calling it. Corporate naming is only a matter of time.
    The main topic, though, is why I called this America’s finest day.

    Right now, I’m watching Duke about to tip off against Alabama State in the Cialis Bracket. Duke’s a number 1 seed for the sixth time out of the last 7 seasons, and Alabama State’s been in the tourney once before. It’s interesting to hear fan reaction. Well, except for the shameful quarter of seats that are empty. Plus, there are some Devil fans, who cheer politely when Duke scores. That happens a lot, as Duke leads 26-14 halfway through the first half, when the Chicago station switches over to Michigan State-Nevada in the Microsoft sub-regional. I’d rather see Princeton, myself, which when working well is beautiful to watch.
    Onto to Duke and the crowd. The secret of America, and perhaps its best feature, is this: Nobody Roots for Duke. Every other person in that arena, except maybe the officials, wants Alabama State to do well. They scream when a Hornet basket goes in, or Duke loses the ball, or the referees ignore the seemingly blatant thuggery of the bigger, stronger team in white jerseys. There’s a lot of that, as Duke is ahead by 21 at the half. On the other hand, Princeton leads Texas by 3, though they fall behind to start the second half. Two for 18 behind the arc will win no games. Duke wins by 35 and Princeton loses by 17. Oh well. Nevada beats a Big Ten team, not really an upset, and now I get to watch DePaul. It’s an ugly game, which in the last four minutes becomes a free throw contest, and neither team can shoot them. At one point in overtime, free throw counts are 9 of 19 and 8 of 22. Both teams play so poorly that they get another five minutes of pain, and I’m back to live action. Ow. Depaul manages to not lose, though if I were commissioner I would disqualify both of them and advance somebody exciting like VCU. Back to our story.

    Why does America root for the underdog? It really makes no sense, particularly in America, where joining the bandwagon is seemingly mandatory, and a lot of awards, like for movies and music, are chosen on ticket sales and popularity. We like the strong; we like being strong, and expect things to bend to our will. It’s not just “extremists”, like foreigners call our President. Even the more cosmopolitian of this nation prefer Starbucks, American English, automatic transmission, and the power of green Benjamins.

    Nevertheless, there’s tension between power and the dislike of it. Everyone wants to be the underdog, and support that concept. Sometimes, this might be considered pernicious, like hope in the alternate Pandora’s Box. Who was it, Horatio Alger perhaps, that wrote the stories of orphans who seemingly always wound up with Upper East Side apartments, solely because of “hard work”? That misconception is pernicious. Don’t get me wrong; class movement in the United States today is much more flexible than most other places. But there’s always help in stories of self achievement. Look at me. I am trailer trash, and now seriously talk about building an eight figure net worth. There are so many helpers along the way, though; the doctor who properly diagosed my leg, the speech therapist that taught me proper enunciation, my parents as schoolteachers who bought a computer instead of a vacation, many teachers, the blind preacher who interviewed me for Harvard, and so forth. If that’s why people root for Liberty, a false sense of liberty, that’s not good.

    Instead, I like to think of the preferential option for the poor, the belief that all are equal under the Lord, and thus the weaker need assistance from the strong. It’s dangerous to ascribe providential qualities to sports, particularly the NCAA. Perhaps I go too far, which wouldn’t be the first or last time. But where else do enough people look? Fox News? Rooting for the weak, the Vermonts and Utahs of the world, certainly doesn’t go far enough, but I’ll take any step. Maybe it’s the spark that brings people closer to something elegantly stated by Oscar Romero in September 1979:

    “Let us take seriously the cause of the poor as though it were our own – indeed, as what it really is, the cause of Jesus Christ, who on the final judgment day will call to salvation those who treated the poor with faith in him: Whatever you did to one of these poor ones – the neglected, blind, lame, deaf, mute – you did to me.”